Question:
Write a report about the Project Management Plan.
Project Management Plan is a vital and significant key that defines and decides the existence, future and success of the project that has been considered. The report has been prepared with the view and objective of addressing the significance of the project management plan that is quite important, especially, for larger scale project, as there are many complications and risks would also be at larger scale, and give some of recommend the useful insights into the viable and potential project management framework that could increase the probability of success of the project. The project considered is Transportation 2020, which is a study of improvement alternatives for the transportation for the Greater Madison / Dane County Metropolitan Area.
The report is structured with the basic background details of the project followed by the audience, who can benefit from the report. Later, the structure of project management is plan discussed in terms of the standard frameworks developed by the reputed project mangement organizations, which are widely and universally accepted and adapted. Critical analysis is performed for the framework of the project report that is considered , against discussing each of the section. The report is then concluded with the conclusion of the topic and by presenting the recommendations of potential project management plan of how broader and how wider it can be covered. Finally, the business case for the Transport 2020 is prepared, against the best project management plan framework extracted and learned.
This section of the report presents the basic details about the project that has been taken into consideration as an example. It includes the details of objectives, scope and the relative data about the project.
The business case project considered as an example is the Transport 2020, which is a study of improvement plans for the Metropolitan Area, Greater Madison / Dane County. The initial alternative analysis is completed by the Transport 2020 implementation task force in the year 2007. The project is undertaken by the Dane Country in Wisconsin Department of Transportation. The objective of the project of study of improvement alternatives is to get the final product of study report and it is going to be used as a support for FTA (Federal Transit Administration), which has also funds the project. The Department of Transportation is located in Dane County. The project report is a draft and the draft is going to be updated along with the time and so far some sections of the report are produced and a few of them are yet to be done. These sections will be completed and updated as the project progresses. The project report is submitted in three major and primary stages, Alternatives Analysis (AA), DEIS (Draft Environmental Impact Statement) that is to be expected by the Transport 2020 Implementation task force, preliminary engineering, final design, construction and implementation of the services. The report for Transport 2020 has been prepared for one of its many products in the first stage, AA/DEIS. The stage one work is performed by a consultant, who is taken directly under contract to the City of Madison.
Audience
This section and paragraph details about the audience of the project report, who can benefit from this project and range of audience are covered. The project management plan gives a brief journey of the project from the beginning to the end. Ideally and technically, the project management plan should be intended to be developed for the project managers. However, there is a major group of audience for the project management plan, the stakeholders of the project. The stakeholders can be internal and external and this set of stakeholders get a complete idea of in detailed information about the project, as it is vital for them, to see how the project is going to be succeed and how they are going to be benefited from the fruit or outcome of the project. For example, when the Transport 2020 is considered, the internal stakeholders would the stakeholders, who are part of the project implementation, such as the authority and employees of the Department of Transportation, the contractors, sub-contractors and importantly the work force. There is a large set of external stakeholders for this project, for example, the citizen of Wisconsin and the citizen of the US, as they are going to influence the project and they are going to enjoy the fruits of the product of the project. These both internal and external stakeholders look and view the project management plan of the Transport 2020 project as the primary business case, which is going to provide the details of the authority of the project, budget set for the project, schedule and importantly the completion time of the project, as it is going to be the key date to start enjoying the product of the project (Paul, 2005). Ideally, the project management plan should provide in and out information and every aspect of the project that has both direct and indirect influence on the project and its performance and final outcome.
The section or paragraph for the structure indicates the structure of the example project report. It also indicates the formal structure for a typical project report. The Transport 2020 project has been presented with one specific framework that included the headings of all the sections and many of the sections are filled with some of them left to be updated as the project advances. However, there is a range of theories and opinions that can be examined and compared, towards learning for extraction of the best framework needed for an effective and complete project management plan. In this context, both the inclusion of the sections as well as the structure of these sections or elements is considered as important.
A project management plan is a document that is formally developed and approved for guiding project in the dimensions, execution and control. The primary uses and objectives of the project management plan are to document the assumptions and decisions associated with the planning and to facilitate communication among the various stakeholders of the project. In addition to these primary aspects, the plan should also include the cost, scope, schedule baselines. The final project management plan can be either detailed or simply summarized, including all the figures and data.
There are many theories, frameworks and models developed by many of the organizations, to make the process of project management effective and easier comparatively.
Literature review for the project management plan say about the plan used in the selected specific project against the standard project management plans developed and used widely in the industry. The project does comparison of the elements included and structure of the selected project, Transport 2020 and it does not comparison does not cover the management and sequence of the elements in the selected case project.
This section covers various project management methodology, traditional approach that is developed and followed for reference for project management plan. The section also covers the pre-requisite questions to be asked before the PMP is developed and also all the elements needed for a complete PMP.
The traditional approach and theory for framework of the project management plan is a general formula followed as simple sequence of the activities and tasks associated with the project. The model follows the project management framework as follows.
Usually, this approach is followed by many organizations and project managers, but in a customised ways, as all the projects are unique.
There are many other kinds of project management methodologies and theories existing such as, PMBOK, PRINCE, AGILE, WATERFALL METHODS, ect.
The structure of the project management plan usually design and develop the framework, based on the following factors,
It should answer the basic questions, like
What the problem is in value proposition that is to be addressed by the project? Why the project is intended and sponsored by the sponsor?
What work is going to be performed on the name of the project? What the primary and major deliverables and products are with the project?
Who are going to involve in the project, what the responsibilities of them are going to be within the project? How they are going to be organized?
What is the timeline of the project and what will be the meanings of particular points, when referred as the milestones that are going to be completed?
When all the requirements from various methodologies and theories are collected and integrated, the following set of the requirements are needed to be fulfilled by the project management plan to cover multiple and most of the aspects of the project management, as the following.
Though the sequence may be varied to some extent, all the above areas of knowledge are to be covered, including the risk management, though the risks may occur or may not occur.
The project, Transport 2020 has covered most of the sections, as specified above. However, there are some of the sections that are to be addressed and detailed description has to be provided. It covered procurement management, risk management, communication program and human resource and labour relating management, which covers a significant part o the resource management. However, there are many other elements and sections that are yet to be addressed. Fr example, it needs to address the requirement management to ensure that what all the requirements needed to complete the project. Quality control is addressed as part of the project management and control, however it needs to be more elaborative. Risk management is intended to add and it will be updated as and when the project progresses. Scope management is addressed, however, it was covered as part of control management and other sections, not a full-fledged.
In this section, vital project management methodologies, PMBOK and PRINCE2 are covered with the formats recommended by them. Among many of the project management methodologies that are potential and widely accepted in the field of the project management, PMBOK stands ahead and the next following popular project management methodology is the PRINCE2. Let us go through their frameworks in detailed.
This sub-section and paragraph explains the PMBOK structure and framework for project management plan. The Project Management Body of Knowledge is considered as standard guidelines and standard terminology for the project management. The body of knowledge has been upgraded and developed in many aspects and the latest version of PMBOK is released as fifth edition in 2013. The detailed project management guide has been evolved and documented, as a resultant work from the PMI (Project Management Institute). It is unique in the way how the tasks and activities are classified in terms of the work breakdown structure and critical path method. The methodology also overlaps the general management that includes planning, staffing, organising, controlling, executing of the operations of the organization. The guide and methodology is generally accepted, which means that the knowledge practices mentioned in the guide are applicable to many of the general and large scale projects for most of the time and is always a consensus in terms of usefulness and value (PMI, 2012). The guide is accepted to be a good practice, which means that application of the skills, techniques, tools and knowledge in the guide have general agreement, there is more success rate, for making it applicable for many projects.
PMBOK guides the project managers and organizations with five basic process groups that covers total 47 processes and ten knowledge areas that are common or typical for most of the real time projects.
The guide includes the following five process groups,
When it comes to the project management planning the guide includes many knowledge areas. The knowledge is as the following and cover important aspects, like the following (PMI, 2012).
The activities and processes that are required for identifying, coordinating, unifying, combining various processes and the activities of the project management, within the process groups of the project management are included in this area of knowledge.
The processes that are required to manage the tasks and activities timely are to be mentioned in the time or schedule management.
The processes that are needed for ensuring that includes various tasks and work required for successful completion of the project are covered and mentioned in the scope management.
The activities and processes that are required to perform the organizations, which determine the objectives, quality policies, and responsibilities, are covered in this management process, so that the project could satisfy all the needs of quality standards for what the project is initiated to achieve.
The human resource management includes all the processes that are needed to manage, organize and lead the human resources or the team of project. The management of the human resource demands higher level of communication skills of the project manager and also healthier environment.
The cost management includes the relative processes, like the cost that is involved in the planning, budgeting, funding, estimating, managing, financing and controlling the costs of the project that are to be fit and adjusted within the budget that is approved.
The project procurement management includes the processes that are needed for acquiring and purchasing the services, products or results associated from the outside the team of the project. It also includes the processes of procurement planning, solicitation, contract administration, source selection and contract closeout.
Stakeholder management is one of the important and key management concept in the management process of stakeholders, since the needs, values and intentions of the stakeholders are varied and a achieving a common ground is a challenging task.
The project communication management includes the processes that are needed for ensuring the appropriate and timely planning, creation, collection, distribution, management, retrieval, monitoring, control and disposition ultimately, of the project information. Usually communication management includes the technological processes also, like establishing electronic media paths for instant and detailed transfer of the messages and content among the project team and other stakeholders.
The project risk management includes the processes to conduct the planning, analysis, identification, response planning and risk controlling related to the risk management in terms of risk of a project.
All the ten areas of knowledge do contain various processes that have to be accomplished in the respective disciplines for achieving the project management effectively. All these processes are to be covered in one or other five process groups (PMI, 2012). These process groups and knowledge areas create the matrix structure that each and every process could be well connected to each other.
In this section, PRINCE 2 project management methodology is covered with a detailed framework. Another project management methodology that is widely accepted and implemented for various and larger scale projects, is PRINCE2. PRojects In Controlled Environments, version 2 project management methodology encompasses the quality organization, management and control of the project with review and consistency for aligning with the objectives of the projects (OGC, 2009).
As the name suggests, it is a project management methodology that is process driven. It depends on seven principles, seven processes and seven themes.
The seven principles covered are the following.
The significant seven themes related to the project management methodologies are the following.
All the above themes and principles are combined as seven processes (OGC, 2009).
This is the first process, where the human resources are considered to be appointed and roles are allocated and the brief of the project is then produced.
The process builds on the previous process, starting project. It uses project brief for preparing other documents for management that are needed, while the project is implemented.
The process involves the task of dictating as the overall project is to be controlled by the project board.
As PRINCE2 suggests breaking the entire project into stages, this process involves the dictating of how each of the stage is to be controlled.
Managing process is doen with the objective to control the team managers and project manager link.
The objective of stage boundaries management is to dictate what has to be done to complete the sage.
Closing covers all the respective things that are needed to be taken at the final stage or the end of the project.
Conclusions
Project management plan is very important that decides the existence and future of the project. Project management plan is designed and developed by the project manager and it is important to know about the project in detail by all the stakeholders, both internal and external stakeholders. The project management plan is covered from various project management methodologies, its theoretical concepts and the respective frameworks. It is the finding from the study and report that the project plan needs to cover diverse aspects and the more disciplines it covers, the more complete the plan would be. The project management methodologies covered in this report are majorly PMBOK and PRINCE2, which are widely used and globally accepted all around the world.
The report covered the knowledge areas and process groups both from the PMBOK and PRINCE 2 methodologies, covering all these sub-components of the same. Though PMBOK and PRINCE 2 are widely accepted with more strengths than the traditional project management methodologies, they also suffer from certain weaknesses, where schedule management plan in the PMBOK is perceived to be ineffective and whereas for PRINCE 2, it is considered to be inappropriate for certain projects, especially, smaller projects. Though it can be a good practice to go for one project management methodology, it is important to consider for other project management methodologies too, to ensure there are no significant sections or elements left, when a project is considered.
Every project is unique and so Transport 2020. Most of the elements covered are relevant to the needs of the project. However, when it comes to the resource management, it covered only the human resource management and other resources are not covered. Design programs, procumbent and construction management, start-up preparations, real estate plan, risk management plan, system safety and security and dispute resolution are specified, however are to be updated as and when the project progresses. Schedule management, cost management are to be clearly addressed in this report. Stakeholder management is covered, however needs to be covering wide range of stakeholders. Quality management is well addressed, however, integration project management is still to be addressed.
There are various theories and methodologies developed and made available for the project managers and organizations. The selection of the project management and the respective methodology and framework play vital role in defining the existence, future and success of the project, especially for the larger or large scale projects. It is always recommended that the standard and most compatible methodologies can be considered, like PMBOK and for the larger projects, PRINCE2 can be a better choice. If PMBOK is considered, then it is also important that the schedule management plan has to be emphasized by taking the other methodologies into consideration, for example, taking the schedule management of the PRINCE2 or Agile can be useful.
Apart from the selection of the project management methodology it is also important to consider the rest of the methodologies for additional information and additional elements that can be suitable for the project that is going to be implemented. By considering multiple methodologies and the respective project management plan framework, the shortcomings of one methodology can be compensated from the other framework of the other methodology. The choice of the methodology and framework is quite important to ensure the success of the project. It is always good to include more elements and a detailed plan for the project management plan.
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Conclusions
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