Project Management Essay

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Introduction

A project that I plan on doing in the future is one that focuses on transitioning our marketing to social media. The company wants to promote its brand and become more familiar to consumers because right now it is not gaining much traction in traditional marketing approaches. The company has thus decided to try to focus more on social media as a marketing approach. The project will be to develop a social media marketing campaign that would allow the company develop its brand and gain traction among the target consumer population. The 7 basic steps that will need to be followed for this project to succeed are:

1. Compose the team.

2. Define the mission that the team must embrace.

3. Establish the expectations and goals that the team will be accountable for.

4. Structure and plan the activities that will provide the pathway to the goals and allow members to meet expectations.

5. Train and develop the team.

6. Make sense of the objectives and how the plan will empower the members to achieve the objectives.

7. Give and receive feedback so that there is a constant two-way flow of communication between the leader and the followers.

This paper will describe the project initiation, planning, execution, monitoring and controlling, and closing stages.

Project Initiation

The first step in this project management activity will be to appoint the team members. This comprises the first three steps of the basic outline provided in the introduction—1) composing the team, 2) defining the mission, and 3) identifying the goals. Bringing the team together is an important step in project management because there are essential elements to this phase. Teamwork is built on mutual trust and commitment to the team. Every member has to have a sense of his value, of what he brings to the team and why he is essential to the team’s success. A member who does not have this sense is essentially a dead member. He is a drag on the team instead of a help. To get all members of the team on the same page and animated by the same spirit, the leader must develop his emotional and social intelligence skills (Fredrickson, 2001) and engage in the art received during resiliency training: this will help the leader to provide the support that each team member needs to overcome personal issues and challenges and devote himself to the team and to its mission (Reivich, Seligman & McBride, 2011).

The key element in teamwork is to build trust; transparency through open communication contributes to an engaged resilient and effective team. Trust is built by developing a culture and environment of transparency. Openness and honesty are qualities a leader must possess. Followers on the team will recognize and appreciate a leader’s candor, honesty, and ability to be forthright. Trust cannot be established in the dark: it needs the light, which acts as a disinfectant and serves to kill all the hidden bugs that lurk about when thoughts and feelings are covered up. Trust is built by establishing a two-way flow of communication, which allows the light to get in and positive morale to increase. As Mission Command (2012) notes, “two-way communication and interaction between the commander, subordinates, and Soldiers reinforces trust. Soldiers expect to see the chain of command accomplishing the mission while taking care of their welfare and sharing hardships and danger” (p. 19). Nothing creates a better environment for teamwork than the ability of all members to recognize that their leader is sharing their burdens and struggles with them and leading by example in an open, honest and transparent manner.

Trust and cohesion are measures of climate; leaders must understand the dimensions of trust and its impact on its own team members. Leaders are the ones who are responsible for the team building process. It is not up to the individual members of the team to organize themselves but rather the leader to organize the team. The leader is the most visible and vocal person on the team. All eyes are on him and all follow his lead. The leader must be able to demonstrate patience and interpersonal skills (emotional and social intelligence) to earn the trust of his followers.

Recognizing the unique assets that each member brings to the table, as well as working collectively to capitalize on one another’s strengths is a defining key tenet. Every person will have strengths and weaknesses. It is up to the leader to identify the strengths and see how they can best be leveraged to enable the team to be as efficient and effective as possible.

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The team leader has to get the team members to “buy in” to the doctrines they are setting up—i.e., the need for members to be adaptive and reactive leaders themselves (Koester, 2013). Everyone has to come to the team ready to act like a leader even if he is still following orders from the team leader: leadership starts from within and one must lead oneself in overcoming personal weakness.

Project Planning

In the project planning phase, the vision of what is to be accomplished and the goals have to be defined. This consists of the fourth, fifth and sixth steps of the basic plan outlined in the introduction—4) structuring activities, 5) training the team, and 6) making sense of objectives. If the goals are not adequately defined, the team will not know what to do to succeed. For this project, the goals will be to obtain 25,000 followers within one month. This is a high goal but one worth shooting for because it will allow the team to grow from there. The secondary goal will be to create a series videos for social media that can effectively promote the products the company wants to introduce. These goals are defined and measurable, which is why they will work.

The project will have to be unified under one vision,…

[…… parts of this paper are missing, click here to view the entire document ]

…communicate vision, or servant leadership to provide support and encouragement, or autocratic leadership for individuals who function best when told explicitly and clearly what they should do. The leader has to identify what approaches are going to work best for the individual and adopt those approaches. The leader also has to be able to ensure that the goals of the individual are in alignment with the goals of the organization (House, 1996).

Project Closing

The project closing is important because it is when the team’s performance is recognized and appreciation and thanks are shown to every member of the team who helped make the project a success. The team has to expressed its gratitude and the leader has to show that he would be happy to work with every member again once more. This is why it is important for the team project to close on a positive note: it is very possible that all the members will be working together again in the future and they should leave this project with a good feeling towards one another and knowing that they did well to work together to help the organization. The project closing is one of the most important parts of the project and every member should leave feeling like their work was appreciated.

Summary

The basics of managing a project include composing the team, defining the mission that the team must embrace, establishing the expectations and goals that the team will be accountable for, structuring and planning the activities that will provide the pathway to the goals and allow members to meet expectations; training and developing the team; making sense of the objectives and how the plan will empower the members to achieve the objectives; and giving and receiving feedback so that there is a constant two-way flow of communication between the leader and the followers. For this project of managing a social media marketing campaign to help the organization gain traction among consumers, the project initiation, planning, execution, monitoring and controlling, and closing phases all have to be carefully thought out.

The most important aspects for this project will be to identify the vision and goals for the project so that all the team members know what is expected of them. This will mean that they must know what to do and how to do it. The goal will be for the team to get 25,000 followers for the social media campaign and to have three campaigns across three different social media platforms successfully gaining traction with followers. The team will have to be shown how it can achieve these goals and the leader will have to support them in overcoming obstacles and in dealing with resistance.

For this reason, communication will be very necessary and the leader will have to know how to open up two-communication flows so that feedback can be obtained at all times. The goals should be SMART so that they can be measured and reached and that….....

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