Project Managment

Project Management SID NO: 1031425/1

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Contents Page No

Table of contents 1

Purpose of Study 2

1.0 Introduction 3 - 4

2.0 Objectives 5

3.0 Safe Guard Controls 6 – 8

4.0 Interdependency Management Process 8 - 10

5.0 Scope Related Process 11 - 13

6.0 Time Related Process 14 - 17

7.0 Cost Related Process 18 - 19

8.0 Resource Related Process 19 - 20

9.0 Personnel Related Process 20 - 21

10.0 Communication 21-22

11.0 Risk Related Issues 22

12.0 Learning from the project 23

13.0 Opinion Forming 24

14.0 Project Planning 25

15.0 Progress Management 26

16.0 Budget Creation 27

17.0 Conclusion 28

Bibliography/Referencing 29

1


Purpose of the study

The purpose of the Project management Audit was to identify and provide practical

solutions and advice regarding the CCP project management issues. The

recommendations made in this report are tailored to provide guidance for the Cleveland

callback 2010 project as it progresses and to help a series of domestic house owners’

deal with the fires that took place during April 2010.

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1.0 Introduction

A project can be described as a temporary effort to create a unique product or service

which has a definite beginning and a definite end. Projects include some degree of

uniqueness and objectivity, while involving constraints or deliverables known as Scope,

Time and Cost referred as the triple constraint.

“A project is a temporary endeavor undertaken to create a unique product, service, or

result” (PMI, 2000).

Projects may have certain characteristics that may include:

Uniqueness of the project

Projects are of a temporary timeframe

Projects have a beginning and an end

Projects that are successful meet the satisfaction of the stakeholders.

Stakeholders are person(s) who invested interest and possess influence towards the

successful project.

Projects must be planned, involve some degree of decision making, monitored and

controlled. Projects therefore, should be managed.

Project Management involves the application of knowledge, practices, principles, tools

and techniques, to lead and control the scope, time, cost and risks of the project.

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An example of the Triple Constraint (Stiffler 2009)

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2.0 Objectives

Projects, as mentioned above, contains objectives, The Cleveland Callback Project

2010 stated that their objectives were as follows:

To identify the household within the United Kingdom that had been upgraded by

xxx limited.

Contact all upgraded household by letter giving explanation towards the control

unit.

Introducing a temporary call centre in response to the letter.

Organize visits from Fire Prevention Officers and replace faulty control units.

The Cleveland Callback Project (CCP) is not in accordance with planned projects in

respect that, the objectives does not include any responsibility and ownership defined.

The Introduction, to any sort of cost and time is not mentioned, resulting in

incompleteness of objectives and a disastrous start.

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3.0 Safeguards and Controls

Project Characteristics

In the Cleveland Callback Project (CCP), primarily established a Matrix structure which

is defined as a group of people with similar skills pooled together to apportioned work.

The Fire Prevention Authority (FPA) department was defined as the owner of the

project, whereby, the head of the FPA was nominated project director who dedicated

very little time on the project. The project was not clearly defined into processes, phases

or related tasks. The CCP had poor Project management resulting in longer time in

completion, absenteeism for contingency planning, high risk occurrence and weak

conflict resolutions. The project should have at least developed some degree of

management phases for instance, the 4-D Model Project Management Phases

(Maylor 3rd edition, p.28) which comprises of:

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Phase Key Issues Fundamental Questions

Define the project Project and organizational

Strategy, goal definition

What is to be done?

Why is it to be done?

Design the project Modeling and planning,

estimating,resource,analysis

and justification

How will it be done?

Who will be involved?

When can it start and

finish?

Deliver the project Control,leadership,decision-

making and problem solving

How should the project be

managed on a day-to-day

basis?

Develop the process Assessment of process,outcomes,changes for the future

How can the process be

continually improved?

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Quality in Project Management Processes

The CCP had no fundamental planning with respect to scope, time and cost which

resulted in poor quality project management. This illustrates that the project was not

being managed efficiently and effectively.

Strategic Processes

The CCP did not construct any sort of planning documents, the project director had not

accomplish any form of charter documents, baseline plan or work breakdown structure,

therefore the stakeholders in the project did not distinguish any status of the project until

the project was in devastation. Presently, a project manager was not in existence which

allowed lack of authority and responsibility for managing the project.

4.0 Interdependency Management Process

General

The Project is presently being managed by the head of the Fire Prevention Authority

known as the Project Director. The project director possesses little skills and knowledge

about project management. The stakeholders also ignored their responsibility which

greatly assisted to a damaging impact on the project

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Interaction Management

The interaction associated with the CCP was seldom and altered attendance was

present. The first meeting occurred approximately one month later than the start date

which was 4th May 2010, which was attended by the IT support manager, the result of

the first meeting led into an extension in the weekly working hours of the Information

consultants from a forty hour week into a sixty hour week. However, the project director

felt no need to panic and displayed lack of control to this extension; therefore the

second meeting was then held on the 6th August in which the director of information

management attended which led to another time extension. This point of the project, the

Stakeholders was getting more involved due to their unsatisfaction to the CCP. Risk

management teams and higher degree of project communication should have been

implemented with immediate effect.

Change Management

The CCP needed to implement change with immediate effect with regards to managing

the project. It was understood and expected without planning the project would be

scattered, continually being extended in time and cost rather than organized. Due to the

dissatisfaction of the stakeholders, after numerous changes in the go –live date and

additional unexpected cost incurred, the director of the Fire Prevention Authority hired a

project manager to conduct the project.

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The Project manager is responsible for planning, organizing, budgeting, directing, and

controlling the project with some background knowledge and standard for example The

Project Management Body of Knowledge(PMBOK), or Projects In Controlled

Environment(PRINCE2) to manage the project successfully. The project manager must

also meet the stakeholder’s expectations. The project manager requested the project

plan in the CCP from the project director which was not even created at this late stage

in the project. Therefore, the Project manager had to implement tools and techniques

such as Work breakdown structures and critical path analysis.

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5.0 Scope Related Process

General

The Cleveland Callback Project (CCP) scope was to upgrade all household with faulty

control units using an Information Technology approach to source and configure all data

relating to the persons affected with defective control units.

Scope Development and Control

The CCP had a general scope in what they wanted to be done but no formal processes

were established to ensure the project was operating successfully. The project director

did not even establish any contingency plans towards the CCP resulting in unexpected

changes and further complexity.

Project Scope Management allows processes required to ensure that the project

includes only work required for a successful project.

Activity Definition

The project director was not communicating on a regular basis with the persons

involved with the activities of the project. The persons recruited in the CCP were two

Information technology consultants, Jeremy and Taz, the call centre Supervisor Basil

and the Project Administrator, Sandy.

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The project manager asked for the project plan which was informally given in a raw data

format. The CCP should have had proper scope management which according to

PMBOK includes:

Scope Planning-plan and define the project scope

Scope Definition- Develop project scope

Create work breakdown structure- subdividing the project deliverables into

smaller, more managerial components.

Scope Verification- formal acceptance of completed project deliverables

Scope Control- control changes to the project scope.

Turner (1996) defines project scope management as,” ensuring that enough, but only

enough, work is undertaken to deliver the project’s purpose successfully.”

The project manager should therefore introduce a Scope management plan that will

develop the detailed project scope and work breakdown structure with the careful use of

factors and tools and techniques. The CCP had no charter, or plan, the project manager

would therefore have to introduce these inputs together with expert judgment and

standards to create the scope management plan.

When this is done the project manager would then be able to construct a work

breakdown structure so that clearer responsibility and accuracy would be defined

resulting in the scope baseline.

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Activity Control

In the CCP the activities carried out were not in any sort of planned document and have

not been reviewed and communicated with the neither the project director nor the

stakeholders.

Once the project manager establishes a work breakdown structure the activities should

be in accordance with the plan. The Project manager should generally communicate

and collect feedback in order to verify and update the project plan with the necessary

scope changes.

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6.0 Time Related Processes

General

Time is an important deliverable to consider when executing a project. The project has to take into account all activities, milestones, float, critical path and lead/lag time. It was mentioned that, “time was of the essence,” the Cleveland Callback Project (CCP) has acknowledged that there is Analogous estimating known as top-down estimating which means using the actual duration of a previous, similar activity as the basis for estimating the duration of a future activity. Senor personnel from the fire prevention authority who did not have any sort of Information Technology background knowledge assumed that three to four month period would be sufficient time to prepare before the go-live date, Tuesday 31 August 2010. The CCP does not have a clear timetable but an assumption of the time taken to complete specific activities.

Activity dependency planning

Activity is considered a work element that consumes time and resources.

When the project manager requested the project plan the two Information technology consultants did not have such proper planning process and gave the following information:

Requirement Analysis – 8 days Detailed design – 5 days Interface study – 15 days Data configuration – 30 days Prototyping-20 days Call centre reviews – 10days Implementation -8 days System testing -5days Call centre training – 5 days

The CCP did not construct any sort of network diagram to display the relationship of the activities mentioned above. The project manager should introduce some sort of network diagram to illustrate the starting and end point, predecessors, no loops or hangers, updated information and determine the critical path. The Precedence diagramming method, which uses nodes to represent activities and arrows to represent the dependencies, would be a suggestive diagram to construct.

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An example of precedence diagram method

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Estimation of duration

Activity resource estimating involved what persons equipment and material and what

quantities of each resource would be used and when each resource will be available to

perform project activities.

The responsibility of the activities should be identified from the work breakdown

structure, which as mentioned earlier was absent from the CCP. However, when the

project manager asked who worked on what activities the information was scribbled

down and handed over (the letters signify initials):

Status of activity

Requirement Analysis – J & T Done

Detailed design – T Done

Interface study – 50% of J, & 50% of T Done

Data configuration – J & S 40% Completed

Prototyping-T & B 50% Completed

Call centre reviews – J,T,B,S Not yet started

Implementation –T Not yet started

System testing –J,T,B,S Not yet started

Call centre training – J,B,S Not yet started

The estimation of duration of the CCP has not been formally linked to any sort of project

resource planning. Note also that due to “time was of the essence” quality practice was

lacking from the project. A fast tracking could have been used which carry out activities

in parallel. The working hours were extended as mentioned earlier as a technique to

reduce the time duration.

Schedule Development

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The format of the project schedule was poorly and informally done, not showing any key

events relating to milestones, critical activities, or lead time towards the project.

The project manager should introduce activity duration estimating, that take into

account, information on project scope and resources, and then developing durations for

input to schedules, also the project manager should construct this network diagram and

paying attention that there is a lead time of 8 days relating to Implementation.

Schedule Control

What if the CCP had originally developed planning procedures with work breakdown

structures and network diagrams? Then the stakeholders would have realized changes

and updates before unexpected time extensions and would have formally noted these

changes before implementation and prepare contingency or response plans. However,

the CCP did not proceed in that manner resulting in revised and unexpected changes.

The original go-live date was scheduled to be Tuesday 31 August then changed to

Monday 11 October and yet this date was still to be confirmed.

7.0 Cost related Processes

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General

Cost estimating is referred to determining the cost of human and material

resources needed to complete project activities. Cost budgeting is the allocation

of the cost estimates to individual project activities. There was no formal

documentation to manage cost in the Cleveland Callback Project (CCP).

Cost Estimation

In the CCP, the finance director considered a total project budget cost of 150,000

that was not formally documented and linked to any specific activities. This

shows an analogous approach which means the finance director acted as a form

of expert judgment to estimate the cost. Additionally the Budget did not take into

consideration any risk relating to cost.

Budgeting

What if a budget had been done in the CCP? Then specific cost would have

been allocated to specific activities and act as a managerial baseline also,

additional cost incurred to purchase higher quality desktop PCs would have been

noted earlier in the project, also cost incurred would have been controlled

throughout the project rather than relying on the financial statement expenditure

showing under cost estimation of the project. All team members would have

consulted and knew about the original budget cost.

Cost Control

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When notified from the financial statement that expenditure was already 142,450,

no one paid attention. The cost was not reviewed, managed or maintained in

respect to high cost risk of the project.

8.0 Resource Related Processes.

General

A resource plan has not been implemented; the IT support manager used a top

down approach to recruit the two IT consultants based upon a reputable contract

recruitment agency. However, one of the consultants had no prior fire service or

call centre experience which may arise in risk of the project.

Resource Planning

The CCP had encountered resourcing issues due to the lack of planning. The IT

support manager who had no system development experience required that the

consultants report to him rather than the project director, causing high risks to

occur.

9.0 Personnel Related Processes

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General

The CCP had established an Organizational structure (appendix 1) but does not

relate proper communication relationships between the project participants. The

organizational structure does not have a define authority, responsibility and job

description documented. The structure does not take into consideration the

project scope, size and local condition to the CCP.

Staff Allocation

There were no criteria prepared in concern with knowledge and experience to

recruit additional staff for instance the IT consultants as mentioned previously.

The IT support manager rather than the project director were involved in the

additional recruitment.

Team Development

A project team is members who usually belong to different groups, functions and

are assigned to activities relating to the same project. In the CCP the project

team that comprise of the stakeholders, project manager, the fire and rescue

personnel assisted full time or part time to the project along with the IT

consultants, a call centre supervisor and the project administrator.

The project does not consider the fire and rescue personnel in respect to salary

improvement cost.

What if the project director showed strong leadership skills, then motivating the

staff would have improved.

Turner (1996) included factors with motivation:

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Purpose- people believe in the importance of their work

Proactivity – people manage their own career development

Profit sharing – people share in the entrepreneurial culture

Progression – people value the opportunity to learn new things

Professional recognition – people want to be acknowledged for their

contribution.

10.0 Communication Related Processes

General

The CCP had not consisted of any communication plan; hence no project

progress reports were established or communicated.

Information Management

The CCP prepares information when the finance directors request it. The

information is not prepared on a timely interval. Similarly, collecting, classifying

and distributing information is not in any arranged and timely intervals. It was

noted that Taz and Jeremy worked in the same office and yet both were unaware

of certain issues. The responsibility was not given to anyone in particular to file,

update and retrieve any information, resulting in the misplacement of any

information. The project did not even have planned meeting agendas and again

was not communicated so the attendance of the meetings varied.

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Communication Control

The CCP was not monitored in the early and critical stages in the project,

however very late in the project as mentioned earlier a project director was hired

at a very late stage in the project. Communication strategies would have to now

be introduced and monitored to ensure effective communication.

11.0 Risk Related Processes

A project risk is “an uncertain event or condition that, if it occurs, has a positive or

negative effect on a project objective.” (PMBOK 2004)

There has been no probability or impact of risk assessment to determine the risk

value of the project.

The CCP involves numerous unknown risks which cannot be managed; the

organization must be committed to addressing risk management throughout the

project. Significant risk on the CCP would be unrealistic deadlines and resource

constraints. Due to lack of planning, poor allocation of time, cost, and resources

the CCP is exposed to project management risks.

Risk Control

The project plan does not consist of any contingency plan, as the risk occurs it is

being addressed and decisions are made upon the occurrence of the risk. The

project should have a risk management plan with proper approaches, tools and

data sources. Roles and responsibilities should be specifically assigned to

individuals.

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12.0 Learning from the project

At the project had not yet been closed but the organization did not have any

documented information stored, updated or retrieved from the CCP. As

mentioned the project was not completed but it is observed that the finance

director was unsatisfied mainly because the expenditure was not within the

budget and the project was not accounted for accurately.

13 .0 Opinion Forming

Seriously deficient

There were not any project management processes existing, for planning,

organizing, monitoring or controlling the CCP. The project scope does not match

the project objectives. There is excessive time delays and overspending. The

project team skills do not match the project requirements. The project does not

meet its objectives.

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14.0 Project Planning

Refer to Section B Gantt Chart on next page.

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15.0 Progress management

Refer to Section C Gantt chart part 1 on next page

Refer to section C Gantt chart part 2 on next page

Tactical options to meet the expected go live date 11 th October 2010:

Based on Task allocated, and duration of activities the finishes dated was not met on

11th October 2010 but rather on the 15th October 2010. This was due to insufficient

planning and lack of a work breakdown structure. In order to rectify this problem it is

necessary that the usage of the eight days lead time utilized. Lead time can be develop

when a task can start earlier then expected.

Considering that the finish date was 15th October 2010, the chances of meeting the

11thOctober 2010 was crucial therefore, five days was required to satisfy the objective

date. Referring to the Gantt chart, a lead of eight days was discovered. It is crucial that

management make use of five days from the eight leaving three days for risk

occurrence. Alternatively, A last resort solution could be Fast-tracking the CCP which

entails doing activities in parallel that would be done in sequence. However, as

mentioned earlier Fast-tracking should be used as a last resort resulting in rework and

increase risk. Another tactical option that may be used to bring the expected go-live

date to the 11th October 2010 is to practice stimulation which involves calculating

multiple project durations with different sets of activity assumption. The outcome of

what-if simulations can be used to assess the feasibility of the schedule under adverse

conditions, and in preparing contingency/response plans to overcome the impact of the

unexpected situation.

What if the CCP had engaged in proper time scheduling, then the objective time would

have been achieved. However, as a contingency plan the use of the lead time could be

a suggested option in meeting the go live date to 11th October, 2010.

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16.0 Budget creation

Refer to Section D Report on next page

Refer to Section E Report on next page

The cost of human and material resources needed to complete project activities is

known as cost estimating. Whereas, cost budgeting is allocating the cost estimates to

individual project activities. In the CCP the type of cost estimating used Analogous also

known as top down estimating which implies that the actual cost of a previous similar

project is used as a basis for estimating the cost of the current period. This type of

estimating us used in the early stages of the project normally at this time the detailed

information is limited.

An estimate was done (see Budgets reports) for the following reasons:

To evaluate a project’s cost and time before authorization

To provide a basis for project tracking

To establish a managerial baseline

To provide the project manager with a tool to assess planned versus actual

expectations.

To establish the resources required and the resulting schedule.

However, with estimating the CCP limitations were encountered:

Lack of information

Inexperienced estimators

Changes in project during implementation

Psychological factors

17.0 Conclusion

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The CCP should have initially chartered the project, giving an idea of

expectations that would enable management to meet the required objectives. If a

work breakdown structure was developed then the triple constraints, meaning

scope, time and cost would have been clarified and required updates to the

project would have been adjusted before certain risk had occurred. With proper

controls and regular monitoring the project would have been successfully

completed.

BibliographyAtkinson, R (1999). Project Management: Cost, time and quality: two best guesses and a phenomenon, it’s tome to accept other success criteria.

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Cohen, D. & Graham R. (2001). The Project Manager’s MBA, John Wiley & sons Inc.

Harvey Maylor (2005) Project Management 3rd edition; FT/Prentice Hall

Kerzner H, (1996). Project Management: A Systems approach to Planning, Scheduling and Controlling’ 9th Edition John Wiley and Sons Inc.

Lock D. (2007). Project Management, 9th ed., Gower, Aldershot

ISO 10006:1997(E) Quality Management – Guidelines to quality in Project Management

Websites Sources

Project Management

Website: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_management

Cited: 10th December 2010

All about Project Management

Website: http://managementhelp.org/plan_dec/project/project.htm

Cited 16th December 2010

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http://managementhelp.org/plan_dec/project/project.htm


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Project Managment