Project Management Tools and Techniques

This assignment delves into the world of project management by exploring various tools and techniques used by practicing project managers. It emphasizes the importance of strategic planning, organizational alignment, and action plans for successful project execution. The assignment draws upon relevant academic literature to provide a comprehensive understanding of project management principles.

Running head: PROJECT PLANNING
Project Planning
Name of the student:
Name of the university:
Author note

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Table of Contents
Task 1...............................................................................................................................................3
Task 2...............................................................................................................................................5
1. Introduction..............................................................................................................................5
2. Required Activities...................................................................................................................6
3. Skills and competencies of the project manager......................................................................7
4. Project Management Process....................................................................................................9
4.1 Strategic planning................................................................................................................16
4.2 Organizational planning.......................................................................................................16
4.3 Other processes....................................................................................................................16
5. Concerns in project management...........................................................................................17
6. Budget Timeline.....................................................................................................................18
7. Project Life Cycle Stages.......................................................................................................19
8. Leadership..............................................................................................................................20

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9. Control Problems....................................................................................................................21
10. Conclusion..........................................................................................................................22
Reference.......................................................................................................................................23
Appendices....................................................................................................................................28

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Task 1
1. The type of project that is identified in task 2 is market driven project as it is producing a new product in response to the
market need (Bates et al. 2015). The reason behind selecting this project is that the company JKB Bloggins Ltd is expanding
its business with the use of new technology in UK. All the operational activities of the company deal with the supply in global
car manufacturing plants. This was suitable because the manufacturing projects are intended to deliver equipments or
machineries associated with vehicles or automobiles. The finished output might be built on the basis of the customer demand
and the project can get the internal funding from the company itself for the designing of a new product and increase in sale.
2. Scope management is the necessary work required for the delivery of the project (Burke 2013). As per task 2, project scope
management will involve the methods for increasing competitiveness in the market by ensuring new machinery and
technology. The tools that can be used for collecting requirements are facilitated workshops of group creativity techniques,
brainstorming and group decision making techniques and so on. Specifically the group decision making will be useful in this
aspect.
3. If a Gantt chart is used for critical path analysis then there is a chance that it could either make or break a project. Gantt charts
are able to schedule the activities and keep a record of the progress of the project as per the deadline. It can be considered as an
effective tool which reflects the starting and ending dates of the individual activities in the form of a horizontal bar graph
(Chipulu et al. 2013). But the most important thing is to make a list of all the activities and the time required for completing
those in the course of the project.

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4. There are certain factors which can determine that the project in task 2 was successful or not. The most important factor is
schedule which looks into the requirement of deadline or if the project is related to some other topic (Wearne 2014). The
schedule takes care of the fact that the project was completed on time or not. The scope factor considers what is required to get
the work done in the timeframe. It can involve a list of ideas but act as the captain in driving the project forward. Budget is the
most important factor for any kind of projects and it is important to take a not if the project had stuck to the budget at the end
or not (Cicmil et al. 2017). Team satisfaction often gets unnoticed in project management but it is extremely necessary.
Customer satisfaction and the quality of work are the other key factors which need to be on the positive side for making the
project successful.
5. For managing changes to control the project in task 2 the first thing that needs to be done is defining a change request and
getting information about the change. The change needs to be evaluated according to the planning process of the quantity of
work. Then it is appropriate to prepare a recommendation about the effectiveness of going forward with the change. This lets
the project sponsor take a decision about the incorporation of the specific change (Davis 2014).
6. For recognizing the success of the project in task 2 the project manager will use the technique of performance measurement
along with the method of project evaluation. These are the two important aspects of project schedule control which let the team
associated with the project to identify if a schedule is required for rectifying action (Bach 2014). Performance measurement
techniques include the process of performance reviews, trend analysis, earned value analysis and information distribution tools
and techniques. Performance reviews are the meetings conducted for tracking the project progress. Trend analysis helps in the

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scrutinizing of the project outcomes for long term projects (Fleming and Koppelman 2016). Earned value analysis takes into
consideration the scope, cost and schedule and the tools and techniques make the important information available to the project
stakeholders in a timely manner. Project evaluation process will recognize if the project was performed as per the plan and thus
help the project manager to maintain a brief and controlled schedule for the project. Thus it can be said that performance
improves with measurement which increases with the process of giving feedback (Marion, Richardson and Earnhardt 2014).
Task 2
1. Introduction
This report is based on the analysis of JKB Bloggins Ltd which is going to open a fully functional factory plant with new
technology machine and well-trained staffs. The scope of the project is to purchase and build a new manufacturing site in the north-
east coast of UK. There will be shifting and using new technology machinery in the UK site for the new production. This is a company
in the automotive industry which excels in the designing and manufacturing of industrial textiles. The companies where they supply
their products are the important suppliers to the different international car manufacturing plants. In 1980, this particular company has
started in the UK and has been successful since then. At present, the company is looking forward to increase their competition in the
market of global competitiveness (Flyvbjerg 2014). This particular project has a budget of 12 million pounds including the buying and
manufacturing of the site which will be directly located at the north- east coast of England because of the flexibility in all weather

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condition. Further, the report will look into the steps that will be taken by the newly appointed project manager for the supervision of
this particular project. The project objective is to successfully complete the tasks required for the company within the given period of
time.
2. Required Activities
To cope up with the global competition in the market, the company JKB Bloggins Ltd has decided to expand with the introduction
of new technology and machinery in the marketing site of UK (van den Ende and van Marrewijk 2014). The activities that need to be
introduced in the project are shifting of the new technologies and machinery from Asia which will need the training of the staff
members and the procurement of new machines in Asia. The members of the project team will also be appointed from the existing
staff of JKB Bloggins Ltd and some members will be recruited from outside. The new members must get training for at least a year in
Asia for gaining knowledge as well as experience so that they can provide strong support in the implementation of new technology
(Ghaffari, Sheikhahmadi and Safakish 2014). All these activities will be carried out under the supervision of a project manager within
a specific time in the allocated budget.
List of activities Done Partially
done
Not done Tools required Time limit

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Ongoing
reviews
Personal or
team meetings
2 months
Periodic
inspections
Data gathering 4 months
Milestone
evaluation
Availability of
important
information
6 months
Final project
audit
Analysis 1 year
Fig: Performance evaluation timeline
Source: As created by the author
3. Skills and competencies of the project manager
It is not enough for the project to be nicely oriented and sufficiently financed as it also requires the guidance of an experienced and
skilled manager for the effective success. In the automotive industry it is impossible to think of a manufacturing project without the

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presence of a project manager. But there is no specific definition of the project managers and his roles and responsibilities are not
listed definitely (Sears et al. 2015). He is accountable for administration of the project as well as managing the multi- million budgets.
For this particular project the newly appointed project manager will possess the skills of effective leadership and negotiation.
He needs to lead his team without being dominating and should use his negotiation skills for resolving conflicts these two qualities are
considered to be important assets for a manager along with his skill of scheduling which will be beneficial in delivering projects in a
better way (Golini, Kalchschmidt and Landoni 2015). Cutting the cost is not a quality that is possessed by everyone but a skilled
manager cannot do without it. As a project manager, he should deliver the projects by utilizing the finance in a witty manner even in
the time of crisis. With time and experience, the manager will be able to handle projects in a better way which calls for a minimum
risk management. His success is dependent on the fact that how well he can cope up with the risk. A project manager also needs to
manage the suppliers such as the international car manufacturing plants for this relevant case. Critical thinking and communication are
the two essential soft skills required for managing the suppliers and other external publics. Other skills of a project manager include
recovering a project, coaching, task management, quality management, meetings management writing of business case and a good
sense of humor (Haines 2016).
Along with the skills mentioned above the project manager has to come across certain competencies such as execution in the
form of scope development and management and the employment of strong organizational skills. Decision making is another major
competency while conducting scenario analysis. The project manager also finds proficiency in team management and as business

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acumen. Technical competence, critical thinking and leadership are the common abilities that are mandatory qualities of a project
manager (Harris 2015).
4. Project Management Process
The project management identifies the three basic processes which can serve to organize the upcoming activities of the company
JKB Bloggins Ltd. These three fundamental processes include planning, executing and controlling (Hazır 2015). The three processes
take place at all the levels of the organization in various forms and under various names. The technical requirement is fulfilled as there
are no issues related to performance of the staff, reliability and availability of resources required for the project. The designing,
infrastructure and transportation have been set as per the project details.
In the course of this project four threats have been identified which might impact the delivery of this project. The four risks
involved in this project are-
a) Ineffectiveness of training
b) Damage of the resources
c) Exceeding of budget
d) Problem in shifting of machinery

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Fig: Risk analysis matrix
Source: As created by the author

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Fig: Milestone report
Source: As created by the author

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Fig: Gantt chart
Source: As created by the author

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Fig: Critical path analysis
Source: As created by the author

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Fig: WBS structure
Source: As created by the author

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Figure- Network Diagram
Source- As created by the Author

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4.1 Strategic planning
For this particular project, the project manager might develop a strategic plan for 12 months for the project that will come out
in March 2018 (appendix 1). The strategic planning for the project will help in achieving the goal of successful delivery within a
specific time and keeping with the budget (Schwindt and Zimmermann 2015).
4.2 Organizational planning
A project manager will also develop an organizational plan which will be executed with the help of an annual staffing plan
(appendix 2). There is also a necessity of major corrective action plan to view management as an ongoing activity (appendix 3).
4.3 Other processes
Two other additional processes in the project management are initiating and closing (Kan et al. 2015). The former refers to the
setting of the total project direction and making clear objectives of the project and the latter refers to the acceptance of the project at
the end. Similarly, these two processes also occur at the various levels of project in various forms. The flowchart of the processes
involved in the project management is given below.

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Initiating Planning
Executing Controlling
Closing
Fig: the processes of project management
Source: As created by the author
5. Concerns in project management
There are five concerns in project management which can be taken into consideration while analyzing the case of JKB Bloggins
Ltd. The first issue is related to the product quality. The goal of the particular project is to meet the needs of the customers by adhering
to the terms and conditions of the product. But often it might be a difficult task to attain the high quality of product (Rezvani et al.
2016). Therefore the project manager must ensure a project quality plan while the team members must ask themselves certain

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questions such as the relevance of quality standards with the project or the responsibilities of the stakeholders for maintaining the
quality standards (Kerzner 2013). These questions need to be thought of which will put the quality plan into action to help the team in
providing a quality product. Risk assessment is another difficult part in project management which could interfere in the path of
progress. With the identification of the risk, probable and effective solution needs to be put forward so that the project can be
completed. Cost estimation, staffing and customer satisfaction are the other issues of concern for the success of project (Todorović et
al. 2015).
The stakeholders include the project members, the suppliers, vendors and the consumers related to the project. In the given
scenario of JKB Bloggins Ltd., the issue that might arise is the risk associated with the transfer of machinery and equipments. The
manager has to take care of the fact that the resources are shifted safely to the destination without any kind of loss or damage
(Kloppenborg, Tesch and Manolis 2014). There is also a probability that the customers might not be satisfied with the new
machineries which can result in the loss of market instead of winning over the competitive advantage. It will be a challenge for the
project manager to overcome these tough issues and assure a successful delivery of the project.
6. Budget Timeline
Category Amount
Real cost
- Procurement of raw materials 1 million pound

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- Procurement of new machinery 2 million pound
- Purchasing and building of
manufacturing site
2 million pound
- Training of team members 2 million pound
- Payment to vendors 1 million pound
- Payment to suppliers 1 million pound
Nominal cost
- Miscellaneous expenses 1 million pound
- Depreciation 1 million pound
- Payroll tax 1 million pound
Total 12 million pound
7. Project Life Cycle Stages
The stages in the project life cycle involve commencement of the project followed by its planning, execution, monitoring and
control and closure (Spector 2014). The first step in the life cycle evaluates the value and feasibility of the project. The role of the

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project manager is to use either of the two tools of business case document or feasibility study for the assessment. If the project is
approved then a proper planning is done for the guidance of the team as well as keeping within the time and budget. The most
commonly associated phase of project management is its execution which will lead to customer satisfaction (Lientz and Rea 2016).
The execution process is totally dependent on the planning process where the resources are allocated by the project managers by
making the team focused on the task assigned to them. For instance, in the given case scenario the team of project members needs to
focus on their activity of using the new technologies to deliver the products in four months (Schwalbe 2015). The monitoring and
control of the project will be constantly done by the members of the team so that they can keep a track of their progress. It must be
assured that the final delivery is according to the promise made which will enable closure of the project. The final steps include the
delivery of finished output to the customers; communicate the same to the stakeholders and releasing the resources for other projects
(Love et al. 2015). The project manager had to take into account a lot of factors for proper implementation of this major project worth
12 million pounds. To ensure the successful delivery of the project he had made an action plan to keep within the estimated budget
and complete the work in the specific time.
8. Leadership
The project manager who was appointed for the supervision of the project in JKB Bloggins Ltd portrayed the effective leadership
skills required for managing of the team. He had excellent communication skills which motivated the team members and they were
encouraged to complete their activities as per the guidance (Martinelli and Milosevic 2016). He was successful in clearly

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communicating the goals to the team members and was also open to the delivering and receiving constructive feedback from them. As
a project manager, he had the ability to see a bigger and better future along the project and thus convey the same vision to the team
members.
With the efficient articulation of the vision to the team members, the project manager becomes successful as a leader. He also
carried a positive attitude which could engage the team and drive them with enthusiasm for the completion of the project. The perk of
being a great team leader is that he could easily win the trust of his team members (Medina and Medina 2014). What can be better
than being a trust- worthy team leader who gets the appreciation of the team? The manager of the particular project was competent and
capable and thus his team was also confident about what they were doing. A calm, cool and composed manager makes the best team
leader as he can keeps his nerves under control at any situation and the appointed manager of the pertinent project was one of the
placid and poised leaders. He even possessed qualities of problem solving with critical thinking thus building an ideal team and a great
delegator (Mir and Pinnington 2014).
9. Control Problems
The project manager with all his effective skills and competencies was able to manage the problems associated with the lifecycle
of project. He had the impressive quality of identifying risks which led him take preventive measures beforehand by planning and
analyzing. There will be number of times in the course of project which will require planning for responding to risks (Mossalam and
Arafa 2016). Therefore it is an important part for the project manager to evaluate the urgency of risk which assess and determine the

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timing of action. The manager also had the ability to perform an analysis of the qualitative risk by using diagrammatic techniques. All
the projects come with various forms of risks and the particular project is no exception. A problem might evolve with the newly
recruited staff as they will be new to the company and are not thorough with the operational activities. The project manager has to play
a major role in managing such situation where the new recruits will work under the experienced ones so that there is no scope of
defects in the significant project (Nyborg 2014). Care should be taken while shifting the new technologies and machineries and the
team members have to have proper training before using those. A practice test can be taken in the beginning so that no problem arises
in the mid of the activities.
10. Conclusion
It can be concluded from this report that the industrial textile company JKB Bloggins Ltd will be able to deliver a success project
within the given time frame if all the norms are properly followed. The company has got an efficient team under the leadership of a
positive and genuine project manager who has all the qualities to make sure that the project is completed successfully. He has been
able to build an effective team of both internal and external members who are determined to reach the intended target. The specific
team working for the particular project is encouraged under the guidance of a true leader to give the company the taste of competitive
advantage in the global market of competition. With the use of new technologies and machineries, the manager needs to be cautious
of any upcoming risk that might hamper the project activities and think of precautionary measures beforehand to mitigate the loss.

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Burke, R., 2013. Project management: planning and control techniques. New Jersey, USA.
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Appendices
Appendix 1
Fig: Strategic Planning Process

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Appendix 2
Fig: Organizational Planning Process

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Appendix 3
Fig: Action plan