Project Management Timeline and Critical Path

The assignment presents a comprehensive project management plan spanning various stages. It includes a detailed timeline with specific start and end dates for each task, categorized into phases such as Project Selection, Planning, Implementation, Monitoring & Review, and Project Closure. The document also highlights the critical path, which encompasses essential tasks determining the overall project duration, lasting 154 days.

Project Management
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION................................................................................................................................3
ACTIVITY 1........................................................................................................................................3
Business objectives and identification of the project that will be required to carry out the
relocation.........................................................................................................................................3
Developing sub-division of project and estimation of resources including cost and time..............4
Activity 2..............................................................................................................................................5
Describing and evaluating a suitable methodology for chosen project...........................................5
Structure for the management and administration of the project.....................................................6
Job description and person specification for a Project Manager.....................................................7
ACTIVITY 3........................................................................................................................................8
Project plan......................................................................................................................................8
ACTIVITY 4........................................................................................................................................8
Assessment of alternative project team structure............................................................................8
Designing of process for quality management of the project..........................................................8
Process to manage project change request.......................................................................................9
ACTIVITY 5........................................................................................................................................9
Issues and risks that may impede a project......................................................................................9
Issues and risk likely to be encountered in the final stage of a project..........................................10
Designing of monitoring and appraising the status of a project....................................................10
Detecting and managing issues arising in the course of project....................................................11
ACTIVITY 6.......................................................................................................................................11
Assessment of the tasks needed to be completed in the final stages of a project..........................11
CONCLUSION..................................................................................................................................12
REFERENCES...................................................................................................................................13
APPENDIX........................................................................................................................................15
ACTIVITY 3......................................................................................................................................15
Project plan....................................................................................................................................15
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INTRODUCTION
For organizations, project management success depends on the capability to handle
expectations of customers along with improve the capability to maintain a standardize approach to
all projects (Wheatley, 2017). Time and other resources availability issues create a biggest challenge
in front of the success of the plan. To deal with these, in the present time, every company is using
project management technique. By analyzing the recent statistics, it has been determined that the
following approach has highly grown as a profession and the future, demand of it will increase
(Mar, 2012). The present study is based on project management and to understand it, a case study of
consultancy service organization is taking into the consideration. As per the given scenario, it has
found that company want to relocate its office to the area around Banbury, Oxfordshire with the aim
of reducing the costs. During relocation of office, some objectives have set by the Managing
Director.
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
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 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:
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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
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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
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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.
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Interpersonal Skills:
 Decision making
 Team building
 Good communication
 Leadership
 Negotiation
 Self Motivator
 Positive attitude
ACTIVITY 3
Project plan
Attached in Appendix
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
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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 5
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:
Risks Description
Scope risk It may be occurred in ERP project due to scope creep, software defects,
hardware failure, ineffective definition of project scope, unexpected changes in
legal and regulatory frameworks etc.
Schedule risk This may be raised in the proposed project because of extensive control of
external parties on project, less control over the scope, estimation mistakes,
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delay in hardware repairing, delay in taking decisions etc.
Resources risk The possible reasons of risk in ERP project may be unskilled team members to
handle and use of resources, inaccurate estimation of resource requirements,
less availability of resources etc (Rowe, 2015).
Executive
support
It may be possible that at the time of implementing ERP project, executive fail
to support plan, less engagement of top management, conflicts between higher
management and project team members etc.
Cost
management
Due to inaccurate cost forecasting and changes in exchange rate of currency
may create the issue in the proposed project for relocation of office.
Change
management
Lack of change management system, no engagement of project change control
board, change request conflicts etc may be the reasons of occurring of the risks
in ERP project.
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
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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.
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 6
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
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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
Books and Journals
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.
Pearlson, K.E., Saunders, C.S. and Galletta, D.F., 2016. Managing and Using Information Systems,
Binder Ready Version: A Strategic Approach. John Wiley & Sons.
Ramazani, J. and Jergeas, G., 2015. Project managers and the journey from good to great: The
benefits of investment in project management training and education. International Journal
of Project Management. 33(1). pp.41-52.
Reason, J., 2016. Managing the risks of organizational accidents. Routledge.
Rowe, S.F., 2015. Project management for small projects. Management Concepts Inc..
Schwalbe, K., 2015. Information technology project management. Cengage Learning.
Sears, S.K., Sears, G.A. and et.al., 2015. Construction project management. John Wiley & Sons.
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Turner, R., 2016. Gower handbook of project management. Routledge.
vom Brocke, J. and Lippe, S., 2015. Managing collaborative research projects: A synthesis of
project management literature and directives for future research. International Journal of
Project Management. 33(5). pp.1022-1039
Walker, A., 2015. Project management in construction. John Wiley & Sons.
Online
Brandenburg, L., 2016. How to Manage Change Requests. [Online]. Available through:
<http://www.bridging-the-gap.com/how-to-manage-change-requests/>. [Accessed on 12th
January 2017].
Mar, A., 2012. Why Project Management is Important. [Online]. Available through:
<http://management.simplicable.com/management/new/why-project-management-is-
important>. [Accessed on 12th January 2017].
Wheatley, M., 2017. THE IMPORTANCE OF PROJECT MANAGEMENT. [Online]. Available
through: <https://www.projectsmart.co.uk/the-importance-of-project-management.php>.
[Accessed on 12th January 2017].
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APPENDIX
ACTIVITY 3
Project plan
Task Name Duration Start Finish Predecessors
ERP System development 154 days Thu 1/12/17 Tue 8/15/17
Initiation 9 days Thu 1/12/17 Tue 1/24/17
Reorganization of organization problem 2 days Thu 1/12/17 Fri 1/13/17
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
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
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
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
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
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Critical path Critical Duration
3- 4-5-7-9-10-11-13-14-15-17-18-19-21-22-23 154 days
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