Project Management Report For Dynamic Company

Assessing progress and delays in the project of Dynamic Company

Project management is the process of attaining the short term objectives of the organization by developing effective and structured schedules and tasks. The process focuses on attaining the predetermined goal in set cost, time and scope (Cicmil and et.al., 2017). The present study focuses on analyzing the in-depth understating about project management and its application in different aspects of operations (Ahlemann and et.al., 2013). It is a significant and well defined measure to analyze the growth and development aspects of the project.

Project management is a very significant aspect for Dynamic Company in attaining its business objectives and goals. The organization has developed a well structured project which may help it enhancing the business performance efficiently within the market. The overall analysis however reveals various issues which are being faced by the company thus resulting in project delay. It has been analyzed that efficiency of project management is dependent of its three major principles which are cost, time and scope. The project manager will thus evaluate the issues which the organization is facing which is resulting in lack of overall progress and delays in the project.

The objectives of the present project of dynamic company are:

• To analyze the progress of the project
• To identify the major issues causing delay in the project
• To evaluate the impact of changes on project performance
• To recommend effective measures to ensure project success

Selecting right methodology for the project is one of the most crucial aspects to attain reliable and effective business results. The present project has implemented PRINCE 2 methodology which is a process based measure to develop effective results for the project (Ramasesh and Browning, 2014). The stated method has helped the project in implementing well managed and schedule of activities which creates a significant flow of activities. This eliminates the chances of error in the project. Also it provides effective measure of change management and training measures for the employees as well (Mesquida and Mas, 2014). However the need of documentation is high for the selected methodology which may lead in possible delays.  

The project evaluation of Dynamic company was undertaken in order to attain significant and well defined results for the study. the results of the overall evaluation has been effectively analyzed below:

Project schedule and duration for the given project will be as below:

Sno	Task Name	Duration	Start	Finish	Predecessors
	Project	62 days	Mon 9/25/17	Tue 12/19/17
2	A Perform needs analysis	10 days	Mon 9/25/17	Fri 10/6/17
3	B Develop specifications	6 days	Mon 10/9/17	Mon 10/16/17	2
4	C Select server	6 days	Tue 10/17/17	Tue 10/24/17	3
5	D Select software	12 days	Tue 10/17/17	Wed 11/1/17	3
6	E Select cables	4 days	Wed 10/25/17	Mon 10/30/17	4
7	F Purchase equipment	3 days	Thu 11/2/17	Mon 11/6/17	5,6
8	G Develop user manuals	6 days	Thu 11/2/17	Thu 11/9/17	4,5
9	H Wire offices	12 days	Tue 11/7/17	Wed 11/22/17	7
10	I Set up server	3 days	Tue 11/7/17	Thu 11/9/17	7
11	J Develop training program	14 days	Fri 11/10/17	Wed 11/29/17	8
12	K Install software	4 days	Fri 11/10/17	Wed 11/15/17	10
13	L Connect network	3 days	Thu 11/23/17	Mon 11/27/17	9,12
14	M Train users	8 days	Thu 11/30/17	Mon 12/11/17	11,13
15	N Test and debug system	12 days	Tue 11/28/17	Wed 12/13/17	13
16	O Get management acceptance	4 days	Thu 12/14/17	Tue 12/19/17	14,15

The network diagram for the above project is as below On the basis of the above network diagram the critical path for the mentioned project will be:

Activity 2+3+5+7+9+13+15+16

Duration: 10+6+12+3+12+3+12+4

62 days

Hence, on the basis of given analysis it can be determined that task A, B, D, F, H, L, N and O forms the critical path for the project. These activities have no scope of delaying. If any of the mentioned tasks are not started on time the overall project time may be affected.

Objectives

If activity C (Select server) is delayed by 2 days the new project schedule attained. (Refer appendix A4) As per the evaluation it can be seen that activity ‘C’ is not included in the critical path. Hence delaying the start of the activity by two days did not affect the overall project schedule. The project schedule is 62 days. However the delay in the activity changed the critical path of the overall project (Teller and Kock, 2013).

The critical path analysis done for the project evaluated that activity D is included in the critical path of the overall project (Garel, 2013). Delaying the activity by 1 day hence will effect the overall project completion time. For the given project the initial project completion time was 62 days which has now changed to 63 days. Hence delaying activity D by 1 day will delay the overall project by 1 day. (Refer Appendix A5)

If activity C is an immediate predecessor of activity D the project schedule will change. (Refer Appendix A6)

Changing the task scheduling creates a significant impact on overall project performance. Initially project was scheduled such that tasks C and D were started concurrently. However, making C predecessor of D means that D can now only be started after task C is completed. Moreover, it was also seen that activity D is included in Critical path which means that there is no scope of delaying the activity (Rose, 2013). Thus, delaying activity D by 6 days results in delaying the overall project completion time by 6 days. Hence the project completion time has now changed to 68 from 62.

The project schedule after adding two activities P and Q has been presented as below Adding activity P and Q did not affect the overall project schedule. It was because the activities did not affect the competition of any activity which was coming under the critical path (Hwang and Ng, 2013). It also reflected that activities used the slack time of the succeeding activities which helped in managing the project completion time.

The case when activity M cannot start until 3 Weeks after the start of activity J has a significant impact.

Due to clashing of training tasks it was analyzed that activity M cannot start until 3 Weeks after the start of activity J. The activity was not in the critical path and was delayed by 7 days.  This affected the overall project completion time and delayed it by 5 days. This clearly represents that activity M had maximum slack of 2 days however after that it affected the overall project schedule and extended it by remaining 5 days. Thus, the overall project schedule is now 67 days (Rose, 2013).

Methodology used

The overall analysis of the case reveals that there is a significant impact of the changes which has been or are planned to be implemented in the project. These changes are creating significant delay in project progress and developing insignificant results. Thus in order to attain significant and reliable results for the project following measures will help:

• Delaying activity C by 2 days will not affect the completion time hence the cost and scope of the project will not be affected. Hence it can be delayed.
• Activity D is in the critical path of the original project hence delaying it will result in enhancing the overall time and cost for completing the project. Thus it should not be delayed.
• Activity C and D should be completed concurrently. If activity C will become the predecessor of D the project schedule will delay by 6 days.
• Implementing activity P and Q will enhance project management and performance as well. It will not affect the project schedule as well. Hence these can be effectively added in the project.
• If activity M cannot start until 3 Weeks after the start of activity J, it will delay the overall project by 5 days thus making the project completion to 67 days. Hence it should be avoided.

The project focuses on developing a winter invitational soccer tournament in order to generate revenue. This revenue may result in providing scholarships to provide partial or full scholarships to youth. The major deliverables for the project will be as follows:

1. List all the team participating in the Winter Invitational Soccer Tournament
2. List of the fields where Winter Invitational Soccer Tournamentwill be held
3. Details about awards quantity and design which will be given to the winners of Winter Invitational Soccer Tournament
4. Details about the sponsors funding the Winter Invitational Soccer Tournament
5. Resource required for successful Winter Invitational Soccer Tournament

Work break down structure

	WINTER INVITATIONAL SOCCER TOURNAMENT
1	Team and field planning
1.1	Field research and coordination
1.1.1	Approaching local colleges for fields and volunteers
1.1.2	Managing physical resources for the game
1.2	Team selection
1.2.1	Defining screening process
1.2.2	Maximizing registration numbers
1.2.3	Fee and form planning
2	Hiring qualified referee
2.1	Approach and assign referee for different matches
3	Winners and awards
3.1	Award ceremony
3.1.1	Financing award design
3.1.2	Resource planning
3.2	Coordinating with volunteer
4	Sponsors
4.1	Identify and approach sponsors
4.1.1	Source sponsorship
5	Tournament accessories and T-shirts
5.1	Defining quality and design
5.1.1	Budget and quantity evaluation

 The case analysis revealed that the meeting for event planning was planned for 2 hours. However, the meeting was extended without effective and reliable results. Moreover the suggestions were not related and scattered as well. WBS is an effective measure to alleviate the problems that occurred during the first meeting.

• WBS will help in representing the overall planning and sequence of the actions in a graphical manner which will develop a significant understanding about the process and action plan for conducting the event. It will be time saving and more holistic approach.
• It will also help in analyzing division of tasks in a well structured manner (Hwang and Ng, 2013). It will help in clearly defining and analyzing all the tasks and activities of the event which helps in attaining reliable results. Thus discussion could be structured and positive.
• WBS ensures the minimization of errors as all tasks and activities are represented in a structured and well defined manner. It also helps in effective plan and presentation of the ideas which helps in attaining the attention of participants (Devi and Reddy, 2012). Thus meeting would have been more interesting.

As analyzed from the issue faced in the first meeting that Tournament management is a big project. The information regarding projects and soccer event is crucial for developing an effective and reliable plan (Patanakul Shenhar and Milosevic, 2012). In order to attain additional information about WBS following measures could effectively help:

• Analysis past tournaments may produce many reliable and constructive ideas about WBS and possible errors which may occur while managing and organizing the event (Mir and Pinnington, 2014). This approach will help in developing a reliable and well defined picture about the event planning and management.
• In addition, brainstorming can effectively help in applying the creative and innovative ideas to the structure which may enhance the performance of the current project (Usman, Soomro and Brohi, 2014).

Project management focuses on 3 major principles which are scope, cost and schedule. WBS provides a clear and summarized picture of overall tournament tasks (Kerzner, 2013). Budge analysis and management is one of the major challenges for the committee. WBS can be an effective source to analyze and generate cost factors for the tournament.

• WBS will help in effectively managing and defining the task to attain a reliable result for the event. It is an effective tool for cost management for the event. It breaks the overall event into tasks and activities which are calculative (Fleming and Koppelman, 2016).
• The layout identifies the cost drivers for the project which may later be used to calculate and evaluate the overall budget of the event (Mishra and Mishra, 2013). The stated measure will also be helpful in minimizing the errors as all the cost drivers are clearly analyzed and represented in WBS.

Conclusion 

The overall project reveals that project management is a critical task. It creates a significant impact on the business goals. The study developed a significant understanding about the project scheduling and work based structure. The evaluation develops a well defined understating about the subject matter.

References

Books and Journals

Ahlemann, F., El Arbi, F., Kaiser, M.G. and Heck, A., 2013. A process framework for theoretically grounded prescriptive research in the project management field. International Journal of Project Management, 31(1), pp.43-56.

Cicmil, S., Cooke-Davies, T., Crawford, L. and Richardson, K., 2017. Exploring the complexity of projects: Implications of complexity theory for project management practice. Project Management Institute.

Devi, T.R. and Reddy, V.S., 2012. Work breakdown structure of the project. Int J Eng Res Appl, 2(2), pp.683-686.

Fleming, Q.W. and Koppelman, J.M., 2016. Earned value project management. Project Management Institute.

Garel, G., 2013. A history of project management models: From pre-models to the standard models. International Journal of Project Management, 31(5), pp.663-669.

Hwang, B.G. and Ng, W.J., 2013. Project management knowledge and skills for green construction: Overcoming challenges. International Journal of Project Management, 31(2), pp.272-284.

Kerzner, H., 2013. Project management: a systems approach to planning, scheduling, and controlling. John Wiley & Sons.

Mesquida, A.L. and Mas, A., 2014. A project management improvement program according to ISO/IEC 29110 and PMBOK®. Journal of Software: Evolution and Process, 26(9), pp.846-854.

Mir, F.A. and Pinnington, A.H., 2014. Exploring the value of project management: linking project management performance and project success. International journal of project management, 32(2), pp.202-217.

Mishra, A. and Mishra, D., 2013. Software project management tools: a brief comparative view. ACM SIGSOFT Software Engineering Notes, 38(3), pp.1-4.

Patanakul, P., Shenhar, A.J. and Milosevic, D.Z., 2012. How project strategy is used in project management: Cases of new product development and software development projects. Journal of Engineering and Technology Management, 29(3), pp.391-414.

Ramasesh, R.V. and Browning, T.R., 2014. A conceptual framework for tackling knowable unknown unknowns in project management. Journal of Operations Management, 32(4), pp.190-204.

Rose, K.H., 2013. A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK® Guide)—Fifth Edition. Project management journal, 44(3).

Teller, J. and Kock, A., 2013. An empirical investigation on how portfolio risk management influences project portfolio success. International Journal of Project Management, 31(6), pp.817-829.

Usman, M., Soomro, T.R. and Brohi, M.N., 2014. Embedding project management into XP, SCRUM and RUP. European Scientific Journal, ESJ, 10(15).