Critical Evaluation of the Constraints Faced by Project Managers and Essay

Critical Evaluation of the Constraints Faced by Project Managers and How These Impact Project Scheduling and Planning - Essay Example The attention of the whole company is focussed on a particular problem that is of great concern to the consumer (the challenge). The rest of the activities in the company are synchronized with the challenge process, which makes sure that the challenge process is not piled up or it is starved because the needed inputs are not available. The bottleneck must be eliminated in any way possible and this increases the capability of the entire company (Jawa 2004, p1). For many years, project managers have been told to focus on constraints. In projects, a constraint is thought to be an important path, which is a series of activities that determine the least time required for the project to finish. Vanhoucke (2012, p192) further notes that the project management generally overlooks the scarce resources required by activities which are either on or off the critical path and probably by other projects (Vanhoucke 2012, p192). Goodpasture (2004, p211) also asserts that project constraint is a crit ical path. In other words, the project is constrained to a particular duration, and the constrained time cannot be shortened. The impact of the critical path is that the constrained throughput cannot be increased, and thus, the throughput is threatened if the critical path is not managed in a proper way (Goodpasture 2004, p211). It is worth noting that all projects have constraints. Not very long ago, the three main constraints (also known as the triple constraints) were the project management creed spoken by experienced project managers. The three main constraints that project managers face include scope, cost, and schedule. However, these are not the only constraints faced by project managers; other constraints include consumer satisfaction, budget, and quality. All the mentioned constraints have significant impact on the outcomes of the project, and that is why they get considerable attention (Heldman 2011, p23). Scope All projects are set out to generate a unique result or produ ct. Scope describes what the result or the product should be like. It considers the objectives and the goals of the project and defines what the project is attempting to achieve. The goals are then broken down into smaller elements until the work can be easily described. Scope can frequently change or grow during the course of the project. Thus, it is very crucial to document scope. Scope generally entails interchanges with the other constraints, and transformations in scope will affect budget, time, or both. Changes in the time or budget can also affect scope. For instance, if one is constructing a new house on a restricted or limited budget. The individual wants granite countertops in the bathroom, but he does not have sufficient money in the budget. Then, the scope has to be modified and a different material chosen for the countertops to avoid the necessity of going over the budget again (Heldman 2011, p23). Schedule Majority of the projects function under some form of deadline. If the project involves constructing a new shopping center that must be completed in time for the holiday shopping period, then the project is time-constrained. Schedules are developed on units of time thus; the word time is sometimes used in place of the word schedule when describing the triple constraints (Heldman 2011, p23). The time deadline governs the manner in which the project activities are completed and scheduled. The projector requestor or the stakeholders