Project Management Strategies for the DEF Ltd Merger Success

This assignment provides a comprehensive analysis of project management principles applied to the DEF Ltd merger case study. It begins by defining the key characteristics of a project, the importance of a scope statement and Work Breakdown Structure (WBS), and the creation of a Gantt chart for project scheduling. It explores various approaches to budget generation and discusses potential project risks and corresponding mitigation strategies. Furthermore, it identifies quality methods for project evaluation, monitoring, and control to ensure successful project completion. The case study focuses on John, the project manager, and the essential skills required for his role, including communication, financial acumen, organizational knowledge, technical expertise, and soft skills. It emphasizes the importance of teamwork, stakeholder engagement, and effective planning to manage the project scope and achieve the desired outcomes for the merger.

Managing Projects

Table of Contents
Task 1...............................................................................................................................................3
Task 2...............................................................................................................................................6

Task 1
1. Define the key characteristics of any project.
A project is temporary in nature and is typically made for the customer (Kerzner and Kerzner,
2017). Every project has unique features and requirements that need to be delivered within a
stipulated time. The key characteristics of the project are-
 A project serves a defined purpose or a result. This includes costs, schedules and
performance management.
 Every project is unique. A project is never repeated.
 A project is not a business and it can be cross-functional or cross-organization.
 A project always looks for improvements and as it is not repetitive, it involves unfamiliarity.
 A project is build to achieve a specific objective or goal.
2) What is the Scope Statement for a project? What role does the Work Breakdown
Structure (WBS) have in such a statement?
One of the essential components of a project is Scope Statement. Scope Statement is a written
document that confirms the results of the project undertaken. The manager produces the written
confirmation where the terms and the conditions are mentioned. Before the work of the project
begins, the team members as well as the person suggesting the project should agree with the
statements. A good scope statement includes description of the products, justification,
deliverables, constraints and assumptions.
A work Breakdown Structure is a key element of a scope statement as it maintains and manages
the teamwork. WBS defines and organizes the project work and thus assists in achieving the
objective of the project (Harrison and Lock, 2017).
3) Using the information below, plot out a full project Gantt chart and identify the critical
path. How many days does it take to complete the project?

Start
Wed
23-
05-
18
Finis
h
Mon
18-
06-
18
28
Ma
y
'18
04
Ju
n
'1
8
11
Ju
n
'1
8
18
Ju
n
'1
8
a
Wed 23-
05-18 -
Tue 29-
05-18
b
Wed 30-
05-18 -
Mon 04-
06-18
c
Tue
05-
06-
18 -
Wed
06-
06-
18
d
Tue 05-
06-18 -
Thu 07-
06-18
e
Thu 07-
06-18 -
Wed 13-
06-18
f
Fri 08-06-
18 - Mon
18-06-18
a
Wed 23-
05-18 -
Tue 29-
05-18
b
Wed 30-
05-18 -
Mon 04-
06-18
c
Tue
05-
06-
18 -
Wed
06-
06-
18
d
Tue 05-
06-18 -
Thu 07-
06-18
e
Thu 07-
06-18 -
Wed 13-
06-18
f
Fri 08-06-
18 - Mon
18-06-18
28
Ma
y
'18
04
Ju
n
'1
8
11
Ju
n
'1
8
18
Ju
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Ma
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ID Task Name Duration
2 5 days
3 a 4 days
4 b 2 days
5 c 3 days
6 d 5 days
7 f 7 days
M T W T F S S M T W T F S S M T W T F S S M T W T F S S M T W T F S S M T W T F S S M T
07 May '18 14 May '18 21 May '18 28 May '18 04 Jun '18 11 Jun '18 18 Jun '18
Figure 1: Gantt Chart
(Source: Created by the learner)
4) What approaches exist to generate a budget for a specific project budget?
It is difficult to estimate a cost of project at the beginning. Therefore, it is important to plan a
budget and there are various approaches to use it.
Top-down Approach- This approach helps to determine the entire cost of the project and the
amount is divided among various work packages.
Bottom-up approach- The lowest level work packages are estimated to get the total cost of the
project.
Expert Judgement- The cost of the project is decided by taking the opinions of subject-matter
experts.

Supplier Bid Analysis- The bids of various suppliers are compared to estimate the cost of the
project.
5) How can project risk arise? Outline the various responses to risk that may be taken
within project management.
Project risk is an uncertain event and condition and it can arise when there is a poor leadership,
lack of coordination and communication among the employees, lack of resources, no continuity
of work and constant changes in the business strategies. The main responsibility lies with the
hierarchy and the leaders of the organization. When leaders of the organizations are not effective
and unable to make effective decision, there can be never a successful completion of a project.
Other factors like depletion of resources and misunderstanding between staffs in a company can
result into severe risks.
Risk response includes eliminating the threats, reducing the monetary value of risks and
accepting the consequences of the risks. A risk can be managed-in several ways
 Identity and accept the Risk- The first major role of Risk Management is to identity the
problems and the hazards that jeopardize the project. The risk generally occurs during the
planning of a project. After identifying the risk, it is important to accept it. Once the risk is
accepted, the company can employ an alternative risk management strategy and take actions
accordingly. A rational basis can be provided for better decision and management of risks.
 Mitigate the risk- With the help of risk management techniques, the risks can be mitigated
or transferred to the third party.
6) What quality methods (project evaluation, monitoring and control) would you introduce
to ensure a project is completed successfully?
A successful project needs a proper evaluation and monitoring (Meredith et al., 2016). Various
strategies can be implemented to monitor and control the planning process. The costs, the
timeliness, deliverables and the standards of the project need to be constantly checked and
monitored. The quality methods that needs to be introduced to ensure a successful project are-
 Total Quality Management
 Performance Indicators/ perform quality assurance

 Control of Costs and schedule overruns

Task 2
Introduction
In business organizations, project management is a detailed plan or procedure to initiate, plan,
control, execute and evaluate goals or issues addressed by the core objectives of the particular
project. In this regard, a project in a business scenario can be defined as a temporary endeavour
to produce a unique business service, project or outcome. Projects are time-bound and follow a
set of guidelines according to the field it deals in.
In professional project management, a senior leader is usually its main head. In the case study,
John is the project manager who will be managing a series or projects for the high street frozen
food retailer, DEF Ltd. Being a senior leader at ABC PLS based in UK, John has the right
experience to head a number of initial operations of a merger.
Definition
According to Harrison and Lock, (2017) project management can be defined as a set of goal-
oriented activities to complete a task, through defined processes like Planning, Organizing,
Implementing and Evaluating.
A standard procedure to undertake project management is described in the diagram:

Figure: Stages of Project Management
(Source: Harrison and Lock, 2017)
Initially a project design is carved out to understand what the project is aimed at, and then it is
developed into a fresh module adding perspectives, ideas and processes from the management
perspective. Once, the project is developed, it is analyzed if it would be relevant in the given
cultural or business setting, and if any challenges or risks surround the project. A final evaluation
is done when the project is completed and implemented in the business setting to measure the
rate of its success (Heagney, 2016).
John being a senior leader holds great project management skills that would enable him to
communicate his ideas with the DEF Ltd team, as well as encourage an exchange of perceptions
to contribute to the project.
Skills
John is required to display a full manifestation of his project management skills, which include
the following:
Communication skills – He knows how to communicate ideas and practical knowledge; he can
resolve conflicts that might arise between the employees of ABC and DEF who are working for
the first time together for a new project, since the acquisition of DEF by ABD PLC. His other
people skills like motivating his team and endorsing his leadership skills by guiding them all
along would bring more benefits to the new project.
Financial skills – John has handled the finances of a project beforehand and it is therefore easy
for him to make estimates regarding costs of materials and skills. He can prepare short-term
budgets to undergo a certain manufacturing procedure within the given time period. He can
guide accountants in his team to make project audits and process large bulk of information
containing industry figures.
Organizational knowledge – John is a senior leader at UK’s ABC PLC, which means he is
already familiar with the knowledge of how project can be organized around a central goal – it

can short term or long term – depending on the project. He can organize his team around the
objective to negotiate with people from different backgrounds at DEF Ltd.
Technical skills – The case study mentions John being chosen as the project manager for DEF
Ltd to use in-house expertise in order to reduce the overall cost of the merger. This means that
the person chosen for the job has sound skills in technology and equipment involved in the
manufacturing processes concerning DEF and ABC merger.
Soft skills – John has been approached by a senior leader of ABC PLC to accept responsibility
for multiple aspects of project management including planning, implementation, and termination
of the merger project. This means that the entire project management timeline would be headed
by John, who is surely capable of managing his team both professionally in the manufacturing
process and personally in tam building. He needs to exercise flexibility and work under pressure,
being able to respond patiently to ambiguous or uncalled events.
In addition to the above, John as the project manager for the acquisition’s manufacturing
processes must display great skills at handling his team and keeping their integrity sound at all
levels of industrial pressure or work stress. The qualities he needs to show when handling his
team are as follows:
He must make sure he assembles the right people with the right skills for specific tasks in the
manufacturing cycle.
He must distribute roles according to capabilities and allocate particular times for the review of
every task.
He must be able to motivate the team constantly since the team is currently a mixture of
employees from two different organizations, one of which has acquired the other. He must be
able to bring out the positive sides of behaviour of his team to contribute to the project, in the
bigger picture.
Once the project manager, John has ensured the above are in place, he must set with planning of
the project. This would start by studying the demands and needs of the key people vital to the
success of the project. These would be:

Consumers – Here, the main consumers of frozen food and beverages in retail are generally
youngsters who stay in university hostels and are too busy to prepare energy juices, milk shakes,
and soft drinks and so on. John must discuss the choice and preferences of the type, flavour,
quality and packaging material preferred by his consumers. The pricing must also be decided, it
must be affordable to high school students
Stakeholders – Stakeholders are people who have a direct or indirect interest in a particular
project. In this case, the stakeholders are fruit sellers, homemakers who deal in homemade jams
or fruit jelly, carton manufacturers, and all those dealing with products along the supply chain of
manufacturing preserved foods and beverages.
Teamwork
As John is discussing key people in his project, he must prolong the process ask his team to
study the scope of the drinks ABC PLC and DEF Ltd are aiming to produce. This comes within
the Project Scope Management. During the process:
 John must ask his team to identify standards followed by competing beverage industries
 He must subsequently allow his team to exchange ideas relating the quality of service the
others in the market are providing and how DEF and ABC merger can do better than the
available foods and beverages
 He must ask his research team to study the market trends and actual performances of existing
beverage brands and make specifications for their upcoming product accordingly
 When John is done outlining the scope of his project, he must undergo a tedious process of
determining feasibility of the project.
This process includes:
 Finding out economical yet effective marketing strategies as the project is only in its earlier
stage
 Examining the need of having more ready-made food and beverages in the current market
and how their entry into the market would be contributing positively to the financial success
of ABC PLC

 Suggesting alternative solutions or small changes in the product to replace its ingredients
without compromising its quality, so that it fits the initial budget
Once a feasibility test is endured, John can proceed with design that is more practical and
planning. Now, he must ensure he discussed the project objectives with his team before starting
the official manufacture timeline of events.
Before setting out on ordering manufactures, John must make sure that the project objectives to
develop new foods and beverages for the merger are SMART in nature. According to Turner
(2016), SMART is the ideal rule for determining project objectives in a business project
management scenario. These are:
Specific - In this case, the team must decide exactly what kind of drink – whether a milkshake or
energy juice – is too made for the merger since it is catering the youngsters.
Measurable – John must collaborate with the audit keepers of his team and make estimates of
production costs of drinks, packaging material and the potential profit margin.
Achievable – John must an overview of the timeline of events – the start of manufacture, the
first sample product taste and launch, the health graph tests, etc. He must be deciding achievable
deadlines to complete each processes in the duration of time allotted to the respective employees.
Realistic – John must ensure that his short-term goals and planning are realistic. If he is
determining initial sale figures within two months of the product launch, he cannot be
pressurizing his team to generate unimaginably higher profits.
Time – This is limited, as John as an ideal project manager must ensure that all the related tasks
and process within the manufacture cycle is submitted for feedback within the time allotted for
each of them. Not keeping up to time piles up work, delaying deadlines and eventually disrupting
the entire scheduling of the project.
After the above planning strategies, John is supposed to prepare an implementation procedure,
for risk management. Any project, large or small, is always surrounded by risks and challenges
that have the capability to affect the project negatively (Leach, 2014).

Hence, it is important to address these dangers. Risk assessment essentially helps to monitor the
possible risk factors that can occur within the project management or execution, and make plans
to overcome it. It involves an entire systematic procedure of making response plans for dangers
that can get into line before the project starts, or even when the project life cycle is in operation.
Managing risks is mainly about knowing what to do and when to do it (Sadgrove, 2016).
These techniques would help John’s team to manage risks:
 Avoiding the risk by regular surveillance
 Reducing the risk by taking timely action
 Transferring the risk to a smaller scale, financially
 Accepting the risk and facing it rather than stressing over it
 Encouraging studies and actions within the research team to better handle risk management
 Mitigating the risk by taking necessary steps
Major types of risks can be classified as (Hopkin, 2017):
CATEGORY OF RISKS EXAMPLES
Political cultural upheavals, strikes by trade unions, etc.
Technical Design errors, new technology, etc.
Financial Cash flow problems, budget cuts, etc.
Human resources Shortage of skills, human errors, etc.
Legal Government regulations and laws, etc.
Effective risk management makes a project future-oriented and sustainable for a longer duration.
John as the project manager can command his research team to make a critical analysis of risks
through two types of risk analyses studies:
Quantitative risk analysis – This processed is based on accounting for a probability of risks in
figures, statistics and numbers to quantify them into measurable values. This makes risk
management much easier than any other method (McNeil et al., 2015).