Project Management Systems And Procedures

Published Date: 02 Nov 2017

This academic report has been conducted in respect to the nature for new battery called long battery, as a project manager, is to identify what happens in among the shut down and the opening up again in the future. This will entail best practice, cost, resource and risk, these activities is to give library, gym and a small classes activities.

The author has been assigned by the group long battery as the project manager in charge of creating such sector. As the project would provide better deliverables that would meet the public opportunity.

This academic report is divide into 3 chapters – chapter one look into project management main beliefs, chapter two examine project association and people, and chapter three examine project processes and measures.

CHAPTER 1

1.0 Introduction and Background

According to Hedeman et al (2010), one frequently used definition of a project is: "A project is a time and cost constrained operation to realize a set of defined deliverables up to quality standard and requirements."

A project is a temporary endeavour involving a connected sequence of activities and a range of resources, which is designed to achieve a specific and unique outcome, which operates within time, cost and quality constraints and which is often use to introduce change (Lake, 1997).

Hedeman et al (2010), sees project management as planning, delegating, monitoring and controlling all aspects of a project and motivating all parties involved in achieving the projects objectives within the agreed targets pertaining to time, cost, quality, scope, benefits and risks.

Another author Haynes (2002) points out that project management focuses on a project. A project is an undertaking that has a beginning and an end, and is carried out to meet established goals within cost, schedule, and quality objectives. He further stated that – project management bring together and optimizes the resources necessary to successfully complete the project. These resources include the skill, talents, and cooperative efforts of a team of people; facilities, tools, and equipment; information, systems, techniques; and money.

1.1. Project management

Clearly, man-made projects are not new: monuments surviving from the earliest civilisations testify to the incredible achievements of our forebears and still evoke our wonder and admiration. Modern project, for all their technological sophistication, are not necessarily greater in scale than some of those early mammoth works. But economic pressures of the industrialised world, competition between rival companies, and greater regard for the value, well-being and hence the employment costs of working people have all contributed to the development of new project management ideas and techniques (Luecke, 2004) .

1.2 The project developing success

There are six control aspects/parameters that have to be managed by the Project Manager during every project, these being:

Time – This encompasses the end-to-end lifecycle of a project, including the handing over of the end result.

Cost – This pertains to the cost involved in creating the products, including the project management costs. The financial cost of this project in terms of its several activities, such as product will cost the college planning committee £250,000(breakdown).

Quality – Staying within budget and delivering on time is not enough. The end result also has to satisfy the set requirements and wishes and be suitable for the goal for which it is intended.

Scope – What is the end result? What is it exactly that is going to be delivered and what will not be? What work has to be done and what does not? All too often the people involved make assumptions and form images that are simply not correct, with all the negative consequences these entails.

Risks – Every project has a degree of uncertainty and therefore contains risks. In itself this is not a problem, as long as it is managed well. Managing the threats – as well as the opportunities that present themselves during the project – is thus an absolute must.

Benefits – Perhaps the most important questions in projects are ‘why are we doing this?’, ‘what are we trying to achieve by doing this?’, ‘what advantages can be gained from the end result?’ and ‘are the costs still in the right proportion to the anticipated benefits?’

1.3 project management systems and procedures

Fig 1.0 The four phases of a project (field work)

Defining and Organizing the Project/initiation phase – the author intends to achieve the goals of this project based on the principles of project management which are necessary in meeting the aims, such as adequate funding for the project from the sponsors, and putting the right personnel in place to achieve the aims. Thus, the author would put together as best as possible the right people and all required resources which are necessary to achieve the aims/goals of the project. Organizing the effort at this early stage, the author took into consideration the objective and makes a rough-cut determination of which people and what resources will be needed to get the job done.

Project initiation

The purpose of this project is to present a product called long battery. The author has been assigned as the project manager in charge of the product.

Planning the project – this is the second phase of the project management process. It is a necessary prelude to action. The author carries out the project planning process here by taking the objectives into consideration and works backward, in effect asking – what set of task must we complete? By deciding in what order and within what time frame must be used to complete the task, as well as assigning reasonable time for each task and subtask for completion.

Managing Project Execution – at this phase the author (project manager) would keep people motivated and focused on goals, mediating between the people above and the people below, making decisions, allocating scarce resources to their highest uses, reallocating resources to deal with emerging problems, and so forth. The project manager must also monitor and control adherence to the schedule, budget, and quality standards. And giving particular attention to the kind of issues that go hand-in-hand with team based work: interpersonal conflict, collaboration, and communication.

Closing the Project – closedown is the final stage of the project management. By definition, every project has an end point – the time at which objectives are achieved and deliverables are handed over to stakeholders. At this point the project manager (the author) must make sure – that the project must fold its tent and its members return to their regular assignments.

1.4 key elements involved in terminating projects

Key points for project managers

Project termination is not necessarily as easy and natural as expected when a project is started.

Termination is different from other phases of the project life-cycle, and calls for special skills and competences.

When a project lasts longer, cost more and/or the quality does not meet the set criteria, the project manager and senior executive (lectures involved in this context) should seriously consider ending the project and making the necessary termination decision.

Project termination is difficult and the decision to do so involves many hindrances. In spite of this, wise managers, both project managers and general managers, considers project termination as a serious option in project management.

In the case of a decision to terminate a project, it is necessary to start planning and organizing a specific Ending Project.

The Ending Project requires a well-structured planning process, in the same way as planning and execution of the initial project.

Post-project Review is an appraisal to determine whether the expected benefits, as documented in the Event Case, have been achieved or are being achieved. The Project Case should also have identified how the benefits should eventually be measured, so this document is a vital input to any review process. Such a review should be planned when the project is being closed, and conducted after reasonable ‘settling-in’ of a project’s outputs, so that they have the opportunity to reach optimum performance and demonstrate achievement of benefits through several events cycles, such as months and accounting periods. Therefore, there should be commitment to the time and effort to such a review, though any brief study to assess whether benefits claimed in a project justification or Event Case have been or are being realised ought to be welcomed. The review should answer the questions: ‘How well did the project meet our expectation in delivering the capability to achieve the claimed benefits?’ and ‘what, if any, significant problems have been experienced when using the project’s output?’ Wren (2003)

CHAPTER 2

2.1 Appropriate organisation structure

Organisational structure, roles and responsibilities

The role of the project management is usually undertaken by a project manager. It is the project manager’s responsibility to look after the nine key areas of project management – as shown below in Table 2.2, and ensure the project is completed on time, within budget and to the required standard of quality.

Table 2.0 Project management roles and responsibilities (Dalton et al, 2009)

The project team

The project team is responsible for undertaking project activities. To be successful the project team must

work as a team

have a good team spirit

be well co-ordinated and controlled

be motivated

have the right skill mix

have the right mix of personalities

be effectively managed through the stages in group development

be given clear objectives

have the appropriate resources

have clear roles and responsibilities defined to each team member

2.2.Control and co-ordinating a project

For preparing project control communications, the following tasks must be fulfilled by the project manager and project team members:

Project control – determining actual data, performing planned versus actual analyses, performing deviation analyses

Project direction – planning directive measures

Adaptation of the project plans – updating project plans

Development of the project control reports – developing project progress reports, project score cards, and deviation trend analyses

Figure 2.2 illustrates the project control process

Project direction

Developing project controlling reports

Project performance

Planning/adapting the project

Project control

Fig 2.2 Project control cycle (Cleland et al, 2006)

In contrast to periodically performed project control, project coordination is performed continuously. Project coordination is the on-going task of the project manager. Beside the supply of continuous information to members of the project organization and to representatives of relevant project environments, the objectives of project coordination are continuous project marketing, coordination of project resources, ensuring project progress, and ensuring the quality of work package. Project progress is ensured by the project manager controlling the progress of the individual work packages, coordinating the relationships between the work packages, and accepting the results of individual work packages (Cleland et al, 2006).

2.3 Assess project leadership requirements and qualities

A successful event is dependent upon the character, calibre and leadership of the chief executive of the event organisation, the chairperson of the interim event committee and/or the project team leader. Watt (1998: 28) stress that ‘it is impossible to overemphasize the crucial need for an effective, charismatic leader for any successful event’. The leader/s of the event organisation must possess several leadership qualities and must be:

motivating;

enthusiastic;

analytical;

well organised;

diplomatic;

democratic;

opportunistic;

inspirational; and

decisive

the chief executive officer and/or team leader (the author in this case) needs to be capable of choosing an appropriate leadership style commensurate with the situation, taking into account the ability and input of the rest of the team. Watt (1998: 29) suggests that ‘the key leader will also be able to provide vision, direction and an awareness of the external environment to ensure successes.

2.4 Plan and specify human resources and requirements

Project Human Resource Management involves activities and processes needed to manage and organize the project team.

Project Human Resources Management involves four processes.

Table 2.1 Project Human Resources Management processes & description (Stackpole, 2007)

CHAPTER 3

3.1 Project plans and establishing the organisation

According to Heldman et al (2009) in preparing project plans and establishing the organisation it is necessary to know the following inputs of the Develop Project Charter:

Project statement of work (SOW)

Business case

Contract

Enterprise environmental factors

Organizational process assets

Project Statement of Work The project statement of work (SOW) describes the product, service, or result the project was undertaken to complete. When the project is internal, either the project sponsor or the initiator of the project typically writes the document. When the project is external to the organisation, it is the buyer that typically writes the SOW. According to the PMBOK guide, a project SOW should contain or consider all the following elements:

Business need

Product scope description

Strategic plan

Business Case The purpose of a business case is to understand the business need for the project and determine whether the investment in the project is worthwhile.

Contract The contract input is applicable only when the organisation you are working for is performing a project for a customer external to the organisation. The contract is used as an input to this process because it typically documents the conditions under which the project will be executed, the time frame, and a description of the work.

Enterprise Environmental Factors Enterprise environmental factors refer to the factors outside the project that may have significant influence on the success of the project. According the PMBOK guide, the environmental factors, in relation to this process include but are not limited to:

Governmental or industry standards, which include elements such as regulatory standards and regulations, quality standards, product standards, and workmanship standards.

Organisational infrastructure, which refers to the organisation’s facilities and capital equipment

Marketplace conditions, referring to the supply-and-demand theory along with economic and financial factors

Organizational Process Assets Organizational process assets are the organization’s policies, guidelines, procedures, plans, approaches, or standards for conducting work, including project work, which should be implemented at the start of a project.

These assets include a wide range of elements that might affect several aspects of the project.

In relation to this process, organizational process assets refer to:

Process, policies, and procedures of the organization

Corporate knowledge base

CHART TABLE

Smart phone battery Product

Aim

Product presentation would include-

1. Producing some the battery as samples for presentation.

2. How the product works and good thing about the battery compare to other batteries.

3. To check how much it cost you to produce one and how it will cost you to produce 250,000.

4. Also how many day is going take you to produce 50,000 batteries.

5. Make them to feel the product.

6. To tell the investor how much you want them to invest in the product.

7. Wait for the question

Aim of this casework is to present a smart phone battery that is going to last 2 to 3 day before charging.(Longbattery)

Project plans and organisation

Develop a project plan – the support plan consists of an integrated plan of all the elements supporting the deliverable. The integrated support plan includes the following:

Producing some the battery as samples for the presentation.

How the product works and good thing about the battery compare to other batteries.

To check how much it cost you to produce one and how it will cost you to produce 250,000.

Also how many day is going take you to produce 50,000 batteries.

Make them to feel the product.

The product tag

To tell the investor how much you want them to invest in the product.

The percentage to offer the investors

Wait for the question

Establish the project organization

The customer-driven project management organization is formed during the definition step (Barkley, 2001).

(Refer appendix 1 for risk management and more on establishing the project organization

Prepare presentation

In presentation or selling technique, a presentation or sales pitch is a line of talk that attempts to persuade someone or something, with a planned sales presentation strategy of a product or service designed to initiate and close a sale of the product or service. A pitch is essentially designed to be either an introduction of a product or service to an audience who knows nothing about it or a descriptive expansion of a product or service that can be either formal or informal, and might be delivered in any number of ways. Oldroyd M. (2006),

carried out smart phone battery presentation called (longbattery)

First exhibit your produce/product this is a way of advertising your product or produce talk about your product in lengthy discussion and be able to change or alter this to be product or produce in order to suit other individual. After the discussion find your creative flow by showing and demonstrating how your product/produce works and remember to give a good but precise demonstration, make them feel the product/produce so they can experience it for themselves.

As we all know, that we are in a technology world today. Nowadays phone carries a lot of technology like laptop, facebook, games and TV which makes the smart phone battery not lasting long. People send money in electricity and time to charge their phone every minute, which has made some people to go back to the old phone because the battery last days before you can charge it. Today the author is presenting a product called (longbattery). Longbattery is a smart phone battery that last 3day before charging, it will save people from sending more money in electricity and save time of charging their phone every 20 to 30 minutes and saving them from carry charge every where they are going or looking for a place to charge their phone. The different between longbattery and today’s battery is that, today’s Smartphone battery disappointed a lot of people and also makes some people to lose their business. But with the product longbatery, people will not be disappointed, lost their job or businesses, it will save them not carry charge anywhere they are going and is cheaper to afford. Now the author will like the investor to feel the product, the author need to let them know that is of high quality materials and also environmentally friendly so this could suit whole different range of people and safety of this product/produce is paramount/quality. Finally to manufacture Longbattery is going to cost 250,000 for 50,000 product, each one will cost 5pounds for manufacturing and to be supply to the companies at the cost of 10pounds for one longbattery. Which give them total amount of 500,000 and profit of 250,000. The author wants the investors to invest 150,000 in the product for 50% of the investment. The author is waiting for questions.

3.2 Project scheduling estimating and cost control techniques

When you estimate the cost of change, you should consider not just the part of the project you are changing, but also other effects of this change. For example, making a change to the project schedule could affect project costs with either a cost increase or cost decrease, depending on how you are modifying the schedule. Likewise, making a change to the project cost may also affect the quality of the project or product. Take all of these costs into consideration when estimating the cost of any change (Lucky et al, 2006).

During the planning phase of the project, when the cost management plan was created, the author identified the methods that might be to identify cost changes in the project. And ways to have these changes approved, and also ways those that are in charge of having these changes approved was also identified.

According to Lucky et al (2006), it would be a harmonious idea to also identify during the planning phase the method you would use for estimating the cost of project changes. This should all be decided and documented during the project planning phase in your cost management plan.

3.3 Measuring project performance

The controlling life-cycle process involves monitoring the project outcomes to make certain that they are in keeping with the project plans and that project continues according to the plans throughout the life of the project. This includes managing and controlling change, measuring and inspecting the project performance for adherence to the project plans, taking action to get the project back on track when variances occur, and evaluating the variances of corrective actions (Heldman, 2003).

Performance-Reporting Tools

Several techniques are available that you can use to monitor project outcomes.

Corrective Actions involve a variety of options and depend on the project and problem you have encountered, for example, say you have performed some variance analysis on your project schedule. Prior to conducting the analysis, you determined that the control limit for schedule variances for this project is 10 days; you will have to take action to get the project performance back in line with the plan so that the variances are minimized or eliminated (Heldman, 2003).

Risk Monitoring another important part of the controlling process is monitoring the project for the occurrence of potential risk events. Schedule periodic reviews to check the risk identified in the risk plan and re-examine their impacts. Monitor the risk and their status to determine whether their impact you identified in the risk response plan are still realistic. It could be that some of the risk events now have reduced impacts while others have increased impacts (Heldman, 2003).

3.4 Project change control procedure

The purpose of the project change control procedure is to provide a mechanism to enable changes to be made to the scope of the project. The program management office and the executive steering committee analyse proposed changes and decisions are then cascaded down into the budgets and plans of the individual project. At a high level, the change control process consists of three sub-processes: 1) Identify, document, and evaluate project scope change requests, 2) Authorize or deny changes in project scope using a standardized change control procedure and manage the communication of approved changes, including inter-project impacts, and 3) Enable the VPMO to assess and manage inter-project changes. This procedure will also provide a record, that is – log, of previous time. Hence, the change control procedure is the process through which changes in the project are identified, introduced, evaluated and either adopted or rejected by the project and approved (Falkowski & Troutman, 2005).

Evaluation of the completed project

According to Saha (2007), the final phase of the project process is the evaluate phase. A "lesson learned" (post implementation review (PIR)) meeting will be held to evaluate the completed project, a set of user satisfaction interview/surveys will be performed, and any needed process improvements will be recorded.

Information captured will:

Includes best practices used in completing tasks in an effective and efficient manner, as well as suggestions on activities to be modified.

A final assessment of the project impacts on commission the completed project.

Capturing measurement of actual vs. projected performance.

An update based on the deployed project impact to the organising committee, technical, and information characteristics.

Conclusion and Recommendations

This academic report has provided the author with the basic knowledge of project management principles, methodologies, tools and techniques that may be used in any industry, the profession and the public sector, and also with an insight on organization and human resource factors. And an understanding of how project fits into company or other organizational environment has been gained.

If the understanding of a project and the role of a project manager gained in this report is properly applied in any project setting/context it will lead to – a good analysis and planning of activities needed to conduct a project, including how to set up a project, how to control and execute a project, and how to conduct project reviews – will be successfully conducted, which will lead to a successful project final outcome.