Project Management Plan: Improving Widget 'R Us Operations

This project management plan addresses the challenges faced by Widget 'R Us (WRU), a firm experiencing market dynamics, internal communication issues, and slow product development. The plan begins with an executive summary outlining the problems and the proposed solutions. It includes a project selection matrix comparing three alternatives, with Project 2, focusing on technology investment and organizational restructuring, selected as the optimal choice. The project, termed "Transformation," aims to develop technologically superior widgets and improve internal management. The plan details project objectives, requirements, deliverables, key performance indicators (KPIs), and a feasibility study. It outlines the project's strengths, weaknesses, approval requirements, assumptions, constraints, and potential improvements. Key sections cover stakeholder management, organizational structure, human resource management, communication, schedule management, cost management, quality management, risk management, and procurement management. The project schedule, milestones, work breakdown structure (WBS), and Gantt chart are also included. The plan emphasizes the need for transformation to ensure WRU's sustainability and competitiveness in the market. The project aims to implement changes within a budget of $45,000 and a timeframe of 200 days, while adhering to Prince 2 principles.

Running head: PROJECT MANAGEMENT
Project Management
Name of the student
Name of the university
Author note

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Executive Summary
Widget ‘R Us (WRU) is a firm known having expertise in manufacturing and designing of
widget. The market had become dynamic and the company products are slow to respond and the
competitors have developed innovative products. The organization had been unable to take
counter measures and forecast the change in product specifications. The organization had also
been facing internal issues as well where the internal communication is poor. The majority of the
information goes to the higher authorities that have authority on the specific information. The
report had developed a project management plan for mitigating the problems faced by the
organization. The report had depicted the project schedule, milestone, deliverables, risk register,
quality management plan, procurement plan, stakeholder management theory and other factors
based on the given business case.

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Table of Contents
Project purpose................................................................................................................................3
Project Selection Matrix..................................................................................................................4
Project Concept – “Transformation”...............................................................................................6
Mission........................................................................................................................................6
Project objectives.........................................................................................................................6
Project requirements....................................................................................................................7
Project deliverables......................................................................................................................7
Project Key Performance Indicators............................................................................................8
Project Feasibility............................................................................................................................9
Strengths and Weaknesses of the project.....................................................................................9
Approval requirements..............................................................................................................10
Project assumptions...................................................................................................................10
Known constraints.....................................................................................................................10
Possible improvements..............................................................................................................11
Project Stakeholders Management................................................................................................11
Project organizational chart (Prince 2)..........................................................................................13
Human resource and Communication Management..................................................................14
Project Schedule Management......................................................................................................14
Milestones..................................................................................................................................14
Project WBS to 3 levels.............................................................................................................15
Project Gantt Chart....................................................................................................................16
Schedule Management...............................................................................................................17
Project Cost Management..............................................................................................................21
Project Quality Management.........................................................................................................26

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Project Risk Management..............................................................................................................28
Project Procurement Management.................................................................................................31
Conclusion.....................................................................................................................................31

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Project purpose
Widget ‘R Us (WRU) is a firm known having expertise in manufacturing and designing
of widget. Globalization has changed the market scenario where the demands for developing
widgets have increased significantly. WRU has been lagging behind and has been unable to
keep up with the change in demand in the market. The market has become dynamic and the
company products are slow to respond and the competitors have developed innovative products.
The organization has been unable to take counter measures and forecast the change in product
specifications. The organization is also facing internal issues as well where the internal
communication is poor. The majority of the information goes to the higher authorities that have
authority on the specific information. The team work between departments is worse and each
department blames other department for problem faced by WRU. Therefore, the organization
will have to develop a project in order to mitigate the internal issues and the technical issues
faced by the organization.
The current approaches, existing products, technologies are relevant to the new products
as the organizational approaches are inadequate and they lack in innovation and technology. The
organization has been known for their low cost servings and in order to improve their operational
efficiency the organization will have to use the new approaches and technologies used by rival
companies (Schwalbe 2015). The organization requires drastic change in their organizational
policy and their product specifications so present approaches, existing products and technologies
in the market are a key to maintaining organizational sustainability.
Project Selection Matrix
Criteria Weigh
t
Project 1 Project 2 Project 3
ra
w
weighted ra
w
weighte
d
ra
w
weighte
d
Relevancy to organizations
objectives
30% 95
28.5
95
28.5
55
16.5

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Well developed Internal support 15% 75 11.25 85 12.75 45 6.75
Potential market(large) 10% 40 4 95 9.5 55 5.5
Relevancy and realism of
technology
10% 30
3
85
8.5
50
5
Can be implemented in six months 5% 25 1.25 30 1.5 50 2.5
Addresses the organizational issues 25% 40 10 60 15 50 12.5
Low level of risk 10% 20 2 20 2 50 5
Weighted project scores 100% 60 77.75 53.75
(Table 1: Summerville, Uzsoy and Gaytán 2015)
In this current business case, there are three alternatives to achieving the goals of the
organization and managing their sustainability.
Objective To develop widgets that are at par with the
products offered by the competitors and
mitigate the internal structural and
communicational issues
Alternatives Description
#Project 1: To outsource the technology
services to meet the client needs and hire
new workforce.
According to the first project, the
organization will outsource their
technological requirements in areas they are
lacking and make drastic changes to the
exiting workforce all levels.
#Project 2: To invest in superior technology,
talent management and organizational
structure to bring about a drastic change
The organization will make investment in
technology to develop widgets that are
superior to the products offered by the market
competitors and restructure the organization
to develop better communication and
efficiency.

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#Project 3: To form merger with rival
company to manage the sustainability of
WRU
The organization will form a merger with
other rival companies in order to increase the
availability of their resources.
Table 2
The project selection matrix has been instrumental in evaluating the alternative options in
this business case. The evaluation shows that project 2 is the appropriate project as the weighted
score is highest in the project. The different criteria that are essential for the success and
sustainability are set as the parameters of evaluation. The factors are relevancy to organizations
objectives well developed Internal support, potential market(large), relevancy and realism of
technology, implementation in six months, addresses the organizational issues and low level of
risk which are key to gaining competitive advantage. The weight has been provided as per the
importance of each of the criteria and rankings have been provided based on the ability of the
project to address those criteria on a scale of 1-100. The cumulative weighted score of the
projects are used to determine the project that is most appropriate for mitigating the issues faced
by the organization.
The project selection matrix has been developed and the weighted score model has been
used to calculate the feasibility of each of the projects. The results show that the project 2 has the
highest weighted score so it is the project having maximum effectiveness in the organizational
context.
Project Concept – “Transformation”
This project will be developed to bring about transformational changes to the operations
and products of Widget ‘R U (WRU).
Mission
The mission of the project is development widgets that are technologically superior in the
market and restructuring of the organization to prevent loss of information and better
management of the organization.

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Project objectives
The project objectives consist of outcomes and results of the study. The objectives of the
project are as follows:
 Developing technologically advanced widgets at low cost
 Restricting of the organization to increase the effectiveness of the management
Project requirements
The project requirements will consist of the specifications of the new organizational
structure and the specifications of the new technologically advanced widget. The requirements of
the project are as follows:
 Developing an flat hierarchical structure
 Increasing the implementation speed
 Improving the communication level with the organization
 Develop packaging format for the new widget
 Develop configuration document for the new widget
 Develop Application programming interface for the widget
 Improve the user experience and standardize the few aspects of the user agents
 Develop effective security options along with digital signatures
Project deliverables
Task Name Duration Start Finish
Project plan 190 days Tue 5/8/18 Mon 1/28/19
1.0 Project initiation 7 days Tue 5/8/18 Wed 5/16/18
2.0 Change management 91 days Thu 5/17/18 Thu 9/20/18
3.0 Preliminary design 31 days Thu 5/17/18 Thu 6/28/18
4.0 Detailed Design 50 days Fri 6/29/18 Thu 9/6/18

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5.0 Configuration and Prototype
development 37 days Fri 9/7/18 Mon 10/29/18
6.0 Testing phase 35 days Tue 10/30/18 Mon 12/17/18
7.0 Final product development 30 days Tue 12/18/18 Mon 1/28/19
(Table 3: Kerzner and Kerzner 2017)
Project Key Performance Indicators
The key performance indicators are the tools and techniques used to measure the
performance of the project (Nicholas and Steyn 2017). The measurement and tracking of the key
performance indicators are critical in order to evaluate the progress and deviation from the actual
requirement. The key performance indicators in the project are as follows:
 Cycle time: The time taken for completion of each of the tasks in the project is essential
for understanding the duration needed.
 Schedule Adjustments: The number of adjustments made to the project schedule and
finish date of the overall project.
 Budget Variance: The budget prepared in the project plan is the estimated budget and the
actual budget in general varies. Therefore, baselines are set which will measure the
variance from the projected budget.
 Quality metrics: This consists of measuring the different quality aspects of the products
including the quality and errors of the products. The consumer feedback and their
satisfaction regarding the product will also be evaluated.
 Returns: The cost benefit analysis of the project and the actual returns from the project
will have to be tallied to identify the return from the project.
Project Feasibility
The feasibility study of the project can be understood by evaluating the current
capabilities of the organization in respect to the project. WRU is capable of investing the amount
required for the project and the benefit obtained from the project is also high as it will help in

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reaching the desired target. The project has its own weaknesses and strengths but the project is
realistic in nature and the organizational capabilities are well suited to the current project needs.
The time span of the project and the cost of the project are within the organizational capabilities
and weighted scoring model has shown that this project is appropriate for the organization and
will facilitate in mitigating the issues faced by Widget ‘R U (WRU).
Strengths and Weaknesses of the project
The strengths of the project are as follows:
 The project is addressing all the issues by Widget ‘R U (WRU)
 The project will transform the organizational activities and product to provided
sustainability in the market
 The project will be completed within a affordable budget of the organization
 The project will establish better management of human resources within the organization
The weaknesses of the project are as follows:
 The widget will be developed according to the current consumer trends and market trends
which can change at any point of time making the product redundant
 The project is not focused on innovation and product upgradation has not been taken into
account
Approval requirements
The project will require approval from the project owner, sponsor and the project board
where they approve the requirement based on the requirements of the consumers. The project
manager will also provide approval for proceeding with each of the phases of the tasks and the
team manager will provide approvals for proceeding with each of the tasks.
Project assumptions
The project assumptions are as follows:
 Project owner, sponsor and board has given approval of all the requirements of the
project
 The other departments have been made aware of the purpose of the project so that the
other departments and teams can align their work in respect to the project

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 The code of conduct of the regulatory bodies will be taken into account before
proceeding with the task
 The other departments will cooperate with the work that has to be done is case of
additional help is required
 The software will be developed by taking into all the current market specifications
Known constraints
The constraints in the current project are as follows:
 The project has a time constraint of 200 days
 The project has a budget constraint of $45,000.00
 The project board has set a human resource constraint of 15 people
 The project will have to comply with the applications of Prince 2 in project management
 The widget requirements cannot be changed after the fourth phase of the project so the
project team and the board will have to clear about the requirement of the project so that
timeline can be maintained
Possible improvements
The possible improvements in project are as follows:
 The goals of the project scan be made more realistic and accurate
 The resources can be harmonized in a better way
 The project scope can be made broader and address other grey areas if the budget is
increased
 The organization can hire better talents for ensuring the success of the project
 There are possible improvements in the field of fund seeking
Project Stakeholders Management
Role Responsibilities
Project manager The project manager will monitor and
approve the requirement of the project
project sponsor The project sponsor will invest funds into the
project

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Project board The project board will consist of the internal
stakeholders of the organization that will
assess the success of the project and will
approve the requirements for the project.
Software Engineer The software engineer will develop the
product
Software developer The software developer will also take part in
product development
Testing engineer The testing engineer will test the products to
find the irregularities in the project
Team manager The team manager will manage the overall
project team
Human resource manager The human resource manager will implement
the human resource policies and manage the
workforce of the organization
(Table 4: Eskerod and Jepsen 2016)