Project Plan for University Graduation Ceremony (LSBM204 Module)

This project plan outlines the strategies for organizing a university graduation ceremony, including scope, time, cost, communication, and risk management. The project aims to organize a ceremony for 500-600 students within a budget of £7000 and a timeframe of three months. The plan details the project's objectives, scope, assumptions, and constraints, along with the roles and responsibilities of key stakeholders like the Project Manager, students, media partners, and team members. It provides a detailed work breakdown structure, project milestones, activity schedules, network diagrams, and Gantt charts for effective time management. The cost management plan includes a budget breakdown and cost baseline. The communication plan identifies stakeholders and communication strategies. Finally, the risk management plan identifies potential risks, their impact, probability, and mitigation strategies, along with a project risk matrix. The project's goal is to enhance the university's brand image and increase admissions by hosting a successful graduation ceremony.

Managing operations and
Projects

Table of Contents
SECTION 1: SCOPE MANAGEMENT PLAN.............................................................................2
1.1 Project description................................................................................................................2
1.2 Project scope.........................................................................................................................2
1.3 Assumptions.........................................................................................................................2
1.4 Constraints............................................................................................................................3
1.5 Project roles and responsibilities..........................................................................................3
1.6 Responsibilities.....................................................................................................................3
1.7 Work breakdown structure...................................................................................................5
SECTION 2: TIME MANAGEMENT PLAN................................................................................5
2.1 Project Milestone..................................................................................................................5
2.2 Project Activity.....................................................................................................................6
2.3 Project Network diagram......................................................................................................7
2.4 Project gantt chart.................................................................................................................7
SECTION 3: COST MANAGEMENT PLAN...............................................................................9
3.1 Cost breakdown and budget.................................................................................................9
3.2 Project cost baseline...........................................................................................................10
TASK 4 COMMUNICATION PLAN..........................................................................................10
Project stakeholders..................................................................................................................10
SECTION 5: RISK MANAGEMENT PLAN..............................................................................12
5.1 Risk identification, analysis and Action plan.....................................................................12
5.2 Project risk matrix..............................................................................................................14
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................15
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SECTION 1: SCOPE MANAGEMENT PLAN
1.1 Project description
The project is all about to organize a graduation ceremony for students in a University
which will take place in November 2021. The assigned budget for conducting project will be
£7000 and only 3 months were assigned to complete the same. Further, it is a convocation in
which University facilitate students in order to complete their degree.
Objectives:
 To organize a ceremony where almost 500 to 600 graduated students will receive their
graduation certificate in November, 2021 within 3 months.
 To increase the admission up to 20% by conducting convocation within next year.
 To enhance the brand image of University within 1 year.
1.2 Project scope
The main objective is to conduct a successful graduation ceremony of approx. 500 to 600
students within a limited budget. Project manager (PM) must deliver the required ceremony with
due date by managing time. Also, quality of an event should be high, so it is advised to choose
personnel for conducting whole task very carefully, as only those people should be given
priority who have strong experience with respective project (Novo, Landis and Haley, 2017).
Apart from this, all the technical requirement must be assessed first and priority should be given
to those task which are lengthy. Therefore, it is also advised to review all the components in
order to meet the defined budget.
1.3 Assumptions
Project assumptions are expected aspect of life cycle of a project and sometimes they
proven to be false, that leads to cause significant limitation of a project. In order to conduct
graduation ceremony, PM should ensure that all resources and vendors are available, contract
will be signed before project commencement, effective communication plan is developed with
stakeholders and start date of a project will be agreed upon (Zubizarreta and et.al., 2021).
1.4 Constraints
Project constraints is the limiting factors that affect the project's quality and delivery. In
the context of project, labor unrest and strikes, budget restriction are considered as a constraint
that directly cause opposite impact upon project success factors.
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1.5 Project roles and responsibilities
Key Members Roles and Responsibilities
Sponsor Helps to promoting and advocating the project work. Also, oversee
the project, program management functions and provide funding
whenever need. Further, Sponsor (University) evaluate the project's
actual progress and provide feedback to PM as necessary.
Project Manager Plays a lead role in planning, executing and monitoring the project.
They are accountable for entire project scope, team, resources and
success/failure of a project (Frefer and et.al., 2018).
Students They attend the graduation ceremony and also benefited from the
programs by receiving rewards.
Media partners They act as a collaboration between two organizations in order to
spread certain content. Through strong network, they telecast entire
program and also bring a win-win quality relationship between
University and students.
Team member (3) They follow the instruction provided by PM and manage deliverable
according to plan by complete the entire project in a defined time.
Technical Manager They help to execute each phase of a project by communicate with
stakeholders (Azanha and et.al., 2017). Also, ensure that they
implement quality software in order to meet the entire project on
time.
1.6 Responsibilities
Each team member have their own responsibilities, but project managers is a role and it
is their primary responsibility is to monitor and oversee entire activity including budget, target
attain, starting date and ending date (Woźniak, 2021). With the help of RAM which assist to
describe key role and responsibilities of each members.
Responsibility Assignment Matrix
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[P= primary responsibility, S= Secondary Responsibility, A= Approval]
Deliverable People
Code
(Activity)
Title Project
Manager
Technical
Manager
Team
members
Sponsor Media
Partners
Students
1.1 Identify
goal
A S,A
2.2 Designing
Invitation
cards
A P A
3.1 Implement
ation Plan
P S A S
2.7 Arrangem
ents
A P P A S
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1.7 Work breakdown structure
SECTION 2: TIME MANAGEMENT PLAN
2.1 Project Milestone
 Project initiation: February 8, 2021
 Planning and designing – entire month (18 February to 22 March)
 Arrangement (12 March to 22 March)
 Ceremony – November, 2021
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2.2 Project Activity
S.no Task Name Duration Start Finish Predecessors
1 Project initiation 8 days Mon 2/8/21 Wed 2/17/21
1.1 Determine project goals 2 days Mon 2/8/21 Tue 2/9/21
1.2 Identify deliverable 2 days Wed 2/10/21 Thu 2/11/21 2
1.3 Determine key
resources 2 days Fri 2/12/21 Mon 2/15/21 2,3
1.4 Estimate project budget 1 day Wed 2/10/21 Wed 2/10/21 2
1.5 Document for final
approval 2 days Tue 2/16/21 Wed 2/17/21 5,4
2 Planning 23 days Thu 2/18/21 Mon 3/22/21
2.1 Create WBS 2 days Thu 2/18/21 Fri 2/19/21 6
2.2 Design invitation cards 3 days Thu 2/18/21 Mon 2/22/21 2,6
2.3 Prepare guest list 4 days Mon 2/22/21 Thu 2/25/21 8
2.4 Select food menu 3 days Fri 2/26/21 Tue 3/2/21 2,5,10
2.5 Refine cost estimate 4 days Wed 3/3/21 Mon 3/8/21 5,11
2.6 develop formal project
plan 3 days Tue 3/9/21 Thu 3/11/21 2,12
2.7 Arrangement of
furniture 1 day Fri 3/12/21 Fri 3/12/21 2,13
2.8 Preparing for medals,
certificates 1 day Mon 3/15/21 Mon 3/15/21 2,14
2.9 Identify risk 5 days Tue 3/16/21 Mon 3/22/21 14,15
3 Executing the project 12 days Tue 3/23/21 Wed 4/7/21
3.1 Implement project plan 4 days Tue 3/23/21 Fri 3/26/21 15,16
3.2 Manage progress 3 days Mon 3/29/21 Wed 3/31/21 18
3.3 Implement quality
assurance procedure 5 days Thu 4/1/21 Wed 4/7/21 19
4 Controlling the project 12 days Thu 4/8/21 Fri 4/23/21
4.1 Measure performance 4 days Thu 4/8/21 Tue 4/13/21 20
4.2 develop risk register 2 days Wed 4/14/21 Thu 4/15/21 22
4.3 Ensure compliance with
change management 3 days Fri 4/16/21 Tue 4/20/21 22,23
4.4 Monitor each phase 3 days Wed 4/21/21 Fri 4/23/21 24
5 Project Closure 9 days Mon 4/26/21 Thu 5/6/21
5.1 Obtain final acceptance 4 days Mon 4/26/21 Thu 4/29/21 25
5.2 facilitate administrative
and financial closure 3 days Fri 4/30/21 Tue 5/4/21 27
5.3 Release project closure 2 days Wed 5/5/21 Thu 5/6/21 28
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2.3 Project Network diagram
2.4 Project gantt chart
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SECTION 3: COST MANAGEMENT PLAN
3.1 Cost breakdown and budget
In order to organize the graduated ceremony in November 2021, there are different
resources required that helps to successfully launch the project in an effective manner. Also, the
University also assigned a budget i.e. £7000 for the project and below mentioned is the list of
resources along with their cost.
Particulars Amount (in £)
Personnel 1300
Cap & gown 300
Certificates 900
Invitation cards publish 500
Food 1200
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Transportation 500
Trophies 600
Chairs 800
Miscellaneous expenses 500
Promotional activity 400
Total 7000
3.2 Project cost baseline
Graduation ceremony for students in a University
Particulars 1 2 3 Total
Project Manager 8000 8000 8000 24000
Team members 10000 10000 10000 30000
Software - - 60000 60000
Testing 8000 10000 12000 30000
Training - - 25000 25000
Reserves 10000 30000 350000 75000
Total 36000 58000 150000 244000
TASK 4 COMMUNICATION PLAN
Project stakeholders
List of potential stakeholders in project-
 Team members
 Media partners
 Students
 Government
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 Project handler i.e., manager are included in category of potential stakeholders.
All the above stakeholders may put direct impact on decision-making process, project
management activities and other things, according to level of interests. Project manager or
planner, is key stakeholder who is highly interested in success of project and want to obtain
desire outcomes (Irfan and et.al., 2021). Manager conduct effective practices and used important
management functions. They are highly accountable for managing the entire project and
performance of employees.
Stakeholder analysis-
Keep satisfied-
Government is the most important stakeholder of current project. They are interested in
success of project because it is beneficial form them in term of increasing profitability and boost
economic standard even better than last few months or year. Project manager should keep this
stakeholder satisfied.
Manage closely-
Students are included in above category as they also make influence or impact upon
project success through interest level. They are a high degree of interest in the success of work
and desire to get positive outcomes. Project manager manage them closely by understanding
their needs and expectations.
Monitor-
Project manager need to monitor the activities of media partners who are also included in
category of key stakeholder. They are not much interested in work success.
Keep informed-
Each stakeholder has a different interest in the context of project. For example, team
members are less interested in the success of project and completion of work, because of greater
job or employment opportunities, which may put negative impact on efforts and hard work of
management.
Stakeholder communication plan
Effective communication is the key element of growth and success of specific project. It
enables individual person to share or transfer important information (Aleksejevec, 2020). It can
be said that, project outcomes either positive or negative depends on effective communication
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