International Research Journal of Engineering and Technology (IRJET) e-ISSN: 2395 -0056

Volume: 03 Issue: 11 | Nov -2016 www.irjet.net p-ISSN: 2395-0072

Project Management – The Challenges & Their Resolutions

Anurag Sachan1, Aditya Raj2, Manjula R.3

1Student,Dept. of Computer Science and Engineering, VIT University, Tamil Nadu, India
2Student,Dept. of Computer Science and Engineering, VIT University, Tamil Nadu, India
3 Professor, Dept. of Computer Science and Engineering, VIT University, Tamil Nadu, India

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Abstract - This paper helps in understanding and reviewing this study is that every project has risks and is sure to
the different types of risks and challenges that are encounter various kinds of issues and the ability to
encountered with respect to project management and how forecast those risks and issues and manage them is a
various methods can be used to resolve those risks. The main
interest of this paper is to analyze the influence of the dynamic key predictor is=n project success. Risk and Issue
and ever-changing environment of projects nowadays. management is theoretically very simple, but
Corporate projects undergo lots of real time changes and these practically becomes extremely difficult.
need to be thought of and understood before starting the
project so as to avoid any delays or obstruction in the
completion of the project. The following are some of the topics
that have been analyzed in this paper: What is project 2. PROJECT MANAGEMENT RISKS & ISSUES
management? What are the challenges faced? How can those
issues be resolved?
A risk is an uncertain event or consequence that may
Key Words: Project management, risk factors, occur during the time of a project. It may or may not
challenges, issues, resolution have a measurable impact on the project. This impact
may either be positive or negative. Risk identification is
a critical and iterative process and it is imperative to
1. INTRODUCTION include this step in each project. Risks and issues can
come internally or externally and can be both
Project management deals with understanding and
predictable and unpredictable in nature. Rigorous risk
managing how a particular project works and the
management can ensure the success of a project.
different stages that are undergone before the final
completion of the project. It is vital in making sure that
any project that is taken on by teams or corporates
ensures its feasibility and outcome favored towards the
needs of the customer without facing any challenges in
between that might cause chaos and havoc in the
project. Management deals with understanding these
challenges beforehand and being ready to take them on
The true challenge is not knowing for certain when and
as and when they appear with forethought given to
how the risks are going to present themselves. The fear
how to resolve these challenges in the most effective
of any project manager and his/her team is that
and time optimized manner so that it may not interfere
improper planning of how to react to the situation will
with the project deadlines and timeline.
lead to a chaotic outcome. Risk Management is about
dealing with uncertainties. A study by Chong and
Brown states the four fundamental ways in which the
The concepts and the theories that are dealt with in project management risks may bear: Avoid, Mitigate,
this study originate from the notions of project Share, and Absorb.
management of software development, risk
management etc. The important factor that is stated in

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 International Research Journal of Engineering and Technology (IRJET) e-ISSN: 2395 -0056
Volume: 03 Issue: 11 | Nov -2016 www.irjet.net p-ISSN: 2395-0072

 Cross project resource allocation.

Stated below are some of the challenges that may be  Take care of over or under allocation of
faced during the project and some methods as to how resources.
to avoid them or work through them and ensure the  Assignment of team members to required
resources or jobs.
efficient continuation of the project:
 Scheduling of resources.

2.1 Geographically distant project teams Thus, resource allocation for projects is of extreme
importance and for it to be accurate and precise, it
Very often, project teams comprise of multiple project should be accountable for team members’ default work
members from different regions, multiple organizations schedule, off time, resources available etc. This point is
or people who are giving a collaborative sense to the one of the most important in project management and
effort into the project. Many times, the project team if overlooked, or taken lightly can act as a high risk
may belong to the same corporation but work out of situation in the future timeline of the project.
offices based in different locations, thus the need
synchronization for their work. Companies that can
manage to get help in collaborating all the people to
work in synchronous time have an advantage in the 2.4 Status meetings
market.
Project status update meeting mean the team members
meeting the project leader to update him on their tasks.
2.2 Usage of the wrong tool Time, a critical resource, is often wasted in these
meetings where different sub-teams go around
The attempt to manage projects using desktop
updating the manager on their tasks. A web based
software applications can lead to failure as these
project management software is viable in place of
software were not made for cooperation among several
project meetings as it can help the teams to keep
parties, such as the various project teams, the manager,
updating their completed tasks, remaining tasks etc. on
the client etc. For example, file version control cannot
a regular basis and the manager gets real time updated
be properly used by common software which may lead
on any issues or requirements that might arise with
to confusion between which is the latest updated
respect to the teams.
format of the project files and which is not. Specialized
software should be used for instances such as this. A project management software should be chosen
according to the needs of the manager in such a way
that it may help them to view various statistics and
2.3 Mismanagement of resources make informed decisions, such as:

A lot of the times, the requirements or demands for the  Project Reports.
project resources is higher than the team members  Project Revenues.
available for the execution. Without the help of  Project Resources.
centralized project management software, proper  Cross Project Resource Allocation.
resource management becomes a burdensome  Team Portfolio.
exercise. Managers should choose a web-based project
management software that can take care of some Time saved in such instances may be effectively used to
features such as: complete the project in time, or even before the
deadlines, resulting in customer satisfaction.

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2.5 Undefined goals 2.7 Inadequate skills

If the team is not certain about what they want to A project requirements sometimes specific particular
achieve during the start of the project, this can lead to knowledge of special skills for its completion. It may so
distress later on and the whole project suffers. The happen that the contributors to the project lack these
project manager should be able to set the right goals, in skills, thus putting the project’s authenticity in
a precise manner before the start of the project so that jeopardy. Proper project management can help the
the management, client etc. all know what the final project manager evaluate the available skills and
product will be and what is going to be done to achieve competencies, and help him/her make decisions as to
it. hire additional help, outsource certain parts of the
project or train the already available staff.

2.6 Changes in the scope

2.8 Risk management
Project scope can be simply defined as the parameters
upon which the project is based. It is a detailed Improper risk management can many times lead to the
description identifying and describing all major failure of the project. A manager should have the ability
deliverables and any project boundaries that need to to tolerate risk as projects rarely go as planned.
be adhered to. Project scope should have all the Understanding the project thoroughly, assessing the
necessary information required by the project team the risks that might occur, taking special help from
produced the result in the estimated time and within experienced personnel and making sure to have back-
budget. Scope creep is the phenomena that occurs up plans ready to deploy as and when required are
when new features are added to the list of product some of the core competencies that a project manager
designs that have already been approved, without the should possess. Contingency plans are the need of the
addition of the required increase in budget, time and hour and managers should have pre-planned plans of
resources. Some reasons why scope creep occurs are: action ready for ‘what-if’ situations that may arise. All
these qualities are entirely dependent on the manager.
 Poor requirements analysis.
 Customer integration is not proper.
 Complexity of the project is underestimated.
 Lack of change control. 2.9 Inaccurate Deadlines

Deadlines which do not reflect the actual amount of

Certain ways to ensure that scope creep does not occur time, effort and work that is needed to finish a
and thus hinder the progress of the project include particular task end up in not being met and this can act
thoroughly understanding the project vision and as a deterrent to the morale and productivity of the
ambition, understanding the priorities of the project team. Deadlines should be calculated with as much
and its deliverables, breaking the deliverables into precision as possible and should take into account real
actual work requirements(as detailed as necessary), life scenarios and problems that may arise along the
confirming the major and minor milestones, proper way as well as a realistic estimation of the work that
assignment of resources and expectation of the fact can be put in by each member individually. Rushing
that scope creep is inevitable and implementing the deadlines may even end up in lower quality of the final
required actions to make sure that it does not have a product or certain aspects of it missing which may
great impact on the project as a whole. reflect badly on the corporation and the customer may
lose trust. Buffer period should also be included in each
deadline so as to make sure that any event which may

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require a bit of a setback can still be handled  Close, daily cooperation between business
effectively. people and developers.
 Projects are built around motivated individuals,
who should be trusted.
 Face-to-face conversation is the best form of
3.0 Stakeholder engagement communication (co-location).
 Working software is the principal measure of
According to Project Management Institute (PMI), the
progress.
term project stakeholder refers to – ‘an individual,
 Sustainable development, able to maintain a
group or organization who may affect, be affected by or constant pace.
perceive itself to be affected by a decision, activity or  Continuous attention to technical excellence
outcome of a project.’ A client, CEO, team member or and good design.
any such person who does not show interest in the  Best architectures, requirements, and designs
project can lead to its downfall. Steps should be taken emerge from self-organizing teams.
by the project manager to keep all stakeholders  Regularly, the team reflects on how to become
engrossed in the project by having meetings, more effective, and adjusts accordingly.
encouraging feedback etc. at every step of the way.
Engagement of the stakeholder is of utmost importance
Some of the success and failure factors that determine
to ensure the completion of the project.
the success of the agile development process and
ultimately the project are:

3. AGILE SOFTWARE PROJECT & DEVELOPMENT

Agile software development is defined as – ‘A set of

principles for software development under which the
requirements and solutions evolve through the
collaborative effort of self-organizing cross-functional
teams.’

The concept of agile software and project development

promotes evolutionary development, adaptive
planning, continuous improvement and possibly early
delivery. The main importance of agile development is Table 3. Success Table 3. Success andTable 3. Success and
the ability for rapid and flexible response to change. and failure factors failure factors for failure factors for
for Agile Projects Agile Projects from Agile Projects from
from the People the Organizational

The Agile Manifesto is based on twelve principles, Thus, from the above information we can see that
namely: standard projects can be converted into the format of
agile development projects in order to ensure better
 Customer satisfaction by early and continuous project management and handle the risks and issues
delivery of valuable software. involved in the process much more successfully.
 Welcome changing requirements, even in late
development.
 Working software is delivered frequently
(weeks rather than months).

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 International Research Journal of Engineering and Technology (IRJET) e-ISSN: 2395 -0056
Volume: 03 Issue: 11 | Nov -2016 www.irjet.net p-ISSN: 2395-0072

4. CONCLUSIONS

There are a lot more different challenges that are faced

during project undertakings and proper management
is the key to success of a project. The above stated
issues of project management and their resolutions are
some of the commonly faced ones in the corporate
industry and general projects. A lot of them can be
solved through the use of a good and centralized
project management system, as well as there being
several other ways to handle various issues that may
arise.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

We are thankful to our guide Prof. Manjula R (Associate

Professor, School of Computer Engineering), VIT
University, Vellore Tamil Nadu for her valuable
guidance, encouragement and cooperation during the
course of this study and its presentations. A study such
as this owes its success from its commencement to its
completion to the people involved. We avail this
opportunity to convey our sincere thanks to everyone
who helped and assisted us in successfully completing
this study.

REFERENCES

[1] Five Common Project Management Challenges by

Cynthia K. West, Ph.D., Vice President, Project Insight
[2] Project Management: Challenges & Lessons Learned by
Joseph Amalraj, Christine Hernani, Kelly Ladouceur,
Aparna Verma, BUEC 663 Dr. Joseph Doucet Friday
February 9, 2007
[3] A Review on Project Management and Issues
Surrounding Dynamic Development Environment of ICT
project: Formation of Research Area by Marini Othman,
Abdullah Mohd Zain, Abdul Razak Hamdan

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