Project Management: Planning, Execution, and Control

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PROJECT MANAGEMENT
PROJECT MANAGEMENT
Name of the student:
Name of the University:
Author’s Note:
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PROJECT MANAGEMENT
Table of Contents
Task 1:.............................................................................................................................................3
Key characteristics of a project....................................................................................................3
Purpose of Project Initiation Document (PID)............................................................................3
Scope statement of a project........................................................................................................3
Function of WBS in Scope statement..........................................................................................4
Gantt chart...................................................................................................................................4
Critical Path.................................................................................................................................5
Approach to produce budget........................................................................................................5
Ways of arising project risk and responses to risks in project management...............................6
Quality control methods..............................................................................................................6
Task 2:.............................................................................................................................................7
Introduction..................................................................................................................................7
Identification of skills and competencies of project manager.....................................................7
Project management process........................................................................................................8
Stages of project life cycle...........................................................................................................9
Expected outcome......................................................................................................................10
Feasibility of selected project....................................................................................................11
Importance of leadership...........................................................................................................11
Administration panel.................................................................................................................12
Potential risk of selected project................................................................................................13
Conclusion.................................................................................................................................13
References......................................................................................................................................14
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PROJECT MANAGEMENT
Task 1:
Key characteristics of a project
The main distinctiveness of a project can be stated as follows:
 Each project has a definite start and ending and it develops its concept during that period.
The project ends when all the desired objectives are met and afterwards it is terminated.
Therefore, the life cycle of a project is temporary.
 The project is designed to deliver some specific service or results. The deliverables
should be unique and should always address the problems arising during the project
course (Hornstein, 2015).
 As the project progresses, it gives scope to continuous innovation and development and
this helps in making the project plan more accurate and elaborate. The successful
alterations and modifications of planning helps in developing appropriate solutions for
the project.
Purpose of Project Initiation Document (PID)
The Project Initiation Document (PID) is one of the chief mechanisms of managing a project and
it forms the basis of the project of a company. It aids in taking decisions and co-ordinates the
details collected during the process of the project. It is a method, which focuses upon the success
and failure of a project. The information stated in PID aids the project administration to give
their obligation. It signifies that the PID is properly describing public, possessions and budget
that are needed for the scheme (Todorović et al. 2015). The manager and the administration can
track the progress of the scheme by means of such PID document.
Scope statement of a project
The scope statement of the scheme is a tool that is used to describe the main deliverables of a
project that is the main highlights, the high-level necessities, necessary supposition of the project
and the chief constraints in undertaking the project. It is helpful in taking decisions in the future
course of time when it is needed to change the range as desired. The boundaries of a project are
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PROJECT MANAGEMENT
also defined by means of this scope and it helps to identify the deliverables both inside and
outside of the scope (Badewi, 2016). An effective project scope includes the main project
objectives, deliverables and milestones, any risks or issues, review and approval of stakeholders
and high-level requirements and assumptions taken.
Function of WBS in Scope statement
The WBS helps in understanding the scope of the project at an early stage and gives a clear idea
to all the stakeholders of the project about the work to be done to finish the project. With the help
of WBS, the manager of the plan will identify the inclusions and exclusions within the range of
the plan. In this way, the manager of the project can emphasise upon the aspects that are essential
to make the project successful. It helps to avoid the activities, which wastes a huge amount of
time, and are exactly not aligned with the scope of the project (Kerzner, 2017).
Gantt chart
Start date
(01.08.2019)
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18
A
B
C
D
E
F
Table 1: Gantt chart
(Source: Learner)
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Task C
5 days
Task A
5 days Task B
7 days
Task D
3 days
Task E
6 days
Task F
8 days
PROJECT MANAGEMENT
Critical Path
Figure 1: Critical path of the project
(Source: Learner)
The project takes 18 days to complete and the critical path is A-C-F.
Approach to produce budget
The top-down approach can be used to decide the expenditure of the plan and divide the total
cost among the packages of work. It helps in efficient management of the project and reduction
of unnecessary facts. On the other hand, the bottom-up approach can aid in estimating the project
cost by means of costing the lowest level working packages. It is also termed as participating
budgeting because the team member is involved by the project manager to create the budget
(Papke-Shields and Boyer-Wright, 2017).
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PROJECT MANAGEMENT
Ways of arising project risk and responses to risks in project management
Cost risk may arise due to poor estimation of cost and scope. Schedule risk arises due to slippage
in schedules and delay in receiving project benefits. Performance risk arises due to failure to
produce results consistent with the project guidelines (Martens and Carvalho, 2017).
The various responses to risks in project management are avoid, mitigate, transfer, contingency,
enhance, accept, share and exploit.
Quality control methods
Project evaluation helps in diminishing operational cost and fulfillment of wants of the
employees. Monitoring helps in checking the results and accurate observation of every step of
the project. Controlling is required to make the plan flexible in order to understand the standard
benchmark of a project (Conforto and Amaral, 2016)
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PROJECT MANAGEMENT
Task 2:
Introduction
The project contains necessary information used for gathering relevance and concepts. The
information gathered is true and justifies the project. It is created with help of case study and is
intended for better understanding of the project.
Identification of skills and competencies of project manager
 Supervising its team - The manager who lack experience find it difficult manage a new.
Therefore, the organization need to train its new coming mangers and make them capable
of minimizing the problems faced in a team. For instance, when an employee is promoted
for his good work and has to face a lot of problem, he becomes incapable of doing it and
in turns slows the project (Young et al.2016).
 Conflict resolution- In a workplace, the element of conflict is very common. It is the
duty of the project manger to settle these conflicts. If such conflicts are not resolved then
it affects the workflow and productivity. Project manger must be ready to handle such
situation and bring about the state of mutuality among its team.
 Emotional intelligence- This skill is very important and marks the development of
professional maturity. It takes years of experience to master this skill. Therefore, majority
of the project managers who are appointed comes with lot of experience automatically
and are more than capable to lead a team properly.
 Communicating skills- Managers need to be confident and have good communications
skill to manage properly his team (Ting-Toomey et al. 2016). Moreover if a
communication barrier is created then the important information are not properly
transferred between the team and this gap results slow and ineffective teamwork.
 Team building- Managers showed have the intuition of picking the right person for his
team. A good balanced team is most suitable of achieving the set goals in quick time
period. This not helps in lowering conflicts but also helps in managing and maintains a
dynamic team.
 Delegation- Project managers with experience understand the significance of delegation.
It helps in emergent of a better team by increasing their work duties. Effectiveness of
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delegation is depended on strategy designed by the project manager. It includes skills like
handling a task effectively and develops the team alongside (Walter 2019).
 Manage performance- The effective development of a team requires its manager to
understand the basics of managing performance. Project managers should have clear view
on the goals, making the employees understand their specific goals and responsibilities.
He should also become a good mentor and teach disciplinary skills to its team.
 Risk management- The level of maturity a project manger gains helps him in reducing
the various risk involved. If the work of the project manger is routine, it helps the manger
in reducing immediate and other future risks (McNeil et al.2015).
 A proper sense of humor- The continuous working on a particular project may
sometimes become very stressful for the project manager. The sense of humor helps him
find new side to the project which releases the tense environment and even helps the team
to relax and work confidently (Mauro et al.2017).
Project management process
Control and planning of a project has been determined by the help of project management
process. In this specified topic also, the project management process is to be applied in order to
develop the acquisition of the ABC and DEF projects successfully. It can be said that the
expected outcome of the project would be obtained if the stages of the project life cycle can be
maintained properly (Kerzner, 2017).
It has been seen that the development of the project management process is required for the right
implementation of the project. According to the process of the project management in the
acquisition of the ABC and the DEF, some specific configuration process has been developed so
that the result of the project can be obtained successfully. A series of processes are included I
that of the mentioned process, acquisition of the ABC and the DEF and the project management
process would be reflect on the stages, purposes of the stages, the stakeholders that are
responsible for the process, rather each of the stages and the expected schedule of the project
(Meredith et al.2017 ). The deliverables are to be found from this so that it can be easier to find
out whether the right process has been followed by the stakeholders or not. The stages that are
included in the process are the project initiation, project planning, execution or realization of the
project, monitoring the project and finally the closure of the project.
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Management of
risk
Stages of project life cycle
Initiation of
the plan
Agreement
of the plan
Planning of
the plan
Framing
goals and
budget
Framing
Gantt chart
and WBS
Drafting
communication
plan
Execution
of project
Tracking
status
Making
forecasts
Control Closure
Tracking
of costs
Project
reporting
Ensuring
quality
Track
performance
PROJECT MANAGEMENT
Stages of project life cycle
Figure 2: Project Management life cycle stages
(Source: Learner)
Initiation of the project: This is the first stage and the main aim of this stage is to do testing so
that the actual concept of the project can be analysed. In this case, the manager of the project has
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to understand how to reduce the total cost of merger of the plan, which is the main initiation of
the project.
Project Planning: This is a very critical stage as it helps in understanding the aspects of the
project and framing the project accordingly, which will be followed by everyone. This stage
generally begins with framing of the objectives. The framing of goals, budget, WBS, Gantt chart
and designing the plan for communication, is done at this stage. The risks of the project are also
assessed in this stage (Hornstein, 2015).
Execution of the project: In this stage, the result of the project is generated and completed. The
tracking of the plan status and assigning tasks to team associates to control the status of the plan
is done at this stage. The IMC Calendar and status meetings are also conducted at this stage.
Control of the project: The management of the plan is done at this stage, which deals with
tracking the exact cost of the plan and ensuring that the quality of the plan is maintained. The
tracking of performance of every team member is done at this stage so that the project can be
carried out easily and efficiently.
Closure of the project: The team associates hired temporarily, leaves the job at this stage and the
permanent employees takes care of the matter that the project is completed and reported to the
higher officials. They also look into the matter that the project is completed within the desired
time and budget (Badewi, 2016).
Expected outcome
It can be observed that depending upon the favourable business and work environment and the
reliable consumers, that the new proposition of the friendly merger and acquisition will be
successful. The company ABC can now make acquisition with the well-known street food dealer
DEF Ltd. because the merger is friendly in nature. The in-house management will be successful
in analysing how to reduce the overall cost of the merger by means of undertaking the above
project life cycle aspects. Either the results can be subjective or quantitative in nature or it can be
both. Attempts have been made in order to make the results of such designed project to be
quantitative in nature.
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Empowerment VisioningHearing minutely and making questionsInfluencing others Building a team
PROJECT MANAGEMENT
Feasibility of selected project
The selected project has been planned to be conducted in order to understand the potential of the
acquisition of the ABC and the DEF companies. On the other hand, the shareholders would also
be beneficial from this acquisition process. It is found that if the ABC Company considers the
acquisition process with that of the DEF Company, it can be said that they can be able to
generate more profits in the business market. Apart from the potential profit generation, it can
also be said that due to the development of the project, the capital fund of the companies would
be combined and it would be profitable for the ABC Company as they can attain more market
share and wider target consumers as well (Howson, 2017). Apart from that, the project is feasible
for other reasons such as the entry barrier for ABC Company to the other country can be
reduced. At the same time, fresh ideas and resources can be available for the ABC Company can
be developed due to the proposed project. On the other hand, obtaining the experts and the
quality staffs from the DEF Company can be easier for the ABC Company and thus, it would be
beneficial for the company for achieving the preferable profit from the business. Product
portfolio of the ABC Company would be increased due to the acquisition of the two companies
as the diversity of the products and services of the ABC Company would be increased due to the
acquisition process (Kiesel et al. 2017). Finally, it is found that the competitive advantage has
been developed for the ABC Company as they have decided to acquisition with the DEF
Company. Due to the reduced competition in the concerned market, it would be feasible for the
company to merge with the DEF Company.
Importance of leadership
Figure 3: Success of project by means of leadership
(Source: Learner)
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PROJECT MANAGEMENT
Based on the above diagram, it can be said that the administration of the organisation is required
to get accustomed with the new project or venture that is being undertaken. They should also
look into the matter that adequate co-ordination is made among all the individuals who are
working within the process of managing the project. In the process of managing the project, the
manager of the team of project management should convey all the required data and information
accurately to all the members of the team and should maintain a sense of motivation and positive
energy among all team. The main liability of the project manager is to motivate and encourage
the team members so that they help each other in times of distress and work together in a
coordinating manner (Todorović et al. 2015).
The main use of initiation and management in any venture is to organise the life cycle of the task
that is being undertaken. In case of the ventures undertaken, which are large in nature and highly
unpredictable should be analysed by framing objectives and principles and it is also to be seen
that they deliver the best results. A large group of individuals are required who should work
united and with disciplinary manners so that the task can be completed within the stipulated time.
The manager should lead the team in times of distress and look into matter that no conflict arises
among the team members (Badewi, 2016). If there is any change of plan, the manager should be
an efficient leader to communicate to each team member regarding the change of the plan of the
project. The change if any must be identified by the team leader using his experience and
professional skills of leadership. By means of this initiative, the project management plan
undertaken can be completed without any hindrance.
Administration panel
 Planning- The project planning mainly defines setting of goals for the future. To achieve
this goals the manager sets some plan, which is used as reference for effective execution
of the goals (Rumble 2016).
 Organizing- After the plans are laid down the mangers needs to organize the budget,
appoint the right work for the right person. They also need to carefully monitor the
external barrier, which could cause hindrance. It alos includes division of groups
according to their strengths and weakness, and at the end a all round balanced team is
produced.
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