Write a project on relocation of an office of a consultancy services organization from the current place of operations to a new place.
This project involves relocation of an office of a consultancy services organization from the current place of operations to a new place in Banbury, Oxfordshire such that the operational expenditures could be reduced. Current business objectives of this move are:
• Continuing to grow business income by 10% annually
• Enhancing profitability partially by reducing the physical costs associated with accommodation
• Retaining the business earning capacity
• Improving the quality of support the office provides to the consultants and clients
• Improving the IT systems for the business
• Minimising the human resource costs associated with the move particularly associated with redundancy, recruitment and training
With the objectives above in mind, certain business needs could be recognized such as (Collins, 2011):
• Developing sustainable growth strategies for the business such that it grows 10% annually.
• Reducing the cost of accommodation of the business by relocating the office which has lower operating costs.
• Develop strategies for saving retained earnings
• Build strategies for improvement in support services provided to clients and consultants.
• Develop strategies for improving Information Technology systems such that the performance of the business can be improved (Deeprose, 2002).
• Develop strategies to minimize cost of human resource management including recruitment and training by reducing redundancy in activities (Field and Keller, 1998).
To achieve these objectives certain projects may be considered to be taken up by the consultancy firm and these would include:
• Sustainable growth Project: In order to attain a sustainable growth of 10% for the company, seven steps of sustainable principles could be used including stakeholder analysis, developing objectives and policies for sustainable development, design and implementation plan and execute the same, develop a supportive culture in the corporate, develop performance standards, prepared reports and establish way to improve internal monitoring process (Heerkens, 2002).
• Office Relocation Project: This project would involve activities like planning, quality control monitoring, scheduling reports, equipments and services relocation plan, vendor management for IT systems including identification and vendor selection, project budgeting, process tracking, reporting and considering cost containment (Kerzner, 2001).
• Retained Earnings Project: In this, the company would attempt to gain profits from the project and reduce the expenses such that earning could be increased. A relocation of office to a cheaper place could be an option.
• Support Service Improvements project: There could be new systems and technological implementations done in order to improve services (Maylor, 2010).
• IT system improvement Project: New technology for managing business operations and administrative tasks may be implemented to improve the productivity of the company.
• HR Management Cost Reduction Project: Human Resource can be realigned and modified in structure to save on costs of human resource management.
Various project management methodologies that may be considered here include Agile, waterfall, critical path method, critical chain project management, and six sigma. Agile methodologies are used when the development of a project needs to be fast such as demanding completion in single month. Waterfall methodology can be used when the requirements are very clear at the initial stages. It is a simple process that follows a specific sequence. As this project involves relocation of office and the requirements of the same are clear, waterfall methodology may be used here for the management of the chosen project involving office relocation (Mehta, 2007).
Project Description: This project involves relocation of office of the consultancy company from a place to another smaller office such that the operating cost of the office can be saved (Ponnappa, 2014).
Goals: Goals of this relocation project include:
• To take out all the equipments from the office and move the same to the new office
• Install all IT and administrative infrastructure in the new office
• Communicate the staff and stakeholders through notifications
• Move the human resources of the company from old to new location
• Save on the operating costs from the new premises as compared to the old office expenses.
The project would have a Project manager who would be handling all the project activities planning and monitoring of the same such that he can ensure smooth functioning of the project as per planned milestones. Project manager would also be responsible for seeking project funs approvals from sponsors.
Sponsors would be the people providing funds to execute the project plan.
The project would have a contractors for interior designing, furniture supply and implementation and one for marketing. All these contractors would be associating with the company on the temporary basis till the project is finished and they would be working under the guidance of the project manager.
The project would have some staff involved in the project activities including planning, scheduling, monitoring and more. These employees would be reporting to the project manager. These would include human resource managers, administrative manager, accountant and finance manager.
below the contractors and employees would be contract workers and junior level staff who would be completing the ground work of the project.
Quality management process ensures that the targets related to quality can be achieved with the use of quality assurance and quality control techniques.
Quality Assurance: In quality assurance, preventive steps are taken such that deliverables are able to meet the quality criteria. Quality assurance processes include process checklists, understanding and recoding of issues, reiteration of quality standards to be followed. quality reviews and change control mechanism (Rose, 2005).
Quality Control: This involves identification of variations in quality of deliverables from the standards set and taking actions to eliminate these variances. Some of the quality control methods that would be used on this project include Peer Reviews, Deliverables reviews, documentation reviews, process reviews and stage-gate reviews.
Quality Management Practice would be followed by quality Manager and quality reviewer. Quality manager would be responsible for controlling the quality of the deliverables. The manager identified deviations from quality standards and takes corrective actions to reduce these variations. Variations are primarily noted by the quality reviewer who informs the manager about the deviations. The quality review forms are used for collecting inputs on the quality and variations. These reviews are useful in the final project closure report that has to show that all variations are eliminated or issues are resolved to be able to finally accept the deliverables and close
In change management, changes required by the project during its execution are identified and recorded. A strategy is then created for managing the process of change. Change management plans are customized, targeted, scaled and are based on best practices of the field. Adoption and usage metrics re also created as a part of the change management process. Change management works streams can be managed by individuals or by the teams (Murthy, 2007).
The Prosci® ADKAR® Model has defined various stages of transition while a change happens. These stages include awareness that a change is required, desire to make a change by supporting it, creating knowledge on change, implements required set of skills and behaviour, and reinforce change so that it remains sustainable.
Issues and risks on projectIss
A certain employee or worker is not available for the scheduled work on time It can cause delays in work Keep a contingency plan with trained staff to resume work at such times of problems at the time of project planning itself
Furnishing vendor does not make the delivery on time It can cause delays in achieving milestones Give right and clear specifications to vendor in written to avoid any confusion
Contractor delivers a faulty furniture or furniture which does not meet the criteria It can lead to rework and loss of time leading to schedule delays and scope changes Risks can be transferred to the contractor and contractor may be asked to pay for losses and deliver the right furniture again
The scope of the project is modified in between such as additional equipment installation This can cause delays and scope changes leading to complications and costs increase Mitigate the impacts by changing scope and taking extra approvals required.
Employees resist to shift in the new location It can cause a hostile environment for some employees leading to increase in employee turnover The employees should be informed about the project in advance with explanations on reasons the decision for relocation was taken and how it would positively impact the company as well as them so that an acceptance can be gained before the shift happens.
Issues and risks in the final stage of the project
Damage at the new site while implementing furniture leading to accidents Damages can cause monetary losses on the project Employee safety measures and make workers use protective equipments while working on the site
Interiors are not appear as per the design planned in the project The office does not have things as desired in place causing difficulties in operations The design should be well understood and clarified to contractors such that everything is made accordingly
There could be damages of equipments in transit such that the same cannot be implemented in the new office In order to operate the new office, the missing equipment has to be purchased again leading to increased expenses of the project Equipments should be packed considering their security for which an expert can be employed
The project closure report lacks information that is demanded by the sponsor for assessing completion This can lead to delay in project sign off and thus, the payments and actually opening of the new office would also be affected Project manager may ensure that all the required information is received and documented before a project closure report can be prepared
Project appraisal is the process which involves assessment of proposals of project before the actual resources can be allocated. Based on this appraisal, the sponsors can choose the most fitting project. Based on this, sponsors can take decision on funding projects. The projects can be appraised on the basis of certain criteria including:
Technical analysis: This includes feasibility analysis of the project which would be done to assess the viability of the project throughout its execution such that the sponsors can take decision to either continue or stop the project execution.
Economic Analysis: Economic costs of projects and the benefits to be achieved with the deliverables would be calculated to make an assessment of the project. At any point of time in the project, the costs should not exceed the benefits otherwise the project would become unviable.
Financial Analysis: The financial analysis is done to understand the costs and expenses incurred in the project and how the profits are received from the implementation. It would include analysis of the savings obtained from the new office.
For detection of the issues, the project progress would be monitored and the outcomes would be compared with he planned milestones to identify variation in the scheduled deliveries. Any issues that are identified during the project that can cause these variations.
The identified issues would be recorded in an issue log which would log issues related to technical problems, business process issues, changes required on the project while it is being executed, resource requirements and contractual issues. With these issues, the identifier for the issue would be created. The log would record more details like timing, description, priorities, the responsible owner of the issue, and current status. The priorities could be low, medium and high based on the risks and impacts on the project. The status of the project can be open , in the stage of investigation, in the stage of implementation, escalation, and resolved.
The issue log is used as a monitoring tool such that problems are identified and corrective measures are taken to ensure that project deliverables are met on time and if any issue is causing delays then the same is resolved before the impact spreads to other stage of the project.
Task AssessmentProject Process: The project is about relocation of an office location to a cheaper location for which the process used included waterfall methodology in which the deliverables were followed in a linear sequence beginning with the identification of requirements for relocation, collection and packing of existing office material and equipments, transportation of the same to new office, unpacking and implementation of equipments in the new location and finishing the interiors including furnishing and office designing work.
Results : The results would be in the form of completion of work of relocation and all deliverables recorded in the project progress report. Once all the deliverables are met, with results displayed in terms of deliverables for technical products, quality aspects, schedule and scope. Once the results are delivered and recorded, they are used to present the same to project sponsor by the project manager so that a final sign off can be taken. The result would also include calculation of the saving that can potentially be achieved after the office was relocated.
Future Actions: In future, the project would be studied to see what kind of savings were achieved from the relocation as it was the key objective of the project. The closure report would record all the important elements of a project including deliverables, quality achieved, deviations that could not be resolved, issues that could be resolved with corrective actions, and the change management practices followed. This document created for project closure would actually act as a learning material for all the future projects that are similar to the current project (Lock, 2007).
References
Brocka, B. and Brocka, M., 1992. Quality management. Homewood, Ill.: Business One Irwin.
Collins, R., 2011. Project management. New York: Nova Science Publishers.
Deeprose, D., 2002. Project management. Oxford, U.K.: Capstone Pub.
Field, M. and Keller, L., 1998. Project management. London: International Thomson Business Press.
Goetsch, D., Davis, S. and Goetsch, D., 2006. Quality management. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall.
Heerkens, G., 2002. Project management. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Kerzner, H., 2001. Project management. New York: John Wiley.
Lock, D., 2007. The essentials of project management. Aldershot, England: Gower.
Maylor, H., 2010. Project management. Harlow, England: Financial Times Prentice Hall.
Mehta, R., 2007. Project management. Jaipur: Aavishkar Publishers.
Murthy, C., 2007. Change management. Mumbai [India]: Himalaya Pub. House Pvt. Ltd.
Patel, V., 2008. Project management. Jaipur, India: Oxford Book Co.
Ponnappa, G., 2014. Project Stakeholder Management. Project Management Journal, 45(2), pp.e3-e3.
Pugh, D. and Mayle, D., 2009. Change management. Los Angeles: SAGE.
Rose, K., 2005. Project quality management. Boca Raton, Fla.: J. Ross Pub.
Shtub, A., 1997. Project segmentation—a tool for project management. International Journal of Project Management, 15(1), pp.15-19.
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