The Importance of Project Management

1. a) This project is an upgrade project by the company through the establishment of multimedia operations. The purpose of this project is to enable the organization and its clients to be able to use cloud-based software in order to communicate in real time and also share files and store other files more effectively. It is therefore a small project since in has a minor impact on the company’s financial revenues and expenses. Additionally, the project involves a team that is very familiar with the clients and understands their needs. Given that the project aims to increase this communication between the company and clients then it is clear that the team doing the project is in direct contact with the clients. Lastly, the project is not dependent on other projects. It can be carried out on its own by a specific team without bringing in the other departments. Also, the number of staff required to run the project is less than ten. These are some of the factors that determine the size of a project.

      b) This project can also be classified as internal. This is because, as mentioned earlier, it is dealing with the expansion of a section of the company. This project is also managed and run by employees of the company; that is, it does not hire labor from other sources. Additionally, this project affects the operations of the company internally and not so much the external environment. The purpose of the project is to have better communication and interaction with clients which may not affect the operations of other companies in the industry. These features among others make the project to be classified as an internal project.

2.  Scope and objectives of the project

The project is aimed at expanding into the production of web-based and multimedia guides for its clients. The decision was agreed upon by the company’s board of Directors in an effort to expand the profile of the company. This will in turn increase the interactions between the company and the clients resulting in higher returns and profitability. Additionally, it is the intention of the firm to use the cloud-based software for other purposes such as backing up files.

The intended achievements of the project include; meeting the new needs of the new office of the company, ensuring quality of the product from the project and also ensure that it is more available for clients. The project completion has been assigned to four members of staff at a budget of $5000.

Role

Name

Responsibility

Contact Details

Project Manager

Anna Kaspersky

Overall supervision of the project

Coordination of the team tackling the project

+1-202-567-5674

Acquisitions

Christine Smith

Ensuring that supplies are provided in time for the project

Getting feedback from the clients on their expectations

+1-202-567-5674

Editing and Publishing

Sophia Ksyu

She will be in charge of the project layout in terms of the outlook to the clients.

She will be responsible for any information that will be shared on the website concerning the company

+1-202-234-8874

Project administrator

You

Assist the project manager in performing her duties

Calling contractors, making appointments and preparing reports on the project

+1-202-567-5345

Senior editor

Marcia Ferguson

Preparing regular reports on the progress of the project.

+1-202-099-5674

Part B and Part C

The audio recorded various project planning tools that will be employed throughout the project. The discussion was held with an IT expert in order to get insight on the making of the web-based guides. In the discussion, the project activities that were discussed were the budgeting. The IT expert provided insight on the expected amount of money needed to carry out the project to completion. After the budgeting was the activities that were going to take place in the implementation phase and the company employees responsible for them. In the implementation stage, the project administrator is supposed to look for an IT professional to help the company to develop the website. After conducting the professional, he is supposed to work with the company’s IT department to get the website running. after the implementation stage is the testing for effectiveness of the project.

There are was number of administrative milestones that the company had made towards making projects successful in the past. One was ensuring that a specific team was chosen to perform certain tasks depending on the position that they hold in the organization. Clear timelines are also given to ensure that the project is completed in time. This project is expected to begin in 1st October, 2018 and end by 30th December, 2018. Within the three months, the first month will be used in budgeting and coming up with the right team to carry out the project. In this stage, any external consultations will be done by the Project administrator.  This first month will also be the time to carry out training for the staff members who will be directly involved in the project. This will be important to equip them with the right knowledge for the success of the project.

The second month, November, the actual work will begin. The IT department in the company with the assistance of the IT consultant invited will begin working on the project under the supervision of the project manager. The main purpose of this upgrade is to have web-based and multimedia guides. These are guides will be available on the company’s website and therefore an upgrade of the website will be necessary. Secondly, the company will require being able to store and share information with clients on the same platform so the team will look into that. These activities will be conducted within that month in order to have enough time for tests and corrections in the third month.

The third month will be the testing and measuring the project to see if it is functioning well. This will be done by the integration of the new system into the company activities in order to see its functionality within the organization. In this stage, any glitches in the system will be corrected and optimized. By the beginning of the year 2019, the system will be completely functional and ready for application with clients.

The personnel and resources required for each activity have been was also a major discussion topic. The five staff members who were responsible for the various activities were discussed and their roles allocated to them. The resources needed for the project was one week training, the computer hardware and software needed to carry out the project and their salaries. The performance standards would be evaluated in the last stage of the project implementation. These performance standards were in terms of its speed of operation, the number of people it can host at a time without affecting its functionality and the general improvement of efficiency in the company as a result of the system.

Part D

1. In order to ensure that the time frame is realistic and achievable, the goal was divided into smaller goals that were easier to achieve within shorter time limits. These smaller goals eventually add up to the main goal of the project and also ensure that the progress of the project can be monitored along the way.

2. In the development of the project time frame the division of the main goal into smaller objectives would be done by listing the various stages that need to be implemented in the project in order (Lewis, pg 47). Secondly, the objectives of the project should form the guidelines of the whole project. Lastly, ensuring that there are specific people assigned specific tasks and they know the timelines to accomplish those tasks. This way there will be personal responsibility from all team members. The cooperation of all team members is very crucial to the success of any project and should therefore be a top priority. The project being a small one, each team member can perform a task alone which makes it faster to accomplish.

3. As the project administrator, my duties include; conducting any contractors that will be required in the project, take part in the preparation of regular reports about the project for presentation to the Board of Directors and helping the project manager in some of her duties in coordination of the project.

4. In the development of a project plan there are various factors to consider;

One is the necessity of the project for the company. The necessity will determine the amount of investment that the Board will be willing to do in the project. This means that the availability of funds to carry out the project is another factor to consider.

Part E

1. Budget

Category

Budget

Employee cost

$1500

Consultancies (if applicable)

-

PC Hardware costs

$2000

Software costs

$1000

Installation and testing

$300

Training costs

$200

Total cost of project

$5000

2. The project cycle is expected to take 3 months. The payment of the budget items will be done at the end of every month. The reporting will therefore be done before the 10th of the next month to show how much was spent on the previous month.

Part F

1. The project in question is a small project that only requires the effort of five employees to accomplish within 3 months. Each employee is performing a specific task at a specific time and therefore the monitoring and reporting of the project will be done on the ability to meet the set deadlines for certain tasks.

2. Monitoring tool

The monitoring of the project will be done through division into three areas. One is the project plan monitoring where an assessment will be done to ensure that the project is going on according to plan. Second there will be the project budget monitoring to ensure that the project is running within the allocated budget throughout the period. Lastly is through stage reporting. This is reporting each stage of the project implementation to ensure that the timelines are being adhered to.

3. In the reporting of project activities, there are certain requirements that need to be considered; 

One is the process of gathering and dissemination of information about the project. It is a requirement that there is a clear guideline on how this will be done from the first stage of the project to the last. This ensures that there is safety of information about the company and the clients.

Another requirement is the establishment of the metrics to measure the success of the project. In order for the project to be referred to as successful, then there are certain measurements that it is weighed against. These are very important in every stage of the project as well.

Another requirement is responsibility and accountability. This is whereby a specific person or group can be held accountable for a particular stage in the project (Platje, Seidel and Wadman, pg 106). This way, those responsible will ensure that it is done in the best way. This accountability on the part of employees is a major factor the accomplishment of the project in time and also efficiency in the whole project.

Lastly is the mode of communication. There should be a well established procedure on the mode of communication about the activities of the project for proper coordination. Proper coordination of the project will not only ensure that timelines are met but will also contribute greatly to efficiency (Kerzner and Kerzner, pg 109). The success of this project will be dependent on these requirements. When they are met, the project will stand a higher chance of being successful than if they are ignored.

References

Lewis, J.P., 2000. Project planning, scheduling and control. McGraw-Hill Companies.

Platje, A., Seidel, H. and Wadman, S., 1994. Project and portfolio planning cycle: project-based management for the multiproject challenge. International Journal of Project Management, 12(2), pp.100-106.

Kerzner, H. and Kerzner, H.R., 2017. Project management: a systems approach to planning, scheduling, and controlling. John Wiley & Sons.