Projects have a natural termination point after their purpose has been fulfilled or the primary tasks or objectives have been accomplished. Upon completion, the project manager completes a detailed assessment of the project and issues a final report. The purpose is to complete an internal assessment of the finished project. The project was “rewards program.”
Looking back at the Cases and SLPs in the first three modules, explain the following:
· How would project success be measured?
· What methodology would be used? (Link to SMART Objectives in Case 1)
· Be sure to support your analysis with research. (1 page)
What feedback should be gathered from internal stakeholders? Create a plan to gather the assessment. Be sure to support your analysis with research. (1 page)
Effective academic and research writing requires a 3rd person voice. This SLP will be written in 3rd person. Do not use any quotations. Refer to yourself in third-person as “project manager” or write about what the “project team” will do, rather than saying “I” and “we.”
References:
SMART Objectives:
Writing SMART Objectives (5 pages with links)
https://www.cdc.gov/healthyyouth/evaluation/pdf/brief3b
Writing S.M.A.R.T. Goals (3 pages)
https://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/smart-goals.htm
How to Write Effective Project Objectives Every Time – Project Management Training (3:23)
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PROJECT PLANNING
WBS and Project Schedule
Work Breakdown Schedule
As shown in the figure below, the Work breakdown schedule (WBS) defines the project.
As shown, everything undertaken in the project is displayed in a single and easily understandable
chart. It breaks down the project’s most complex and crucial activities into small and manageable
segments. In the employee reward project, they will be five critical stages of the project, which
will enable the smooth running of the project, and in addition to that, there will be accountability
in each step (Zhu et al. 2020).
The project might look easy to execute but considering that the company will incur costs
and resources to undertake the project, it will be wise to make sure that every execution process
is brought to account to avoid mismanagement of funds. In summary, the below WBS describes
the deliverables needed for project completion, and this will enable the project team to be
focused and keen on what they need to achieve (Zhu et al. 2020).
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https://online.visualparadigm.com/w/vwxriyzo/diagrams/#diagram:workspace=vwxriyzo&proj=
0&id=1
Project Network Schedule
As shown in the schedule network diagram (SND) below, it further breaks down the
WBS structure by describing the project deliverables and, in addition, offers the timelines of the
project. This is simply giving a picture of the “What,” “When,” and “who” of the project and
shows the order of how the activities will be carried out and the logical relationships of the
activities (Tao & Dong, 2018).
In the below SND diagram, the critical path is the start to the project design and
recommendations stage to project team selection to project review and documentation and finally
completion, taking twelve days to ensure the project is complete. Identification of the critical
path is essential to the project team leaders as it will enable them to have an accurate estimate of
https://online.visualparadigm.com/w/vwxriyzo/diagrams/#diagram:workspace=vwxriyzo&proj=0&id=1
https://online.visualparadigm.com/w/vwxriyzo/diagrams/#diagram:workspace=vwxriyzo&proj=0&id=1
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the project’s total duration. It will help identify task dependencies, resource gathering and
determine the project risks.
Also, in the identification of critical tasks that have no slack and ensure on-time
completion, monitoring of the project progress and measuring of the schedule variance, enable
use of schedule compression methods and measuring of the schedule variance and most
importantly, it will allow for the prioritization of tasks and create realistic project schedules. The
critical path in the below sequence is created using the critical path method to allow the project
manager to create a project schedule and estimate the total project duration (Adeyemi, 2021).
Some of the crucial components of the critical path that are important to identify are the earliest
start time (ES), the latest start time (LS), the earliest completion time (EF), the latest completion
time (LF), and the float.
The below SND diagram will be used in the project to discuss the sequences and
dependencies and the communication from the company; it is also the basis of identification of
critical paths, for instance, the chain of events that have the most extended duration. Overall, the
project comprises five stages: project start, project planning, project approval and team selection,
project review and documentation, and project end and follow-up. This handy visualization tool
will help speed up the project’s activities (Tao & Dong, 2018).
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https://www.edrawmax.com/online/share.html?code=6e52042e739711eca5f10a54be41f961
https://www.edrawmax.com/online/share.html?code=6e52042e739711eca5f10a54be41f961
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References
Adeyemi, B. (2021). Determining effective permeability at reservoir scale: Numerical
simulations and critical path analysis (Doctoral dissertation).
Tao, S., & Dong, Z. S. (2018). Multi-mode resource-constrained project scheduling problem
with alternative project structures. Computers & Industrial Engineering, 125, 333-347.
Zhu, M., Wang, S., Zhang, L., & Zhang, Y. (2020). Research on mobile cloud service model
based on WBS. In MATEC Web of Conferences (Vol. 309, p. 02013). EDP Sciences.
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Trident University International
John Walker
Module 2 SLP
PRM301 Introduction to Project Management
Dr. Loretta Jenkins
1/21/202
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Reward Project Gantt Chart
Gantt Chart Rationale
To ensure on-time completion, the project’s large activities must be controlled to ensure
that the schedule is followed, and the deadlines are met. Failing to finish a task out of sequence,
the rest of the project will be affected, leading to late delivery and higher costs (Scully-Allison &
Isaacs, 2021). In this project, the Gantt chart is designed to convey the information on schedule
visually, and it outlines the tasks involved in the project in their order, which is shown against
the timescale. This gives an overall overview of the project, its associated tasks, and, most
importantly, when each task is supposed to be completed.
Some of the steps that were considered to enable the creation of a comprehensive
structure of the Gantt chart include Identification of essential tasks, with the help of a work
breakdown schedule, a list of all the essential tasks was established, and then each task was given
an estimate of the earliest start time and the approximate duration for completion. Another
important step involved identifying task relationships; this is to identify the tasks that are either
sequential or parallel and how dependent some tasks are on others. This gave the project a deeper
understanding of organizing the tasks and scheduling the activities on the chart.
The Gantt chart can help the project team prevent overload of resources by delegating the
task to different teams without overwhelming the team in the process; it also helps track the
project’s progress because, on completion of a certain task, the Gantt chart is updated. Also, the
project team is given more clarity and motivation as the project members can see the deadlines of
their tasks and finally, it provides accountability to the project (Scully-Allison & Isaacs, 2021).
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Critical Milestones
Some of the critical milestones in the project are the project review approval, which is a
high-priority task and a crucial decision that will determine the completion of the project. This is
because, in this stage, there will be consideration of the need for the project as per the presented
recommendations. The project involves monetary value, which the management has to decide
whether it is a logical step (Goldberg et al., 2021). Another project milestone is the approval of
the project plan; this is a crucial step because it involves selecting the team to conduct the
project. Hence, if the recommended selection is approved, it will ensure on-time completion of
the project.
Project start is another important milestone as the on-time start of the project will mean
that the deadlines will be met, but if the project fails to start on time, the schedule might be
overwhelmed to meet the deadlines. The deliverables are another milestone, and in this project,
the employee reward is the deliverable; if the deliverable is prepared to be delivered on time, the
project’s progress can be measured when the employee reward is delivered.
Critical Risk
It is crucial to analyze the project’s critical risk to help in minimizing the magnitude of
the risk. The idea is to establish a proactive approach rather than a reactive project management
approach, ensure that the project is completed within the stipulated time. This will also help
cover all the loopholes that the risk brings (Dong et al., 2018, July).
One critical risk that the project is likely to incur is cost risk. If there happens to be
mismanagement or shortage of project funds resulting from other constraints will be a threat to
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the completion of the project. When the project’s cost becomes higher than the budgeted funds,
the risk might interrupt other operations.
Contingency Plan
Some of the strategies designed in the project to help in risk mitigation are risk avoidance
strategy, this is by the project team outlining all the costs that are anticipated and also account for
any cost that could arise in the middle of the project so that the consequences of going over
budget might not be very fatal (Burton et al., 2021). Another strategy is risk control; the project
team will design control methods that will detect possible issues with the project’s budget. Some
of the strategies for risk control used include a management focus, the decision-making process
and finding loopholes in the project funding before any issue arises.
Transference of the cost risk is another strategy that will help the project mitigate the risk.
In this case, transference for cost will include holding the accountants and the finance team for
any issue arising concerning the budget. Transferring this risk will enable the management to
focus on the finance and accounts tea and, in turn, will enable the project team to focus on their
responsibilities. Another important strategy to help mitigate the project’s cost risk is the watch
and monitor risk; this involves watching for and noting any changes that can affect the impact of
the risk (Burton et al., 2021).
In this case, monitoring the risk will involve the budgeting team to evaluate and help
monitor the cost risk by creating a reporting routine and listing all the project expenditures. This
is an important strategy that will allow the project to continuously assess the budget and adjust
any cost plan effectively (Burton et al., 2021). Also, another strategy for mitigation of the cost
risk for the project is assuming and accepting the risk cost. This strategy can be used to identify
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the impact of the cost risk and develop plans to lower the risk of going past the set budget so that
all the members of the project are aware of the risk and the possible consequences.
References
Burton, K., Cuffee, N., Neclos, D., Olatunbosun, S., & Ajani, T. (2021). Contingency Planning:
Prioritizing Your Resources. In Advances in Software Engineering, Education, and e-
Learning (pp. 937-942). Springer, Cham.
Dong, J., Li, R., & Wang, D. (2018, July). System Dynamics-Based Project Cost Risk Accession
Control Modeling. In 2018 Eighth International Conference on Instrumentation &
Measurement, Computer, Communication and Control (IMCCC) (pp. 81-86). IEEE.
Goldberg, V., Winter, D., Nitschke, F., Rath, M., Held, S., Spitzmüller, L., … & Kohl, T. (2021).
The potential of raw material extraction from thermal brines–Successful milestones of the
BrineMine project. Oil gas, (01), 26.
Scully-Allison, C., & Isaacs, K. E. (2021). Design and Evaluation of Scalable Representations of
Communication in Gantt Charts for Large-scale Execution Traces. arXiv preprint
arXiv:2107.00065.
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PROJECT INITIATION/EXECUTION AND CONTROL
Principle 1: Understand the Problem
Understanding the problem means looking deep to see what the project seeks to achieve.
It is critical to analyze the outcome as it helps keep the problem and see the crucial requirements,
making it keen that every project is different and requires a different approach to solve each
input. Thus, the issue needs to be analyzed from different perspectives to diversify the outcomes
with the project team. The design will only be best if its structure is clear, and no uncertainty can
be applied.
Understanding the project can be applied when keeping the project intact, mainly in
dealing with war-torn societies and project management projects. The outcome becomes clear
when one understands that every project is unique, and planning and implementing
reconstruction in one area can differ from reconstruction in other regions. Thus, stakeholders on
each side need to focus on the constraints. The solution can be done by applying consultation and
coordination between stakeholders and other parties in project involvement. It means having
consistency in communication among post-war communities can help examine the various risk
management options (Earnest, 2019).
The solution input in the project and the execution process can work if the entire team
and the consumer have the same vision and image about the project to save time, empower and
give quality output in time, which is vital in developing sustainable project management. All the
other processes such as monitoring and control, procurement and coordination all rely on the
principle’s outcome in understanding the problem at hand which the consumer has and how it
needs to be solved.
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Principle 2: Focus Relentlessly
The project management output mainly relies on the input of all stakeholders and how
each of the project deliverables will be nailed in the best outcome. It means that prioritization in
the project will be given to reflect on the development of sustainable project management
outcomes and based on the vision and an understanding of why the project is being undertaken in
the first place. Good consideration of how focusing works relentlessly can be explained by
developing the scope, work breakdown structure, and other deliverables in the project
development. Good focus ensures that risks can be noticed early and developed to feature all the
potential changes within the set roadmap of the project development.
Focusing relentlessly can be applied to the project using diversified inputs to apply
different project management and theories such as process control and systems engineering
theory and engineering practices to ensure that project outcomes work at ease. A good example
that can be seen is the managing-by-project (MBP) methodology which shows how as project
outcomes develop, the project needs to transition with its impending change and business
requirements requiring reorganizing and restructuring of the outcomes. Thus, having a dedicated
input on all the factors makes it possible to have positive performance (Parnaby & Towill, 2009).
In conclusion, having a structured outcome of project management through focusing
relentlessly can help reach the final goal through sustainable actions, risk management, change in
scope, and organizational learning in project management in the case study to focus on a
cohesive approach over facing a solution that is not compatible with the proposed outcomes.
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Application of the principles
The application of the two principles can apply in the project at hand for the creation of a
reward system to feature the problem needs. The company is looking to develop a system that
can see potential input in consumers and offers the required reward system that will offer
inclusivity and deeds to be developed with the option of flexibility with the changes in the
organization. The two principles are set to offer a very diversified approach in the
implementation and execution of the project to feature all the said outcomes from the initial
phase to a conclusion.
In principle one, understanding the problem, the focus is normally attributed more to
knowing what the organization seeks to achieve, aligning the organization’s objectives with the
objectives of the team, and ensuring that all concepts are captured. Thus, the implementation
process works best when stakeholder interest and the project team all work together while
steering the project to reach the proposed outcomes. A good example is the development of
scope and work breakdown structure that set the project in line with other adjacent expectations
to see the project through the lanes with all the other interested parties (Earnest, 2019).
In principle two, which is about focusing relentlessly, it means that the project upon
being started and having understood why the company is opting to choose the project in the
reward system and the problem is solved, the focus will be set to see all objectives are realized
all together. As the project team start implementing the project, focusing helps make sure the
project is aligned with the hopes and changes happening within the organization and that
objectivity is highly attributed through the application of theories and changes that make all the
outcomes sustainable (Parnaby & Towill, 2009)
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References
Earnest, J. (2019). Managing projects in war-torn societies: A case study from Kosovo
principles, practices and challenges of “project management” in conflict zones. Journal of
Management History.
Parnaby, J., & Towill, D. R. (2009). Exploiting the concept of a manufacturing system part II:
Principles and origins of the managing‐by‐projects engineering change methodology. Journal of
