Mitigation of Risks and Enhancement of Project Management Plan

The project plan lacks mitigation strategies, making it vulnerable to external and internal threats. However, the plan has several strengths, including proper scheduling, stakeholder identification, and budgeting. To improve the plan, it is recommended that agile methodology be considered, which would enable effective communication with the project team and allow for adjustments to be made based on feedback.

Assignment 2: Critical Analysis of a Project Management Plan
(PMP)
Student Name:Gurpreet Kaur
Student ID: 704952
Course Name: Project Management Plan

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Executive Summary
The current report is the critical analysis of the project management plan developed for the
Hilton Hotel (Auckland). The project plan of the hotel is to implement automated mechanism
to operate the various electronic appliances within the hotel such as television, water geyser,
doors, windows, curtains, and others such electronic elements. The project plan had some
major missing aspects that have been recommended to be improved. Some of them are
introduction of agile methodology to aide in the communication, bringing into picture the risk
mitigation strategies so that the top management can make appropriate decisions about the
project. Overall, the project plan has considered significant sections that are appreciable. The
project procurement required more detail as it is important to understand whether the
procurement of resources as per the standard and within budget. Apart from that, the human
resource management plan requires detail on the bringing in the individuals for the project
along with their skills and area specialization.

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Table of Contents
Executive Summary...................................................................................................................1
1. Introduction............................................................................................................................3
2. Project Background................................................................................................................3
3. Audience and Structure of Project Management Plan...........................................................4
3.1 Intended audience to PM Plan..........................................................................................4
3.2 Alternatives for PM Plan..................................................................................................6
4. Project Management Plan......................................................................................................7
5. Conclusions..........................................................................................................................11
6. Recommendations................................................................................................................12
7. List of references..................................................................................................................14
8. Appendices...........................................................................................................................15
8.1 Appendix I: Project Management Plan..........................................................................15
8.2 Appendix II: Gantt chart................................................................................................16
8.3 Appendix III: Project Human Resource.........................................................................18
8.4 Appendix IV: Project Communications.........................................................................19
8.5 Appendix V: Project Risk..............................................................................................20

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1. Introduction
The paper examines the project management plan for the Hilton Hotels. The project
management plan for the hotel has been developed and is expected to be implemented in the
days to come. This paper will analyse the developed plan and the elements that were
considered along with the improvement areas. The analysis has been done in considering the
theories that have been developed in relation to the project management plan.
Hilton Hotels and Restaurants is a big chain of hotels started by Conrad Hotel in 1919. The
purpose of the project management plan developed for this hotel is to implement the system
that would be fully automated such as automated room lighting system, auto-temperature
adjustment, alarm system, automated television, and other things. The expectation is to install
a system that is fully integrated and can be managed through the smartphones of the
customers and also from the central control room of the individual hotels. The appendix I
shows the activities that were defined for this project along with the deadline for each of the
activities. The use of MS Project Software was facilitated to develop the plan and schedule
the activities.
The second chapter of this report gives brief introduction of the project considered for the
assessment. The third chapter discusses the audience and the structure of the project plan and
whether there exists any alternatives for the existing plan. The fourth chapter analyses the
contents of the project management plan such as scope, schedules, etc. The fifth and sixth
chapter concludes the paper and recommends appropriate elements for the plan respectively.

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2. Project Background
The project management plan has been developed for the Hilton Hotels chain. The
competition in the market is gradually increasing and it has become important for this hotel to
constantly upgrade to stay ahead of the competition (Holjevac, 2003). Therefore, the
organization has planned to upgrade the facilities within the hotels by considering the
technologically advanced equipment. The plan is to install fully automatic system within the
hotels that will take care of the Air Conditioners, television, doors, windows, heater, water
geyser, and booking system that considers customer’s preference prior to their arrival. The
integration of these elements will be done for the android and iOS based smartphones, and for
windows. These operating systems are prevalently used by the masses and can capture large
part of the customer base.
The project will be implemented in one of the hotels prior to beginning the phased
implementation to the other hotels around the world. The plan that has been developed is for
the one hotel initially. The investment in the project is from the hotel owner Conrad. There
are various aspects of plan considered for the effective implementation, namely, project
integration (to ensure effective integration of all aspects of the project), scope management
(to define the premise of the project), time management (to define time for each activity to
effective tracking), cost and quality management, human resource management,
communication management, risk and procurement management (Dick et al, 1996).
3. Audience and Structure of Project Management Plan
This chapter analyses the audience of the plan developed for the hotel chain and whether
there is any alternatives for this plan.

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3.1 Intended audience to PM Plan
The audience or the individuals for whom the project is to be developed are an integral part
of any project management plan (Snijders, Wuttke and Zandhuis, 2009). If the audience of
the plan is considered and not the actual implemented project, then it can be stated that the
target audience is wide. It includes hotel management, the individuals who are working on
the project (project manager and project team), and board of directors. The final users of the
project will be the employees and the customers of the hotels who will be actually using the
system on daily basis. The audience is expected to know whether the developed plan will be
successfully implemented within the defined budget and timeframe. The major concern can
be expected from the audience who is going to invest in the project, which is the board of
directors. Another important audience is the investor group whose money will be invested in
the development of this project (Cleland, 1986). The main concern would be to know that
whether the plan will bring any return as expected. Apart from that, they would like to know
whether the elements considered in the project are sufficient enough for the effective
implementation of the project.
The plan should provide the timeline within which the project will be completed (Snijders,
Wuttke and Zandhuis, 2009). This will ensure that the stakeholders prepare themselves
accordingly for the expected results from the new implementation. Another aspect is the
presence of the budget within the plan. The concerned audience would like to know the
amount that is to be invested in the project and whether they are willing to invest that much
amount. The budget and timeline is followed by the activities that are to be conducted in the
project. The upper management and the board of directors will be concerned with the macro
view of the project plan only such as things to be implemented (automated appliances
accessible through the smartphones and computers). On the other hand, the project team will
be concerned with the specific details of the activities along with who will be working on

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each activity and when. As visible from the Appendix I, all these information are present in
the table derived from the MS Project. Moreover, they would like to know about the tasks
that need to be completed in early phase of the project and the tasks that are to be completed
in the latter phases. The project plan (Appendix I) shows the predecessors depicting the same.
The plan should also contain the provision for the periodic reporting to the management,
board of directors, and the shareholders as they would be interested in the progress of the
project during its implementation phase (Snijders, Wuttke and Zandhuis, 2009). The presence
of this aspect in the project plan is important.As visible from the Gantt chart in the Appendix
II, the plan is based on waterfall methodology that allows little to no room for the audience to
give feedback to the project team. This concern does not seem to be resolving without
bringing in some basic structural changes in the project plan.
3.2 Alternatives for PM Plan
There are two concerns whose alternatives can be brought into picture here. Firstly, the
budget should have been in accordance to the bottom-up approach, instead of top-down
approach. Secondly, the activities should be developed as per the agile methodology instead
of the waterfall technique that has been used. This will better serve the need of the audience.
The agile methodology allows periodic feedback to and fro mechanism which is very helpful
and contrary to the waterfall method.
The project management plan that has been developed for the hotel is based on the waterfall
methodology. The waterfall methodology is a conventional form of project management plan
in which the project activities are conducted one after another (Royce, 1999). The activities in
such plan have no going back and the entire project moves forwards without looking
backward. As visible from the Gantt chart shown in the Appendix II, all the project activities
is being completed one after another and is similar to stair case model. There are several

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disadvantages in this model, particularly concerning the audience of the project. The first
challenge is that the project manager has to develop appropriate plan that requires no
deviation from the beginning to the end (which is practically very challenging). Moreover,
the audiences for the project will be mere spectators who will be receiving periodic report
with no provision for their feedback.
On the other hand, the consideration of agile methodology could have provided the audience
with the opportunity to provide feedback as and when required (Schwaber, 2004). The
feedback, then, could be used to implement necessary changes in the project activities. Agile
methodology are considered best for the project that has some chances of iteration of the
particular activities if the project does not implements as required. This can occur if the views
of the audience differ and changes regarding implementation at different stages. Moreover, as
stated earlier, the major concern is the provision for feedback. Therefore, the sprint format in
the agile methodology allows the audience to give periodic feedback on the reports presented
to them or the implementation activities they observe. Therefore, it can be stated from here
that the alternative can be utilizing the agile methodology.
4. Project Management Plan
This chapter is concerned with the critical analysis of the major aspects of the project
management plan that has been developed for the Hilton Hotel. The assessment focuses on
theoretical aspects of these aspects and identifies whether the steps considered for the plan
development is appropriate. There are numerous subsections under each of aspects mentioned
below, but only the important ones are covered and particularly those that were considered
for the project plan of Hilton Hotel.
4.1 Project Integration Management

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The project plan considered this aspect by including the project charter and overview of the
major project areas such as execution, plan, monitoring and control, change management, and
project closure (Snijders, Wuttke and Zandhuis, 2009). These are the major areas that are
important to be considered under the project integration management and the same is visible
from the project plan given in the Appendix I. The project charter is an important document
as it covers the objectives, responsibilities, goals, and the associated stakeholders of the
project. The project charter also helps project manager understand the level of authority
utilized by that person. The project integration was expected to be developed by PM with the
top management, who are the right individual to handle this responsibility.
4.2 Project Scope Management
The project scope refers to the activities that are to be completed by the end of the project
(Wysocki, 2004). There are two areas that are usually covered when developing scope for
software projects, namely, work to be done and the functional requirements. The project
scope management was developed by Project Manager with Analyst. Project scope is the
most important aspect of a plan as it helps to understand what exactly to be done in the
project and the activities that are to be undertaken to complete the project. Moreover, it helps
in verifying and controlling the project activities during the implementation process. This
project plan has included the major project scope element which can be stated as appreciable
step. Moreover, the project scope has been prepared in consultation with top management
after thorough analysis of its usability and need by Project Analyst.
4.3 Project Time Management
The project time management ensures that the project activities are scheduled appropriately.
The time management focuses on dividing the entire project duration of the project to each of
the activities in accordance to the resources allocated and importance of the activities. The

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project time management is necessary as no project is an unlimited on-going process, it must
halt somewhere (Callahan and Moretton, 2001). The areas that are covered in this are
defining and sequencing the project activities, estimating the activity resources and durations,
developing and controlling schedule (Snijders, Wuttke and Zandhuis, 2009). In the current
project plan, activities have been sequenced along with the duration and resources. This is
important to complete the project within given budget. It can be stated that the project time is
effectively managed.
4.4 Project Cost Management
The project cost management covers three major areas, namely, cost estimation, budget
determination, and cost control. The effective cost management ensures that the project is
completes within the expected budget defined by the management (Woodward, 1998). In this
project, two elements have been considered that is cost estimation (based on the past
experiences of the project manager and the budget available from the management), and the
budget determination (Snijders, Wuttke and Zandhuis, 2009). However, the current plan lacks
cost control mechanism to control the cost deviation. The project manager should have given
the responsibility to an individual to handle the cost for the project to meet budget
expectation of the management.
4.5 Project Quality Management
The project quality management ensures that the project activities conducted are of highest
quality or at least at the expected level of the associated stakeholders of the project
(Mikkelsen, 1990). There are three areas that are necessary to be considered in the project
quality management, namely, quality plan, quality assurance, and quality control (Snijders,
Wuttke and Zandhuis, 2009). The current project management plan covers quality control (as
one individual has been assigned who will assess and report the project quality periodically).

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However, there is no evidence of project assurance. The project quality management is the
most ignored element in the project activities that are of average length. This mostly leads to
the failure of the project result (in accordance to the stakeholder expectation).
4.6 Project Human Resource Management
The human resource management of the plan is a necessary aspect as the entire project
success and failure depends on the way people are managed within the project (Carden and
Egan, 2008). The human resource management covers four areas that are planning, acquiring,
developing, and managing project team (Snijders, Wuttke and Zandhuis, 2009).The current
plan has provision for developing the project team and allocation of the individuals show
effective management. However, there is no evidence of the methods that will be adopted to
acquire the project team which should have been there for more clarity for the audience. The
Appendix III shows the human resources assigned for the project.
4.7 Project Communications Management
The project communications management ensures that the communication among the project
stakeholders are effective and everyone stays on the same page throughout the project
(Loosemore and Muslmani, 1999). There are few important aspects of project communication
management, namely, stakeholder identification, communication planning, distributing
information, managing stakeholder expectation, and reporting the performance (Snijders,
Wuttke and Zandhuis, 2009). The current project lacks all the major areas except the
stakeholder identification and the channel to be used in distributing the information. These
two have been shown in the Appendix IV.
4.8 Project Risk Management

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The management of risk is important to ensure that the project completes without any hurdle
(B Chapman, 1990). The risk management is important for small and big project to ward off
any chance of failure. The few important areas are identifying and managing risk, analysing
the risk and preparing response plan, and then monitoring and controlling the risk (Snijders,
Wuttke and Zandhuis, 2009). The current project risk aspect been shown in the Appendix V.
The current risk plan covers the major risks but the mitigation of the risk is not efficient and it
needs thorough analysis.
4.9 Project Procurement Management
The project procurement management plan ensures that the project resources are effectively
procured and within the defined budget (Indelicato, 2015). The aspects concerned with the
procurement management are planning, conducting, administering, and closing the
procurements (Frame, 2008). The current project lacks detailed procurement planning that
should be there (Snijders, Wuttke and Zandhuis, 2009). The project manager believes the
resources can be procured when required which can be dangerous in case of cost fluctuation
or later delivery. These show that the procurement planning is necessary. The current plans
shows that an individual – procurement manager – has been assigned for the project, but
lacks further detail.
5. Conclusions
The project plan developed for the Hilton Hotel project has been developed appreciable well,
but there were various aspects that were either missing from the project, or were not
sufficiently written. Some of the major areas that were missing from the project plan were
detailed procurement management plan, appropriate identification of risk mitigation plan,
identifying the expectation of the stakeholder as per the project communication is concerned,
methods to acquire the individuals who will be working on the project, project quality

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assurance, efficient bottom-up approach budgeting (this was used despite the limited
experience of management in implementing such technological projects), and limited
involvement of senior management (evident from little to no assigned activities to the
individuals from the top management). One interesting aspect that should have been
improved (or transformed) was the use of waterfall method to conduct the project instead of
agile methodology (it could have facilitated better stakeholder communication and project
feedback management).
The aspects that had been covered by the project were in accordance with the theoretical
aspects (as discussed throughout). However, there were multiple instances where the
important areas were missing (as aforementioned). There are four important aspects that are
crucial for the success of the project, and they are project scheduling, budgeting, allocation of
human resources, and timely non-human resource procurement (Larson and Gray, 2011).
Apart from this, the areas are also an integral part of a successful project and must not be
missed at any cost.
The current analysis has helped identify some of the strengths and weaknesses of the project
plan developed for the hotel. The aspects that are missing from the project plan (as discussed
in the chapter four) can be considered as the weak points as the issues occurring on that front
might hamper the project progress. The major weakness is the lack of appropriate mitigation
plan for the risks that have been identified for this project (Kerzner, 2013). The lack of
mitigation is leaving the project vulnerable to external or internal threats, if they take place.
On the other side, there are several strengths of the project plan such as the proper
scheduling, stakeholder identification, and budgeting. These key areas can be stated as the
backbone of the project progress which has been covered.

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6. Recommendations
The current project plan has numerous loopholes that needed to be filled with the proper
consideration from the project manager and the associated parties. It has been recommended
that the current project plan should consider the use of agile methodology. The reason, as
stated earlier, will help the management in establishing effective communication with the
project team when the project activities are conducted. It will help the management in
observing the project progress and suggesting any improvements. Moreover, being an agile
based project, the project manager will be able to stir the direction of the particular project
activity to ensure the project completes in accordance to the feedback. The shortcomings
identified in the project plan are the missing areas that have not been addressed. Those
needed to be completed. Apart from that, the project constraints and assumptions are also
seemed to be missing which are an integral to a project management plan, which should be
included.

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7. List of references
B Chapman, C., 1990. A risk engineering approach to project risk management. International
Journal of Project Management, 8(1), pp.5-16.
Callahan, J. and Moretton, B., 2001. Reducing software product development
time. International Journal of Project Management, 19(1), pp.59-70.
Carden, L. and Egan, T., 2008. Human Resource Development and Project Management: Key
Connections. Human Resource Development Review, 7(3), pp.309-338.
Cleland, D.I., 1986. Project stakeholder management (pp. 275-301). John Wiley & Sons,
Inc..
Dick, W., Carey, L. and Carey, J.O., 1996.A guide to the project management body of
knowledge (PMBOK® Guide). Development, 2(2.1), pp.2-2.
Frame, J., 2008. Procurement systems: A cross-industry project management
perspective. Project Management Journal, 39(4), pp.114-114.
Holjevac, I.A., 2003. A vision of tourism and the hotel industry in the 21st
century. International Journal of Hospitality Management, 22(2), pp.129-134.
Indelicato, G., 2015. Procurement Project Management Success: Achieving a Higher Level of
Effectiveness. Project Management Journal, 46(4), pp.e3-e3.
Kerzner, H., 2013. Project management: a systems approach to planning, scheduling, and
controlling. John Wiley & Sons.
Larson, E.W. and Gray, C.F., 2011. Project management: The managerial process.

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Loosemore, M. and Muslmani, H., 1999. Construction project management in the Persian
Gulf: inter-cultural communication. International Journal of Project Management, 17(2),
pp.95-100.
Mikkelsen, H., 1990. Quality of project work and project management. International Journal
of Project Management, 8(3), pp.138-143.
References
Royce, W., 1999. Software project management.Pearson Education India.
Schwaber, K., 2004. Agile project management with Scrum.Microsoft press.
Snijders, P., Wuttke, T. and Zandhuis, A., 2009. PMBOK Guide. 1st ed. Zaltbommel: Van
Haren Pub.
Woodward, J., 1998. Effective project management through applied cost and schedule
control. International Journal of Project Management, 16(2), p.130.
Wysocki, R., 2004. Project management process improvement. 1st ed. Boston: Artech House.

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8. Appendices
8.1 Appendix I: Project Management Plan

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8.2 Appendix II: Gantt chart

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8.3 Appendix III: Project Human Resource

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8.4 Appendix IV: Project Communications
8.4.1 Status Report Format

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8.5 Appendix V: Project Risk

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