COURSE CODE: EMPP5103 COURSE NAME: PROJECT PLANNING AND CONTROL PROGRAM NAME: MBA SEMESTER: FOURTH Semester

2011/2012
BATCH NUMBER: Batch 3

INDIVIDUAL ASSIGNMENT

PROJECT PLANNING AND CONTROL

Tutor: John Momanyi

SUBMITTED BY Abdirasak Abadir Ibrahim ID: 54100111

OPEN UNIVERSITY OF MALAYSIA MASTER OF BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION PROJECT PLANNING AND CONTOL BATCH: III 2011 10 Marks INDIVIDUAL ASSIGNMENT
1. Discuss in detail the project life cycle phases. A project life cycle is a collection of generally sequential and sometimes overlapping project phases. The project life cycle can be determined or shaped by the unique aspects of the organization, deliverables, and activities that take place in between will vary widely with the project. The life cycle provides the basic framework for managing the project, regardless of the specific work involved. Project life cycle has different life cycle models indifferent organization. Moreover, the names used for each models phases are not always the same, differing in different industries or even according to an organizations preference. Regardless of what the phases are named or how many exist, the project management activities and the tools and techniques available are generally very much the same across all industries. No matter how large or small, simple or complex, all projects can be mapped to the following life cycle structure: Concept ( Starting the project ) Development (Organizing and preparing) Implementation (Carrying out the project work) Closing the project. Concept (Starting the project) This is the first stage of the project and the project is starting. In this stage the project manager and project team not yet recruited. In order to run this stage smoothly the project board or senior management should study the bellowed concepts Business case : what are the problems/opportunities that the organization is addressing and the alternate solutions Feasibility study: after the business case is developed the project should be study by checking the likelihood of the alternate solution Project Charter: The Project Charter describes what the project sets out to achieve and the boundaries within which it must achieve it. The project vision, objectives, scope, deliverables, project organization and an Implementation Plan are all clearly stated in the Project Charter document Appoint project team: Now that the project is defined, it is time to appoint the team Establish the office: once the project team established the senior
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management should establish workable environment to the project team Review : A Phase Review is completed to ensure that all of the required Initiation activities have been completed and to provide formal approval to proceed to the detailed Planning phase of the project

Development (Planning phase) This phase takes the Concept phase into the details of planning in which a more specific development of the requirements definition occurs, a work breakdown structure is prepared, schedule and cost estimates are developed, and the project plan is written. It is also the phase during which the project team is organized. Implementation (Carrying out the project work) The actual work on the project deliverables, or project products, starts and takes place during this phase. This is the phase in which the bulk of project progress monitoring a n d t r a c k i n g tales p l a c e . The k e y f u n c t i o n s o f scheduling and cost control occur here, in as much as variances from the plan (or the baseline) are measured, and control strategies are implemented to keep actual progress as close to the plan as is practical. Closeout
Project Closure involves releasing the final deliverables to the customer, handing over project documentation, terminating supplier contracts, releasing project resources and communicating the closure of the project to all stakeholders. The last remaining step is to undertake a Post Implementation Review to quantify the overall success of the project and list any lessons learnt for future projects.

2. Discuss the triple constraint element and their relative importance towards measuring project management success

The triple constraints of project are scope, cost and schedule. These elements are interdependent to each other because if one element is changed it will affect one or both elements. For example if the scope of the project is changed there should influence to cost and schedule; the increase of the project scope will need more resources and extra time, and decrease of the project scope will reduce the resource and time.

Keeping the three elements of the triple constraint in balance is one of the aims of a project manager and team doing so is a juggling act that is sometimes very difficult and requires a good grasp of a number of management skills, such as communication, risk management, contracting, reporting, team-building, selling, and many others. To summarize the three aspects of the triple constraint triangle, the following may be useful in understanding the exact meanings of each of the sides. Scopethe sum of the products and services to be provided as a project. In other words, project scope is the work to be done by the project to meet the requirements. Costthe money, labor, equipment and other resources needed to complete the project. Timethe schedule, or how long it takes to complete the project, or how long it takes to reach intermediate points or milestones within the overall project. 3. Design any four needs and requirement document that are necessary to be put in place right away from its start of the project work An often cited reason for project failure is requirement that are not understood, agreed or documented, or that they are misinterpreted. Most crucial documents that are need during starting the project work are Project purpose: This document describes the ultimate purpose of the project or why you are initiating the project. It describes the current situation of the opportunity or the problem then defines why you are implementing the project. Project objectives Something worked or strived for; goals (which should be worked out between whoever has the needs and whoever will fulfill them. Objectives are derived from the needs that exist. Well-developed objectives are characterized by the five elements of the SMART model: S = Specific R = Realistic M = Measurable T = Time-constrained
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A = Agreed upon

Project requirement Project requirement document can divided into two which functional requirement and technical requirement. Functional requirements what the customer needs to have happen are derived from the objectives. Technical requirements are what the project team develops to meet the functional requirements. Customers have certain functions they need fulfilled, which, of course, are based on the needs already assessed and the objectives that they have already agreed upon Project schedule and cost control It is necessary to implement schedule and cost control processes to successfully manage a project. All of the tasks required to complete a project must be identified and organized in the sequence required to effectively accomplish the projects objectives. With equal importance, the cost of all project-related activities and needed resources must be identified before the project commences; then, verified and controlled as the project progresses to prevent budget overruns. Hence, schedule and cost management processes are tactical components of a project management model.

Purpose

Requirement

Objectives

Schedule and cost control

4. What do you understand by scheduling? Discuss key steps in developing schedules Scheduling is an important component of project. Scheduling is the navigator of the project and the PM should now in advance where he is going to and when. Scheduling tells stakeholders when to perform each activity and when each milestone is expecting to reach, therefore scheduling is an important element of
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the project. If the project team does not give attention to the scheduling this may cause the failure of the project. Because the project definition itself is saying temporary endeavor which means each project has define start time and define end time so your stakeholders expecting deliverables in between these time.

Furthermore, scheduling is one of the triple constraints of a project. if the project is beyond the schedule than the project team should deploy more resources in order to meet the deadline.

Key steps in developing schedules is

Scope statement: contains information about the project deliverables and usually contains assumptions and constraints as well. The scope statement or accompanying documents, such as contracts, specifications, and drawings, also provide important information that affects the schedule. WBS Identifies every task in the project. If it isnt in the WBS, then it is not in the project. Therefore, ensure that every requirement is identified and described in the WBS. Historical information: Contains information about other, similar projects and collected metrics that are useful in refining estimating techniques. This

historical information should be collected in the lessons learned files of each project. Constraints and assumptions: Provides a guide to the limits or educated guesses that are used to develop a schedule. Constraints usually are in the form of specifications (and customer imposed delivery dates) or are developed due to limited resources and technology capabilities in the organization. Assumptions are best guesses made when precise data are not available. All constraints and assumptions need to be documented and regularly validated. Expert judgments: - Provide an experienced and objective opinion about some or all the above data and their sources. Not every organization can afford the expense or the time to hire experts from outside the company, but many companies have resident experts whose experience is seldom tapped. When a
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draft schedule managerial

is

developed, to

ask review

senior it and

functional, offer

technical, comments

and and your

personnel

recommendations. Be sure to provide them with the data sources used, estimate of the data accuracy, constraints

and assumptions, and the

objectives of the project so that it is clear how the schedule(s) was developed. 5. Discuss in detail EVM and it is related concepts to evaluate and forecasting projects Earned value management (EVM) is a project management technique for measuring project performance and progress in an objective manner. EVM has the ability to combine measurements of scope, schedule, and cost in a single integrated system. The great advantage that EVM provides is that a schedule can now be compared planned costs, actual costs, and schedule progress on the same graph. Earned Value Management is notable for its ability to provide accurate forecasts of project performance problems.

6. Explore the following by drafting brief notes; CV, SV and CPI in project evaluation Cost variance (CV) the difference between the estimated value of the work completed and actual costs of the work completed of an activity or in another words CV is any difference between the estimated cost of an activity and the actual cost of that activity. The formula to calculate cost variance is Earned value mines Actual cost ( EV AC) OR Budgeted cost work performance minus Actual cost work performance ( BCWP ACWP) . Schedule Variance (SV): The difference between the planned scheduled completion of an activity and the amount of work actually completed expressed in$ or in another words Any difference between the scheduled completion of an activity and the actual completion of that activity. The formula to calculate the schedule variance is earned value minus planned value ( EV PV) OR Budgeted cost work performance minus Budgeted cost work scheduled (BCWP BCWS) Example of CV and SV
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For example International Horn University is launching research on the likelihood of youth participating in the coming district counseling election in Somaliland. The management team come together and developed the WBS of the is project and identified that the pre-test planning budget and mentioned that Budget is 63,00 , EV is 58,000 and the actual cost is 62500. Given this we can calculate the cost variance and schedule variance. Kindly see the bellowed table

Earned Actual value Cost WBS Budget (BCWP) (ACWP) 1 Pr-test 63000 58000 62500 2 Printing 64000 48000 46800

Cost Variance BCWP ACWP -4500 1200

Schedule variance (BCWP BCWS) -5000 -16000

Cost Performance Index (CPI) - performance on the money spent; the value of work completed per each $1 spent. The formula for of CPI is Earned Value divided by Actual Cost (EV / AC)

7. What is the baseline? Discuss briefly its component Baselines are important for the project success because they create the prospective of customers and all other stakeholders. In short, a baseline is a reference model against which the project will be followed and deliverables will be built. The baseline can be defined as Original Plan (for a project, work package, or activity), plus or minus any approved changes. May be used with a modifier (for example, cost baseline, schedule baseline, performance measurement baseline). Nominal plan to which deviations will be compared The definition shows that the overall project baseline has embedded in it three distinct but intricately related baselines: the technical, the cost, and the schedule. Together, they form the performance measurement baseline.

Component of baseline
Technical Baseline The technical baseline is in many ways the most essential of the three because it describes what are the project deliverables. It is very important that the project must reflect what the customers want you describe in your plan is actually what he or she wants, as this buy-in (or signoff) is obviously critical. Just as critical is buy-off from the organizational stakeholders because they have to support the effort and, in most cases, provide the resources and technical expertise to make it happen

Consequently, it falls to the project manager to provide the details of the technical problem and to determine whether the organization even has the expertise or resource capability accomplish it. That is why the technical baseline becomes so important and why the project manager must define it completely and then get final buy-in to it from both the customer and other stakeholders. Cost baseline The cost baseline is resulted from the estimates of the work to be done. It is usually represented all the tasks and associated support (including people) expected to be incurred during the life cycle of the project. Cost estimates are derived from the WBS and are developed in conjunction with schedule development. The fact is that costs and schedules are best determined together because organization tries to optimize their resources, which requires some subtle (and sometimes not so subtle) shifting and sharing of resources from one project to another. Accordingly, cost estimating begins by breaking down the WBS to the work package level, assigning resources to it, and determining the cost and the duration for the work. Every work package is treated this way. As a result, the overall cost of the project is determined by rolling up the individual work package cost from the bottom to the top of the WBS.

Schedule baseline The schedule baseline is developed in the same general fashion as the cost baseline: the WBS is developed to the work package level and durations are estimated for each. Next, a network analysis is developed to show the interdependencies of each task so that a reasoned decision can be made regarding the viability of pursuing this project as it currently structured

8. The UK Construction Company has won a bid to construct a 7 kilometer road in Somaliland. Herein a project manager you are required to Estimate the Cost and Time complete this project. Given; a. Hourly rate $ 35 b. Labor availability 70% c. Labor productivity 80% at an average and the project in projected to take two weeks 80 (hours) Solution Cost = (Effort/Productivity) x Unit cost = (80/0.80) x $ 35 Cost = $ 3500 To determine how long it will take the person to perform the task Time= (Effort/Productivity)/ Availability Time = (80/0.08)/0.70 Time = 143 hours

Thanks

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