Project change management

1. Project Selection

You will select a project to work on throughout the class. This will not be assigned, rather, you must think of one that will relate closely to either what you are doing now at work or what you will be doing once you complete your degree. You will use this project description as the basis for all work in the course from scoping it, to developing tasks, developing a schedule, assigning resources, and developing a budget. It should be one with which you have some topical familiarity that you hope to be doing on the job, or one that is of personal interest to you.

Your Name:

Your Project Title:

A description of your project:

In the space below, describe your project. Remember, it should have a beginning and an end. It should not be regular operational work. Describe your project, do not define projects in general. Examples would be: install new software in an organization; upgrade the technology for a division of an organization; create a database for an organization; migrate from one middleware or operating systems to another for an organization. Make sure it is detailed enough to be understood as your project.

2. Scope statement

Complete the attached Scope Statement template. Remember, this is about your selected project. Use this form as the first step in your project planning. Some things to keep in mind:

1. Deliverables are things - they are expressed as nouns

2. Constraints limit your ability to plan

3. Assumptions are expresseions of items, resources, materials, etc. that will be either provided to you outside your need to plan or purchase. They can also be expressions of the choices made by stakeholders (such as a particular version of software, etc).

Posted on: Monday, January 23, 2017 12:41:56 PM EST

Class,  

This week we focus on Creating the Project Schedule (Ch 4) and Developing the Project Budget/Communication Plan (Ch 5).

The project schedule documents how we define, monitor, control, and change the project schedule.  Yes, even the best laid plans are subject to change (more about change control in later chapters).   We begin the process of creating the schedule by first defining AND sequencing the activities.  In some cases determining what we need to do will make when we need to do it obvious.  For example, let’s say our project is to replace the carpet in our class room.  You will note in your “list of things to do” (activities) that you first need to remove the computer equipment followed by removing the desk, followed by removing the old carpet, followed by preparing the floor.  Now someplace along the line you shopped for carpet and negotiated prices with multiple vendors (this is procurement, also will be discussed in later chapters).   

Now that you know what your activities are you can sequence them in order and estimate activity durations (4 hours to remove the desktops, 2 hours to remove the desks, 1 day to remove the carpet, 3 days to prepare the floor, etc).  For small projects you can use a simple “to do list” but for larger projects you will want to use a scheduling tool such as MS Project or plot a PERT chart of activities.

Determining the critical path of a project is done by plotting out the activities and their durations, summing those durations to get a total for the path, and comparing the totals of all paths.  For example, if you are shopping for new carpet and negotiating prices at the same time that you are clearing the room your project will have two paths.  In that case, the path with the longest duration is known as the critical path.  Any delays to the critical path will delay the project. 

The cost management plan documents the policies and procedures used to plan, estimate, execute, and control project costs.  In this process you estimate the costs for the activities that were defined in the plan activity process.  Using our carpet replacement example, you will put estimates to each of the tasks identified above (labor, materials, tools, etc.) to determine your baseline project budget.  This is the process that requires you to understand the details of the activities previously defined.  Many of you may in fact do this regularly in your personal lives before making a decision that involves an expense. 

The communication plan is used to document the communication needs of the project stakeholder.  It not only documents who you need to communicate to, it also documents the type of information that they require, the frequency of communication (daily, weekly, monthly, exceptions only) as well as the method of communication (email, report, conference call, in-person).  It is said that the project manager spends up to 80% of their time communicating.  Documenting who to communicate with and when makes the job easier.  As stakeholders needs change the communication plan can and will change accordingly. 

Note: Any work not explicitly included in the Project Scope Statement is implicitly excluded from the project.