Question: Based on the prior Project Selection Prioritization Matrix, you undoubtedly have surmised that the Old Farm House investment project is the best option for you
Based on the prior Project Selection Prioritization Matrix, you undoubtedly have surmised that the Old Farm House investment project is the best option for you at the moment. Following this decision, the following business case below has been developed for you: Old Farm House Business Case You have inherited a century old farm house and acreage in a rural area. You have visited the site and made an inspection. The house needs a great deal of repair work to get it marginally liveable. You have itemized the most important things that need to be done and estimated the time required as shown below. You plan to use this house for vacations and as a rental property through Airbnb. In fact, your work colleague as already expressed interest in staying over as soon as the property is finished. Your parents have sponsored you with a personal loan of $10.000, - that will give you enough money to buy the supplies and have a spending budget on help from a local contractor and two of his apprentices. You yourself have committed to working 80 hours over your vacation to fix up the house, but you are terrible at carpentry and painting. Your vacation of two weeks starts on Monday the 1st of June, and you prefer to be present when the contractor is on site. Assume you, the contractor and his apprentices1 all can work up to 8 hrs per day, 5 days per week. You expect that within 2 years of renting the property you will have earned enough money to repay your parents. Each activity is to be performed by one person only. Continually ask yourself the question \"when this is done, what else can I start now, or which things can I do at the same time?\". Resources Supplies needed You Cost $5.000 $0 Contractor Apprentice I Apprentice II $125 per hour $60 per hour $40 per hour Note Can do all jobs except carpentry and painting Expert in carpentry Expert in painting Can do all odd jobs (except carpentry and painting) Please note while working on this project, many assumptions are made that appear unrealistic, such as for example the wages, or constraints around who can do what. The main reason behind these decision has been to create an example that is easy for you to work on, while keeping it within small boundaries. 1 For this case the contractor does not need to be present to have an apprentice working on site The following List of Most Important Fixes and Project Customer Trade-Off Matrix are provided to you as background to the project; they are part of the Business Case. List of Most Important Fixes (not necessarily in order of schedule or priority): 1 Purchase supplies 2 Hang new curtains 3 Repair wooden shutters 4 Paint shutters 5 Hang shutters 6 Repair wooden porch 7 Paint porch 8 Repair wooden floor 9 Sand floor 10 Refinish (paint) floor 11 Paint ceilings 12 Paint doors 13 Paint interior walls 14 Paint exterior walls 15 Wash exterior windows 16 Wash interior windows Project Customer Trade-off Matrix Old Farm House Enhance Meet Sacrifice Spend full budget to save time Save time (you are allowed to spend the full budget if it enhances time finished) Cannot go over $10.000 Must finish in two weeks (10 business days) Cost Schedule Quality Must meet Scope Must meet 1.1 Scope Overview (word limit: 150) Use your own words to convert the project brief (business case) in a short scope overview: Type your brief in this text box 1.2 Milestone Schedule and Deliverables Based on the project brief and the list of work packages, please list the milestones you would identify for this project. The first and last are already given for you. Estimate a completion date for each milestone, as well as what the acceptance criteria would be. Also think about who should judge whether or not the criteria have been met. Milestone Completion Date Acceptance Criteria Stakeholder Judge Charter signed off Project completion 1.3 Initial Risk Identification Based on the project brief, examples from the book and your own interpretation, please identify at least 4 potential risks to the project. Project (Potential) Risks Risk Owner Contingency Plans 1.4 Resources Required Based on the project brief, examples from the book and your own interpretation, please identify the funding, workers and equipment required for this project, as well as potential other resources. Don't overthink this activity and keep it short and simple. Funding: People: Equipment: Other: 1.5 Initial Stakeholder Identification Based on the project brief, examples from the book and your own interpretation, please identify at least 4 stakeholders to the project, their interest and priority to the project. Stakeholder Interest in Project Priority (High/Medium/Low) 1.6 Team Operating Principles Please list a minimum of 2 Team Operating Principles you believe are important for your project (refer to textbook): _________________ _________________ 1.7 Lessons Learned Please list a minimum of 2 Lessons Learned you believe can contribute to your project: ________________ ________________ 1.8 Commitment Fill out the first column of the table below: Sponsor Department / Organization Signature N/A Project Manager Department / Organization Signature N/A Core Team Members Department/ Organization N/A Signature 2 Topic 2: Communication plan, WBS, and RACI 2.1 Stakeholder Prioritization Matrix Based on the project brief, examples from the book and your own interpretation, please identify as many stakeholders as possible. Rank their power, Interest, Influence, Impact, Urgency and legitimacy on a scale of 1 to 3 (1 = low, 2 = medium, 3 = high) and add them in column 'Total'. Stakeholder: What is the stakeholder's main interest? Power Interest Influence Impact Urgency Legitimacy Total Priority (a score of 6-9 = low, 10 to 14 = medium, 15 to 18 = high)) Example: Stakeholder A A clean, quiet environment 1 3 1 1 3 2 11 Medium 2.2 Project Communications Matrix Based on the project brief, examples from the book and your own interpretation, complete the communication matrix below. (It is possible that certain cells might be left open) Stakeholder Learn From Stakeholder Share With Stakeholder Timing Method Owner (responsible for communication ) 2.3 Work Breakdown Structure Based on the project brief, examples from the book and your own interpretation, complete the WBS. Use activity 1.3, the milestones, to guide you. Start with the first milestone after 'Charter signoff' and finish with the 'Project completion'. The number of sub-packages needed per milestone is up to your discretion and the context of the project. While you are working on the WBS you also need to indicate which parts depend on the completion of a previous part. This dependency will be needed later in topic 3 to help create the AoN. The table below is an example. Replace the text with your own interpretation of the project at hand. [Project Name] WBS code 1 2 2.1 3.2 4 Activity Name Charter signed off [First milestone] [First work package needed to complete the first milestone] [second] Etc. [Second milestone] [First work package needed to complete the second milestone] Etc. Etc. n Project completed 2.2 2.3 3 3.1 Predecessor(s) 1 2.1 2 3.1 Etc. 2.4 The RACI chart Based on the project brief and the WBS, as well as example from the book, finish the RACI chart below. You decide how many people should be added to the table. You may need to add rows. Please make sure you replace the text 'Person A, and B' with your project team member identified. The first and second columns of this table should match the first and second columns of the table in activity 2.3. WBS Code Activity Name Sponsor 1 Charter signed off A Project Manager (you) R Person A Person B I I RACI Key: (R) Responsible, (A) Accountable, (C) Consult, (I) Inform 3 Topic 3: Time management and Cost Management Go to blackboard and download the additional information needed for this topic. Go to 'Other Resources' --> 'Additional info on the Old Farm House Business Case' and locate 'Additional Information WEEK 3' Use the WBS contained therein as the foundation for this week's AoN and Gantt chart. It is still up to you to determine dependencies in this WBS, which you will do in activity 3.2 3.1 AoN Based on the information provided on blackboard, use for instance MS PowerPoint or MS Visio to create an Activity on Node diagram based on the provided WBS. Make sure you save your work as we will change and add to it as we advance through the activities. Post the interim step here. Save your work. You will post the final schedule under 3.4 3.2 Time estimation Based on the information provided, give a best estimate of the duration of each activity. Make sure you mention which unit you use (i.e., months weeks or days). Not each activity will have a clear answer, so use your best educated guess. Give a short explanation to each activity why you think it will take as long as you've estimated. Keep your explanation 2 as short and succinct as possible. Again, the first three columns here, should match the first three columns from the table in activity 2.3. WBS Code Activity Name Predecessor(s ) Duration (unit) Explanation on duration 2 There is not a right or wrong answer in this section on the time you've estimated, it is designed to stimulate your estimation skills. However, there is a reasonable expectation on timing. An estimate of multiple months on one activity for a project that is planned to take two weeks is unreasonable. 3.2.1 Time estimation - Enumeration method You can now update the AoN diagram with the time estimates. This is your basic project schedule. Post the interim step here. Save your work. You will post the final schedule under 3.4 3.2.2 Time estimation - Two Pass method Now use Exhibits 7.12, 7.13 and 7.14 (Pages 186-188) to create a Two-Pass schedule for your project. Post the interim step here. Save your work. You will post the final schedule under 3.4 3.3 Critical path Identify the critical path in your project: The critical path in my project is_________________, and takes ___________ (hours, days, weeks) 3.4 Resource Loading In your project, assign your resources to the activities and optimise the project schedule as best as possible. With the limitation of your resources, your project might again increase in time. Don't worry about this. In topic 4 we will discuss project crashing and try to improve the project timeline. Please post here your re-adjusted Two-Pass AoN including the resources: *There will be no point deductions for project running over time or budget in this week* 3.5 Gantt chart Go to blackboard and download the Gantt Chart Template. Go to 'Other Resources' --> 'Additional info on the Old Farm House Business Case' and locate 'MNG91217 - Gantt Chart Template' Using the template provided, create your Gantt chart based on the AoN developed before. Instructions: In column A name the activity, in column D enter the start (in hours) and in column E enter the duration (hours). Leave the resource column (F) empty for now as we'll fill it under activity 3.6 Resources and cost to activty. From column H onward, simply place a 'x' in each cell corresponding to your start time and duration. As an example, activity 2 - buying supplies has already been entered for you. There is no need to post anything here. Just save your work and post the final chart under 3.6 3.6 Resources and cost to activity In the excel template, assign a resource to each of the activities from the dropdown box in column 'F'. As a result, a project cost overview for your project will be updated in the graph below the chart. The graph can be used to help control the project budget. Post here your final Gantt chart with resource allocation, including the graph. Tip: select the cells in excel you want to display here, for example A17 to CI37, and press CTRL-C. Switch the window to Word and select the location you want the graph to appear and press CTRL-ALT-V - and select Picture (Enhanced Metafile) for the best result. Please do not paste as a Microsoft Excel Worksheet Object. You can leave the picture in the size it appears, the marker will be able to zoom in and see the details. You can follow the same process to copy the graph. Simply select the graph in excel, and press CTRL-C. Switch the window to Word and select the location you want the graph to appear and press CTRL-ALT-V - and select Picture (Enhanced Metafile) for the best result. You can leave the graph in the size it appears, the marker will be able to zoom in and see the details. 4 Topic 4: Progress reporting scope change, and crashing Go to blackboard and download the additional information needed for this topic. Go to 'Other Resources' --> 'Additional info on the Old Farm House Business Case' and locate 'Additional Information WEEK 4' Use the information contained therein as the foundation for this week's AoN and Gantt chart. There is only one activity this week, but it is a big one and will require some experimentation. Use the example provided to your advantage to understand the effects of crashing one or more activities in your project. 4.1 Crashing your project Use the information provided in the updated information, your project brief and the requirements given in the Project Customer Trade-off Matrix, to optimize your project. Provide a new AoN (including resource loading), Gant chart and budget graph based on the crashed project. 5 Topic 5: Risk management, and Quality management 5.1 Risk identification I Look at the risks identified in Exhibits 10.5, 10.6, and 10.7. Compile a list of risk categories you believe are relevant to your project. (Try to identify at least 3) 1. 2. 3. ... ... ... 5.2 Risk identification II Using the first three categories of risk you compiled in the previous activity, now identify the one risk for each category that may impact on your project. Add them to the table below following the example, and score the probability and impact on a scale of 1 to 10 (1 is lowest, 10 is highest). Fill out all columns except for the last two. This will be done in the next activity. Risk Description Impact (Descriptive) [example] Breaking of carpentry tools Potential loss of time as work cannot be done Category Risk Register Probability (P) (1 to 10) Impact (I) (1 to 10) Score (P*I) Prevention Strategy Mitigation Strategy 3 9 27 Have a spare set of tools available at all times Have a small portion of the budget set aside to replace tools when necessary 1 2 3 5.3 Risk identification III Now complete the last two columns in your risk register for your risks. Keep in mind that while we may identify both a prevention and a mitigation (you may need to check your understanding of this word in a dictionary) strategy at this stage, only one of the two might actually be implemented at time of project start. 5.4 Quality tools Identify at least three quality tools based on Exhibit 11.12 that are applicable to your project and explain why. Quality tool [example] Charter 1. 2. 3. Explanation Provides guidance for the project; establishes a rationale for the project; establishes a baseline for execution of the project. The Charter is important for my project in order to initially establish the work to be done, but also establish project boundaries - what won't be done. Next, select three work packages from your project, and using the quality tools you have nominated above, explain how you would maintain its quality, as well as identify who is responsible for each quality tool: Project Deliverables [Repair Porch] 1. 2. 3. Work Processes [4.1] Quality Control Activities: Charter Quality Assurance Activities: Ensure that ONLY repairs are carried out as per Charter and agreed activities. This activity does not include modifying or improving porch. It is important to adhere to this to mitigate against scope creep. Quality Roles & Responsibilities: Owner to ensure repairs only are carried out. Contractor to ensure apprentices do not engage any additional work