Gala Dinner Project for Kingston University Staff: Plan and Case

This project outlines the business case and project plan for organizing a Gala Dinner to motivate staff at Kingston University at the start of the academic year. The venue is Drapers' Hall in London, and the project encompasses all aspects of the event, including booking entertainment, advertising, and ticketing, with the goal of achieving break-even and profitability. The business case details the reasons for the event, aligning with the university's SMART objectives, and explores options like 'do nothing,' 'do the minimum,' and 'do something,' recommending the Gala Dinner for its value and return on investment. Expected benefits include improved staff productivity and enhanced communication, while potential dis-benefits include low attendance. The project plan includes a Gantt chart, resource allocation, and risk management strategies, addressing external dependencies and planning assumptions to ensure the event's success. It incorporates lessons from previous events to stay within budget and maximize value.

RETAKE Individual
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Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................1
Business Case...............................................................................................................................1
Project plan..................................................................................................................................4
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................7
RISK MANAGER ..........................................................................................................................8
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................9

INTRODUCTION
A project plan is order of formal documents which determines the execution and controls
phases of project. The plan consists of risk management, resource management and interactions
at the same time address size, prices and schedule baselines. A business case is a document use
to undertake a project according to it estimated costs related to development, implementation and
incremental ongoing operations and maintenance costs in return of potential benefits to be gained
and offset by any risks associated with it (Fernández-Llamas and Conde-González, 2019).
Whereas, a project plan is a statement of how and when objectives are to be achieved by
presenting major products, activities and resources required for scope of plan. Project plan helps
business case with planned costs and it evaluates the management stages and other major control
points. It is utilised by Project board as a baseline against which to monitor project progress. This
project is associated with organising a Gala Dinner to celebrate the start of academic year which
is open to all members of staff employed by Kingston University. The venue of the event will be
at Whole Venue at Drapers' Hall which is located in heart of city of London.
This project includes all aspects of event including booking the entertainment, advertising
and ticketing. This involves break even and profits by delivering a successful event. The project
is divided into two parts that is business case and project plan.
MAIN BODY
Business Case
A business case is developed to start up a project process and refined by initiating project
process. The business case is used by the controlling stage process when assessing impacts of
issues and risks. It is reviewed and updated at end of each management stage by the managing a
stage boundary process and at the end of project by closing a project process (Reeves, Robinson
and Ram, 2020). It involves business options, expected benefits, dis benefits, timescale, costs,
investment appraisal and major risks.
Reasons of undertaking the event of Gala dinner for members of staff of Kingston
University is to motivate them at the starting of new academic year. This is to ensure them they
are valued in University and to get maximum return on investments. The project will help the
management of University to achieve its SMART objectives. This will be done by stating
specific goals, structure, benefits and milestones of project which is done by detailed reporting as
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well as planning comprises of structure of command, lists of expenses, communication avenues,
gantt chart and costings of projects (Hinde, 2018). For the Gala Dinner, Gantt Chart and critical
path are as follows:
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The project will enable achievement of corporate strategies by providing more
opportunities to staff to engage with University. It will enhance communication of staff with
management and will assists in providing information about expectations staff and management
have from each other.
Kingston university has the three options do nothing, do the minimum and do something.
In the option of do nothing, the university might choose to not undertake the project if it not
viable. The option of do the minimum will present university with potential project with their
own specific costs, times, risks and benefits. In option do something, university will go with the
project they found to be most relevant to achieve their corporate strategies (Naik and Jenkins,
2019). It is recommended to university to undertake project of Gala Dinner as this will provide
best value and ensures that their staff will feel valued. This project is viable as it will provide
great return on investment with minimum costs and will open new gates of opportunities for
university.
Expected benefit from undertaking the project is the improved productivity of staff as
they will feel valued and respected. Qualitative benefits will be clear and organised plans which
will help in improving team collaboration and will help in enhancing communication. It will
assists university to maximise efficiency of its staff by providing them necessary leisure time.
Quantitative benefits will increased retention of staff in university and more number of
enrolment in the upcoming academic year (Shaw, Hughes and Greenhalgh, 2019). The benefits
which will support corporate strategies will be increased engagement of staff within university
and their high motivation to yield better result in upcoming academic year.
Expected dis benefits of project are the results that is perceived negative by one or more
stakeholders. It is different from the risks as risks are uncertain happenings which may or may
not occur but dis benefits are actual outcomes of project. It is analysed as part of investment
appraisal to ensure that these do not surpass expected benefits of project. In event of Gala
Dinner, expected dis benefits are members not showing up resulting in wasting investment on
project. This may also result in wasting efforts and resources of management if staff wont feel
motivated and energised after attending the event.
The expected timescale over which the project activities will run will be about one
month. The planning will be start from 15th august 2022 which involves searching about various
venues and select the one which is available on date of event and will be in budget of university.
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The benefits of project will seen soon after the event as it will in motivating staff and result in
increase productivity (Dobrowolski, 2022). It will involves taking extensive research of market
about which suppliers to take equipments from, what to add in menu, where to design and print
invitations as well as how to maintain operations both before and during the event.
Project costs will involve two types of costs. Firstly, the cost of project and secondly
current operations and maintenance costs. Cost that will involves in event of Gala Dinner will be
the venue cost that will cost around £3,500, food and beverages cost that will cost around £1,500,
music costs around £100. Market research also includes suppliers which will provide necessary
equipments for event dinner that will cost around £200. For activities of marketing, tasks like
invitations designing, printing, distributing will take place. The expenses which will incurred
from activities of invitations will cost around £40. The university will also have to undertake
necessary campaigns to take the word out about the event (Ng, 2018). The marketing will be
carried out by the students union which will assists in promoting the event by recruiting
volunteer students. The project cost will also include transportation services which will be
provided to staff members to safely and timely reach to venue, this will cost around £100.
Investment appraisal contains comparison of accumulated benefits and dis benefits
against the risks and costs of project. This will help in assessing value of project as an
investment. The event of Gala Dinner will yield more benefits than dis benefits. As this will
result in increasing productivity of employees and the probability of expected dis benefits are
very low as proper marketing by student unions will ensure that each member of staff will attend
the event. This will result in providing aggregate benefits of event as per its project costs. The
objective of investment appraisal is to determine that the event will add in value for university.
This will help the university to enhance its recognition as well as spreading out the word that
management took great care of people working for them (Tsouli Fathi, Ammari and Ben Allal,
2019). The project will be funded by acquiring funds from marketing activities of universities
and by making tickets of around £45 per staff member.
Major risks associated with project include likely effect and plans to deal with their
occurrence. The risks in event of Gala Dinner are unavailability of venue on the last moment
which will end up ruining the event for everyone. Another risks may be the lack of entertainment
activities which will leads to unpopularity of event. Risks impact may be the negative image of
university and reduce productivity of staff members. The plans that should be made by project
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board is to make necessary arrangements in case of venue unavailability. They should take on
deep research about which entertainment activities to involve so that staff members can engage
themselves in event.
Project plan
The plan description includes the scope, goals, budget, timeline and outcomes of a
project. The description of project plan of event of Gala Dinner involves the project stakeholders,
volunteers and specified budget for project. It also involves various stages of project from
directing to its closure. It comprises of initiation date of project which is from 15th august 2022.
It makes sure that all the necessary information about booking venue, suppliers, music and
entertainment are completed on time (Zawadzki, 2018). The team of the event will be students
unions members, key people of university and the suppliers and vendors. The planning approach
consists of making necessary adjustments beforehand so that the event take place effectively.
Plan prerequisites involves that all the aspects of project must be in place to effectively
carry out event properly. This involves properly defined objectives from each task of event. It
involves that the university take money saving advantage examination to make sure that they get
more benefits than expense involved in the event. The funds allotted for event must be in place
and carefully assigned to all stage of project so that no stage takes on more funds and resources
than required (Raharjo and Purwandari, 2020). For the plan to succeed, the organiser team needs
to make sure to make timely interaction with key people like venue owner, suppliers, music band
and food and beverages vendor.
External dependencies are inputs from external sources which are required before a task
can be proceed. A project manager requires to monitor external dependencies properly to ensure
that project is finished on time. The external dependencies of event of Gala Dinner is dependent
on venue owners, food and beverages vendors, the volunteers, printing agencies and
transportation services (Timinger, Vieth and Wehens, 2022). The plan is highly dependable on
suppliers who are responsible for providing food and beverages to make the project of dinner
successful. In addition to that, the project is also to great extent rely on suppliers who are
responsible to accommodate staff members to place of venue. As they will assists them to reach
the venue on time, thus making them essential for success of project. The volunteers and students
unions who are assigned to market about the project will also influence the event as its on them
that how better they be able t take the work out about the event.
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Planning assumptions are the attributes and measures which helps in dealing with any
uncertainty in project management. It is highly essential for planning process as it solves the
paradox of managing consistency over time. Planning assumptions of event of Gala Dinner are
resource assumptions which is that the necessary resources like people, equipments and funds
will be available as and when needed. Resource allocation is most important part of project
planning. Next is technology assumptions which involves to identify necessary constraints to
prepare a contingency plan in case of any issues in event arise internally (Egorov and
Dubovikova, 2022). Time based assumption allows the organisers to schedule a fix time for the
completion of all necessary activities of event. Quality assumptions ensures that specified
activities of the event will be complete in time. Cost assumption is another significant attribute as
it facilitates project managers to carry out accurate costing that will be involved in event. It
involves making short and long term budgets for every task of project.
The lessons incorporated involves extensively analysing earlier similar projects to
evaluates any if there were any mistakes which could be rectified in the upcoming event. Earlier,
the events organised by the university exceeds the budget allotted for it which adds in operating
costs of university. This time, the project managers set a fix budget for the activities of event and
clearly assign funds to each stage of event so managers or volunteers do not surpass allotted
budget.
Monitoring and control of project stages comprises of reviewing actual project
performances with planned activities of project. In the event of Gala Dinner, the project
managers will collect all status updates of project tasks by breaking down of projects into sub
tasks. Project managers controls activities of event by tracking progress of each task of event and
managing interfaces (Rosinski, 2019). It involves making robust communication plan with all the
resources associated with the event. This helps project manager to report correct information at
correct time of every stage at project so that they can take necessary action and modifications on
time.
The budget of project plan includes attributes like time and cost that will be involved ion
completing the project. This also includes provisions for risks and changes that the project might
undertake in case of misshapen. The project managers of event of Gala Dinner makes the budget
of plan including the time which is one month to carry out all the tasks of project. This involves
necessary funding of each task from booking a venue, vendors for food and beverages, music,
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entertainment, invitations designing, printing, distributing and transportation. The budget allotted
for all the activities is almost around £5500. This also comprises of funds in case of any risks
occur within the project (Metin and Mustafa, 2019). The budget plan comprises of some extra
funds in case of project managers requires to bring in any changes at any stage if they think the
outcomes are not matching with the expectations.
Tolerances is associated with how much a project manager can flex within project
without starting it from first stage. There are major three tolerances in project which are the time
taken, resources used and the quality of what project produces. In project of Gala Dinner, the
most significant tolerance is budget. To ensure that the budget do not over cross, 90% of the
budget funds will be allotted to project managers by board to ensure that costs are controlled and
escalations are handled effectively. Timescale is another tolerance which encourages project
managers to timely complete all the tasks in the project so that no elements runs late. In project
of Gala Dinner, the event is scheduled to be on 16th September 2022 whose activities and
necessary preparations will be starting from a month before that is from 15th august 2022.
Another tolerance for project is quality which sets out the product description that will set out the
acceptable scenarios for quality of project outcomes (Koutsoukos, 2019). The key exploration of
tolerance on quality is calculating by the time and cost of minimum functionality. The team risk
tolerances involves assigning tasks to more number of people in case students unions can not be
able to perform the tasks they are assigned.
Product descriptions determines what the project should deliver to achieve acceptance. It
is a form of marketing copy which depicts and explain benefits of projects. The title of the
project is Gala Dinner event. The purpose is to motivate staff members of Kingston University
and provide them time to enjoy. The composition involves in project is venue, food and
beverages, music, transportation and invitations. Derivation of source products will be
communicating beforehand with owner of venue, make deals with suppliers of food, booking of
music bands and ensure adequate transportation facilitates. Skills for development required for
project managers will be using adequate funds on activities and not wasting any resources.
Acceptance criteria is to ensure that the event take place on scheduled time and yields accepted
results. Quality tolerances for each stage involves reviewing each task carefully so to assess any
loophole beforehand to make timely changes. Product approver will be the board of project who
will decide whether the project activities are designed as per the expectations or not. The quality
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