Week 3 Project
Assignment Due February 1 at 12:59 AM
Using your course textbook, read the article “The Project Management Career Path at AT&T.”
Based on your research and reading, answer the following questions:
Using your course textbook, read the article “Risk Analysis vs. Budget/Schedule Requirements in Australia.”
Based on your research and reading, answer the following questions:
This week, you will examine the hierarchy of planning. The overall vision, mission,
strategy, and strategic objectives of these organizations determine whether a
project should be selected or not. In this context, project planning begins. In
Week 3, you will discuss the traditional tools: project charter, project scope
statement, and the overall project plan. However, planning does not end here; it is
only the beginning. Week 3 lectures will introduce you to the following two
important tools: work breakdown structure (WBS) and the linear responsibility
chart. While they are very instrumental and useful, they are often misunderstood
by students new to project management. Finally, you will analyze the impact of
constraints on the project end date.
Project management is a different type of management. While contemporary
management imperatives make project management more popular every day, it
has long roots different from those of the largest corpus of management thought,
which is anchored in research and pure scholarship. Project management has
evolved by trial and error, almost purely outside academia. While all schools of
management accept the validity of planning to some degree, no other school
champions it as much as project management.
Your Learning Objectives for the Week:
• Analyze requirements and scope for a project
• Organize elements of a project into a comprehensive plan that includes
both resource and time budgets
• Assess critical paths and methods to manage them within a project
Project Plan and Planning
Project planning is an extension of a trail of planning efforts preceding the project itself. At the top of the hierarchy are the vision and mission of the overall organization,
followed by an articulation of the overall organizational strategy. You have learned the justi�cation for a project must be linked to, and supportive of the overall
organizational strategy, as well as a speci�c project. Therefore, the project should share a common purpose with several other projects. It can take a lot of planning and
coordination to make this happen.
The project vision is what the project is all about and why it matters. The vision and mission, objectives, or goals of a project tend to be speci�cally for that project. A good
starting point for developing a project vision is the sponsor’s reasons for undertaking the project. The project sponsor produces the project charter as part of this
process.
A project charter is an important, but often overlooked, document. The project charter is a document that:
Justi�es the project’s existence.
Authorizes distribution of organizational assets for its accomplishment.
Clearly delineates the project’s top level objectives.
It is important for you to begin the execution of a project with a credible plan available to all members of the project team. The success of the execution is dependent on
both the quality of the plan and the acceptance of the plan by the project team.
Planning has traditionally been thought of as a senior management imperative, but today it is widely accepted that collaborative efforts produce great plans too.
Collaborative planning provides a common and coherent understanding of what work needs to be done. It encourages each team member to make the necessary
commitment to the group to ensure success. Either way, planning is the most important responsibility of the project manager.
Additional Materials
View a Pdf Transcript of Project Planning Hierarchy (media/week3/SU_MGT3035_W3_L2_G1 ?_&d2lSessionVal=aVaTmfHd5UkmjmVnoP1XalSFd&ou=85477)
View a Pdf Transcript of Developing a Project Charter (media/week3/SU_MGT3035_W3_L2_G2 ?_&d2lSessionVal=aVaTmfHd5UkmjmVnoP1XalSFd&ou=85477)
View a Pdf Transcript of Elements of Project Plan (media/week3/SU_MGT3035_W3_L2_G3 ?_&d2lSessionVal=aVaTmfHd5UkmjmVnoP1XalSFd&ou=85477)
View a Pdf Transcript of Components of a Project Plan (media/week3/SU_MGT3035_W3_L2_G4 ?_&d2lSessionVal=aVaTmfHd5UkmjmVnoP1XalSFd&ou=85477)
https://myclasses.southuniversity.edu/content/enforced/85477-17099880/media/week3/SU_MGT3035_W3_L2_G1 ?_&d2lSessionVal=aVaTmfHd5UkmjmVnoP1XalSFd&ou=85477
https://myclasses.southuniversity.edu/content/enforced/85477-17099880/media/week3/SU_MGT3035_W3_L2_G2 ?_&d2lSessionVal=aVaTmfHd5UkmjmVnoP1XalSFd&ou=85477
https://myclasses.southuniversity.edu/content/enforced/85477-17099880/media/week3/SU_MGT3035_W3_L2_G3 ?_&d2lSessionVal=aVaTmfHd5UkmjmVnoP1XalSFd&ou=85477
https://myclasses.southuniversity.edu/content/enforced/85477-17099880/media/week3/SU_MGT3035_W3_L2_G4 ?_&d2lSessionVal=aVaTmfHd5UkmjmVnoP1XalSFd&ou=85477
Page 1 of 1
MGT3035 Fundamentals of Project Management
© 2013 South University
Developing a Project Charter
The project charter begins with a summary statement thoroughly describing the project
deliverables, summary target costs, and overall milestones.
The charter should also produce conceptual, but early and initial project scoping, which is an
early identification of the major deliverables presented in a type of format helpful for minimizing
changes to the project in the later phases.
The project charter should also clearly outline the priorities of a project—what is most important
and what is relatively less important. This helps in assessing trade-offs later on. Setting the
relative standing of even the top-most priorities is vital because conflicts almost always happen.
The first derivative of the project charter is the project scope statement. In this, the target
accomplishments of the project are recorded in their entirety. Thereby, the boundaries of the
project are established for contractual and other formal purposes. The modes in which the
deliverables of the project will be officially accepted by the customer are also stipulated.
The project plan is then developed. Negotiations with the sponsor or the stakeholders are often
needed and can consume much time. Negotiating is acceptable and serves as an example of one
of the positive dynamics of the planning process. Changes have to be documented with an
accompanying revision of the project baseline—this actually happens continuously throughout the
life of the project.
Page 1 of 1
MGT3035 Fundamentals of Project Management
© 2013 South University
Components of a Project Plan
The term “project plan” is not exact. It is the sum and substance of its constituent plans.
Scope Management Plan: This addresses the sum of the products as well as the services and
results provided by a project.
Schedule Management Plan: This addresses the planned dates for performing schedule
activities and the planned dates for meeting schedule milestones.
Cost Management Plan: This addresses the monetary value or price of project activities that
includes the monetary worth of the resources required to perform and complete the activity.
Quality Management Plan: This addresses the degree to which the project results meet project
requirements.
Staffing Management Plan: This addresses the process of identifying and documenting project
roles, responsibilities, and reporting relationships.
Communication Management Plan: This addresses the information needs for the project, how
they will be communicated, when and where each communication will be made, and who is
responsible for providing each type of communication.
Risk Management Plan: This addresses the uncertainty of events or conditions that have a
positive or negative impact on the project’s objectives.
Procurement Management Plan: This addresses the processes for developing procurement
documentation through contract closure.
Page 1 of 1
MGT3035 Fundamentals of Project Management
© 2013 South University
Project Planning Hierarchy
Project planning has several components.
Organizational Mission and Vision: Statements that describe in inspiring terms why the
organization exists, its purposes, and the overall goals for itself and its stakeholders.
Organizational Strategy: A plan for accomplishing an organization’s mission and realizing its
vision, stating major goals and objectives.
Project Vision and Mission: Statements that link organizational vision, mission, and strategy to
the supportive role of the project towards meeting overall objectives.
Project Charter: A document used by the project initiator or sponsor that formally authorizes the
existence of a project and provides the project manager with the authority to apply organizational
resources to project activities.
Project Scope Statement: The narrative description of the project scope includes major
deliverables, project objectives, project assumptions, project constraints, and statement of work.
It provides a documented basis for making future project decisions and for confirming or
developing a common understanding of project scope among the stakeholders.
Project Plan: A formal, approved document that defines how the project is executed, monitored,
and controlled. It may be a summary of or constituted of the fundamental plans.
Page 1 of 1
MGT3035 Fundamentals of Project Management
© 2013 South University
Elements of a Project Plan
A good project plan comprises several elements.
Project management methods to be used: Project management methods are any system
of practices, techniques, procedures, and rules followed by those who work in a discipline.
For example, A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK® Guide).
Tools and techniques to be employed: These tools and techniques comprise something
tangible, such as templates, used in performing an activity to produce a product or a result.
For example, WBS.
How work will be executed: This refers to policy level statements, such as adherence to
internal and government or industry standards of practice that guide project managers and
team members. For example, reference to quality standards of workmanship.
How changes will be evaluated and implemented: This refers to methods for controlling
the scope of the project. For example, the configuration control board (CCB).
How performance will be monitored and controlled: This refers to ensuring methods for
project goals are met continuously throughout the life cycle of the project. For example, the
critical path method (CPM).
How the project will be evaluated in periodic management reviews: This comprises the
measures and metrics that quantify how well a project is performing according to a standard.
For example, earned value management (EVM) and metrics.
Breakdown Structure
The work breakdown structure (WBS) is one of the most important and useful documents produced during the planning process. It is so often misunderstood that it is
important to �rst review its basic de�nition.
The WBS is deliverable-oriented hierarchical decomposition of the work to be executed by the project team to accomplish the project objectives and create the required
deliverables. It organizes and de�nes the total scope of the project. Each descending level represents an increasingly detailed de�nition of the project work. The WBS is
decomposed into work packages.
The WBS says nothing about the structure of the organization, whether it be the project organization or the organizational context in general.
The PMBOK® Guide de�nes organizational breakdown structure (OBS) as, “A hierarchically organized depiction of the project organization arranged so as to relate the
work packages to the performing organizational units.”
As you will recall, project planning begins with the project vision, and then planning �ows logically and carefully through the project charter, the scope statement, and the
project plan. The WBS is the next step in the planning logic and it only uses the earlier planning documents in its construction. It does not consider the existing
organizational structure. The organizational structure is derived from the WBS, if the project manager is lucky enough to have that much discretion and authority. This
would be true in some very pure project-based organizations.
When the organization is not project based and especially when the organization has a matrix structure, the project manager may �nd himself or herself at an impasse.
Diligently performing the planning sequence in the order described, the project manager may �nd the WBS looks nothing like the existing organizational matrix.
What happens when the project manager has a WBS that looks nothing like the existing organizational structure? The project manager produces a linear responsibility
chart.
What Meredith and Mantel (2009) describe as the linear responsibility chart in Project Management: A Managerial Approach is de�ned by the PMBOK® Guide as
responsibility assignment matrix (RAM). The PMBOK® Guide de�nes RAM as, “A structure that relates the project OBS to the WBS to help ensure that each component
of the project’s scope of work is assigned to a responsible person.”
Often, the linear responsibility chart or RAM is also referred to as the responsibility, accountability, consult, and inform (RACI) chart. You can compare the RACI chart in
the PMBOK® Guide with the linear responsibility chart presented in Project Management: A Managerial Approach.
Note the linear responsibility chart is part of project planning but it is still developed during the planning stage of the project’s life cycle. This means the tool has more
than one use. The RACI chart is a key tool and very important for you to understand. Seen from the perspective of a project’s human resource manager, the RACI chart
links the OBS and job descriptions, which are necessary for building teams. From the standpoint of planning the technicalities of the project, the RACI or RAM chart links
the WBS to the OBS.
While previously discussing WBS, you ended with an inference of some of the complexities created in project management by choosing the matrix type of project
management in an overall organization’s scheme. Because a WBS is done to graphically depict the project’s scope, with no necessary relationship to the existing
organizational structures, many disconnections may exist between the WBS and the OBS.
You can see a RAM, by any name, is far from overkill or micromanagement when it comes to project planning. In any project-based organization—especially a matrix
organization—it would be a mistake for separate project and functional managers to design for their people different plans in great disagreement with each other without
a method of coordinating human resources. The simple-looking RAM is a tool that can be used effectively to make sure such problems do not surface. Of course, it may
take some keen con�ict resolution skills to resolve the differences.
Additional Materials
View a Pdf Transcript of Understanding the WBS (media/week3/SU_MGT3035_W3_L3_G1 ?
_&d2lSessionVal=aVaTmfHd5UkmjmVnoP1XalSFd&ou=85477)
View a Pdf Transcript of Relationship between WBS and OBS (media/week3/SU_MGT3035_W3_L5_G1 ?
_&d2lSessionVal=aVaTmfHd5UkmjmVnoP1XalSFd&ou=85477)
https://myclasses.southuniversity.edu/content/enforced/85477-17099880/media/week3/SU_MGT3035_W3_L3_G1 ?_&d2lSessionVal=aVaTmfHd5UkmjmVnoP1XalSFd&ou=85477
https://myclasses.southuniversity.edu/content/enforced/85477-17099880/media/week3/SU_MGT3035_W3_L5_G1 ?_&d2lSessionVal=aVaTmfHd5UkmjmVnoP1XalSFd&ou=85477
Page 1 of 1
MGT3035 Fundamentals of Project Management
© 2013 South University
Understanding the WBS
A lot of WBS may look like organizational charts. This is because the WBS may be constructed
considering only the scope of the project as originally outlined in the project charter, fully
elaborated in the project scope statement, and as presented in the project plan.
Therefore, the WBS may come across as a graphical depiction of the previously determined
scope of the project.
The construction of the WBS may sometimes reveal inadequacies in how the scope has been
defined. In such cases, the other documents can be corrected or extended.
In essence, the WBS depicts the project scope in graphical form and the scope of the project is
fully described by the set of deliverables.
Page 1 of 1
MGT3035 Fundamentals of Project Management
© 2013 South University
Relationship between WBS and OBS
It is possible that the WBS and the OBS may have a logical disconnect.
For example, one of the main deliverables or top-level “boxes” in the WBS may not even closely
resemble one of the functional divisions in the standing organization. To accomplish this complex
deliverable, people from more than one organizational function may be involved.
In such a case, one person from one organizational function may be designated responsible (R)
and accountable (A) and another person from another function may be designated a consultant
(C) to a deliverable or informed (I) person. In fact, it would be rare for an entire function in a
matrixed organization to be totally dedicated to one project.
It is more likely that people in one organizational division would be involved in more than one
project. A single individual may be the R person for a WBS deliverable on one project and just an
I person on a deliverable for another project.
Project Management Constraints
Project delivery will contain constraints which have to be managed. They come under the following categories:
Time
Cost
Scope
Each project will have a due date to move it to the next task. These dates are constraints if they are not met because if a date is missed depending on the task, the project
end date could be in question.
For example if it takes four weeks to test a transmission and the customer is two weeks late sending it, this missed due date could extend the end date by two weeks.
The cost constraint refers to any budget that is tied to the project. Any time it takes to complete the project that goes past the original due date could increase the
budgeted amount.
The scope constraint refers to all the tasks that make up the completed project.
These constraints need careful attention to document each task in WBS. Many times the project requires services for which they have to revise their service level
agreements or hire staff to meet agreed upon time frames to provide a service.
For example if it takes three business days to put a new customer account into production, management of the project manager may ask the change management
department to perform the service for two day turnaround going forward or provide a new service level agreement.
Managing constraints can be a challenge but for the disciplined project manager it can be handled to ensure project success.
In Week 3, you reviewed the overall logic of planning and some important and unique planning tools. You learned that, driven by its unique challenges, project
management stresses the importance of thorough planning. Project planning is nested in the context of overall organizational planning, but the planning of a project is
meticulous. At this point in time, it is important for you to have a good understanding of the following important and unique project management planning tools:
Project charter: The instrument authored by the project sponsor authorizing the go-ahead of the project and the distribution of resources needed for it to begin.
Project scope statement: Derived from the project charter, the project scope statement articulates what will be accomplished by the project. It makes clear what
will be done as part of the project, and therefore, what will not.
Project plan: The sum and substance of the constituent plan, such as the scope management plan and the risk management plan. Overall, the constituent plans
describe, in as much detail as practical, the plan for the entire project, with the overarching information to bring it all together.
WBS: It is a graphical, deliverables-oriented depiction of the project scope. It is derived from the planning information and does not bear any necessary relation to
the preexisting organizational structure. If the project manager is lucky, the project manager will be in a situation where the project organization can subsequently
be developed to look much like the WBS; but, often, that is not the case. This is especially true in those organizations not project driven or matrix structured.
Linear responsibility chart: To bridge the gap between the WBS and the existing organizational realities, the linear responsibility chart, also called the RAM, is used
to make certain planning for human resources is smooth, not only within the individual project, but across all projects vying for the same talent.
