Introduction

Project management is a established of actions which includes initiating, planning, executing,

controlling and closing projects. It’s a self-restraint that provides you principles, techniques, and
tools to support you finish things on period and within budget.

The essential pillar of strength and support that holds up the entire project is the team of highly
productive people who entirely devote themselves to it and make an all-out effort to get the job
done. Project management consists of a number of interlinking processes. A process is a series of
actions performed by a team of people who work towards the same goal.

The 5 types of project management processes

There were 5 process of the project management according to PMBOK ( The Project
Management Body of Knowledge. PMBOK is a set of standard terminology and guidelines for
project management

 Initiating - recognising the beginning of the project or a phase and that one phase can continue
into the next one. Initiation process keeps the team focused on the business or halt the project if
it fails to meet all the needs and preferences.
 Planning - creating a workable scheme that will include clearly defined activities, cost estimates,
schedule development and resource planning.
 Executing - carrying out the processes which are followed by regular information distribution
and team development.
 Monitoring and controlling - controlling the quality of project results, observing significant
changes and making necessary adjustments to the project
 Closing - gathering all the necessary data to ensure that the projected is completed.
Summarize of the case study
(1) Lack of experienced project managers and project management office leadership
Several of the present project management office initiatives do not have skilled project manager
who apprehend the challenges of a project management execution and who are aware of the
political terrain of the organization. Organizations do not continuously staff the project
management office with the best skilled project managers or with people who have played
central roles in large project management office implementations. The abilities that make for an
effective project management office director may be pretty dissimilar from the qualities that
make someone brilliant project manager. Project managers are good at organizing and impelling
the work in the team, but much less operative in handling the client’s requirements and
expectations at a strategic level. Many project managers do not understand the range of work
related in a project management office implementation and fail to properly estimate the resources
essential for the project management office implementation, or to analyze the influence of any
possibility variation on the budget and schedule of the implementation. They fail to recognize
project risk. These produce problems in operative implementation of the project management
office.

Overcoming lack of experienced project managers and project management office

leadership
There is suggestion two approaches to overcome the challenge of lack of experienced project
managers and project management office leaders. The first approach is to bring in a trustworthy
program manager to supervise the project management office implementation. Organization need
a program manager who is reliable by the key stakeholder’s [someone who can] realize the
culture and influence relationships within the client organization and who can positively control
the project management office implementation. This organization selected a program manager
who had prior employment with that organization. Another method is to bring the most capable
and experienced project managers into the project management office implementation
progression.
(2) Lack of appropriate change management strategy
Lack of appropriate change management strategy any project management office implementation
includes handling all features of variation of individuals, progression, and arrangement matters.
One of the most challenging aspects of establishing a project management office is to develop
and implement a strong alteration management strategy that further than the instant desires of the
project management office project. Most project management office projects emphasis severely
on the objective and without addressing the linked effects which have long permanent
significances and hidden and untracked accompaniments to the scope and budget of projects.
Thoughtful concern and planning of organizational improve project management impacts, and
thought of incidental effects, essential to happen in order to interpretation for, and diminish these
as necessary. This commitment to a suitable modification management strategy needs to follow
at all levels in the organization in operational as well as strategic.

Overcoming lack of appropriate change management strategy

Organizations need to adapt their transformation management strategy according to the
circumstances around them. Project management office implementations frequently get into
trouble once after seeing the lack of understanding and contribution by several stakeholders.
Normally, several of these stakeholders understanding the project management office as an
additional sheet of administration which does not important to organization and start to dislike
the change of the method by project manager in implementation of project management. Project
manager need to engage with the people around so that the worker can give contribution to
organization and had participate in change of the implementation of the strategy. It was
important to move towards some form of process standardization before implementing the
project management office.
3. Challenge: Communication and Coordination Problem
Based on the article of Global Project Management Challenges written by Adam Alami, he
focused the project based on the global coverage that are very essential to solve properly. For the
world organization business, it is necessary to do business all around the world. Based on the
definition from Binder (2007), a global venture as an undertaking via a business enterprise that
established with concrete and regarding manifold teams or awesome enterprises unveiling an
extensive geographic dispersion.

The challenge with global project is the communication and coordination problem since it is
across the other countries. It was known with the language barrier and time zones will tend to
create communication and coordination problem. In addition, with the numerous of global team
locations, the execution process of project will affected the outcome and time schedule.

Overcome of Communication and Coordination Problem

The issue of communication and coordination is related each other. The common cause of
coordination of project usually affected by communication process of the team members.
Therefore, the effective way to solve it is to solve the communication issue in workplace all the
project locations. Moreover, additional features and conversation devices are crucial to facilitate
effective conversation. The author suggested such important devices include video conferencing
and telephones as opposed to face-to-face communication. The advantages is to enable the
project manager from different places can manage and control the progress of certain project. It
is also can minimize the cost and time travel for project. The implementation of these
communication tools should be able solve the coordination of the team worldwide.

Figure 1: Video Conferencing Figure 2: Telephone

Source: 21st Century Education Source: www.shutterstock.com
4. Challenge: Cultural Issue
Based on the article of Global Project Management Challenges written by Adam Alami, he
focused the project based on the global coverage that are very essential to solve properly. As
known, global market provides large potential of profit and exposure to unexplored market.
Global market helps the company to sustain the business within various nations. Even though the
global project is good, there is limitation, which is cultural issue when completing the project.
In order to building and maintaining trust, it is vital to consider cultural understanding as critical
factor. In other word, culture issues or culture diversity play important roles in team’s
relationship. Cultural problems in project control can be a number one cause why undertaking
misunderstandings occur. Consulting groups that perform assignment control functions and
mission control specialists often operate globally.

Overcome of Cultural Issue

Global projects includes differenced and varied organization culture. Therefore, the project
manager needs come out with plans with multiple policies, standard operation procedure and
culture organization. The project manager also need to have awareness about the area of cross-
culture communication. The diversity of cultural issue need to be solved properly based on the
specific country and their culture. Apart from that, the management should share the mission
vision of project with all the participated parties. This solution should create the need to achieve
the project success. Also, to implement culture awareness sessions within the organization.

Figure 3: Project Mission and Vision Figure 4: Difference Culture Awareness

Source: www.abcodisha.com Source: https://warwick.ac.uk
5. Challenge: Lack of computer skill

Lack of computer skill was identified as a challenge and major difficulty towards the develop
project management of Information System (IS). There is lack of general computer skill among
the employee of the organization. The employee of PEH need to be trained and retrained for
those who has insufficient computer knowledge in order to properly handling of the IT
department and IS. Lack of computer skill inhibits the smooth running of the IT department.
Most of the older employee shows lack of interest and poor willingness in learning computer
skills which give adverse impact on the operation of the organization. Therefore, the
organization requires qualified personnel to handle the IT unit if the IS system is to be
implemented.

Solution

Having a central database also will then improve on corporate governance through a well-
structured information system where they can have a good collaboration with the Ministry of
Defense to have the data/information of the future retiree army (New trainee) been shared by the
Academy. Documentation process also will be better structured compare to the current methods
of using a conventional filling system. Beside that it will also enhance the usage of ICT as a
training tool. ICT will enhance Employee Skill on using of new applications and new
approaches. It is recommended that PEH to have a new ICT Lab for training to achieve the
above. Having a central database will then give them an opportunity to upgrade their databases
and Backup system used. Since centralized database will deal with huge data and number of
process involved. A new Backup strategy, a new Backup plan and a new backup system has to
be introduced in order to deal with new enhancement.
6. Challenge: Infrastructure issues

Another factor that imposed as a challenge on IS develop project management in PEH is

infrastructures (hardware and software). There is need for procurement of some hard ware
facilities and migration from old to the new or conventional machines. Necessarily to build Local
Area Network (LAN) for communication purpose. The infrastructural facilities at the early stage
of the IS develop project management were old and outdated.

Solution

Apart from having, a central database there is need for PEH to upgrade the Information System
Department itself by having Secure Data Centre to secure the data and the system by upgrading
their Networking System (LAN & WAN) and replacement of New Computer for each
department. From my reading and talk to the expert in Information System the following action
must be taken by PEH for their sustainable success to improve their overall data management
and other administration processes:

• Sufficient budget to procure the right system (hardware & software for right requirements
(process, procedures and end results)

• Top management ‘buy in’ to the propose project

• Training of the staff to manage the system

• Useful data to be input for processing (remember; garbage in garbage out)

• Monitoring and inspection of both software and hardware
• Data security
7. The short of professional and lack of knowledge in Agile

As we know, this agile method is quite new in Malaysia, hence the lack of person who is well
known in agile method is not a new problem. From that, we will have an issue to develop this
software project since not many people we can interview as a subject matter expert. Based on
this article the number of expert is expected to increase rapidly if more people involve in agile
method. As we shortage of professional in Agile, this problem leads to poor level of
understanding in Agile. The author had mentioned that local practitioners had a lack of skill and
advance knowledge regarding this agile method. So from that we are known that we are quite
behind in practicing this agile method.

Solution:

After we had studied this challenge, we can see this problem can be overcome by implementing
this agile method more frequent or can be a restriction for an organization. From that, more
expert and professional will be produce and a workshop for training to develop another expert
and professional will be organized. From this we can see the first thing to do which is more
important is implementing more on this agile method. This solution is also a subsequence for the
poor level of understanding the agile method. After we develop the experts, the person can
acknowledge other people by sharing his or her thought or knowledge regarding this agile
method. Hence, it will easier to managing the cost since both customer and client know about the
agile method. The author also had mentioned that hired a professional or experts from abroad
could be one of the solution to this problem. It is also can be a kick-start for developing a
professional and experts in our country.
8. Level of Cooperation between Stake holders and Project Teams Not Fully Ready

Next, the problem which is also rising during the cost management is the stakes holder does not
cooperate smoothly. According to the author, after they had interview 10 project managers, they
found that this problem rise because the stakeholder had other or different work commitments
and priorities. As we studies, one of the key principles of agile method is all stakeholders and
team members remain motivated for optimal project results. So, it could be troublesome if these
stakeholders can’t be managed properly. Some of them also think that it would be best to stay at
the traditional way. Based on the article, some project managers are also think their project teams
does not fully ready for implementing the agile method. It always happened to the international
companies which have branch in our country but the main headquarters is abroad. They may
think an agile method is also suitable in Malaysia since they have a good track record in other
country. As a result, the project manager has a problem in cost management since the team is not
fully ready to face the problem that may occur.

Solution:

Based on the challenge, we had identified the solution which is the all stakeholders should be
aware and ready to face the transformation. It will take times to change the mind sets and habits
since they were implemented the traditional way from long time ago. For the international
company, they could provide their project teams a training or module that could help them to
understand more on agile method. It is also a good way to provide the special training for the
project managers about the cost management. It may be costly but it is also can be considered as
investment since they may have to pay more to solve the problem during running the project.
Hence this is also enhancing the skills of the project team and the project manager to develop the
new project in the upcoming days.
9. Challenge: Not well prepare
Based on the article of the application of project management methods in the construction of
bungalow house project, the challenge that I can describe is not well prepare. Although
bungalow house project is consider a small project, but it still involved a lot of activities. The
small mistake during construction can make the worst outcome in the future. The mostly
accident in the construction process or construction history in Malaysia are caused by the internal
problem like not enough preparation.

Solution.
The contractors, project managers, engineers, site supervisors and laborers are the prime movers
to unsure successful completion of the project. In this case, the contractor or home builder shall
be preparing a plan such as project planning, project scheduling and project controlling in
writing. All the activities need to be planned, organized and controlling properly by the person
who handle the project. These three tools and methods are extremely important in the application
and management of the bungalow house project.

10. Challenge: lack of knowledge and experience

Lack of knowledge and experience are identified as a challenge. Due to their low knowledge and
experience of the construction, it hard for them to read the drawing of the project and to doing
their work personally. All the home builder must able to read and interpret the plans of the
building. Besides, their knowledge and experience can help them acquire the most basic skills
needed for the home contractor.

Solution

The government or nongovernment organization must provide the home builder training and
guidance in the project management. Given the opportunity the contractor or home builder are
willing to learn and implement the modern methods and techniques of project management. The
home builder need to expose the new knowledge to enhance their experience in this field. With
the application of the project management method, the number of units successfully constructed
every year.

References:
1) Esuh Ossai-Igwe Lucky, Ojeniyi Adegoke, Norani Nordin,” Project Management
Challenges and Difficulties: A Case Study of Information System Developroject
managerent”, IPBJ Vol. 6 (1), 99-113 (2014)
2) A. Alami, “Global Project Management Challenges,” vol. V, no. I, pp. 1–15, 2016.
3) Binder, Jean. Global Project Management. Aldershot, England: Gower, 2007.
4) Mansor, Zulkefli & Razali, Rozilawati & Yahaya, Jamaiah & Yahya, Saadiah & Habibah
Arshad, Noor. (2016). Issues and Challenges of Cost Management in Agile Software
Development Projects. Advanced Science Letters. 22. 1981-1984.
10.1166/asl.2016.7752.
5) Alexander, M. (2016). Agile project management: A comprehensive guide. [online] CIO.
Available at: https://www.cio.com/article/3156998/agile-development/agile-project-
management-a-beginners-guide.html [Accessed 25 May 2018
6) Singh, Rajendra & Keil, Mark & Kasi, Vijay. (2009). Identifying and overcoming the
challenges of implementing a project management office. EJIS. 18. 409-427.
10.1057/ejis.2009.29.
7) https://www.pmi.org/about/learn-about-pmi/what-is-project-management
8) Esuh Ossai-Igwe Lucky, Ojeniyi Adegoke, Norani Nordin,” Project Management
Challenges and Difficulties: A Case Study of Information System Development”, IPBJ
Vol. 6 (1), 99-113 (2014)
 Video Link URL
1) https://www.powtoon.com/online-presentation/dYVQ5YHLeXJ/?mode=movie#/
2) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TAN1UNXzsw0&t=61s