Whitepapers

Communities of Practice—Chenxi Zhu

Communities of Practice
The aim of this essay is to describe how a community can approach a project goal and what project knowledge is shared in an architectural project. The knowledge exchange is a social process contingent on histories in project management. It indicates the tacit knowledge and explicit knowledge in the architectural area and also how these transfer and how to spread from the individual to team.

First section of this article is to introduce the background of the project. This architectural project is a serious and great Chinese government project. The requirement of this government project is to build a community building on a public site with a limited space areas of building. In this project, there are some issues to influence the project delay or out of control because of the situation of project. Some of these are related to the communication and some of these are related to the leadership.

The second part indicates some reflection of this project and how to solve some problems, and it also presents the how to make a combination of the different culture knowledge. I explain some previous factors that influence this project. Simultaneously, it presents the methodology of the knowledge transferring and sharing, because this project is transfer from another team in the architectural company. This section also shows the influence of leadership. A good leadership led the project success.

Overall, the main issues are included the leadership, communication and knowledge sharing. In the
conclusion, all issues belong to the whole community.

Author: Chenxi Zhu
Review status: Postgraduate assignment (University of Technology Sydney)

Application of KRAs Theory—Meng Jia

Application of KRAs Theory in Concept Design Phase of a Banknote Plate-making Workshop Construction Project in China
The uncertain nature of modern society results in a complex project management context, especially in the concept design phase. There is a critical demand to focus on key areas which can directly contribute to short-term objective and assist in long-term success of project.

This reflective paper analyzes key failing factors of a construction project which relates to the Banknote Plate-making workshop in China. Based on the actual condition, the technique of KRAs is applied to identify essential management areas and performance gaps between project team and benchmark. Some measures are recommended to fill the gaps and improve performance in the future projects.

Author: Meng Jia
Review status: Postgraduate assignment (University of Technology Sydney)

Project Performance Improvement—Mohammad Rahim Sidiqi

Project Performance Improvement
Project performance improvement is the concept of enhancing the effectiveness and effectiveness of a project. It is a gradual process, which should be undertaken by all the stakeholders within a project. There are various techniques, which are adopted and implemented in the project performance improvement. These include performance drivers, learning to perform, the project context, performance techniques, practice improvement, and performance improvement.

This paper addresses the concept of performance techniques as they are applied in the completion of a particular project. The project, in this case, is the construction of a residential 12 apartments building. The contractor responsible for undertaking the project was Afghan Reconstruction and Development Unit (ARDU) under the management and leadership of Mr. Zia, the project manager. The project team applied various performance techniques. These include the reflection, reflection strategies, collective reflection, reflective journal and reflective assessment. They included reflecting on the previous experiences and recorded knowledge and used it as a basis on improving the current performance. These performance techniques significantly improved the outcome of the project. However, the company needs to implement more effective strategies. The reason is that it failed in time management and operation within the budget.

Author: Mohammad Rahim Sidiqi
Review status: Postgraduate assignment (University of Technology Sydney)

Agile innovation in project management—Rami Shakour

Agile innovation in project management
Today, we can generalize that the projects have grown in complexity and it is very common for the project managers struggling to bring their work efficiently. Recognizing these challenges, difficulties, changes and technological advances, project managers try to use standards that can best meet the goals of success and deliver them. Adopting a model for new product development project management is critical to their performance, particularly at the end of high-tech products. The application of project management in business gives better results, quality and reduction costs in the product development. The innovative products are embedded in dynamic business environments, characterized the difficulty in predicting the future, uncertainties and major challenges. However, the current assignment has presented the importance and methodologies of Agile Innovation in project management. The introductory part has given a brief overview and comparison between classical project management and agile project management. In the discussion part, agile methodology is discussed in detail along with the principles and values.

Author: Rami Shakour
Review status: Postgraduate assignment (University of Technology Sydney)

Reflection on project reform—Jacob Silver

Reflection on project reform
With reasons for project failure remaining unchanged since Harvard Business School first published the common causes, organisations are faced with situations where the focus is less about what the causes of failure are but rather what the early warning signs are and what are the response mechanisms. It’s imperative that as project managers we put in place tools to recognise the early warning signs of project failure and implement strong processes to reform projects that are on the path to failure.

This paper examines the process of change that a large and complex relocation project went through during the early stages of project failure. The paper discusses several failed attempts at change and the eventual process that got the project back on track and allowed the team to achieve immediate and ongoing success. The tools used to improve success include critical reflections, the discovery of common themes through the use of affinity diagrams and the use of personality traits to assign roles. The key lessons learnt were shared and this allowed the team to continue its success and ultimately restore faith with their client and secure future business.

Author: Jacob Silver
Review status: Postgraduate assignment (University of Technology Sydney)

Social learning theory in construction—Neroshan Devakumaran

Application of social learning theory to boost technician skills and performance in a construction project
Skilled labour force is an essential part of a construction project. Every construction project has different phases. Transitioning between phases dictates the need for different skill sets and it is crucial that every organisation manages its labour resource efficiently to avoid skill gaps that could lead to its downfall in this highly competitive world. Being constrained by a limited labour force with a significant skill imbalance during the transitioning of two phases, the author had to come up with a plan to alleviate this situation by training the unskilled technicians within a short period of time due to the steady increase of tasks and multiple end dates. The author created a strategy to train them within a month while steadily increasing the pace of work. Using the modelling process of a social learning theory with other learning styles incorporated in parts, the author was able to eventually fill the skill gaps necessary for the next phase within the planned time. The author eventually provides a reflection on the methods used by him that proves that although the techniques were efficient, there is room for improvement.

Author: Neroshan Devakumaran
Review status: Postgraduate assignment (University of Technology Sydney)

Practice of effective leadership on improving the project performance—Abdulmohsin Alghifaili

Practice of effective leadership on improving the project performance
This paper will talk about improving leadership practice in an organisation and how this practice affected the project performance. The paper will talk about individual reflection on how departments in the organisation interacted and how the project team failed to reach the specified goals. This paper will also discuss how to improve the leadership practice in the organisation and how the project leadership will improve by applying tools and approaches. Further, the paper will show indicate the results of improving the practice of effective leadership.

Author: Abdulmohsin Alghifaili
Review status: Postgraduate assignment (University of Technology Sydney)

The Art of Story—Michael Morrison

The Art of Story – “An Ancient Tool for Modern Projects”
In our modern fast paced society, technology has given us so many new ways to share information with tools such as email, smartphone, social media and skype and so many reasons not to take time out to reflect. Too often we communicate electronically, we tabulate, we diarise, we list, we number, we bullet point, however too seldom in the modern world do we engage in face to face informal discussions where we share knowledge, too seldom do we reflect.

We sit bolt upright in uncomfortable chairs around rectangular tables, in dull grey vinyl boardrooms and we recite line by line information in the form of meeting minutes which have been on the agenda for weeks. Are we engaged? Are we actively listening? Do we remember anything when we walk out of the room? Do we take this explicit invaluable knowledge and use it to add value to our work for decades to come? In my experience, I would say no and that a large percentage of this knowledge and lessons learnt is lost in translation.

The paper I have written talks about how we can improve the way we practice Project Management through reflection, and how art of storytelling can be used as a tool for modern Projects. In addition, I explore how we can become more powerful leaders by using story as a way to reflect, share knowledge and get our message across, it has been said that if “a picture is worth a thousand words, a story is worth a thousand pictures” (Dan Pink). It is this improved practice of leadership through reflection and storytelling which will improve performance at an individual, project and organisational level.

Author: Michael Morrison
Review status: Postgraduate assignment (University of Technology Sydney)

Organizational resilience—Elmar Kutsch

Organizational resilience—When rules find their limits

The post-crash 21st century has seen many organizations – not just financial institutions – seeking to enhance their resilience. This is driven by their need to withstand an increasingly uncertain and complex future. The financial industry alone is said to be investing more than $20 billion into ‘ways of working’. The ability to prevent unfolding difficulties from developing into crises is increasingly seen as an organizational necessity, yet it is often unclear exactly what this means or what managers can do in practice.

The challenge managers face in their pursuit of resilience can be understood in terms of uncertainty and complexity.

Authors: Dr Elmar Kutsch, Mark Hall, Neil Turner
Review status: N/A