At the company I work for, the remediation project that I had originally been hired to work on was just cancelled a few days ago. Luckily I had already been assigned to another project, but regardless I understand how it can be frustrating to see so much time, money, and manpower poured into a project, only for it to ultimately be terminated. However, I do agree with many of the other posters that priorities must be determined within a business in order to maximize profits. The project that was cancelled involved a product that represented a very small portion of the company’s total revenue, yet it was becoming increasingly difficult and costly to manufacture and procure components for this product. Because of this, it makes sense that the company would rather invest resources into products that have a more certain potential for profit, rather than falling victim to the “sunk cost fallacy” just because resources had already been expended on this product. While the planning phase is an essential part of any project life cycle, it is impossible to foresee every issue that will occur during the course of a project. The project manager must be prepared to adapt to and solve these issues, but if these issues accumulate it may be in the company's best interest to prioritize other projects.
This is a rather nuanced situation. The easiest way to understand it, in my opinion, is to understand that cash is always king. Projects are always run by companies, and whilst they may start out as well-intentioned, once the company starts to make money then the push will always be to make more money. As much as it is really unpleasant to have to work in a group that is underfunded or understaffed unless the company sees it as valuable then there is no incentive for the company to put more money towards that project. If they see that deadlines are being hit with the current staff, even if it is a terrible work environment, then they have no incentive to put more money in. And if that group does not hit its deadline that gives them ammunition to justify further cutting back that group. As I said before the company only cares about profits, so resources will be allocated to wherever they can make the most profit. So should companies allocate more funds to a struggling project? In a perfect world, yes, but this world is far from that so the way they currently conduct business is not likely to change in any reasonable time frame.
Priorities are defined by timelines, as it gives an easy flow plan for the work that needs to be done for setting clear expectations for your clients or organization. It can be done by setting priorities to the project like important project which brings value to the business, whether it gives impact earlier today or years down the road and urgent project requires immediate attention to stay on track and help business keep going.
In order to maintain high and low level priority projects require a lot of fundings, being able to hire more employees to keep up with low priority projects would be quite difficult to fund. With more employees, it does not necessarily mean that low priority projects would run more efficiently, it just means that there is less funding going directly to the project. Most companies' R&D teams that have new projects, either had a small team or members that were shared across projects if more members were needed, which I believe to be the most effective as more funding can be focused directly with the project itself rather than hiring more people. If the research needed to conduct the project is sufficient enough to increase the scale of the project, then the company can likewise increase the team size if needed or provide more funding for the project directly. During my experience with Biotronik-MSEI, I was placed on the team for their upcoming BioMonitor Device to be released, howevere as an engineering intern, I was working across three different projects at the same time with different teams. Some may not find it more efficient, but I feel as this is most effective of allocating funds, rather than hiring someone new, have other faculty who are less involved in the study perform low level tasks such as data analysis while the main members conduct major portions of the project.
I think that hiring more employees would allow for all projects to be completed in the company. Yes the company would have to pay more workers however there would be more income coming into the company because more products will be made and sold. By hiring more employees this will allow for "high priority" projects such as knee replacement projects to have more employees on the team allowing the projects to be completed faster and better. Also by having more employees different projects can be formed and worked on thus allowing to have diversity in products which could attract more workers to the company. But there are many cons to this scenario. The cons are that the company could possibly have less profit due to the fact that they would have to pay more employees. The company may also lose income because low priority products may not sell as well as the high priority products.
I do agree that many of the lower priority projects go on hold or get cancelled because of the lack of resources as well as the lack of interest and benefit of the project. Resources can impact a project timeline and if there aren’t enough, there will be many delays. I do believe that more resources should go to the higher projects because those are the products that are going to help people in the long run, make more money and sell to doctors, hospitals and other clinics. The lower priority projects can be done with more resources but that does not mean that it will complete the project much faster. The lower priority projects could go on hold or cancelled because of new regulations, the difficulty of selling the product, or after much research, there’s either a risk of the product or other products can be used instead of a whole new project. There can also be a lack of interest from doctors or hospitals which means creating the product will become a loss to the company. These lower priority projects should be given some resources but put on hold for the higher priority projects.
The relationship between the amount of people in a department and the productivity of that department is nonlinear. Sometimes a department can be overfilled with people, making the amoeunt of time for clear communication onger than it needs to be, thus creating longer amounts of time to complete workflow. There are definitely more ways that having large department sizes can have a negative effect. Overall though, it is the project leader's role to determine how large a department should be and if that size needs to be amended after the project begins. If a project fails because of the size of the team working on it, the responsibility should not directly fall on the team.
From my personal experience, projects tend to fluctuate between high and low priority rather quickly. I currently work with a small team on a recall remediation project that is due for completion in two months, however this deadline is unrealistic for a team of our size. Since the deadline is quickly approaching, it is too late to hire new employees because there is not enough time to train and employ them. Top management is working strategically to allocate members of other teams to our project in hopes of expediting the remediation process. In order to pull this off, they are determining which projects can afford to pause until the recall remediation project is complete. I believe low priority projects should be paused or canceled in order to complete high priority projects. The whole reason for labeling projects as high, medium, and low priority is to designate which projects matter the most. Therefore, completing high priority projects on time and efficiently is typically more important than completing low priority projects.
In order to prevent from "low priority" projects from being stopped before finishing, the company should look at their budget, their current structure, and other parameters that would allow them to sustain projects before they even start these low priority projects. The main purposes of a company are to provide the best product while being efficient and bring in the most profit. Low priority projects are seen as a means to branch out if the company wants to dip into a different market (ex: making hearing aids when they're primarily focused orthopedic implants). If the low priority project is perceived to not make a viable profit, there is no point in completing it, which is not fair to those working on it, but that would be more on the company to be able to recognize the time and resources they are able to allot for the project.
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I agree with the sentiment stated here that low priority projects should be paused if it means the faster completion of a higher priority project. Company resources are finite and they can only expand on those resources (including workforce) if they have the opportunity to do so. However, if there is ever a situation where a high priority project deadline is approaching and the current resources are not enough to finish the project on time, then it is management's responsibility to coordinate and pause lower priority projects and transfer those resources to finish higher priority projects on time. It does not matter if a low priority project has high efficiency if high priority projects do not get completed on time.
Hiring more employees does not equate to the completion of a task on time because, as mentioned above, resources need to be spent to train the new employees. Temporarily transferring current employees to the higher priority project is a better solution as it would allow no time to be wasted on finishing the tasks on hand.
Where I am working, the team that I was working on had to stop their current tasks to work on a different project that demanded immediate attention in order to push it through before the deadline date. The deadlines for the project that got paused got extended by management as they accounted for the workload that got transferred to them from the other project. If this did not occur, the company would suffer serious losses.
A lot of time can be spent on the process of assigning priority to tasks and projects, but in these types of situations it is necessary because all projects are not equal in value of their importance to the company. Thus, it is important for all employees and people within a company to understand and know the priority of the tasks they are completing.
I think low priority project should be cancelled to give or accommodate more resources to the high priority project. Before decision on this are made, during the initial phase, the Project objectives should be carefully analyze to see if the outcome of the project will be worth putting all the needed resources.
Getting more employees on a low priority project should not be a determining factor as to how successful the project is going to be. You can have as much needed employees but if the project isn’t going to be achievable or meet the customer’s needs regardless of how much employees you put into that project then it’s a kill. Such project should be cancelled.
Dr. Simon said in his lecture, "Projects have a beginning and an end that are very well defined." During my experience at Stryker, I have seen projects put on hold due to lower priority, and projects being canceled. These projects were canceled due to low funding, or because management wanted to place these employees on a newer project. When looking at the greater picture, my team within foot&ankle was less
"important" compared to hips and knees. Due to this, there were not enough resources(employees) for my team to keep up with the strict deadlines given by management, and they were being overworked trying to keep the project running. I think if more employees were hired in this department, then the projects would be completed faster, and the company would be more successful. Do you agree? Do you think that low priority projects should be canceled to give more resources to other teams such as the knee replacement team? Or should the company hire more employees to keep all projects(high/low priority) running in order to be more successful in the long run?
First of all , I think the company should hire more people to do the jobs. and give the opportunities to more employees to multitasks. Companies should often time do surveys to orientate the company needs in the near future. I work in the operation room helping the doctors during the surgeries as a C-ARM technologist . Doctors will operate from ankles to hips replacements or fixations. all depends how busy the hospital is. They should not focus only on hip or knee but look at the overall patients needs.
I have some trouble directly answering the question because honestly the answer depends on the project. In some cases, projects could get completed with more resources but in other cases projects have too many resources and have reached a point of diminishing returns. There are also decisions in larger companies that must be made depending on the market changing on their products. While it would be great if every company always had a need for more employees such a system would most likely have some flaws as well in that employees would be put in position not within their specialty but still within their field. Also, some projects just lose their appeal to companies after delays or changes in the budget. As such, I have to say I disagree with your opinion that businesses should maintain projects as it would most likely not be within the company’s best interest.
Personally I don't think hiring more employees is always the answer in this kind of situation. If a small project has already had a good amount of time and effort put into it then there's no point in putting a halt on it as it's completion will only benefit the company. If there is a new project that requires a larger team to complete there's no reason why the resources of the company can not be shared in order to finish as much work as possible in a timely manner.
I agree with others who have stated that project priority is important to have. I understand it can be unfortunate for some employees who are overworked, as was stated in the original post, or other employees who may have put a lot of work into a project just for it to be deemed a lower priority and canceled. However, at the end of the day, the company must look out for its own best interests. Any companies focus will always be on making profit and advancing, and this requires certain projects to be ranked as a lower priority. Although I have never worked in industry, I have had a similar situation within a research lab I had worked in. I had been working on a novel project, and my professor requested that I stop my project to work on another project. In the moment, I was not a fan of this, but as I reached the end of my research experience, I realized that the higher priority project was more useful for the lab than the original project I had been working on. Unfortunately, I was never able to finish my first project. Therefore, I understand that it can be disappointing when a project is not considered a priority, but it must be done for the larger benefit of the organization or company.
