Strategic Management SIM336: Project Planning and Control Report

This assignment provides a comprehensive overview of project planning and control within a strategic management context. Task 1 defines the key characteristics of a project, explains the Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) with an example, presents a Gantt chart to identify the critical path, discusses techniques for investment appraisal, outlines a risk management plan, and details how to monitor project quality. Task 2 explores the skills and competencies required for a project manager, covering personal, technical, and management skills. It emphasizes the importance of aligning strategies and workforce competencies, using a roadmap from enterprise vision to execution, and addresses aspects like skill management, career tracks, workload balance, staffing allocation, and resource management. The report also touches on the relocation of a company's UK headquarters, highlighting the project manager's role in reducing operational costs and improving opportunities.

Running head: PROJECT PLANNING AND CONTROL
Project Planning and Control
Name of student
Name of University
Author’s Note

1PROJECT PLANNING AND CONTROL
Table of Contents
Task 1...............................................................................................................................................2
1. Key definition..........................................................................................................................2
2. Work Breakdown Structure....................................................................................................3
3. Gantt chart...............................................................................................................................3
4. Techniques of Investment appraisal.........................................................................................4
5. Risk Management Plan............................................................................................................4
6. Monitoring Project Quality......................................................................................................5
References........................................................................................................................................6
Task 2...............................................................................................................................................7
References......................................................................................................................................16

2PROJECT PLANNING AND CONTROL
Task 1
1. Key definition
Project Characteristic: The characteristics of a project make a project effective,
useful and achievable. Every project has a beginning and an ending with a definite frame of
time.The following five key defines the characteristics of a project:Unique deliverables of
results, products and services creates a project (Todorović et al. 2015).A service is performthat
creates a project.The project has to follow some step to develop.
Be specific: the specific project’s includes structure, benefits, cost, goals, and
milestones. For this specific project expert, external consultants, involvement of project team and
careful planning is required. All the respective parties have to perform some responsibilities with
work, timeline and costs. They need to provide a detail report and planning that include
personnel list, command structure, gantt chart, project cost and communication avenues. A
meeting should be scheduledperiodically to discuss about the relevant matters of the projects.
Measurable:The project execution has derived in terms of tangible and intangible
monetary benefits to analyze the project achievement.
Achievable:Every project has a meaning to make it achievable. The deliverables of the
project if unachievable, it can affect the costs of the project.
Relevant:The cost of the product, efficiency in the operation or any of the purpose that
isspecific for the benefits of the entity to be relevant. If any of this ail to address the entity of the
project will not get the benefit which will result in resource wastage for entity and there
stakeholders.

3PROJECT PLANNING AND CONTROL
Time bound:The project should have a time framefor planning, development, fine
tuning, execution that has bound within time. The parties has to justify if any adjustment made in
the project completion with keeping in mind the cost of the project execution, opportunity and
finance that are related to the project.
2.Work Breakdown Structure
Taking the example of a company, that plans to build a desktop computerto make the
work go faster (Sharon and Dori2015).For that, a team has assigned to different aspects in the
building of the computer. One of the team will work on the chassis of the configuration and the
other team will secure the components. The Work Breakdown Structure of the project determines
the project success that provides the planning of the project, scheduling,cost estimation and
allocation of the resource where the risk management is not required to mention.
3.Gantt chart
Below is the full Gantt chart of the project that identifies the critical path.Task a, b, c,f
and h are the critical path in the project planning (Landryand McDaniel2015).According to the
project, it takes 22 days to complete the project.

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ID Task
Mode
WBS Task Name Duration Start Finish Predecessors
0 0 Project
Plan
22 days Mon 2/12/18 Tue 3/13/18
1 1 a 3 days Mon 2/12/18 Wed 2/14/18
2 2 b 2 days Thu 2/15/18 Fri 2/16/18 1
3 3 c 3 days Mon 2/19/18 Wed 2/21/18 2
4 4 d 1 day Mon 2/19/18 Mon 2/19/18 2
5 5 e 5 days Thu 2/22/18 Wed 2/28/18 3
6 6 f 8 days Thu 2/22/18 Mon 3/5/18 3
7 7 g 2 days Tue 2/20/18 Wed 2/21/18 4
8 8 h 6 days Tue 3/6/18 Tue 3/13/18 6
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
Feb 11, '18 Feb 18, '18 Feb 25, '18 Mar 4, '18 Mar 11, '18
Figure 1: Gantt Chat
Source: Made by the Author
4.Techniques of Investment appraisal
The alternative techniquesfor the selection of the project investment appraisal are namely
method of Payback Period, accounting ReturnRate, Net Present Value, Internal Return Rate,
Index of profitability, Payback Period discount, Terminal Value(Liand Trutnevyte2017).
5. Risk Management Plan
Risks are uncertain while planning a project. Project management risk includes the risk
assessment and the mitigation strategy (Gatzert and Kosub2016). In the risk assessment,
potential risk can be identified and the impact of it has evaluated. In the plan of risk mitigation,
the event of risk has designed in such a way that it minimizes or eliminates its impact. Risk
identification process includes the brainstorm session that creates everything that go wrong. Risk
Management Plan is done in four ways:

5PROJECT PLANNING AND CONTROL
Avoidance: the risk can be avoided by changing the project, scope objectives
Transference: Risk impact can be shift to third party. The responsibility can just be
shifted but cannot be eliminated.
Mitigation:the risk impact and its probability is reduce by taking certain steps such as
testing, monitoring, early action and many more.
Acceptance:If any risk occurs in the event and left with no choice except accepting the
riskin the scope, cost, schedule and the quality that occurs with the event cannot be reduce.
Deferred:in each statement of the risk the process of risk assessment are summarized to
report on monthly basis.
6. Monitoring Project Quality
The aspects tomonitor the quality of a project are given below (Hazır 2015):
- Success of the project is define well
- Proper Metrics to be chosen
- Measuring the progress
- Improve and refine

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References
Gatzert, N. and Kosub, T., 2016. Risks and risk management of renewable energy projects: The
case of onshore and offshore wind parks. Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, 60,
pp.982-998.
Hazır, Ö., 2015. A review of analytical models, approaches and decision support tools in project
monitoring and control. International Journal of Project Management, 33(4), pp.808-815.
Landry, J.P. and McDaniel, R., 2015. Agile Preparation Within a Traditional Project
Management Course. In Proceedings of the EDSIG Conference (p. n3429).
Li, F.G. and Trutnevyte, E., 2017. Investment appraisal of cost-optimal and near-optimal
pathways for the UK electricity sector transition to 2050.Applied energy, 189, pp.89-109.
Sharon, A. and Dori, D., 2015. A Project–product model–based approach to planning work
breakdown structures of complex system projects. IEEE Systems Journal, 9(2), pp.366-376.
Todorović, M.L., Petrović, D.Č., Mihić, M.M., Obradović, V.L. and Bushuyev, S.D.,
2015.Project success analysis framework: A knowledge-based approach in project management.
International Journal of Project Management, 33(4), pp.772-783.

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Task 2
Project managers successfully deliver project and learn new technologies to apply them
in the next project. They develop their skills through knowledge and experience. Each time with
the delivery of the project, a new experience is gain.This report cover the skills needed for a
projectmanager. The report has some project planning, scope and expectations of managing the
project and many more.The project manager will review the business case and their requirement
to ensure the client receives the system that they need (Harmon 2015). The manager will plan
and initiate the project by some change in control.The managers reach the target and achieve the
goal by managing people, technology and certain changesto relocate the operation with
minimum cost and with improved opportunities. The project staff is managing most effectively
the skill and competencies. The organization will identify the skill to reach the next level of the
corporate performance (Paolellaand Durand 2016). Once the skill is identified then the project
manager can set priorities for the project, to meet the third party coverage. The report discusses
the stages of the project life cycle and follows the processes, and managing the leadership skills
to control the problem and manage the lifecycle.
As the company has to relocate, their U.K headquarters which involve closing of the
existing headquarter, relocating the employees with the move, and relocating various operations
that include finance and account, customer services and development and research laboratories
(Mason and Brown 2014). In this case, the project manager will improve their skill and
competencies to reduce the cost of operation and provide some opportunities that improve the
scientific collaboration and customer service.The skills of the project manager cover the

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personality of the human with the entire spectrum (Medina and Francis 2015). This skill has
divided into categories, namely:personal skills, technical skills and technical skills.
Personal Skills:The project manager tries to motivate and solve problems within the
team and outside the team. The project manager has to approach in a contagious manner and has
to be direct, honest, knowledgeable and straightforward to deal with people and the project. With
a positive attitude project managercan overcome any obstacles, problem or difficulties in the
project. For a project manager performance expectation is necessary to define at the start of any
project. It is good that a project manager has to be considerate and direct to deal with all types of
problem and appreciate their work and efforts.
Technical Skills: Some of the project manager prefers to have limited technical
knowledge depending on the project type and size, structure, available resources and the
environment of the project. For a large complex project, technical training is very useful to
master for a project manager. For a small project, technical training might enhance the project
managerabilities with technical contribution but it may not likely that the management skill will
improve.
Management Skill:The key skills and competencies of the project manager changes
considerably when introducing the project characteristics. The skill and competencies order of
importance for the project managerchanges has provided in figure 1. For a very large scope of
the project, top five skills and competencies of the respondent include; leadership, prior
experience that are relevant, planning, skills of people, building strong team and verbal
communication. The second impact of the context is with high degree of uncertainty for
management of risk and expectation of management which reflect in figure 1. Finally,

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innovations required for a considerable novel project also require the leadership and skills of
people with less-high-rated skills and competenciessuch asconfidence in self.
Skill Or Competence that are most important
Characteristics
Of A Project
First Second Third Fourth Fifth
1. A Project
That Are Very
Large
Leadership Prior Experience
That Are
Relevant
Planning Skills Of
People
Building Strong
Team, Verbal
Communication
2. High
Uncertainty
Project
Management
Of Risk
Expectation Of
Management
Leadership Skills Of
People
Planning
3. Innovation
Required For A
Considerable
Novel Project
Leadership Skills Of People Goals,
Purpose,
Has Vision
Confidence
In Self
Listening,
Expectation Of
Management
Figure 1: The skills and competencies of the project manager that are most important
Source: Author
Characteristics of different project provide different skills and competencies of project
manager. Many of the authorshave considered more than one characteristics of the project such

10PROJECT PLANNING AND CONTROL
as communication and team effectiveness. If these skills are added during the management of the
project then the cost of the operation save and opportunities improve with customer services.
In figure 2, to align the strategies and the competencies of the work force, a road map has
created by the enterprise vision from the vision to the execution. In a process of skill
management, the enterprise vision is link to the technology forecast. The forecast then link to the
required skills, the required skill to the inventory skill, the inventory skill to the staff’s
competence level and from the competence level to the gap and finally to fill the time frame gap.
The work force order is manage by the skill management for career tracks, workload balance,
staffing allocation, resource management and learning.
Objective of the Enterprise Where the enterprise will stand in 36 months ?
Inventory of Skill What skills are in-house (e.g., leadership, technical,
management of business and project)?
Forecast What information, technologies and skills it will need to get
there?
Definition of Skill What skills will it need in the months of 12,24,36 ?
Valuation of Strategic Skill How much valuable today's skills will be in the months of
12,24,36?
Levels of Proficiency How much proficient are the members of the IS staff in the
skills that are needed established?
Portfolio of Learning What type of training and educational offer the enterprise
provide, and how and to whom it will provide this?
Sourcing What type of internal and external sources of IT skills use for
filling the gaps?

11PROJECT PLANNING AND CONTROL
Figure 2: Skill Management Road Map
Source: Author
The project manager has to communicate in a professional manner. They will never
abandon the expectations set for them. A project manager should keep learning new processes
and become the biggest team fan. They know how to pull in a subject matter expert.
The project manager is responsible to deliver the project on day-to-day basis. The individual
takes the responsibility to lead and manage the team of the project to run any type of project.
One of the project management methods that can be applied to any project type is the Projects In
Controlled Environment2 (PRINCE2) method (Nasir et al. 2015).The major role of a project
manager has lead to interface between the area of business and the project. As it can transform
the need to encourage, communicate, and bring some changes in the area of business. The
readiness in the business is crucial for success. Without this, the business might not receive any
benefit and there will be delay in plan.
There are some specific responsibilities of a project manager for a report structure. The
standard project management has incorporated with the design and applyappropriately in the
process. The manager manages the deliverable production to monitor and plan the project.
Within the report structure,they agree to adopt the role of assuring a project.With the
contingency development plan, the risk of the project has managed. It is necessary to monitor the
overall progress and use the resources.
As a project manager, the individual follows the five-project group of project
management life cycle (Zhang et al. 2015). For any successful project plan, all this stage is