Constraint Management in Business Projects

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Introduction

Recently I was involved in a product promotion project as a project manager. The project involved personal selling, sales promotion, direct marketing, publicity, and public relations. The sales department directed the project towards increasing the number of sales and attracting new customers by creating awareness about the products existence in the market. As the project manager, I identified various constraints that affected the delivery of the expected outcomes. Constraints jeopardize the departments accuracy in meeting the objectives and effectiveness in the delivery process. These constraints include time, cost, scope, quality, resources, risks, and customers that affect the accuracy of delivering the projected objectives. All seven constraints are dependent on each other since an effect on one of them alters with the other. This essay discusses the impacts of each constraint and how we addressed them to meet the desired sequel.

Types of Constraints

Time Constraint

Time constraint is one of the seven constraints affecting the efficiency of the project. The time constraint indicates how the team can complete the project within a specific deadline. Time constraint is the projects scheduling on its completion and dictates a timeline by which the final deadline by which the team should hand over their work (Lotfi et al., 2022). However, some activities may hinder the projects timely completion, affecting its delivery. In the product promotion project, time constraints often affected the completion of the project because some of the team members failed to complete some activities within the stipulated time. To solve the time constraint problem, we had to appropriately recreate a project schedule and budget time for each phase. For instance, we regulated the personal selling timeline for ten minutes per client. We used time tracking to ensure that each member used the ten minutes on each client to ensure that all new clients received services. We also set alerts to alarm on completing the personal selling timeline.

Cost Constraint

Another constraint was the cost constraint that involved budgeting for the events underway. Cost can be a constraint in cases where the total budget that the management had planned for is altered by some activities unaccounted for in the initial plan. For example, in the product promotion project, the cost often changes due to alterations from effects of other constraints like time. When time constraint occurs, the costs of the activities rise due to an increase in the costs. Costs increase due to increased demand for other activities like increased labor (Relich & Swic, 2020). An increase in the budget limits effectiveness since the budget team must redirect money from one activity to another. We addressed the cost constraints by revisiting the projects planning phase to update the cost of some of the critical activities that the project cannot function without involving in its plans. We also reevaluated the workflow and invested in budget management to correct some emerging flows in the future.

Scope Constraint

Additionally, the scope constraint is another problem we experienced. In every project, the initial plan chatters for the specific goals, deliverable features, and functions that deliberate on the projects future objectives. These projections on the projects future expectations are known as the scope. The work done on the project may change based on the employees reaction in responding to various emergent issues and adherence to the activities procedures. Our projects experienced some challenges in understanding the projects scope. Still, we solved the problems by creating a project scope statement that identified what was to be part of the project to meet the clients satisfaction (Zhang, Hu, & Zhang, 2018). Clients become more satisfied when the project manager and the team members understand the demands within the project and gather all necessary resources to meet the desired scope.

Quality Constraint

Quality is also a part of the constraints we faced in our project. At times the quality of the product promotion project was not satisfying. The quality of such a project is measurable by the number of new customers registered and the number of sales we made. The quality may differ from the one expected by the management due to failure to meet the desired cost, failure to allocate maximum time, and lack of enough resources. Quality is essential in all projects because it indicates a firms commitment to fulfilling the employees satisfaction. A quality constraint is how the performed work meets the requirements. Since our project had experienced some shortcomings through the time constraint and the cost constraint, its quality became questionable, leading to our review of alternatives to maintain high quality at the overall timeline and costs.

Uncertainties as Project Constraint

Uncertainties may affect the delivery of an expected outcome in a project. These uncertainties contribute immensely to the risk constraint where the project planner does not have any information about the occurrence of a specific risk (Chen, Demeulemeester & Guo, 2018). Thus, risk management strategies are essential for every project in plan. Risk management is an activity that involves the prediction of uncertainties that may occur and finding the possible remedies that are applicable to minimize the adversities. Essentially, in our project, we set aside a precautionary kitty to boost the project in case of financial risk.

Consumer Satisfaction

Every business targets having a satisfied consumer base by providing quality services and offering credible customer care services. In some instances, consumer satisfaction can be a constraint when a business fails to meet consumers demands. The value provided to customers must be of the highest quality. Consumer satisfaction maintains good relationships between the company and its customers and keeps attracting more customers to the company. Our project was well equipped to ensure that the customers had the best experience interacting with us. We had trained our team members on skills to handle and communicate with the customers.

Resources as Constraints

Resources are also part of the constraints we faced in the project. Resources are the people, capital, equipment, and technology involved in the project to deliver the desired outcome. Project planners must distribute resources effectively by ensuring that every unit receives the perfect share to conduct its plans (Mehanna et al., 2020). Businesses cannot prosper without resources, hence the need for better strategies. Therefore, the project should utilize employees fully to maximize the utilization and provide robust analytics for timely decision-making. Our product promotion project used the proper planning to ensure that the project moved smoothly.

Conclusion

Constraints are activities that hinder companies from reaching their goals. Constraints include time, cost, scope, quality, risk, customer satisfaction, and resources. The primary purpose of every business is to make profits; however, they may fail due to increased production costs resulting from the constraints above. Some of the solutions for the constraints include prior planning, creating a project schedule to allocate time to every activity, reevaluating the workforce, and maximizing the use of the available resources. Solution of business constraints aids the business in proper planning and allocation of resources such as labor and capital on productive activities. Every business must manage its constraints to regulate the high cost that reduces profits.

References

Chen, Z., Demeulemeester, E., Bai, S., & Guo, Y. (2018). Efficient priority rules for the stochastic resource-constrained project scheduling problem. European Journal of Operational Research, 270(3), 957-967. Web.

Lotfi, R., Yadegari, Z., Hosseini, S. H., Khameneh, A. H., Tirkolaee, E. B., & Weber, G. W. (2022). A robust time-cost-quality-energy-environment trade-off with resource-constrained in project management: A case study for a bridge construction project. Journal of Industrial & Management Optimization, 18(1), 375. Web.

Mehanna, H., Hardman, J. C., Shenson, J. A., Abou-Foul, A. K., Topf, M. C., AlFalasi, M.,& & Holsinger, F. C. (2020). Recommendations for head and neck surgical oncology practice in a setting of acute severe resource constraint during the COVID-19 pandemic: An international consensus. The Lancet Oncology, 21(7), e350-e359. Web.

Relich, M., & Zwi, A. (2020). Parametric estimation and constraint programming-based planning and simulation of production cost of a new product. Applied Sciences, 10(18), 6330. Web.

Zhang, Z., Hu, F., & Zhang, N. (2018). Ant colony algorithm for satellite control resource scheduling problem. Applied Intelligence, 48(10), 3295-3305. Web.

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