Project Prioritizing Process-DD Williamson Case Study
D.D Williamson Project Management Prioritizing Process Analysis
D Williamson was founded in 1865 with the core purpose of becoming a global leader in non-artificial colors. The company operates nine facilities in six nations. Additionally, D.D Williamson supplies many other best-know food and beverage companies across the globe. Therefore, it is evident that Williamson is faced with crucial and complex tasks of managing its companies. To achieve its vision of becoming a non-artificial colors global leader, D.D Williamson must improve its project management: A PLAGIARIZED SAMPLE-ORDER YOUR PAPER NOW
D Williamson runs a lot of projects at the same time resulting to some of them being executed late, going beyond budget and not being able to meet the desired results. This forced the company to apply prioritization matrix in order to improve the results of the project. To achieve this goal, D.D Williamson ended up selection more than five “Vision Impact Projects.” This approach would help the company get a high level focus and pay total attention to the execution of the projects, monitoring and seeking corrective measure from senior management meetings, channeling sufficient and essential resources to the projects and tracking project progress for continuous improvement.
Strategic Planning Process
Strategic direction of D.D Williamson is set by the company senior leadership. Some of the strategic planning process are widely applied when the project is at the initial stages. However, there are other strategic processes that are applied throughout the execution of the project. The determinant of the strategic direction that a project is largely tied on SWOT analysis. Other process evaluated during strategic planning process include strategic analysis, guiding principles such as vision and mission, strategic objectives, flow-down objectives and portfolio alignment.
Organization applies strategic selection process to match projects with the organizational goals (Sohrabinejad & Rahimi, 2015). This makes it possible to successfully complete the project by meeting its desired goals. Similarly, D.D Williams realized the importance of this technique and therefore, engaged in selecting the right projects, prioritizing work and providing necessary resources needed for the execute needed to execute them. On project selection, prioritization and initiation of the projects, D.D Williams applied the following procedures;
- Selecting and prioritizing projects. This step is linked to drafting scope overview, business case and project priority.
- Developing project charter. This phase involves signing out project charter.
- Identifying project stakeholders. It entails stakeholder registering.
- Planning stakeholder management and communication management. Involves stakeholders’ management plan and communication management plan.
Methods of Selecting Projects
- The prioritization involved in the selection of the projects is based on;
- The value that potential project will bring to the organization.
- The demands required for the performance of the project.
- Availability of the resources needed to execute the project.
- Available support both from internal and external customers.
- Which project will be best to help the organization achieve its strategic goals?
The determination of the above aspects is realized by applying the following methods;
Cost-Benefit Analysis Methods
This is a financial analysis tool that is applied by D.D Williams to rank how the projects will benefit the company. This model compares the initial capital outlay employed in the execution of the projects and the expected project cash inflows. Some of the cost-benefit analysis techniques applied under this model include Net Present Value, Benefit-Cost Analysis, Internal Rate of Return and Payback Period. All these techniques determines the net worth of the company by comparing the cash outflow to cash inflow of the project.
Net Present Value: This method involves discounting the future value of both the projects costs and benefits and subtracting their present values to determine the net worth of the project. This is one of the best cost-benefit analysis tool because it puts into consideration time value of money (Zolghadri1 & Vahdani, 2015).
Benefit-Cost Ration: This value of the project is arrived at by dividing cash inflow by initial capital outlay. If the ratio obtained is above one that is a true indication that the project is worth investing.
Internal Rate of Return: Entails at obtaining the percentage rate of return expected from the investment in the project. If the internal rate of return is above the current cost of capital then the project will lead into positive returns.
Payback Period: This entails the amount time that it will be needed for the project to cover the initial capital cost invested in the project. The project with the shortest payback period is referred as the best.
Scoring Model
D.D Williamson Company uses scoring model for prioritization in the event where a decision has to be made among multiple projects. This model lays emphasis on identifying potential criteria, determining mandatory criteria and weighing criteria (Nara, 2014).
Identification of Potential Criteria: This technique involves determining how best each project suits to the organization’s strategic planning. The most suitable projects are preferred.
Determination of Mandatory Criteria: The senior in the management team agrees on the projects that are important. This technique holds that a project must be executed irrespective of the considerations that make other projects better than it is.
Weighting Criteria: The most important projects are given the highest weights, weight of 10. The projects with the highest weights are preferred as the most beneficial.
Recommendations to Improve Prioritization Process
D.D Williams have developed a robust prioritization process and criteria. However, this criteria do not meet all the essentials of project management. A prioritization process should be diversified to meet a goal of mixture of tactical and strategic initiatives. According to Bodley-Scott & Brache (2009) a good prioritization criteria should be have projects that re employee-focused, customer-focused, cost driven and growth driven. Additionally, other key factors that should be considered during prioritization process include;
- Contribute to increased sales.
- Cost reduction.
- Increased customer satisfaction.
- Develop and maintain competitive advantage.
- Increase employee retention and satisfaction.
D.D Williamson should focus on increasing its prioritization criteria to meet the above mentioned goals. This is because the current prioritization strategies used seems to lay more emphasis on the benefits of the projects without considering the effects they will have key stakeholders such as customers and employees.
Secondly, this paper calls for D.D Williamson to focus on analyzing resource capacity especially when applying score model project selection method. This is because by using model, the company can bit more that it can chew and at the same time end up squandering other viable opportunities. For example, when it comes to the consideration of the mandatory of the project, the company forced to forgo projects that strives to meets the needs of the customers satisfactorily and improve employee development and retention. Therefore, D.D Williamson has to take into consideration the resources available and the can be used to meet the critical needs of the organization.
Scenario where Implemented D.D Process cannot work.
In the event of the complex and urgent task, D.D prioritization process may fail, to work. This because it prioritization used the by company is long and time consuming. For example, from the company case analysis it is evident that decisions should be made its aspects of the project evaluated to determine the viability of the project. It in this scenario it will be difficult for the D.D Williamson to prioritize effectively. This is because if the company engages in executing urgent and complicated tasks, it may be a challenge for it to determine whether the task will be of high priority and high yield to be selected: A PLAGIARIZED SAMPLE-ORDER YOUR PAPER NOW
D.D Process Five Years Forecast
Organizations and businesses do not operate in vacuum. They carry out their business activities in environments that characterized by technological, economic, political and social changes (Guarino, 2015). For the business to operate in these environments it has to take advantage of the benefits in them and create strategies of overcoming business negative impact exhibited by the environmental factors (Stober, 2013). Likewise, D.D Williams is likely to experience similar changes and be unable to apply the same process in the next five years. This is because the development in technology change of business patterns for call for the application of other sophisticated project management techniques. This will also have a major impact on the prioritization and selection of the projects. If this happens, then wit will be difficult for D.D Williamson to apply its current process.
References
Bodley-Scott, S., & Brache, A. P. (2009, February 18). Which Initiatives Should You Implement? Retrieved from Harvard Business Review: https://hbr.org/2009/02/which-initiatives-should-you-i.html
Guarino, M. (2015). Looking forward. Project Management Network, 28(1), 36–44.
Nara, E. (2014). The Use of Scoring Method for Prioritizing the Project Portfolio. Journal of Management Research, 6(1), 156-168.
Sohrabinejad, A., & Rahimi, M. (2015). Risk Determination, Prioritization, and Classifying in Construction Project Case Study: Gharb Tehran Commercial-Administrative Complex. Journal of Construction Engineering , 1-10.
Stober, D. (2013). Emerging Trends in Project Management. Global Knowledge Training , 1-5.
Zolghadri1, M., & Vahdani, B. (2015). Identify and prioritize the factors influencing project risk by using AHP & VIKOR Fuzzy (Case Study: South Pars Gas Complex). Advanced Computational Techniques in Electromagnetics, 2(1), 70-81.