Managing a Successful Business Project

Business recovery - (A sub-topic: How to create a post-pandemic framework for business planning?)

Learning Outcome 1: Explain the essential stages of the project lifecycle crucial for effective project management;
Learning Outcome 2: Produce a Project Management Plan (PMP) for a business project using primary and secondary research methods;
Learning Outcome 3: Implement the Project Management Plan (PMP) to communicate results from the research and make conclusions from the evidence of findings;
Learning Outcome 4: Reflect on the value gained from implementing the project and the project management process.

Assignment Brief: Introduction to the theme

In the long term, businesses need to be prepared to face the unexpected; many fail because they are unable to recover from unexpected events such as political disruption, natural disasters, and pandemics. Business continuity planning allows businesses to maintain or quickly resume functions in the event of a major disruption. Essentially, business continuity is like having a backup plan that outlines procedures and instructions for staff members in the event of a disaster.

The recent COVID-19 global pandemic dramatically impacted industry across all sectors, inevitably affecting disproportionately those businesses that exist to support social interactions and placing strains on both supply and demand. As the pandemic continues to affect industry: lockdown periods, and international and local restrictions on movement have led to a huge drop in revenues and tuition of emergency due to financial difficulties:

• Dramatically lower revenues
• Operational and financial challenges, including issues with liquidity, debt repayments, or how to develop "smart capex" on assets to maintain tariffs and/or competitive advantage.
• Uncertainty about the timing and speed of the recovery depending on the arrival of treatments for the virus in order to return to "normal".

To meet the challenges posed by unexpected events and disasters, businesses around the world need to react in agile and decisive ways. This involves businesses identifying capabilities and needs to strengthen, refactor, reopen, rehire, re-budget, resupply, by creating long-term plans that allow for scaling up. An "after-action review" to collect data and insights on lessons learned, and then using these to prioritize actions to enhance business value today, businesses will build strategic resilience for tomorrow. Businesses that take these steps now will be well-placed to capitalize more effectively on the opportunities during business recovery and to continue winning in their marketplaces as greater certainty and stability return.

Scenario:

You are employed as an assistant within the professional development team of an SME organization. You have been asked to conduct a small-scale project in the form of an investigative case study into the well-being of the employees within the organization, which is to be presented as a business case for management on how to improve business after COVID-19. The project will involve investigating how the organization implements wellbeing, investigating good practice within other businesses, and collating employee feedback. This will be presented to your line manager as a business case with proposals to implement wellbeing practices, followed by a performance review in which you will need to reflect upon the project in relation to your own personal and professional development.

This report is proposed to be presented to your managerial board as a business case with simple PowerPoint slides. Moreover, a reflection upon the project in relation to your own personal and professional development is also facilitated with the project.

Project Planning:

• Devise a project management plan to map out how you intend to meet the project objectives;
• Begin with the scope. What activities and tasks as defined in your project must be done to make the project a success?
• Note the milestones or major events or phases in your project.
• Provide details of activities to be carried out during initiation, planning, and execution of the project;
• Create a work breakdown structure using Gantt charts to track the activities to be undertaken;

Conduct Primary & Secondary Research:

• Devise a short questionnaire or interview questions to complete with employees within the organization, including questions on how they define wellbeing, what the organization currently has in place to support wellbeing, and what they feel could be done better to support their wellbeing;
• Research at least two other organizations to see what type of wellbeing initiatives they have;
• Research the value and benefits of addressing wellbeing in terms of improving employee retention;
• Focus on areas of good practice to build and support your business case.

Present Findings:

• Collate your research and analyze your findings;
• Produce and present the business case, including an evaluation of tools used to gather research and data to justify your recommendations for implementing wellbeing initiatives;

Reflection:

• Complete a performance review with your line manager to critically reflect upon the project plan, process, and outcomes in terms of your own personal and professional development. Think about how well you have performed and achieved your project objectives, what obstacles did you have to overcome? What worked well or not well? What have you learned from completing this project?