Project Techniques: Shanska UK Solar Plant Project Analysis Report

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of project techniques, using the example of Shanska UK's solar plant installation project for government offices. It outlines the project's objectives, which focused on producing electricity and reducing costs for the government. The report assesses the project's benefits, including added value for the company, profitability, and increased goodwill. It examines whether the project stayed within its original scope, considering timescale, budget, and tolerances, and details changes made during the project, such as labor strikes and supply chain issues, and their effects. The report also summarizes lessons learned, emphasizing the importance of standby plans and robust planning, while also highlighting the project's successes and areas for improvement. The analysis includes recommendations for future projects, focusing on risk identification and proactive management. Overall, the report provides valuable insights into project management practices and their application in a real-world scenario.

PROJECT
TECHNIQUES

Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
TASK...............................................................................................................................................3
Outlined the objectives of the project and indicate if they were achieved or not and if not, why
not?...............................................................................................................................................3
Outline any benefits that have been achieved and if these were expected or unexpected...........4
Did the project stay within its original scope? This is the project’s timescale, the budget and
the projects tolerances..................................................................................................................4
Explain the changes that were made in the run up to the completion of the project. These are
changes made in original plan. Also, what were effects of these changes on the project............5
Summaries the lessons learnt during the project, what went well and what you would do
differently next time. Think about the project’s successes and areas which need to be improved
and explain any recommendations you would have for future projects......................................6
Were there any risks which you felt you could have identified earlier on in the project. What
do you feel prevented you from identifying them, or were they unavoidable and unpredictable?
. . .. . .. , /.....................................................................................................................................6
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................7
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................8

INTRODUCTION
Project management refers to making plans which is required in a project. The project
management is about managing the whole project, managing includes resource handling, making
activities plan, handling the labor by delegating them their roles and responsibility, and the so on.
Managing a project is quite a tough task. It requires regular supervision and monitoring of work.
Every company undertakes a project and tries to complete it at time. The whole project is divided
into small activities of tasks which sum up the project (Bucero and Englund, 2015). For
reference purpose this report has taken an example of a company Shanska UK. The company is a
construction company which gains its recognition in green construction and eco friendly arenas.
The company took a project of establishing solar plant system in government offices in London
and cities near London.
This report discusses about this project that whether the project which has been
undertaken by the company gets success or not. What were the challenges which the company
faced in completing up the project, what were the advantages which the company had with this
project and the so forth.
TASK
Outlined the objectives of the project and indicate if they were achieved or not and if not, why
not?
The project which was undertaken by the company was of establishing solar plant system
at government offices in London, and the offices which were near by city of London. The
purpose of establishing the solar plant system is to produce the electricity which can be used by
the offices themselves. The offices can now do not have to buy the electricity from any other
electricity board or house, now these offices can have their own electricity which they can use.
The project would have the following benefits:
Production of electricity: Establishing the solar plant in offices would saves the energy which
the company has to buy from the outside electric boards. Establishing the solar plant would
enable the offices to use the energy which has been produce by their solar plant. This can saves a
huge cost for the government offices (Burke, 2013). Using your own electricity has its own
advantage as the office would not face any electricity shortage or cut outs, the cost would be get
saved, the offices would be using their own produced electricity.
One time investment: Investment in setting solar plant system into the premises is a onetime
investment. The person has to invest only a time and from this one time investment he can take
benefit in long run. In long time he does not have to purchase the energy from any other source
than to use the energy which has been produced by his own solar plant. Though the company has
to put money in it, as it installing a solar plant is not cheap, but the cost of not greater than the
benefits which the individual would get from it.

Outline any benefits that have been achieved and if these were expected or unexpected.
Undertaking nay project and then completing it fully and properly and that to at time adds
value to the organization. Installing the solar power plant system has its own benefits, but this
project has also benefited the organization, Shanska in the following ways:
Added value to the company: As the company is more known for green construction and eco
friendly project, installing the solar plant system is one of their projects. The company has taken
a government project in which it has to install solar power plants at all the government offices in
London and also to the nearby cities of London (Fleming and Koppelman, 2016). The project is
very huge for the company has it is linked with the government. Taking any project which is
related to government adds value to the organization. When other clients got to know that this
organization has also worked for government then the clients would be more relied on the
organization. They can build a sense of trust on the organization.
Profitable: Doing the work for government is always a profitable task for the company. An
organization can earn very enough money or profit from doing the government projects; it can’t
even earn that enough by doing any other private organizations project. Doing such project has
yields profits for the company.
More goodwill and more clients: From taking such a big project and that is with government
helps the organization in increasing in goodwill into the society. When the goodwill of the
organization increases the demand for the organization would automatically increase. The
company need not has to market or do promotional activities to advertise itself more (Heagney,
2016).
The benefits which the organization has got from this project were quite expected as the
company has already assumed all the associated benefits or merit to take up a government
project and that also at a huge scale. So the benefits or the advantage which the company got
were quite already expected by the company and they also have succeeded in these expectations.
Did the project stay within its original scope? This is the project’s timescale, the budget and the
projects tolerances.
The project did stay within its decided scope. The project was to install the solar power
plant system in government offices in London and also at nearby cities of London. The scope for
the project was decided at its initial level only as the company already researched about the
number of places or offices they need to install the solar power. By performing the required
research the company already prepared itself for this. By getting aware about the scope,
organization also made arrangements for the resources which is required in performing the
project, at its initial stage only.
The scope for the project was as per the decided or assumed one. As per the scope, the
organization already had decided the resources required, time taken to complete the whole
project along with the finances or funds required for the completion of the project and the so

forth. Before starting up the project, organization was already prepared for its plan about how
they will go to do it. In their plan they have divided the projects into zones or regions. According
to the zones, company started the project and gets stick with its plan.
When an organization, gets stick with its plans or time table, then the chances for
completion of the project at time increases at many times. The same happened with Shanska
company, they got stick with their plans and as they made the arrangements of most of the
resources earlier, they did not face the problem of shortages in their project. The budget which
was set by the company was somewhat accurate so they did not face any problem for finances
even.
Therefore with the right project management, which includes right management of time,
resources, plans, labor and etc. the company got successful in achieving the task to complete the
project for installing solar power plant in offices (Kerzner, 2017).
Explain the changes that were made in the run up to the completion of the project. These are
changes made in original plan. Also, what were effects of these changes on the project.
The company, Shanska, did change a bit in their plans. As they faced some problem with
labor and their supply chain. During the project, the company faced with some strike of labor
which has cause the project in delay. Apart from the delay the company did face some loss in its
work and waste of resource. The company also faced issues with its supply chain, the suppliers
or the network which the company had formed to transport the resources at desired places where
not as expected. The supply chain or network transport the resources very late making a delay in
the work also it was a bit expensive. Unfortunately, these both incidents took at a particular time.
The company faced the problem of its labor strikes and supply chain at the same time. As this
did cause some loss to the company, they have to bring a change into their time table or
planning. First the company solves the issue for supply chain by bringing change into the supply
network through:
Eliminate the current suppliers or chain: The supply chain which the company decided for the
project got eliminate as it got failed in serving its real purpose. To solve such problem, the
company search for more suppliers and made a list of them along with the prices at are agreeing
at. Then after viewing all suppliers, company selected the one from the available alternatives.
The company chooses that supplier which transports the materials at the required premises at
time and also which cost low to the company. After setting a desired network, the company
proceeds to solving its next problem. After the completion of the strike, the employees or the
workers get back to their work.
But the company has to delay its schedule by a week. And this delay had caused by the strike and
delay in supplies (Leach, 2014). To cover up the work for a week, Shanska decided to hire few
more labors so that they can cope up with the loss which the company had faced. By hiring few
more labor, the company takes up the level of project as per the decided plan. Although the

company did not have to change its original plan as the loss it covered by extra labor which it
hired. So the company had not had to make any changes in their original plan which benefited
the company very much.
As the company hired a few more people, the cost to hire them adds up to the cost of the
company. But the major goal or purpose of the company was to get stick with the original plan. It
does not want to make a single change in its original plan. So the company has to bare up this
extra cost.
Summaries the lessons learnt during the project, what went well and what you would do
differently next time. Think about the project’s successes and areas which need to be improved
and explain any recommendations you would have for future projects.
Though the project went all well but still the company learnt a lot from this. The lessons
which it learnt were as follows:
Always have a standby plan: The major lesson from this project was that, to handle a project a
company should always be ready with a standby plan or say plan B, because during the plan
anything can caused any sort of stoppage into the plan. So the company should be ready with
alternatives of every resource or element which is into the project.
Made a strong plan: Before incorporating the project, a company should perform its planning
very intelligently and wisely. The planning should be futuristic, means it should be planned as
per the future requirements of the external as well as internal environment. A strong plan never
fails the company. It should consider all the factors whether internal or external which can affect
the working or operations of a project (Marchewka, 2016). Through this the company would be
sure about its plan and most of the risk could get covered by this.
Strong supplying chain: The network chain for supplying the materials should be very much
strong so that the company should not have to face any problem with supplying of materials. The
whole work gets disturb when the company faced the shortages for resources, all the operations
gets stop, the cost for the labor gets adds up, the company to meet the demand has to but the
materials at the higher price and the so on. So to cover up these expenses, a company should be
ready with a network chain of suppliers which can supply the materials at time to the company.
Were there any risks which you felt you could have identified earlier on in the project. What do
you feel prevented you from identifying them, or were they unavoidable and unpredictable? . . ..
. .. , /
When a company or an organization makes plan it tries to reduce or cover up all kinds of
risks which they think will likely to purpose during their project operations. But there are some
risks which are unpredictable like the labor strike (Meredith and et. al., 2017). This strike was
not into the planning and nobody from the project would ever though that a strike could occur.
On the other hand predicting this labor was totally not possible as it is the factor which is out of
control of any organization.

The risk which the company felt was the strict time table. The planning or the scheduling
were made which has to be strictly followed by the company. The company should have made
such planning or time table in which they must add a week relaxation or so. Because the things
can’t every time goes as planned and the people may not be able to get stick to schedules every
time. Making a plan B in which the activities if they get delayed should get cover up by
following the Plan B. When there is only a single plan and the things has to follow very strictly
then if any mishap happen would like any delay in work, labor strikes and etc can cause loss to
the company which cannot be beneficial to the project.
Apart from this, there are two factor environments which affect the working of an
organization. one is internal factor and the other is external factor. Internal factor includes
employees, structure, system, values, mission, visions and etc. These internal factors can be get
control by the organization. Whereas the external factors include political, economical,
technological, social, environmental and legal factors, these factors are out of the control of an
organization but can badly affect the operations and activities of a business. As in the case with
this project, the issue which arises by suppliers was an internal factor as the company can control
and handle this issue and the company did handle it (Mir and Pinningto, 2014). Shanska tackle
this problem by searching for the alternative suppliers which can supply the materials to the
company at time and that to at low cost. But the on the other hand, some risk are unpredictable
and uncontrollable like Labor Strike, the strike cannot get control by the organization as it arises
due to some external influence.
Therefore these two were the issue which the company faced for which the company
were not have planned, and about these things the company would be consider in their future so
that if these problems may occur into future, the company must have the plans or alternatives to
cover it up (Morris, 2013).
CONCLUSION
From the report presented above, the project and how it is get managed has been
mentioned. The project did faced many problems like poor supply network chain for which the
company faced the problem of shortage of materials, and another was the strike of labor which
the company faced during the project. The company tried its best to solve these issues and from
this the company did learnt lessons which it will underlined in its next projects.

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
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commitment for project success. Project Management Institute.
Burke, R., 2013. Project management: planning and control techniques. New Jersey, USA, 26.
Fleming, Q. W. and Koppelman, J. M., 2016, December. Earned value project management.
Project Management Institute.
Heagney, J., 2016. Fundamentals of project management. Amacom.
Kerzner, H., 2017. Project management: a systems approach to planning, scheduling, and
controlling. John Wiley & Sons.
Leach, L. P., 2014. Critical chain project management. Artech House.
Marchewka, J. T., 2016. Information technology project management: Providing measurable
organizational value. John Wiley & Sons.
Meredith, J.R.,and et. al., 2017. Project management: a managerial approach. John Wiley &
Sons.
Mir, F. A. and Pinnington, A. H., 2014. Exploring the value of project management: linking
project management performance and project success. International journal of project
management. 32(2). pp.202-217.
Morris, P. W., 2013. Reconstructing project management. John Wiley & Sons.
Turner, R., Ledwith, A. and Kelly, J., 2012. Project management in small to medium‐sized
enterprises.Management Decision.
Walker, A., 2015. Project management in construction. John Wiley & Sons.