Project Management

Activity 1

Business Objectives And Identification of The Project That Will be Required to Carry Out The Relocation

Business objectives

As per the given case study, it has clearly demonstrated that with the relocation of the office, Managing Director of the consultancy organization has announced the current business objectives which include:

• To continue increase the income of business by 10% on per year basis
• To enhance profitability on partial basis by minimizing the physical costs related with accommodation
• To retain the business earning capacity
• To improve the quality of support services those provide by the organization to its business clients
• To get better the IT system for the company
• To bring the reduction in the human resource costs related with the move specially linked with redundancy, recruitment and training

Identification of the project that will be carried out during relocation of the office

By considering the above stated objectives of Consultancy Company, some projects have suggested in which one of them can be chosen at the time of relocation of the office. The list of few related projects is as follows:

• Enterprise Resource Planning
• Customer Relationship Management
• Systems, Applications, Products in data processing
• Business Information System
• Business Intelligence System
• Total Quality Management

Developing Sub-division of Project and Estimation of Resources Including Cost and Time

By considering the set objectives by Managing Director of Consultancy Company and proposed list of projects that can meet the requirement of the organization during the office relocation, suitable project is Enterprise Resource Planning. The reason of selection of one of the following plans is it will help in growing the business income by 10% on annual basis, enhance profitability, retain business earning capacity, improve quality of offer consultancy services, enhance the IT systems and bring the reduction in human resource costs (Kendrick, 2015). The entire ERP project for Consultancy Company can be sub-divide into various stages so that whole plan can be managed in an effective manner. Sun-division of this project is as follows:

On the other hand, to introduce the new system within the Consultancy Company during the relocation of office, some resources will be required. These will be human resource, time, cost, technologies etc. The time duration for completing the entire project will be about to 5 months and cost will be £122850. Along with this, some skilled staff members will be needed to develop the project for the cited organization. Further, different technologies and machines will use at the time of development of ERP system to meet the objectives of relocation of the office (Schwalbe, 2015).

Activity 2

Describing and evaluating a suitable methodology for chosen project

For evaluating ERP project for Consultancy Company with relocation of office, suitable method will be PRINCE 2 methodology. It contains the feature of quality management and control which helps in align the project objectives and review the project plan step by step. The application of this framework with the respect of proposed project will divide the plan into manageable and controllable sections for the project team (Devaux, 2015). With the use of this method, entire ERP project will divide into seven stages: Starting up a Project, Initiating a Project, Directing a project, Controlling a stage, Managing product delivery, Managing stage boundaries and Closing of a project. PRINCE 2 method will assists the project team of Consultancy Company to manage the expectation of Managing Director with ERP system. It will focus over major deliverables of the project and utilize the resources in an optimum way to complete the project within the given constraints (Turner, 2016). Along with this, the following framework will help the project team to how to manage and supervise the entire work. Therefore, application of PRINCE 2 methodology has suitable for ERP project and meet the set objectives of Consultancy Company related to relocation of office.

Assessing the feasibility of this project

The best way to determine whether the selected project is feasible or not, is to carrying out a feasibility study. In the case of Consultancy Company, organization has planned to relocate its office. With this aim, Managing Director of the company has set some objectives regarding this. By considering those ones, a list of proposed projects have suggested from which ERP project has selected (Hering, Carvalho and et.al., 2015). So to make sure whether the chosen plan would able to meet the expectations of cited organization or not, a feasibility study has conducted. On the basis of generated outcomes from this assessment, it has found that the selected ERP system has appropriate to attain the relocation of office objectives. This has demonstrated that a real demand related to chosen project has existed within the company. Along with this, feasibility study of proposed plan has given the opportunity to catalogue the existing resources and estimate the requirement of additional resources to complete the project (Lundin,, Arvidsson and et.al., 2015). Further, the generated outcome of feasibility study has helped in determine optimal timing for ERP project. In addition, it has allowed finding the skills and competencies needed in the project team members to complete the whole project.

Structure for the management and administration of the project

For ERP project, the suitable structure for the management and administration of the project is Project Organization Structure. The reason behind consider this structure is it has group together all team members on ERP project. Under this, project members have located collectively and work under the direct authority of the project manager for the duration of relocation of office project. Project manager has contained all authorities over guide and advice the project team members in order to attain the objectives through development of ERP system (Walker, 2015). In this context, the proposed structure for the management and administration of the project is as follows:

Roles and responsibilities of staff who will manage ERP project

ERP project has managed by several team members who will have some responsibilities towards the assign role. In this context, some roles and responsibilities of staff who will manage the project are as follows:

Team members	Number of staff	Roles and responsibilities
Project manager	1	Designing and applying appropriate project management standards, planning and monitoring the project, preparing and maintaining project expectations, applying change control activities etc.
IT engineer	2	Designing and programming system-level software, understand the clients requirements, developing configuration of software, ensure the security of systems etc.
Quality analyst	1	Improving the quality of the project, setting of quality standards, reduction in error in project, highlighting areas of quality issues in plan etc (Navarro-Ortega, Acuña and et.al., 2015).
Project board	4	Review change request, selection of project manager, arranging the resources etc.
Contract specialist	2	Looking vendors to arrange the additional sources, ensure terms and conditions of contracts and proper termination of contracts after completion of contracts.
Test engineer	2	Testing all aspects of the product, work with development team to identify and capture test cases, designing test plans etc.

Job Description and Person Specification For a Project Manager

Job description

Job Title: Project Manager Location: Banbury, Oxfordshire Country: UK Scope of position: The Project Manager should be accountable for planning, scheduling, managing and controlling of project at various stages. He should also have sound knowledge about change management methods of project plan and able to effectively keep control over the planned activities. Key Responsibilities: Project manager should prepare project plan, forecast the budgeting and timeframe in which project can be completed. He should be able to optimally utilize the existing resources to attain project objectives. Along with this, project manager should access and manage the risks associated with project and many more things.

Person specification

 

Job Title: Project Manager Qualification:  · Under graduation in Operational stream and Post graduation in Project Management from any recognized university. · Having maximum 5 years experience in project management field. Interpersonal Skills: · Decision making · Team building · Good communication · Leadership · Negotiation · Self Motivator · Positive attitude

Activity 3

Project Plan

 

Task Name	Duration	Start	Finish	Predecessors
ERP System development	154 days	Thu 1/12/17	Tue 8/15/17	Â
Initiation	9 days	Thu 1/12/17	Tue 1/24/17	Â
Reorganization of organization problem	2 days	Thu 1/12/17	Fri 1/13/17	Â
Project selection	4 days	Mon 1/16/17	Thu 1/19/17	3
Review current organization structure	3 days	Fri 1/20/17	Tue 1/24/17	4
Planning	27 days	Wed 1/25/17	Thu 3/2/17	Â
Define project objectives	4 days	Wed 1/25/17	Mon 1/30/17	5
Cost and time estimation	7 days	Tue 1/31/17	Wed 2/8/17	7
Prepare project plan	10 days	Tue 1/31/17	Mon 2/13/17	7
Risk management	4 days	Tue 2/14/17	Fri 2/17/17	8,9
Resources allocation	9 days	Mon 2/20/17	Thu 3/2/17	10
Implementation	82 days	Fri 3/3/17	Mon 6/26/17	Â
Development of modules	53 days	Fri 3/3/17	Tue 5/16/17	11
Testing	21 days	Wed 5/17/17	Wed 6/14/17	13
Integration of modules	8 days	Thu 6/15/17	Mon 6/26/17	14
Monitoring and review	20 days	Tue 6/27/17	Mon 7/24/17	Â
Project review	4 days	Tue 6/27/17	Fri 6/30/17	15
Making correction	9 days	Mon 7/3/17	Thu 7/13/17	17
Quality checking	7 days	Fri 7/14/17	Mon 7/24/17	18
Project Closer	16 days	Tue 7/25/17	Tue 8/15/17	Â
Documentation of project	9 days	Tue 7/25/17	Fri 8/4/17	19
Resource releasing	4 days	Mon 8/7/17	Thu 8/10/17	21
Project sign off	3 days	Fri 8/11/17	Tue 8/15/17	22

 

Activity 4

Assessment of alternative project team structure

The proposed structure for ERP project, the selected structure was Project Organization Structure. But in the case of further changes in team structure, there will be a requirement of another structure which can be Functional structure.  

Designing of process for quality management of the project

At the time of development of ERP system for the relocation of office, there will be a need of process of quality management. In this context, design of procedure for managing quality of plan at every stage is as follows:

Finding objectives of company:

Here, objectives related to relocation of office of Consultancy Company have determined. On the basis of this, the needs and requirements of organization have determined.

Setting of critical success factors:

To make the quality of the project more effective to attain the set deliverables, it has important to define some critical factors on which actual quality of plan can be compared with expected ones. This has helped in evaluating the project quality on various criteria (Dutta and Bose, 2015).

Determining areas to manage quality:

Under this, project manager of ERP project has found those areas where quality management has become important. This has helped in reducing the issues related to the quality by taking the right action of mitigation.

Measuring outcomes:

By using the above stages, project manager has tried to measure the quality of ERP system and has tried to determined whether the developed plan as per the set quality criteria or not. Along with this, to measure the quality of plan, some other techniques of quality management such as Quality Audits, trails etc can be taken into the consideration (Pearlson, Saunders and Galletta, 2016).   

Process to manage project change request

In order to manage change request in ERP project by attaining the objectives during relocation of office, a systematic process has needed to be followed.  In this regards, process to manage project change request is as follows:

Finding scope of changes:

Here, project manager has tried to look towards the scope of changes in the existing plan. For this, an evaluation process has carried out to find out whether the new proposed modifications will be worth full or not (Ramazani and Jergeas, 2015).   

Determining the scope of integration of alterations: 

In this stage, the project manager of ERP project has determined the impact of new change requests on resources, budget, scheduling etc. On the basis of this, a Change Request Form has prepared that contain brief description of alteration in the project plan.

Rejection or approval of changes:

The prepared Change Request Form has sent to the project control board for the review. The board members have reviewed the modifications in the plan by analyzing their impacts on whole project. On the basis of assessment, they have either approved or reject the alternations (Brandenburg, 2016).

Communicating changes to team members:

After approval of changes in ERP Project plan, the project manager has communicated those alterations to the team members. Along with this, as per the new changes, the rest of the work has done by project team (Archibald and Archibald, 2016).

Activity 4

Issues and risks that may impede a project

In ERP project, it may be a possibility of occurrence of the issues and risks in the plan. These may have made the impact on plan. In this context, some possible risks in the proposed project are as follows:

Issues and risk likely to be encountered in the final stage of a project

There is a possibility of occurrence of issues in EPR project that may be encountered in the final stage of a project. The possible risks in the final stage of the plan are as follows:

Leaving of IT engineer:

It may be possible that due to left of IT engineer at the final stage of ERP project, it will become hard for the project manager to find the skilled person for the vacant position. The process of hiring the right one team member for the post within the less time will not possible for the project leader. So, it may create delay in project and affect the final deliverables if a new skilled IT engineer not hire by the project manager (vom Brocke and Lippe, 2015).

Lack of coordination between team members:

It may be possible that there is a lack of coordination between project team members regarding sharing of information, miscommunication etc that occur at the last stage of plan. This may affect the final deliverables of the project along with the set objectives.

Failure of technology and equipment:

There is a possibility in the final stage of ERP project that breakdown of equipment and technologies happen. Repairing of the existing one or arranging the new backup systems may be made some delay in completion of the project (Hazır, 2015).  

Designing of monitoring and appraising the status of a project

To monitor and appraise the status of ERP project, some methods have to be used by the project manager which is as follows:

Proper documentation:

Every single activity of development and implementation of ERP system has to be documented in a right manner. It has helped in comparing the actual performance with the expected criteria. This will shows how effectively the selected method has able to deliver the outcomes to the consultancy company (Hornstein, 2015).

Meetings: 

To monitor and appraise the status of ERP project, project manager can use meeting. With the help of this, it will become easy to gather the information about the existing status of work at every stage. This will allow to make sure whether the project working as per the planned activities or not.

Detecting and managing issues arising in the course of project

At the time of development of ERP project, project manager have faced some issues which could be affected the final outcomes of the plan. In this context, few strategies have made to mitigate them. List of detecting and managing issues arising in the course of project are as follows:

Issues	Possible reasons of occurrence of issues	Method to solve them
Over or under utilization of   resources	Unskilled team members to handle and use of resources, inaccurate estimation of resource requirements, less availability of resources etc (Sears, Sears and et.al., 2015).	Project manager has used different resources allocation strategies to the activities with the aim of effective use of resources. Â
Selection of wrong or unskilled team members	Improper job description and specification, not giving proper training and not explain roles and responsibilities to the staff members.	Project manager has prepared the accurate job description to hire the right and skilled staff and make them clear what responsibilities that they have to handle while working on ERP project (Schwalbe, 2015).
Occur change request at final stage	Ineffective change management system, less interest of project change control board, change request conflicts et	Project manager has followed the change request model to manage the changes at the last stage (Kendrick, 2015).

Activity 5

Assessment of the tasks needed to be completed in the final stages of a project

In ERP project, there is a need of assessment of the tasks required to be completed in the final stage of plan which are as follows:

• To ensure the scope project to determine whether the completed project within the scope or not.
• To compare the actual work with the planned activities to take decisions regarding success of the project (Devaux, 2015).
• To assess the performance of the team members to determine what they have learned from the project and what skills they have gained from performing the duties.
• To properly document the entire ERP project from starting to end with the aim of considered it as guidance in the future (Turner, 2016).

Conclusion

From the above research, it can be concluded that project management concept has used Consultancy Company to attain the objectives with the relocation of office. During this, some objectives have developed where ERP system has adopted for attain all decided objective. Project Organizational structure has used for the management and administration of the project. Along with this, quality management process has developed to ensure the quality of plan. Further, change process model has adoptd by the project manager with the aim of managing changes in the plan. The entire ERP project has completed within 5 months and under the cost of £122850.

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References

• Archibald, R.D. and Archibald, S., 2016. Leading and Managing Innovation: What Every Executive Team Must Know about Project, Program, and Portfolio Management (Vol. 22). CRC Press.
• Devaux, S.A., 2015. Total project control: a practitioner's guide to managing projects as investments. Total project control: a practitioner's guide to managing projects as investments.
• Dutta, D. and Bose, I., 2015. Managing a big data project: the case of ramco cements limited. International Journal of Production Economics. 165. pp.293-306.
• Hazır, Ö., 2015. A review of analytical models, approaches and decision support tools in project monitoring and control. International Journal of Project Management. 33(4). pp.808-815.
• Hering, D., Carvalho, L. and et.al., 2015. Managing aquatic ecosystems and water resources under multiple stress—An introduction to the MARS project. Science of the total environment. 503. pp.10-21.
• Hornstein, H.A., 2015. The integration of project management and organizational change management is now a necessity. International Journal of Project Management. 33(2). pp.291-298.
• Kendrick, T., 2015. Identifying and managing project risk: essential tools for failure-proofing your project. AMACOM Div American Mgmt Assn.
• Lundin, R.A., Arvidsson, N. and et.al., 2015. Managing and Working in Project Society. Cambridge University Press.
• Navarro-Ortega, A., Acuña, V. and et.al., 2015. Managing the effects of multiple stressors on aquatic ecosystems under water scarcity. The GLOBAQUA project. Science of the Total Environment. 503. pp.3-9.