CASE STUDYGroup Assignment & Presentation

A Not-For Profit Medical Research Center

One of your team members is the director of external affairs for a national not-for-profit medical research center that does research on diseases related to aging. The centers work depends on funding from multiple sources, including the general public, individual estates and grants from corporations, foundations and the federal government.

Your department prepares an annual report of the centers accomplishments and financial status for the board of directors. It is mostly text with a few charts and tables, all black and white, with a simple cover. It is voluminous and pretty dry reading. It is inexpensive to produce other than the effort to pull together the content, which requires time to request and expedite information from the centers other departments.

At the last board meeting, the board members suggested the annual report be improved and upscale into a document that could be used for marketing and promotional purposes. They want you to mail the next annual report to the centers various stakeholders, past donors and targeted high-potential future donors. The board feels that such a document is needed to get the center in the same league with other large not-for-profit organizations with which it feels it competes for donations and funds. The board feels that the annual report could be used to inform these stakeholders about the advances the center is making in its research efforts and its strong fiscal management for effectively using the funding and donations it receives.

You and your team will need to produce a shorter, simpler, easy-to-read annual report that shows the benefits of the centers research and the impact on peoples lives. You will include pictures from various hospitals, clinics and long-term care facilities that are using the results of the centers research. You also will include testimonials from patients and families who have benefited from the centers research. The report must be eye-catching. It needs to be multicolor, contain a lot of pictures and easy-to-understand graphics, in addition be written in a style that can be understood by the average adult potential donor.

This is a significant undertaking for your department, which includes but not limited to three other staff members. You will have to contract out some of the activities and may have to travel to several medical facilities around the country to take photos and get testimonials. You will also need to put the design, printing and distribution out to bid to various contractors to submit proposals and prices to you. You estimate that approximately five million copies need to be distributed and/or mailed.

It is now September 2021 the board asks you to come to its next meeting in December 2021 to present a very detailed plan, schedule and budget for how you will complete the project. The board wants the annual report in the mail by April 5, 2022. The centers fiscal year ends December and its financial statements should be available by January 15, 2022. However, the non-financial information for the report can start to be pulled together right after the December board meeting.

Fortunately, you are taking a project management course at Durham College and see this as an opportunity to apply what you have been learning. You know that this is a big project and that the board has high expectations. You want to be sure you meet their expectations and get them to approve the budget that you will need for this project. However, they will only do that if they are confident that you have a detailed plan for how you will get it all done. You and your staff have twelve weeks to prepare a plan to present to the board during the second week of December 2021. If approved, your team will have from January 1, 2022 to March 31, 2022 to implement the plan and complete the project.

Your staff is composed of the members of your assigned group. In addition to the project manager, you have among you a marketing specialist, writer/editors and a staff assistant whose hobby is photography (pretend she/he is going to college part-time in the evenings to earn a degree in photojournalism and has won several local photography contests).

FINAL WRITTEN ASSIGNMENT

BASED ON FOREGOING CASE STUDY

1. Establish the project scope and objective and make a list of your assumptions and constraints about the project.
2. Develop a work breakdown structure.
3. Prepare a list of the specific activities that need to be performed to accomplish the project objective.
4. Perform a PERT analysis on each activity to determine its duration.
5. Create a network diagram that shows the sequence and dependent relationships of all the activities.
6. Perform a forward and backward pass on your network diagram, showing early/late starts and finishes, as well as slack time for each task.
7. Determine and identify your critical path.
8. For each activity, determine the person who should be responsible and their role on the project.
9. Develop a responsibility assignment matrix.
10. Estimate the cost for each activity.
11. Determine the total budgeted cost for the project.
12. Prepare a budgeted cost by week table.

Please Answer the First Question

Please answer the first question

1) Establish the project scope and objective and make a list of your assumptions and constraints about the project.

CASE STUDY Group Assignment & Presentation "A Not-For Profit Medical Research Center" One of your team members is the director of external affairs for a national not-for-profit medical research center that does research on diseases related to aging. The center's work depends on funding from multiple sources, including the general public, individual estates and grants from corporations, foundations and the federal government Your department prepares an annual report of the center's accomplishments and financial status for the board of directors. It is mostly text with a few charts and tables, all black and white, with a simple cover. It is voluminous and pretty dry reading. It is inexpensive to produce other than the effort to pull together the content, which requires time to request and expedite information from the center's other departments. At the last board meeting, the board members suggested the annual report be improved and upscale into a document that could be used for marketing and promotional purposes. They want you to mail the next annual report to the centers various stakeholders, past donors and targeted high-potential future donors. The board feels that such a document is needed to get the center "in the same league" with other large not-for-profit organizations with which it feels it competes for donations and funds. The board feels that the annual report could be used to inform these stakeholders about the advances the center is making in its research efforts and its strong fiscal management for effectively using the funding and donations it receives. You and your team will need to produce a shorter, simpler, easy-to-read annual report that shows the benefits of the center's research and the impact on people's lives. You will include pictures from various hospitals, clinics and long-term care facilities that are using the results of the center's research. You also will include testimonials from patients and families who have benefited from the center's research. The report must be "eye-catching". It needs to be multicolor, contain a lot of pictures and easy-to-understand graphics, in addition be written in a style that can be understood by the average adult potential donor. This is a significant undertaking for your department, which includes but not limited to three other staff members. You will have to contract out some of the activities and may have to travel to several medical facilities around the country to take photos and get testimonials. You will also need to put the design, printing and distribution out to bid to various contractors to submit proposals and prices to you. You estimate that approximately five million copies need to be distributed and/or mailed. It is now September 2021 the board asks you to come to its next meeting in December 2021 to present a very detailed plan, schedule and budget for how you will complete the project. The board wants the annual report "in the mail" by April 5, 2022. The center's fiscal year ends December and its financial statements should be available by January 15, 2022. However, the non-financial information for the report can start to be pulled together right after the December board meeting. Fortunately, you are taking a project management course at Durham College and see this as an opportunity to apply what you have been learning. You know that this is a big project and that the board has high expectations. You want to be sure you meet their expectations and get them to approve the budget that you will need for this project. However, they will only do that if they are confident that you have a detailed plan for how you will get it all done. You and your staff have twelve weeks to prepare a plan to present to the board during the second week of December 2021. If approved, your team will have from January 1, 2022 to March 31, 2022 to implement the plan and complete the project. Your staff is composed of the members of your assigned group. In addition to the project manager, you have among you a marketing specialist, writer/editors and a staff assistant whose hobby is photography (pretend she/he is going to college part-time in the evenings to earn a degree in photojournalism and has won several local photography contests). FINAL WRITTEN ASSIGNMENT BASED ON FOREGOING CASE STUDY 1) Establish the project scope and objective and make a list of your assumptions and constraints about the project. 2) Develop a work breakdown structure. 3) Prepare a list of the specific activities that need to be performed to accomplish the project objective. 4) Perform a PERT analysis on each activity to determine its duration 5) Create a network diagram that shows the sequence and dependent relationships of all the activities. 6) Perform a forward and backward pass on your network diagram, showing early/late starts and finishes, as well as slack time for each task. 7) Determine and identify your critical path. 8) For each activity, determine the person who should be responsible and their role on the project. 9) Develop a responsibility assignment matrix. 10) Estimate the cost for each activity. 11) Determine the total budgeted cost for the project. 12) Prepare a budgeted cost by week table. REQUIRED DOCUMENTS 1) Project scope statement 2) Measures of success 3) Work breakdown structure 4) WBS Dictionary 5) Documented PERT analysis per task 6) Network Diagram 7) Roles and responsibilities 8) Responsibility assignment matrix 9) Project budget plus a weekly spend profile of the project RUBRIC Project Summary Statement (10 marks) 0-4 marks Vague or unclear objective, or obvious assumptions of little thought 5-7 marks Reasonable objective but isn't fully SMART. Assumptions and constraints are logical but incomplete 8-10 marks Crisp, SMART project objective, well thought-out assumptions and constraints that cover a lot of ground. Measures of Success (5 marks) 0-1 marks Vague or unclear doesn't tie into the scope statement. 2-3 marks Reasonably aligned to Missing a few key points scope a 4-5 marks Clearly formed with direct relation to milestones, deliverables and outcomes. Work Breakdown Structure (15 marks) 0-4 marks Poorly formatted WBS in clear violation of the 100% rule. Doesn't align to the WBD Dictionary. Clearly incomplete and poorly developed with obvious errors. 5-9 marks WBS has some issue. 100% rule is not fully adhered to, formatting glitches are evident with some protocol violations. A few missed tasks in relation to WBS and WBS Dictionary. 8-15 marks Crisp, easy-to-follow, complete WBS and WBS Dictionary that follows all standard conventions. PERT Analysis (5 marks) 0-1 marks Incomplete and inaccurate three- point analysis. Arithmetic is not shown. 2-3 marks Minor issues with arithmetic, analysis does not fully align with the network diagram 4-5 marks Complete, detailed, three-point analysis of each task that appears in the network diagram. Arithmetic is shown Network Diagram (10 marks) 0-4 marks Poorly formatted network dia- gram with incomplete passes, missing data and tasks that don't lead to the final task. Unclear pathing. 5-7 marks Reasonably completed network diagram with some formatting issues or errors in pass arithmetic. 8-10 marks A network diagram with a clear flow from left to right, clear dependency lines, accurate passes and arithmetic. 5 Roles and Responsibilities (5 marks) 0-1 marks Poorly documented responsibilities, missing team members. Vague roles and responsibilities 2-3 marks Some roles require clarity. Details missing from what needs to be down while in role. 4-5 marks Well-documented assignments. Roles and responsibilities clear. Responsibility Assignment Matrix (5 marks) 4-5 marks 0-1 marks Poorly documented assignments. Multiple primaries per task. 2-3 marks Issues remain with assignments. Generally, well done, but occasional duplication of primary role. Some roles require clarity. Well-documented assignments. Only one primary assignment per task. Roles and responsibilities clear. Project Budget (5 marks) 0-1 marks Incomplete budget with many errors. Does not align with the network diagram. Many tasks missing, costs poorly documented. 2-3 marks Minor issues with costs, small gaps against network diagram Arithmetic errors or unclear costs. 4-5 marks Detailed, accurate budget that outlines 100% of costs associated with all tasks in the network diagram Individual Performance Your team lead will send me two status reports outlining each member's performance. If problems arise I will intervene following each status report to find out what went wrong. If your performance remains poor after the first intervention you will lose anywhere from 0% to 100% of your grade depending on my subjective interpretation of the issues at hand. PARTICIPATION, COMMITMENT FOLLOW-THROUGH AND MEETING ATTENDANCE IS EXPECTED AND REQUIRED OF EACH TEAM MEMBER. Individual grades will be earned