Regency Plaza Essay

Regency Hotel Group (RHG) is a well reputed and successful operator in the hotel industry. They have experience on managing resources and controlling the Regency Plaza project. But they have faced several problems such as Unhappy Customers, Slow Sales Growth, Increasing Costs, Work Delays and Internal Conflicts. The reason for all those problems is poor planning. When proper planning and project management well established, Its very easy to schedule and coordinate the process. Then any problem can be identified and solved less expensively in a short time period. This would help to utilize resources economically and save up more time to finish the work successfully in the completion of the project. RHG has reputed brand name with their Good Service, Luxury and wide range of facilities given to their customers. Any distraction or delay of this project would fail the reputation of Regency Hotel Group. This report will express the importance of close relation between organization’ s strategic mission and the Project Management. Also will state to which extent the Regency Plaza project has managed and giving a good example for future Project Managers. Introduction Introduction to the company The Regency Hotel Group was located in major urban centers throughout the world & it was well-known for both its emphasis on service & the wide range of the conveniences that it offered in this hotel. They had developed all of its hotel properties in the past and now it was a mixed use project, this would be the first project & that would include condominium units. The project manager of the regency plaza was decided to build the maximum of 96 units, averaging 1,400 square feet, rather than fewer but larger units. Introduction to the report This project initially targeted toward wealthy couples in late middle age. The hotel project was not success the condominium sales were slow & the local economy appeared to be weakening & also, this project was at the back schedule & over budgeted, the cost estimating changes did not run through, the number & frequency of changes that were taking place on this project & also, lot of buyers were complain about the slower service, delaying closing & the bad workmanship. So, we have to analysis this project under these four questions. Analysis 1. Evaluate the project definition phase of the Regency Plaza project. How do the problems that emerged during the project relate to how the project definition phase was managed? During the design process, managing construction, managing marketing and in the current situation Regency Plaza project team had to face many problems and they took actions to prevent these issues. The actions taken during the project have explained below. The Design Process The Regency, KDS, the Boston Redevelopment Authority and vocal neighbourhood groups involved to the discussions for design process of condominiums. Hodgkins first challenge was number, size and type of condominium units that he could offer to the buyers. There were different ideas about number of unit. Farely suggested it should be 72 units and KDS’s view was it should be 96 units. But Hodgkins decided to build 96 units which could gain more profits. Managing construction Kelly had a huge work load to handle and because of that she divided the workload among few subcontractors. To approve the contract, project team needed subcontractors to produce a floor plan showing all the necessary things and completing time of the contract. Though this cycle took around one month, project team needed to know that they are in the right path. Marketing Hodgkins used a comprehensive marketing and service programme to introduce condominiums to the customers. They have committed to a high level of  customer service and the strategy was to customize condominiums according to the buyer’s interest. Hodgkins did not except big changes that would disrupt other condominiums owners and the guests and she hoped buyers would change their condominiums by themselves after the completion of the building. Thus she did not start discussions about the customization with buyers by thinking changes would be cut off. The current situation The condominium project became slow due to the movement of workers to the hotel area, because the hotel area needed to speed up their work to finish the project before July 15th according to the schedule. The relationship among Hodgkins and Kelly became weak during the project period due to the increase of costs and design changes. Grogan, Kelly’s project manager also became frustrated because of the increase of specialty items and unusual details. The project manager of Regency hotel, Jeff Cunningham was also behind the schedule due to lack of man power. Thus there were arguments between Cunningham and Grogan, because Grogan used more man power due to the constant changes. There was a problem of hard wood flooring and Cunningham asked Grogan to replace the flooring. But Grogan said it was Cunningham’s responsibility. This was caused to a conflict between Cunningham and Grogan. The sales of condominiums went slowly. Only 30 units out of 96 units have been pre-sold, beca use there target market was wealthy couple in late middle age. So Hodgkins wanted to gain more sales by minimizing the cost. 2. Evaluate the role of the project manager (Kris Hodgkins) in the case. What skillsdo you think are required to be the project manager for the Regency Condominium Development project? How well do you think that Kris Hodgkins meets these skill requirements? Do you think Kris Hodgkins was a good project manager? Project manager is the person who has responsibility till the project is completed with the help of the project team. Project management helps to guide the people and the process to finish the project successfully. There are some qualities that project leader should have such as planning, organizing, controlling, leading, communicating, motivating and customer awareness. Planning A project manager should have a clear plan to achieve the success of the project. He should have clear objectives to motivate others to be actively involved to the project. Kris did not have any contingency plan to implement if something went wrong with the Kelly’s schedule of 32 months. Organizing Here the project manager should consider time schedules, resource allocation and required performances. He should inform job scope, tasks and responsibilities to the project team members to get the maximum result from them. She purchased required items such as elevators and marbles earlier which take long time to receive. She was well organized with labour resource when needs. There were 250 construction workers at a time on the condominium floors. But Regency plaza condominium project went slow, because they could not follow the time schedules. This affects to the budget of the whole project. Controlling There should be a management information system to exchange information among the project team and monitor and control the ongoing project all the time. The project manager should always compare actual budget over planes budget and discuss regularly progress of the project with team members. But in Regency Plaza project, there was no good relationship between Hodgkin and Kelly. They didn’t discuss about the progress regularly. Because of that they couldn’t identify the future problems. Though she did not consider the above issues, she has retained 10% pay request to show some controlling over Kelly constructions. Leading This is important to guide the team to complete the project in efficient effective manner. The team member should be encouraged and inspired to get the maximum performance. But,  Hodgkins couldn’t get the maximum use of his team, though she had a well-qualified team. She didn’t lead her team well in there was no togetherness. Therefore conflicts have being occurred. In the case Susan  Randolph, the interior designer of the Regency didn’t agree with Hodgkins and Grogan because she felt they were both focused on speed and efficiency rather than quality. There was a conflict betweenSinclaire and Hodgkins because Hodgkins asked to cut down on tom’s billable hours. As a project manager Hodgkins should her attention more to reduce conflicts. Communication Communication is the important factor in projectmanagement. Projectmanager should able to send right massage to right person effectively. If not there will be more conflicts among members and expected result will not be achieved. But, Hodgkins did not make any meeting; she just sent letters to the buyers informing packages of condominiums. Hodgkins asked Sinclaire to do changes with incomplete information. If she maintained a good relationship with buyers, she could prevent the issues and complaints of the buyers. Motivation Project manager should recognize individual’s specific skills and talents. The team members should be appreciated,recognized, encouraged and inspired to achieve the project goals. Members can be motivated by giving incentives and feedback of the performance. In this project Hodgkins shows poor motivation skills. Shecut downSinclair’s billable hours but it was not fair because forwarded designs to him were incomplete. Customer Awareness Every organization’s ultimate target is to attract more customers and to gain more profits. Therefore this project also should follow the same strategy. They tried provide individual customization but they did not consider needs and wants of the properly. As this was a big project they should have to take idea of the customers. But they fail to do so, because of that only 30 out of 96 pre-sold and that project was behind schedule and over budget. He should have done a market research to find out the interests and attitudes of the people. Kris Hodgkinshad to face many problems and conflicts as a project manager but he was unable to take right decisions at the right time. Those decisions directly affected to the final result of the project. Considering above explanations if KrisHodgkins took better decisions, project would achieve expected results. 3. Evaluate how well risk was managed in the Regency Plaza project. You should use the four stage Risk Management framework from the module in answering this question. Every project has a risk and you cannot eliminate it. Only thing you can do is reducing risk. Risk should be carefully managed to minimize the impact of it. Regency Plaza project’s main priority should be to manage the risk to achieve the success. Using four stages of risk management process, how well risk was managed in the Regency Plaza project is described. Risk identification First, risks that will directly relate to the project should be identified and the risks that will occur in the future should be foreseen. It can be related to the quality, cost, schedule and etc. In this project they did not have a good idea about the size, layout, and design of the floor plate. They might have considered more about the fool plan efficiency and room locations. Hodgkins did not care much about the buyer’s satisfaction. He did not initiate ant meeting to discuss about the customization and he sent only a letter. He thought it will reduce the changes after completion of condominiums by his marketing strategy. Risk Assessment There were many upcoming risks with condominium units. Design changes, increasing number of specialty items, increasing incomplete information and unusual details were some of the issues. It was very difficult to continue the project with these issues. So they could not follow the schedule. Risk response development After assessing risk project manager should develop a contingency plan covering all the areas to manage the risks. But she did not make any provision for the design changes and she did not have a better contingency  plan. She did not think that buyers would agree or not with the design. Thus she had to face many problems and constructions were halt. Because of all these issues the project was become behind the schedule and over budgeted. Risk response control Finally after developing a risk response, project manager has to monitor and control it. In this case, Hodgkins could not manage and response to the risks occurred during the project. She made the wrong assumptions which were caused for additional costs and time delays. 4. Given the situation that Kris Hodgkins finds herself with the Millers at the end of the case, evaluate all of the options available to her and recommend the course of action your group thinks she should take? Kris Hogkins has five options at this situation. Option one has an opportunity for Millar to make the change at a later date and no additional delays in project. But some changes such as sprinkler require closing the whole floor. Option two minimizes changes required and costs will be removed by putting unit ob hold. But Miller’s changes will incur more cost and that will reduce Millar’s interest on the condominium. There will be a risk to put unit on hold too. Option three, hiring a small general contractor has more disadvantages. It is very difficult to hire contactors for small works and labour cost will be increased. There will be conflicts between the contractors and difficult to manage. The risk will be more. But required changes can be done to satisfy both parties. Option four also not a good idea to work out. Because there are many disadvantages such as difficulty in getting bank loans without certificate of occupancy, Regency’s control over project will be reduced and the target customer pool will shri nk. Option five, Move Millers to a different unit on higher floor will buy some additional time. But there are no similar floor plates on higher floors. After evaluating all the options we can come to a conclusion that option 2 is more beneficial comparing to the other options to the project though there is a risk of selling the condominium, there is a chance of selling it, because of the time and cost spend on it by the Millers. Thus we recommend option 2 as the action that she should implement. Discussion and Conclusion After studying the given case study, they have come across many problems and also they have found better solutions for the said problems.In theDesign Process we have found some problems, we find Hodgkins idea a better suited for the process, because it brings more profit. We think Hodgkins marketing plan is effective because giving the freedom to the buyers to customize their own condo is a great marketing idea. The buyer can get exactly what they want rather than unwanted stuff. The current situation of the project is getting messy due small facts that are not taken in to account by the relevant people. We think that the man power should be increase to achieve the given dead line and as said in the case study only 30 units were pre sold. Also there are small conflicts between fellow partners so it’s a disadvantage to the firm, and some have lack of interest. However Hodgkins makes his target market by minimizing the prices. According to the case study the project manager Hodg kins is not a skilled person at her job, she fail in many areas which her decisions were effecting the final output. She was not best at her duties; even though she had a good team she did not take much use of their skills. Also she was unable to achieve her target and the expenses were high, could not achieve the deadlines. Hodgkins should have focus more on the communication skills; due to her miner mistakes her team mates had small conflicts which affect the project in a way. Overall the Hodgkins managing skills was poor during this project. We evaluated the risk assessment and responses and the project manager have not focus much on the risks, because of that the cost of building have been increase also she was unable to give what the buyers wants. Since she was not focus on the risk and once they occur she was unable to face them all. By examining the five options which are left to Hodgkins to make this project work the author thinks the option two will benefits all who are involve in the project. We would like to conclude by saying that improving Project manager’s skills and by focusin g on risks and using all the resources give the project would have been a success. If they can overcome the above problems they will be able to achieve their targets. If we were the project manager we used our skills to get the maximum output.  And also always try to get team members ideas & by using their skills performed tasks to gain best interest to the project. Try to perform all the tasks according to the plan within the budget in order to complete the project on or before the deadline. Then we establish proper communication process to communicate among all the members without occurring barriers & before starting the project made arrangements for assessing risks and establish contingency plans to overcome from them. By considering all the above factors we can recommend below facts. Project managers must aware of the potential issues that can be cause for delay a project & to reduce such kind of delays project managers must conduct audits during the usual intervals during the project. At the same time by showing sensitivity to human reactions audit should be conducted throughout the project. Without looking at the weak points and without bl aming to mistakes project managers must focus on the issues that should be resolved. All the above things can be possible when there’s a stable proper communication between all the parties those who involve in the project to complete it successfully.