Project Planning and Control Techniques

The provided content is related to planning and control techniques in project management. The articles discuss the impact of project management information systems, risk management, and uncertainty on project success. Additionally, they explore various approaches to project management, such as traditional, agile, and extreme. Furthermore, the content touches upon the importance of benefits realisation plans, highlighting the need for effective planning and control techniques in order to achieve successful project outcomes.

Business Project and Project Management
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Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION................................................................................................................................3
TASK....................................................................................................................................................3
Defining scope of Strategic Business Transformation plan including outputs and purpose...........3
Outline list of projects that will require to deliver major deliverables of transformation program.4
Scheduling of project including a network diagram and bar charts................................................6
Cost estimation for the program including a breakdown by project................................................9
Benefits management plan...............................................................................................................9
Risk register and risk management plan for the plan including mitigating strategies for risks.....11
Stakeholder management and communication plan for the program............................................12
CONCLUSION..................................................................................................................................15
REFERENCES...................................................................................................................................17
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INTRODUCTION
Project management is playing vital role in today’s business organization because it helps in
assigning responsibilities to responsible people with the aim of saving of time, cost and attain
objectives in an effective manner. This method assists the companies to translate its current
strategies into actions and objectives into reality (Manu, 2007.). To remain in the competition and
attain high competitive advantages, it becomes essential for the firms to optimally use the existing
resources. This is only possible with the application of project management which gives
strengthening to business objectives and structure to transform various project ideas into reality
(Kerzner, 2013). The present study is based on project management where a case study of Remploy
is taking into the consideration. The following organization is one of firms of the UK which
provides specialist employment services to disable and health conditions people. After ending of
Second World War, the organizational structure of the company was proving to be ineffective. To
deal with this situation, the cited firm was requiring a significant modernization program. This was
helping Remploy to solve structure, culture, broad geographical spread and diversity problems.
Objective of the present study will defining the scope of program, major deliverables of plan, cost
and time estimation of project work, risk management plan and stakeholder management along with
communication plan.
TASK
Defining scope of Strategic Business Transformation plan including outputs and purpose
Scope of Strategic Business Transformation plan:
The current project will help Remploy company to make the fundamental changes in
business so that it can able to responds towards cope up with the rapid changes in the UK market. It
will recognize the requirement of modifications and designing the new organizational way of
working that can support structure, culture, diversity etc of the company.
Outputs of Strategic Business Transformation plan
 Streamline processes of Remploy Company by improving efficiency and greater utilization
of resources
 Resolve structure, culture, broad geographical spread and diversity problems.
 Helps in clearly understand the level of competition in the industry and enable the firm to
adopt best leading practices.
 Reduction in operating and administration cost by appointing disable people in main
streamline operations in factories (Mithun 2014).
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Purpose of Strategic Business Transformation plan
Market environment is unpredictable and it will very hard for Remploy Company
determines and select right one solution. The aim of the following plan is to find out the major
responsibilities to deal with new challenges that affect business performance. Along with this, it
enables the cited organization to effectively utilize the resources by supporting the needs and
requirements of the stakeholders (Burke, 2013). The chief rationale of Strategic Business
Transformation plan is deal with the challenging environment and gives the employment to huge
disable people into mainstream operations in factories across the world.
Outline list of projects that will require to deliver major deliverables of transformation program
As per the given case study, it has determined that Remploy has faced several issues such as
outdated operation process, poor structure, diversity, culture etc. To deal with all issue with
togetherness, there will be some projects proposed with important details which are as follows:
Strategic Business Transformation: Under the following framework, Remploy will able to develop
some strategy with the aim of developing an action plan in the form of strategies in order to solve
various identify issues. In this, an executable transformation portfolio will prepare in which
business strategies will transform into an action plan. This will consider several aspects of
operational management and other changes. A framework of Strategic Business Transformation for
Remploy is showing in below figure (Schwalbe, 2015).
Business restructuring: Restructuring is more likely to be successful when the management of the
organization can understand the major and root causes due to a company are facing challenges. This
helps the managers to restructure their work or task processes as per the needs and determine
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problems. In the case of Remploy, the following framework has proposed to resolve the issues in
the right manner. This will aid in fix all kinds of problems in a right way Along with this; it will
allow the cited company to deal with the stakeholders expectations. The following project will
contain less time and cost to complete and will not make any negative impact over the existing
business objectives of Remploy (Wysocki, 2011).
Change management plan: This is a project in which a project manager implements the new
changes in the organization by minimizing the resistance level of stakeholders. It gives detailed
description of the project’s scope, budget, schedule, and plans to manage quality, risk, issues, and
change. This helps in control the impacts of the changes over the project plan and implements the
proposed modification at the workplace. In the context of Remploy project, the following project
will help in solve the issues of the organization in an effective manner. It will keep control over the
factors which influence the project plan and its deliverables (Walker, 2015). In addition to this, this
will assist it managing the various changes within the organization due to new proposed
modifications.
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Scheduling of project including a network diagram and bar charts
Scheduling of project plan
Task Name Duration Start Finish Predecessors
Strategic Business Transformation plan 60 mons Thu 12/8/16 Wed 7/14/21
Initiation 8 mons Thu 12/8/16 Wed 7/19/17
Defining scope of the changes 5 mons Thu 12/8/16 Wed 4/26/17
Determine stakeholders 3 mons Thu 4/27/17 Wed 7/19/17 3
Find the issues 3 mons Thu 4/27/17 Wed 7/19/17 3
Planning 27 mons Thu 7/20/17 Wed 8/14/19
Setting of objectives 3 mons Thu 7/20/17 Wed 10/11/17 5
Developing project team 6 mons Thu 10/12/17 Wed 3/28/18 7
Resourcing and people management 5 mons Thu 3/29/18 Wed 8/15/18 8
selection of standard approach of project 2 mons Thu 8/16/18 Wed 10/10/18 9
Stakeholder analysis 4 mons Thu 10/11/18 Wed 1/30/19 4,10
Developing project plan 7 mons Thu 1/31/19 Wed 8/14/19 11
Implement 8 mons Thu 8/15/19 Wed 3/25/20
Risk assessment and management 3 mons Thu 8/15/19 Wed 11/6/19 12
Define benefits ownership 2 mons Thu 11/7/19 Wed 1/1/20 14
Funding and cost management 3 mons Thu 1/2/20 Wed 3/25/20 15
Monitoring 13 mons Thu 3/26/20 Wed 3/24/21
Measure progress of plan 5 mons Thu 3/26/20 Wed 8/12/20 16
Communicate progress of plan to stakeholders 3 mons Thu 8/13/20 Wed 11/4/20 18
Determine benefits 2 mons Thu 11/5/20 Wed 12/30/20 19
Take corrective actions if needed 3 mons Thu 12/31/20 Wed 3/24/21 20
Project closer 4 mons Thu 3/25/21 Wed 7/14/21
Release all resources 2 mons Thu 3/25/21 Wed 5/19/21 21
Sign off project 2 mons Thu 5/20/21 Wed 7/14/21 23
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Figure 1 Gantt chart
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Figure 2 Gantt chart
Figure 3 Network Diagram
Key milestones of the program
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Task Name Duration Start Finish
Strategic Business Transformation plan 60 mons Thu 12/8/16 Wed 7/14/21
Initiation 8 mons Thu 12/8/16 Wed 7/19/17
Planning 27 mons Thu 7/20/17 Wed 8/14/19
Implement 8 mons Thu 8/15/19 Wed 3/25/20
Monitoring 13 mons Thu 3/26/20 Wed 3/24/21
Project closer 4 mons Thu 3/25/21 Wed 7/14/21
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Cost estimation for the program including a breakdown by project
Task Name Duration Cost
Strategic Business Transformation plan 60 mons £55,150.00
Initiation 8 mons £400.00
Defining scope of the changes 5 mons £200.00
Determine stakeholders 3 mons £100.00
Find the issues 3 mons £100.00
Planning 27 mons £10,000.00
Setting of objectives 3 mons £1,500.00
Developing project team 6 mons £2,500.00
Resourcing and people management 5 mons £2,500.00
selection of standard approach of project 2 mons £500.00
Stakeholder analysis 4 mons £1,500.00
Developing project plan 7 mons £1,500.00
Implement 8 mons £4,500.00
Risk assessment and management 3 mons £2,000.00
Define benefits ownership 2 mons £300.00
Funding and cost management 3 mons £2,200.00
Monitoring 13 mons £5,750.00
Measure progress of plan 5 mons £2,000.00
Communicate progress of plan to
stakeholders 3 mons £600.00
Determine benefits 2 mons £1,200.00
Take corrective actions if needed 3 mons £1,950.00
Project closer 4 mons £34,500.00
Release all resources 2 mons £5,500.00
Sign off project 2 mons £29,000.00
Benefits management plan
Benefits management plan also known with the name of benefits realization management. It
is one of the methods that help project manager to manage how time and resources have been
invested in order to generate the desirable outcomes. In the project management, it considers as an
organizational change process where potential benefits arise from the plan work can be effectively
manage and organize (Benefits Realisation Plan, 2016). With the help of this, it becomes easy to
determine or make sure that what actually get the intended benefits from originally planned
activities. It allows the project manager to bring the fundamental improvements in the plan so that it
can effectively run from start to end. Further, this assists in ensuring a clear signposting of who are
accountable for delivery of identified benefits of project. The level of benefits realisation plan
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increases the sound delivery of advantages after completion of project plan. Along with this, it aids
in make sure that resources allocate in plan either optimally utilize or not (Harrin, 2016). It also
helps the project manager to discuss with the project team members about individual contribution in
different phase of work along with require improvements to make the plan more effective. In the
context of Strategic Business Transformation plan project of Remploy, Benefits Management Plan
with several steps is as follows:
Creating a benefit management strategy
Under this, the project manger will create an outline for how the project or plan will attain
with desired benefits. Along with this, the different measures will select to evaluate or measure
benefits from the plan. Further, the project will also find out responsible personnel who will look
towards the developing benefits management strategy work to attain the explored advantages from
Strategic Business Transformation plan project (De Bakker, Boonstra and Wortmann, 2010). In
addition to this, a time frame will also define that assist how long the benefits strategy can be track
out.
Identification benefits and aligns them with project objectives
In Strategic Business Transformation plan project, the project manager will determine
benefits from planned project such as dependencies, project tasks, greater capability and capacity to
support more people into employment, refocused organisation commercially etc. In this, dependent
activities will also find out by project manager on which project benefits will rely. The impact of
outcomes of plan on project plan will also explore so that objectives of cited project can be easily
aligned (Jun, Qiuzhen and Qingguo, 2011). The following stage will help in combine objectives and
benefits together so that the planned work can b moved in the right direction.
Planning when benefits will appear
In the following stage of Benefits Management Plan, a plan will prepare by project manager
when will expected benefits appear in Strategic Business Transformation plan project. There will be
some benefits appear at the starting of the plan and some will appear after completion of plan. So, it
will be important for the project manager to make plans for different phase of project plan regarding
who will responsible for recording and tracking occurring benefits (Caniëls and Bakens, 2012).
Realizing the benefits
Here, the project manager will deliver the changes in the plan so that benefits of project plan
can be easily gained. In this, a prepared plan will execute by step by step in order tom track the
progress of the plan.
Conducting a benefit review
Under this, project manager will compare the expected benefits with the actual one to find
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the deviations. This will define whether original plans will valid or not and find out additional or
hidden expectations of stakeholders from plan (Artto, Kulvik, Poskela and Turkulainen, 2011).
Identification new benefits and twist existing benefits
During the ongoing Strategic Business Transformation plan project, the project manager will
determine new benefits in the plan. On the basis of this, the existing ones will modified and make
Benefits Management Plan more effective (Wu and Low, 2010).
Risk register and risk management plan for the plan including mitigating strategies for risks
As a management process, risk management uses to determine and avoid various types of
risks by taking reactive and proactive actions. By using risk management plan and risk register, a
project manager can mitigate identify hazards that can impact on final outcomes of the plan
(Bredillet, Yatim and Ruiz, 2010). The present project has based on Strategic Business
Transformation plan project of Remploy. During carry out work, project manager will deal with
diverse risks. To solve them or to mitigate them in the right manner, a risks management plan will
prepare which is as follows:
Risks Likelihood (1-5) Impact (1-5) Severity Mitigation strategies
Costs 5 4 Extreme  Continually forecast the budget
 Regularly forecast resource
usage.
 Manage scope meticulously
 Establish monthly budget
 Establish cost controls
 Proper communication with the
team members
Benefits 4 4 High  Developing benefit management
strategy
 Align benefits with plan
objectives
 Conducting benefit review.
Schedule
risks
3 3 Moderate  Setting of milestone charts
 Preparing task lists
 Critical path method
Political
and media
2 2 Low  Minimize interference of political
parties
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pressure  Involve them during the decision
making process at limited level.
Loss of
critical
individuals
3 4 High  Increase communication and
engagement with stakeholders
 Focus over transfer of critical
skills.
 Increase bonus payments for
individual.
From the risk management plan for the proposed project, the risk register is as follows:
Low Moderate High Very high Extreme
Certain Benefits Costs
Almost
certain
Likely Schedule
risks
Loss of critical
individuals
Unlikel
y
Highly
unlikely
Political and
media pressure
Stakeholder management and communication plan for the program
Stakeholder management:
A project is successful which it attains its major objectives and fulfil the expectations of its
stakeholders in a right manner. In this context, it becomes important for project manager to
determine who the major stakeholders are and what their interests are. These people are actively
participating in the work of the project (Mantel, 2011). For a project, there are various kinds of
stakeholders presented and these can be employees, government, customers, shareholders, top
management, project team etc. In the case of Strategic Business Transformation plan project of
Remploy, there will various key stakeholders will include which are government, employees,
unions, media, third party advocates, ministers, MPs and other political parties (Patanakul,
Iewwongcharoen and Milosevic, 2010).
To determine and manage the interest of stakeholders of Strategic Business Transformation
plan project, project manager will adopt Project Stakeholder Management concept. It is a process
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which uses to identify the people, organizations or groups that can make impacts over the project.
This also helps in determining the expectations of stakeholders with appropriate management
strategies. Along with this, it assists the project manager to engage stakeholders in project decisions
and execution of project plan (Bredillet, 2010). In the context of Strategic Business Transformation
plan project, stakeholder management is as follows:
Identify stakeholders:
It is the process which identifies those people which will take interest in the proposed
project. For this, project manager will consider different sources to find stakeholders such as project
charter, procurement documents, stakeholder analysis etc. In the context, the identification of
stakeholders is as follows:
Stakeholders Interest Assessment of impact Strategy
Project sponsor Project overall
objectives and project
earnings
High and it can easily
influence the outcome of
project
Inform them via weekly
reports that will show
project status.
Government Project activities and
deliverables
High and it can influence
final results of project.
Regular update regarding
project activities.
Media Project deliverables and
activities
Moderate and it can
affect major deliverables
of project
Monthly update by using
press release and
meetings
Employees Project activities and
deliverables
Very high and it may
affect project
deliverables
Regular updates with
meetings and reports
Unions Interest in outcomes of
the project
High and it can influence
main deliverables of the
plan
Weekly update with via
meeting and sending brief
reports via mails.
Third party
advocates
Project deliverables and
activities
Low but not make any
kind of impact on final
outcome of plan
Monthly updates via
sending reports
Ministers, MPs
and other
political parties
Project earnings Moderate and their
interference can affect
deliverables of project
Monthly update by
sending reports.
Plan stakeholder management:
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Under this, some appropriate management strategies will use by project manager to
effectively engage stakeholders in project life cycle of Strategic Business Transformation project.
There interaction will support project interests that make the plan more appropriate. In this context,
to plan stakeholder management, Analytical tool will use which is as follows:
Stakeholders Strongly
against
Moderate
against
Neutral Moderately
supportive
Strongly
supportive
Project sponsor
Government
Media
Employees
Unions
Third party advocates
Ministers, MPs and other political
parties
Manage stakeholder engagement
In this stage, project manager of Strategic Business Transformation project will establish the
communication with the stakeholders and maintain it by meeting their needs and expectations. For
this, project manager will need to apply some interpersonal and management skills to manage
stakeholder expectations and these will be as follows:
Types of Skills
Interpersonal skills Building trust, resolving conflicts, active listening and overcoming
resistance to change
Management skills Facilitate agreement towards project deliverables, influence people to
support the project, modify organizational to accept the project outcomes.
Control stakeholder engagement
This is the method of monitoring of overall project stakeholder relationships and make
adjustment in strategies to increase involvement of stakeholders. In the context of the proposed
project, project manager will use Information Management System that will help in control the
actions of stakeholders and boost their engagement in project work.
Project Communication Plan
In a project, communication is becoming most important to share necessary information
with stakeholders. Project Communication Plan can be used for this purpose and it defines how a
project manager intends to communicate the right message content to the right stakeholders over the
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time of a project plan. The following process helps in communicating goals, strategies, activities,
time duration to relevant people (Lee and Yu, 2012). Remploy has faced several issues such as poor
and outdated operational structure, culture, diversity etc. In order to resolve this, it has planned to
carry out a Strategic Business Transformation project. For this, project manager will prepare Project
Communication Plan which is as follows:
Communication
type
Objective of
communication
Medium Frequency Audience Owner Deliverable
Kickoff meeting Introduce about
project and
project team,
review of
project
objectives and
different
management
approaches.
Face to face Once Project
sponsor,
Project
team and
stakeholders
Project
manager
Agenda and
meeting
minutes
Project team
meetings
Review of
project status
with team
members
Face to face,
call and
conference
As per the
needs
Project
team
Project
manager
Agenda and
meeting
minutes
Monthly project
status meetings
Provide report
on the current
status of the
project to
management.
Face to face,
presentation,
conference
and call
Monthly Project
board
Project
manager
Project status
reports
Collect the
status of the
project related
to activities,
scheduling,
costing, issues,
progress etc.
Face to face,
email and
presentation
Weekly Employees,
project
sponsor and
stakeholders
Project
manager
Project
status
report
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CONCLUSION
From the above report, it can be concluded in that in the current era, project management
tool has used by most of the organizations because of managing complex project work. As per the
given case study, it has determined that Remploy has faced several issues in the marketplace. To
overcome those challenges, a Strategic Business Transformation project has selected from the
proposed list of projects. For this, the project manager has estimated the costing and scheduling of
the plan. Along with this, Benefits Management Plan has prepared to manage overall benefits of the
following project. Further, to determine the stakeholder interest, the project manager has used
Stakeholder Management Plan. On the other hand, a communication plan has developed to
communicate the important information about Strategic Business Transformation project with the
stakeholders. Apart from this, risk management plan and risk register has used to find the major
risks and their impacts over the project plan. For this, some mitigation strategies have also proposed
to reduce the impact of those hazards on project work.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
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management office in the front end of innovation. International Journal of Project
Management, 29(4), pp.408-421.
Bredillet, C., Yatim, F. and Ruiz, P., 2010. Project management deployment: The role of cultural
factors. International Journal of Project Management,28(2), pp.183-193.
Bredillet, C.N., 2010. Blowing hot and cold on project management. Project Management
Journal, 41(3), pp.4-20.
Burke, R., 2013. Project management: planning and control techniques. New Jersey, USA.
Caniëls, M.C. and Bakens, R.J., 2012. The effects of Project Management Information Systems on
decision making in a multi project environment.International Journal of Project
Management, 30(2), pp.162-175.
De Bakker, K., Boonstra, A. and Wortmann, H., 2010. Does risk management contribute to IT
project success? A meta-analysis of empirical evidence. International Journal of Project
Management, 28(5), pp.493-503.
Jun, L., Qiuzhen, W. and Qingguo, M., 2011. The effects of project uncertainty and risk
management on IS development project performance: A vendor perspective. International
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Kerzner, H.R., 2013. Project management: a systems approach to planning, scheduling, and
controlling. John Wiley & Sons.
Lee, S.K. and Yu, J.H., 2012. Success model of project management information system in
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Mantel, S.J., 2011. Project management in practice. Wiley,.
Meredith, J.R. and Mantel Jr, S.J., 2011. Project management: a managerial approach. John Wiley
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Patanakul, P., Iewwongcharoen, B. and Milosevic, D., 2010. An empirical study on the use of
project management tools and techniques across project life-cycle and their impact on
project success. Journal of General Management, 35(3), pp.41-65.
Schwalbe, K., 2015. Information technology project management. Cengage Learning.
Walker, A., 2015. Project management in construction. John Wiley & Sons.
Wu, P. and Low, S.P., 2010. Project management and green buildings: lessons from the rating
systems. Journal of Professional Issues in Engineering Education and Practice, 136(2),
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