Put yourself in the role of a project manager collaborating with MTD, an events company.
Considering the difficulties and problems that MTD encounters in their projects, what insights have you gained this week that could offer assistance?
If an iterative approach were employed in organizing an event as a project, what would be the consequences? Similarly, what are the implications of adopting an agile approach? If the company sought your advice, what would you recommend?
Contribute your thoughts and ideas to the discussion.
•I learned about the VUCA framework which I’ll use with different approaches to help me develop suitable responses to the challenges MTD face.
• An iterative approach is more like a mini-project with short cycles which doesn’t really require specific details, but rather an idea or vision that each iteration uses to produce and test outputs.
These outputs are delivered regularly and frequently to get feedbacks from users and stakeholders.
With this approach the teams see their efforts and clients are being engaged regularly which enables organizations get early return on investments.
• Agile approach is very transparent with information and feedbacks come regularly which enables the team discover risks as early as possible and manage them.
In this approach, decisions are made quickly and outputs are delivered all at once. The entire team is also responsible for completing tasks which is why skilled and experienced persons are assigned.
• To ensure a flexible and adaptable project, I would recommend combining both approaches to tackle different challenges and deliver successful project.
Why? Because that way clients are kept in the loop and their opinions matters while outputs will be delivered quickly.
Different methodologies offer unique advantages, and the most suitable one often varies based on factors such as project size, complexity, team expertise, and organizational culture.
For event planning, both iterative and agile approaches can be effective, depending on then nature of the event and the preferences of the organizing team. Iterative approaches provide continuous refinement, while agile methodologies emphasize adaptabilty and customer satisfaction.
A hybrid approach will be better handling the MTD project. It will start off as a linear approach, but due to uncertainty in say the quality or even quantity of water or maybe there may not be enough pressure in the buffers for reusing the waste water, I may have to switch to an agile approach and create sprints.
As a PM with The company I will really adopt the mixed or hybrid approach not just the iterative approach because of the complexity , uncertainty that’s the VUCA Considerations of planning an event in our world today.
A careful development of combined techniques that will be suitable for the project will be adopted as adaptive to the project. Re assessing milestones and feedback methods will be paramount to reflecting user and sponsors needs
As a PM I’ll adopt the two approach and properly work with them because where one fails the other serves as a scaffold. This will help not to be stranded while running a project
Iteractive approach is suitable,
I’ll also use the VUCA framework.
As a project manager I would rather adopt the mixed or hybrid methodologies which is a more robust and flexible in adapting to changes that might occur during the project
As a project manager working with the company I’ll carefully combine the techniques that are suitable for the project to ensure its success.
Well implementing a robust communication plan and using project management tools could help.
My advice would be Using an iterative approach, which would lead to more flexibility in adapting to changes during the event planning process and agile methodologies which would lead to flexibility while maintaining a structured framework to manage uncertainties.
Well, training of team members on these methodologies should be done for successful implementation.
Thanks
Considering the unpredictable nature of challenges and risk factors, working in MTD as a project manager own would need to embrace the hybrid approach; a combination of linear and iterative approaches to effectively mitigate the risk factors and for productive project delivery.
As a Project manager for MTD and considering the myriads of challenges that one could face in the course of any of the event, one that i can think of is in the area of possible requirement for more water points during the event in areas possible around the car park areas where people may converge to first sort themselves out before proceeding into the arena of the event. And the possibility of the local water company not being able to push more water into our facility or possibly due to space constraint and not having a place to locate our buffer bag or tank. In such a case all knowledge will come to bear using the iterative approach or hybrid approach. Hence, we may need to consider building a make shift water station around a water tanker bearing water not taking more than two car space around the center of the car park to cater for such demand. In this case the event which is a project (Linear in this case) and considering the challenges and limitations VUCA principles comes into play and while considering the fact that these modifications are coming into play and was not considered at the beginning , the iterative or hybrid approach comes into play to help mitigate the need fo the event.
Use the method that bests suit the project on the level of your understanding with the expert knowledge of project team at your disposal.
If you take an iterative approach to setting up an event as a project the implication will be one of wasting time, resources, and money or one of efficient use as there will or will not be a return on investment (ROI) for all the effort put into the project just due to an unfit approach as an iterative approach allows for flexibility, change and utmost feedback amongst stakeholders and the customers being served or serviced.
My advice to the company will be that they must be open to the hybrid approach where they can mix the required lifecycle associated with an unstable environment and that associated with a stable one. As this would indeed help them know what change to expect and what to do when the change comes; be it a simple, complicated or complex change.
A PM is expected to understand first the nature and dynamic of a project, which will eventually determine the style of approach to use. And also communication becomes very important in achieving success in a project. The project manager has to have a good understanding of his team and provide them good leadership ane support to enable them achieve set objective. Like i said earlier the dynamic nature of a project determine what style use.. As for me i can use both the linea with an application of the VUCA to enable achieve success in my project. Like in the MDT case where careful decision where made, better options where explode to achieve success at the end of the day.
As a project manager at MTD, I will implement the use of VUCA framework tools to develop suitable response for the issues and challenges of the event project.
I will identify the problem and challenges, apply the VUCA framework tools in order to develop a suitable response to the problems already identified, and apply the Linear and Iterative Lifecycle approaches to tackle problems and challenges encountered along the line of implementation. This would make it feasible enough to tackle any complexity, ambiguity, uncertainty and volatility of the project.