Project Performance Improvement—Denise O’Sullivan

Project Performance Improvement
This paper discusses the benefit of using reflection and improvement techniques in a software development and organisational change project. While the project was reasonably mature in the change management and implementation streams the paper argues that reflection could be embedded in a more structured fashion and that there is always room for improvement when teams are working together in this more virtual and complex world. The dark side of the organisation is explored and the conclusion is that there is plenty more work to be done on this human aspect of project management.

The paper concludes that the company where the new system was being implemented could have reduced costs if three areas of improvement were given more focus, employee understanding of the change, developer understanding of the user experience and more detailed planning of the support required during the implementation.

Author: Denise O’Sullivan
Review status: Postgraduate assignment (University of Technology Sydney)

June 17, 2014

Project Performance Improvement—Charlotte Tanner

Project Performance Improvement
The emergence of Open Source Software and the broader Communities of Practice are leading the way in terms of creating new dynamics and paths to knowledge creation. Whilst these communities of practice increasingly include global virtual teams, the teams themselves have not yet reflected the highly connected, non-hierarchical structures of Communities of Practice in their own methods and approaches to managing projects. Through the process of reflective practice, global virtual teams have within their power the ability to seek out new ways of thinking and collaborating not just within their own virtual teams, but also within the broader Open Source Software Community.

The project environment of global virtual teams can create barriers to communication, but the shared context of the team itself, can act as a catalyst for transforming knowledge from tacit to explicit by increasing the points of connection within the team. By the sharing of knowledge, teams are able to build trust within the team, which leads to improved performance of the team. Whilst the emergence of new methodologies such as Agile within Project Management seeks to deal with the rapidly evolving development of new software, whereby the end ‘product’ is not always clearly defined when a project commences, does provide a workable approach to Project Management, problems can still arise within the way the team interrelates with one another. The next stage of the process should be a reflection on the way in which teams interact and how new knowledge is created.

Author: Charlotte Tanner
Review status: Postgraduate assignment (University of Technology Sydney)

June 16, 2014