Question:

Task

Part 1

Question 1

As the senior project manager in your organisation you have been asked to deliver training to junior staff on project management.  To assist in delivering the training you have decided to write talking points for your first training session, the introduction.  The areas to be covered in the first training session are:

• The definition of a project.
• The features of a project.

In an attempt to brighten up your delivery include examples from a project with which you are familiar.

Write your talking points covering the two areas mentioned above, including examples from your chosen project.

Question 2

You have delivered the first training session as described in Question 1 above and now need to plan your next session.  You have decided that the second session will be on planning and control as functions of project management. Again you have decided to write talking points for the session.  The areas to be covered in the second training session are:

• The relationship between planning and control within project management.
• The use of tools which assist the project manager with the planning and control of activities within a project.

Write your talking points covering the two areas mentioned above.  In your answer include examples from your chosen project and specify three tools that can be used by the project manager for planning and control.

Question 3

You have been employed by an organisation to head up a new project team for a major project that is due to commence. As the concept of project management is new to the organisation, senior management has asked you for an initial briefing setting out details on the stages that the project will pass through.

Write a brief report for your manager setting out the stages within a project and likely activities to be found in each stage.

Question 4

As senior project manager in your organisation, your general manager has asked you to appoint a new project manager from within the organisation’s existing staff to lead the project team for an upcoming project.  The general manager has suggested a person who has 10 years’ experience in the organisation and has shown strong capabilities in management of a production team.

State whether you would automatically accept the recommendation and give five reasons for your decision.

Part 2

The following information is required to answer both questions in Part 2.

The general manager of your organisation has asked you to manage a project which will see the construction of a loading dock in your local factory.  You have identified nine major activities for the project.  The cost and duration of each activity are shown in the following table.

Question 1

Develop and document a network diagram/critical path chart and determine the following:

1. The activities of the critical path.
2. Duration of the critical path.

Question 2

As part of the preliminary examination of the feasibility of the project your manager has requested that you advise the flow of costs associated with the project.

Using the costs set out in the above table construct a Gantt Chart showing the cash flow required to complete the project.

Checklist

I have:

Completed BOTH part one and part two of this assessment task

Included my name, student number, unit number, assessment number

Reviewed and spell checked my document

Saved a copy on my own computer.

Answer:

Part 1

Question 1

IT project management is the topic chosen as the organization. The organization mainly involve in the development of cloud computing, up gradation of network, virtualization rollouts, analysis of business, n= installation of business, management of data project and implementation of services IT which are related to IT. Project failure is the main focus point in IT. The IT project can have a negative impact if a project fails due to some problem which can arise during the implementation. The impact may range from changes from infrastructure, execution of project, no confident relationship among the network, software and hardware configuration and information, impact on the security as well as data management (Field and Keller, 1998). With the implementation of a new technology there can be risk for the organization. In IT projects the technology which is not used may likely to cause complications and can affect the success expected in the organization.

During a basic set up of a project the IT project management is basically made up of basic features that are required. Those include:

1. The project is set up with a customized dashboard system which can help in displaying the overall progress with respect to all corners of the project which can be represented in charts and table form.
2. The implementation of the new task with the project is planned and builds as well as the scheduling of any resource in the monitoring and planning in the project is done to check the progress.
3. In order to visualize the report and the framework, the status is regularly checked. The report should be send to the stakeholders and the team mates.
4. To allow the team members to work according to the time service available and creating a timesheet for maintain the time input, the IT project are time tracked
5. For the creation of the plans and then delegating the task to the respective team resources are regularly planned in the IT project.
6. The IT projects are created with respect to the task and the schedule and are performed in group. The dependencies are identified with the resource and the time.

In this company, the methodology based on the best practice of the guidelines of project management is mainly focused. The strategy is based on two beliefs. Firstly the strategic tools are designed in helping the management of the project (Garton and McCulloch, 2012). Thus the purpose of the strategic tool is mainly to assist the project team and the project manager with the project. Secondly the strategy is based on the guidelines of evolution set, example and templates related to the project.

Question 2

Successful planning is the key success that can be ensured to a project. The project mainly involves saving of money and other related problems which many of the people cannot realize about the project.

1. The meeting of the requirement of the stakeholders is very important in the project success. If the customers need are fulfilled it can directly help the business in increasing the profit. A stakeholder is directly or indirectly related to the project. The company’s team and stakeholders express their view point about the need of the company and the associated benefit of it (Hobbs, 2009). The discussion is recorded and set in with a separate priority. According to the planning and the approach to be used in order to achieve success can be determined by setting up goals and working towards the goal. The list below can be used to measure and set the goals of the organization.
2. To meet the need of the project the list of things is decided and these needs are delivered on time to achieve the goal.
3. The list of things is enlisted to carry out the delivery that is basically identified with the amount of effort required in order to carry out the task.
4. The final phase is the planning phase. The IT projects roles and responsibility is decided accordingly.

Monitoring of the It project is done in order to see the overall progress of the report, overcomes and outputs. Progress report can help in identifying the main goal and make necessary changes in order to achieve the goal in the predefined time. The main aim of the IT project should be the direct interaction with the customer and directly matching the expectation of the client. To predict the issue of risk and to take necessary actions for the assessment of the risk the IT projects are observed. The reports are mainly maintained on the view of monitoring in order to report to the correct people at the correct time. This can be done with the positive and negative impact positive impacts on the IT project along with the remedial action that can be appropriate (Index of 2013 Project Management Journal Papers and Authors, 2014). To initiate the control of delivery of the outcome that can be expected from the IT project can be related with the controlling of the project. Event form and time form can be the two types of IT project forms. The controlling is measured during the specific event of the project related to IT which can be a reason for issues in the assessment. The time driven form is mainly to initiate project aspect with the time bounding.

For ensuring the proper control and planning there are many IT project tools. The three most important tools used in the IT projects are specified below:

1. Gaining a better understanding of the capability of the IT project resource

Among the key factors for the success of the business resource capability of the IT project plays a vital role which will be delivered with proper service (Levin, 2013). This resource capability planning is done in the IT project which can help in analyzing the requirement of the service and the project that can be performed in time which will help in meeting the expectation of the customer, improving the productivity of the business and reducing the cost of the IT project.

1. Ensuring the right project that is selected and the priority given to it.

Project prioritization is very important in order of the benefit of the organization which focuses on the project of priority that is working with or against each other which helps in optimization of the order of the work.

1. Optimizing the usage of resources.

Feasibility in the planning of the It project is essential in the scheduling of the resource and setting the planning according to the expectation of the customer. The IT project commences after the scheduling is done, with the availability of the resources the aligning of the task is done (Marchewka, 2012). Resource scheduling helps in increasing the revenue level of the organization and also helps in providing the ability to avail the best resource based on the experience, the skills and the location to efficiently fulfill the request of the resource and helps in managing the resource conflict in the IT project

Question 3

The phases that are defined in the management of the IT project:

1. Project strategy definition

In this phase of project strategy definition the overall approach of the requirement with respect to the IT project is discussed along with the methodology involved in it to implement it.

1. Preparation of the IT project

The key requirement of the Project in order to start and establish the project is discussed between the stakeholders and the IT team. After this the recruitment is done of the project members with their responsibility.

1. Designing of the IT project.

The strategy of the project is relevant with the Stakeholders to give their own views with the design of the main outcome of the project that also helps in building the ownership for the outcome of the project (Mehta, 2007).

1. Development and testing of IT project

In the phase of development and testing the IT project team starts the development of the project with the components of the project and the building of the project.

1. Training of the IT project.

Training of the IT project phase mainly involves in preparing of the project by training the users, transferring of the data to the new system and putting the place ongoing support.

1. The support and benefits realization

With the support of the system the launching of the project is done and after the launching of the project according to the project criteria the members are allocated.

1. Control of IT project

For the effective utilization and managing of the project the control of the It project is necessary. This ensures that there are maximum benefits with the project and the risk are assessed which result in reduce of the project failure.

1. Communication between team members

The communication factor plays a vital role in any project. Effective communication can directly be helpful in fulfilling the desired goal of the organization. It’s the responsibility of the team members to discuss the phases of the project with the stakeholders which makes a considerable attention to the project (Patel, 2008).

1. Integration of the IT project

The consideration the project interface is done in this phase. This is done in order to see the functionality of the project’s impact on the areas of the management of the project.

Question 4

The manager plays a vital role in an organization in every aspect involved in an organization. The experience of a manager and the capability related to the manager is discussed in this section.

1. The capability of the manager depends mainly with the emotional intelligence with respect to the decision making capability, in order to organize the planning of the project in the team. It is necessary to pick up a event that is required for interaction with the team and the related stakeholders which can be done verbally or non verbally. This is done with the related process input that has to be given with the implementation of the project.
2. The environment of the It organization should be adaptive to communication. In this phase the ability of the person to articulate the ideas of the other team members into the single related project (Randolph, 2014). The ability of the person it related to the communication to everyone related to the IT project along with group or team who are working with the team to achieve effective techniques and communication which can benefit the team.
3. A manager must have good management skills which are needed in an IT project. The project manager has a role of serving the requirement and demand of the project which is essential for the initiation of the project. After the requirement and the demand are meeting the project is implemented. This helps in motivation of the team and recruits the roles of the individual team members to collaborate the actions and the performance among the IT team members.
4. The flexibility nature is the most important characteristics of the management head. This characteristic can help in changing the approach of the project as well as the influence of the decision made by the team members (Rodney Turner, 2004). This is the capability of the management’s willingness for the course of the action that is required according to the business needs.
5. The expectation of the customer should be a highly demandable quality of the team head. This is due to the fact that they are the main head holder of the project benefit and the project (Thomsett, 2002) .The discussion and the decision made by the team leader is implemented by the team and the team works accordingly. The management head is not responsible directly for the expectation of the customers. So it is needed to be understood that the customer need to ensure the projects meets the actual demand.

Part 2

Question 1

References

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