create a work breakdown structure $($WBS$),$ define project tasks and dependencies, estimate task durations, assign resources, and create a project schedule with milestones:Global Green Books Publishing

Global Green Books Publishing is a successful printing and publishing company in its third year. It has

survived the bringing on a large new customer and all the challenges of new work that this customer

needed in a very short time.

Much of this work for the college is customized eBooks. As the first term progressed with Global Green

Books making customized eBooks for this college, there were a number of issues that affected the

quality of the eBooks produced and caused a great deal of rework for the company. The local university

was unhappy as their eBook products sometimes reached campus late for use by professors and

student. In some cases, the books were a week or two late.

The management of Global Green Books was also challenged by these projects. The college expected

them to deliver on time and at a low cost, and the company was not always doing that. Accounting was

having difficulty tracking the costs for each of the books, and the shift supervisor was often having

problems knowing what tasks needed to be completed and assigning the right employees to each task.

Some of the problems stemmed from the new part$-$time employees. Since many of these workers had

flexible schedules, it wasn$$t always clear which tasks they were supposed to be working on when they

came in to work. Each book being produced was indeed a book, but that was all they had in common.

Each book had different production steps, different contents and reprint approvals required, and

different layouts and cover designs.

Some were just collections of articles to reprint once approvals were received, and others required

extensive desktop publishing. Each eBook was a complex process but was going to be made just once, as

these eBooks were all customized for each professor and course each semester. Each eBook had to be

produced on time and had to be made to match just exactly what the professors requested.

Understanding what each eBook needed had to be clearly documented and understood before starting

production. Global Green Books had been told by the college how many different printing jobs the

college would need, but they weren$$t all arriving at once, and orders were quite unpredictable arriving

from the professors at the college. Some professors needed rush orders for their classes. Some orders

arrived as projected, but some came later than anticipated. When Global Green Books finally got all

their orders, some of these jobs were much larger than they had thought they would be$.$

Each eBook needed to have a separate job order prepared that listed all the steps that needed to be

completed so that tasks could be assigned to each worker. These job orders were also becoming a

problem. Not all the steps needed were getting listed in each order. Often the estimates of time for

each task were not completed until after the work was done, causing problems as workers were

supposed to move on to new tasks but were still finishing their previous tasks. Some tasks required

specialized equipment or skills, sometimes from other groups within Global Green Books. Not all of the

new student hires were trained for all of the printing and binding equipment used to print and assemble

to books.

Project Management Plan, Part $3$: Project Planning Phase

$2|$ Page

Global Green Books wanted to start developing a template for job orders. This template should list all of

the possible tasks that should be performed in producing an eBook for the college. These tasks could be

broken down into the different phases of the work.

In the Receive Order phase, the order should be received by Global Green Books from the professor or

the college, it should be checked and verified, and a job order started. In checking and verifying each

order, the customer representative should make sure that they have the requester$$s name, email, and

phone number; the date needed, and a full list of all of the contents. They should also verify that they

have received all of the materials that were supposed to be included with that order and have fully

identified all of the items that they need to request permission for. Any problems found in checking and

verifying should be resolved by contacting the professor.

In the Plan Order phase, all of the desktop publishing work is planned, estimated, and assigned to

production staff. Also, all of the production efforts to collate and produce the eBook are identified,

estimated and scheduled, and assigned to production staff. Specific equipment resource needs are

identified and equipment is reserved on the schedule to support the planned production effort.

In the Production Phase, permissions are acquired, desktop publishing tasks $($if needed$)$ are performed,

content is converted, and the proof of the eBook is pr