Project Management Report: Acquisition of ABC PLC and DEF Ltd

This report provides a comprehensive overview of project management principles, focusing on the characteristics of projects, project life cycles, and the role of a project manager. It explores key concepts such as project initiation, planning, execution, monitoring and control, and project closure. The report also delves into project management knowledge areas, including integration, scope, time, cost, quality, human resource, communication, risk, and procurement management. A significant portion of the report is dedicated to a case study involving the acquisition of DEF Ltd by ABC PLC, detailing the acquisition process, the essential competencies and skills required by a project manager in such a scenario, and the application of project management methodologies such as network diagrams and critical path analysis. The report also covers the importance of a feasibility study in project management and the significance of project documentation, such as the Project Initiation Document (PID). The report emphasizes practical application of these concepts, providing a valuable resource for students studying project management.

MANAGING PROJECTS
ASSESSMENT QUESTION
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TASK 1
1. Characteristics of a project with importance of two of them
Six characteristics of project are:
 Every project has some set of objectives that are required to be achieved (Meredith, Mantel
and Shafer, 2017).
 Importance: Every project need to set some objectives to be achieved because it helps an
organization to complete a project within defined time period, technical performance and
within the defined budget. Achievement of these projects also helps in determining
whether the project is viable or not.
 Each project is managed and controlled by project manager that has an assigned team
working on a project.
 Importance: Every project requires a project manager so that it is managed and controlled
in a proper manner. Not only this project manager also helps in allocating required
resources for completion of all the tasks within defined milestone.
 Each project is temporary in nature and has an ending and a beginning date.
 Each project has some unique requirements set that are required so that it could be delivered
within the boundaries of the project.
 Projects sometimes can either be cross functional or cross organizational.
 Successful implementation of a project involves co-ordination between team members
supervised by project manager.
2. Project life cycle Five key stages
 Initiation: At this stage foundation of a project is being laid for other stages of life cycle. At
this stage overall value and feasibility of the project is measured (Fleming and Koppelman,
2016).
 Planning: At this stage blueprint of the project is made in order to achieve objectives and
goals of the project within specified tine and budget.
 Execution: it is one of the main stage of the project where deliverables of the project are
build as per the requirements of the project.
 Monitoring and control: Most of the time this stage is implemented with execution stage
where project manager monitors and controls progress of entire project.
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 Closure: At this stage final project is delivered to the client and project completion is
communicated to all the stakeholders.
3. PID purpose and three items documented in the PID
Main purpose of PID is to record and capture all the basic required information of the
project in order to define and plan the project accordingly (Kerzner, 2017). It also helps all the
stakeholders of the project to understand project requirements in a proper manner.
Three main items that are documented in PID are:
 Project Goal: It helps in specifying main goal of the project which is required to be achieved.
 Business case: it helps in capturing reasons for initiation of a project
 Scope: it Specified the work which is required to be accomplished so that delivery of the
project is done according to the specified functions and features.
4. Project Management Knowledge areas and significance of any two
 Project integration management: it focuses on activities and processes that are required to be
identified, unified, defined, combined and coordinated with project management process
group.
 Significance: It is important for project manager so that they can check each and every
aspect of project and check whether is going on according to the plan.
 Project Scope management: It focuses on collecting scope, requirements control and verify
scope and create work break down structure (Walker, 2015).
 Significance: It is important for project manager so that all the milestones associated with
the project can be achieved.
 Project time management: It helps in defining all the activities of a project in sequence,
estimate both time and resources required, develops as well as controls the overall schedule
of the project.
 Project cost management: It helps in estimating cost of the project, determine and control
overall project budget.
 Project quality management: it helps in ensuring that all the projects activities designed,
planned and implemented are effective and efficient with respect to project’s objectives and
overall performance.
 Project human resource management: It is a set of processes as well as activities that involves
management, leading, organizing of project team.
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 Project communication management: it helps in maintaining proper and effective
communication between all project stakeholders.
 Project risk management: it helps project managers to manage, identify and reduce risk
associated with the project. This helps the PM to manage risk associated with the project at
initial stage.
 Project procurement management: it covers all the aspects related to acquiring and
purchasing of services and products effective and successful project completion.
5. Feasibility study and its importance in Project Management
Feasibility study is an assessment of practically proposed project. It helps in uncovering
the overall strengths and weaknesses associated with the project to check whether the project is
feasible technically and legally or not (Rusly, Sun, and Corner, 2015). Feasibility study is
important within a project because it helps examining feasibility of the project in five areas
associated with the project: technical, economical, legal, scheduling and operational feasibility. It
also helped in identifying new opportunities associated with the project. It also helps in
providing information for a “go/no-go” decision making.
6. Network Diagram and calculation of critical Path
Gantt Chart
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Figure 1 Gantt Chart
Network Diagram
Figure 2 Network Diagram
Critical Path
Figure 3 Critical path
Critical path calculation: task 1 + task 2 + task 4 + task 6
= 11 weeks + 9 weeks + 7 weeks + 13 weeks
= 40 weeks
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TASK 2
Introduction
Business acquisition can be defined as a process of acquiring a company on the basis of
strengths and weakness of the target company (Englund, and Bucero, 2019). This case study is
about ABC PLC company which is food and drinks retailers who are considering an acquisition
with DEF Ltd Company who is high street frozen food retailer. This report will focus on
outlining all the activities for successful management this acquisition project within specified
time and budget. For this, this report will focus on describing process of acquisition,
competencies and skills that are required by the project manager, with process of project
management.
Acquisition process
Acquisition process consist of few steps that are required to be followed by an organization
for acquisition. Acquisition process consist of few steps such as:
 Begin acquisition planning: Acquirer need to make a contract with the company according to
their search criteria’s in such a manner that it appears to offer a good value (Farquhar, 2016).
The main purpose of this it to gather more information and see how much capable target
company is for acquisition.
 Perform value analysis: Based on the conversation acquirer ask the target company to
provide their sustainable information based on which target evaluation will be done for both
doing business on its own and for sustainable target acquisition. This value analysis is import
for the acquirer organization to understand whether this acquisition is beneficial and feasible
or not.
 Negotiation: After production of valuation model of the target company analysis of this
valuation model is done, acquirer checks whether all the information available is sufficient
for analysis and for construction of a reasonable offer (Englund, and Bucero, 2019). This will
help the acquirer to initiate offer to the target company and if they agree with the initial offer
then further negotiation terms are discussed.
 Acquisition due diligence: it is one of the most exhaustive process. This process begins when
the offer has been accepted and both the companies agree to that offer. Due diligence helps in
conforming or correcting acquirer’s assessment of targeted company value. It is mainly done
by conducting a detailed examination and analysis of each and every aspect of the targeted
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company’s operations i.e. its assessment and liabilities’, financial matrix, human resources,
customers and many more. It is one of the most important step of acquisition process.
 Sale and purchase contract: After completion of due diligence all the problems or concerns
associated with the project are worked on and solved (Englund, and Bucero, 2019). Next step
is to build a final sale or purchase contract. Final decision is made for the purchase decisions
for the type of purchase agreement. In other words, it is decided whether it will be an asset
purchase or a share purchase.
 Acquisition Financing strategy: as the acquirer has various options for deal financing but
typically financing is done on the basis of type of purchase agreement and sale agreement
that has been signed off by both the parties.
 Closing and integration of acquisition process: At last stage closure of acquisition deal is
done and on the basis of this acquisition further plans are made but before final closure all
kinds of tax or business issues associated with the acquisition company is checked, evaluated
and resolved.
Project Manager (PM) competencies and skills
There are various competencies and skills required by a PM. Roxanne also needs to have
these skills for successful management of this acquisition project.
 Leadership: A PM essentially need to have great leadership skills. These required helps them
to manage as well as lead teams, set vision, motivate their team members and inspire them.
Project managers should lead the team either both operational and strategic perspective,
communicate the goal and vision to the team members. Leadership skills also helps them to
resolve conflicts between team members as well.
 Negotiation: Another important skill with is important for PM to have is negotiation skills so
that they can negotiate with the customers, stakeholders, contractors and all the team
members (Henkel, Marion and Bourdeau, 2019). Project managers can use these skills in
negotiation of resources use, budget, schedule and all other important attributes associated
with the project. These skills are important for PM to move the project forward such that
project is completed successfully on time and within the allocated budget.
 Scheduling: One of the top most priority of the PM is to ensure that complete project is
completed in time within specified schedule. Controlling ability is important to have within
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PM as all the activities associated with the project within a specific duration. So, it can be
said that is one of the main core skills that each and every PM should have.
 Cost Management: PM of the project is completely responsible for completing a project
within specified budget covering all the needs and requirements of the client and for this
every project manager should have cost management skills. They can do cost management by
creating specific base line of the projects, track project cost under all the project activities. It
can be decided by checking whether complete project is completed in execution stage
(Varajao, Colomo palacios and Silva, 2017).
 Risk Management: One of the main and top most responsibility of project managers is to
identify and manage all the project risks. It is important for the project manager to know risk
management as they cannot complete a project controlling and managing risks effectively
and efficiently.
 Communication: Another important skill that PM should have is communication skill as
project manager needs to communicate with all the stakeholders associated with the project.
If a project manager is not capable enough to strongly communicate with the stakeholders of
the project and fails to communicate their ideas to the team members then it can affect
management and successful completion of the project. Project manager also need to use their
communication skills to communicate all requirements of a customer to the project team
members.
 Critical thinking and Problem solving: PM also needs to have problem solving and critical
thinking skills for effective and efficient decision making (Henkel, Marion and Bourdeau,
2019). They should be able to analyse pros and cons of a project so that in case of a problem
correct decision can be taken by them.
 Quality management: PM is also responsible for maintaining the overall quality of the project
and deliver proper completed project to their clients by maintaining the overall project
Quality.
 Administration: Project managers require administrative skills to administrate all the
functions and features of the project.
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Project management process
Project management process helps the PM to bring project work under control Project
management process consist of few steps that will be used by Roxanne for successfully
completing the acquisition project:
Project initiation: This is where a project starts where overall value and importance of the
project is determined. here feasibility study of the project is also done in an accurate manner
such that all types of feasibility is identified (Hornstein, 2015). This stage is important as
acceptance or rejection of the project by stakeholders completely dependent upon this stage. At
this stage two important document are required to be made first is the business case in which
need of the project is specified and return on investment of the project is discussed. Second
document is feasibility study where evaluation of goals, timeline and completion is done. Skills
that are required by the PM at this stage are: Leadership, negotiation and communication.
Leadership skills are required so set a vision and objectives for the team members.
Communication skills are required so that they can establish a relation between all the
stakeholders and establish proper communication channels between all stakeholders. It is one of
the most important skills which is required by project manager at this stage especially for
feasibility study. Negotiation skills is also import skill required by the project manager at this
stage. If there is requirement of negotiation for the project with the customer based on feasibility
study results.
Project planning: After approval of the project, project team is assembled in order to start
planning the way in which project is managed or will be completed based on the targeted goals.
Project planning is done in such a manner that project completes on time within specified budget
and schedule (Correa, 2016). Project plan includes resources to be used, materials required,
finance required etc. At this stage following things are defined:
 Scope: At this stage scope statement is written, objectives and deliverables of the
project is defined.
 Tasks: According to the deliverables of the project tasks of the project are defined.
Other than this dependency of each task on the other tasks is also defined and
decided.
 Schedule: Schedule of the project is also made in which duration of all the tasks is set
with final completion date of each task and complete project.
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 Cost: Overall cost involved with the project is also estimated and based on this cost
overall budget is formulated.
 Quality: Quality standards of the project are set what are required to be met
throughout the project.
 Communication: Required information is communicated to all the stakeholders of the
project.
 Risk: All the risk associated with the project are also determined at this stage and
strategies to resolve them is also made.
Skills and competencies of project manager required at this stage are: risk management,
cost management, Scheduling, communication, quality management. Risk management is
required to identify risk associated with the project, and work on mitigation strategies to resolve
them. Cost management is required for building overall budget of project. Scheduling skill is
required by the PM at this stage for scheduling the overall project and making sure that all the
tasks of the project are completed on time. Communication is an important skill which is
required at every phase of the project management. At this stage it is required for communication
of all the requirements to the team members. Quality management skill is required to ensure that
quality of all the task is maintained.
Project execution: It is another important stage of Project management process in which
execution of the project is started (Anantatmula, and Rad, 2018). Project plan made earlier is
executed at this stage. Administrative skills of a project manager are required at this stage to
manage and administrate all the tasks of the project.
Monitoring and control: this stage continuously goes on with execution stage. At this stage
project progress is measured, delay in project is checked, risk measurement is done and overall
evaluation is done. Quality management, scheduling, risk management and critical thinking skills
of PM are required at this stage. Quality management skill is required to manage and maintain
the project quality, risk management is required to manage risk if identified. Scheduling skill is
required to bring the project back on track if it is delayed. Critical thinking skill is required if any
kind of conflict or issue arises between team members.
Closure: At this stage closure of complete project is taken i.e. whether all the requirements of
the project have been fulfilled or not, whether desired objectives and goals of the project have
been met or not (Correa, 2016). At this stage communication skills of project manager are
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required so that project manager can communicate with all the stakeholders and check where all
the objectives and goals of project have been met or not.
Conclusion
It can be concluded that there are various processes involved in the process of acquisition
of a company and it is important for the acquirer company to focus on all those requirements, for
successful acquisition. It has been analysed that there are various skills and competencies that are
important for a project manager to have as all those skills and competencies are used at different
stages of a successful project. All those project manager skills are required to keep the project on
track so that the project can be completed with the scheduled date and within the allocated
budget.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
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Factors on Project Success. Engineering Management Journal. 30(3). pp.165-178.
Correa, A., 2016. Project management in architectural practices: project success factors in
building design processes (Doctoral dissertation, Dublin Business School).
Englund, R. and Bucero, A., 2019. The complete project manager: Integrating people,
organizational, and technical skills. Berrett-Koehler Publishers.
Farquhar, A.B., 2016. 16 The Acquisition Integration Process: A Contingent Framework”. The
Management of Corporate Acquisitions: International Perspectives, p.414.
Fleming, Q.W. and Koppelman, J.M., 2016, December. Earned value project management.
Project Management Institute.
Henkel, T.G., Marion Jr, J.W. and Bourdeau, D.T., 2019. Project Manager Leadership Behavior:
Task-Oriented Versus Relationship-Oriented. Journal of Leadership Education. 18(2).
p.1.
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.
Kerzner, H., 2017. Project management: a systems approach to planning, scheduling, and
controlling. John Wiley & Sons.
Meredith, J.R., Mantel Jr, S.J. and Shafer, S.M., 2017. Project management: a managerial
approach. John Wiley & Sons.
Rusly, F.H., Sun, P.Y.T. and Corner, J.L., 2015. Change readiness: creating understanding and
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Varajão, J., Colomo-Palacios, R. and Silva, H., 2017. ISO 21500: 2012 and PMBoK 5 processes
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Walker, A., 2015. Project management in construction. John Wiley & Sons.
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