Project Scope and Project Management Plan to Produce Motorcycles with Higher Engines Capacity - Case Study Example

Project Scope and Project Management Plan The aim of the project is to produce motorcycles with higher engine’s capa of 1100 cc in order to covermore distance. The project is initiated to perform a motorcycle engine transition i-e from manufacturing 500 – 1000 cc engine power motorcycles known as ‘cruiser’ to the manufacturing higher engine motorcycles (having engine power equal to or more than 1100 cc) known as ‘Touring’. Therefore, the project scope is to gather and analyze the requirements of the targeted market / audience (35 – 60 years old males) for the motorcycles, developing a project plan, designing the motorcycles as per the collected requirements, producing motorcycles, rigorous testing of the motorcycles, marketing the motorcycles and deployment / implementation of the motorcycles. The phase wise description of the project has already been developed; however, this document mainly deals with the planning of the motorcycle manufacturing project, hence, provides a comprehensive project plan. The project constraint is the duration of the project i-e the project has to be completed in five years since its inception. Moreover, it was determined and estimated in the feasibility that the project cost lies between $55,000 to $100,000. Staff Requirement The team of the manufacturing motorcycle project consists of various specialists, engineers, management and administrative officers and officials. The designation of the officers and officials are identified, however, the number of human resources are dependent on the number of the motorcycle’s manufacturing. Therefore, the number of officers / officials may vary as per the requirements of the client. However, the designations of the human resources include: the Environmental Specialist, Electrical Engineer, Mechanical Engineer, Plant Engineer, Production Support Engineer, Quality Assurance Engineer, Quality Control Engineer, Marketing Manager, Technical Service Support, Help Desk Support, Project Manager and Requirement Engineer (ZeroMotors, 2014). It is pertinent to specify that these designations of the human resources fulfill the minimum requirements of the project; however, the staff can be enhanced keeping in view the productivity in the production of the motorcycle manufacturing. Team Building Strategies There are various team building strategies, however, the team building strategy to be used by the motorcycle manufacturer organization / project consists of a process. The stages of the strategy and process include: the identification of the project team requirements, developing team member roles, responsibilities and objectives, recruitment of the project team, informing their responsibilities clearly and precisely, communicating the project progress to all the relevant team members, highlighting issues rather than hiding, assisting the project team to resolve the issues and conflicts, and building a cohesive team by getting feedback from all the team members regularly. Moreover, it is important to provide refreshing / fun time to the project team members (Mealiea and Baltazar, 2005). Based on the given guidelines, it is the responsibility of the project manager of the motorcycle manufacturing project to devise a team building strategy in the initiating and planning phase of the project. Project Manager Role From the various characteristics and attributes of the effective project manager, the three (3) relevant and the highest priority characteristics include: the disbursing the project vision and objectives (communication qualities), competency for expanding the project of the motorcycle manufacturing, and team building capabilities. As the project relates to expanding the motorcycle engines, therefore, communication with the project team and stakeholders is a key to execute a project successfully. Similarly, the project manager has all the required skills and abilities to expand the manufacturing of the motorcycles. Over and above all, as a new team is going to be formed for the project, therefore, the project manager has abilities to develop strategies and processes to be implemented for the development of a team for manufacturing of the motorcycles. Therefore, despite all the project management skills and capabilities, the project manager of the motorcycle manufacturing project should have the above given skills at minimum. Critical Path The project consists of phases, processes and activities. Mainly, a project contains two (2) types of activities include: the critical and non critical activities. The critical activities form a critical path, meaning that if one of the critical activities on the critical path delays, the project won’t be able to complete on time, if techniques such as Fast Tracking and Project Crashing are not used to bring the project back to the schedule. The critical path facilitates the project manager to not only determine the critical activities, but also specifies the minimum time required to complete the project. Therefore, in order to complete the project within the planned schedule / time, it is highly significant to not only identifying the project critical path, but also monitoring and reviewing the critical activities so that these activities would not delay in the project. Moreover, it is important to allocate reliable and competent human resources on the activities lie on the critical path so that the delay in the project can be avoided to extend as much as possible. Elements of Work Breakdown Structure The elements of the Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) describe the work required to complete the project by the team and participants. The whole project is divided into phases / modules, activities and tasks. The tasks can then be assigned to the human resources required to complete task, the estimated cost can be allocated to the tasks, and estimated time required completing the particular task. Moreover, the resources, tools / machineries and material can also be assigned to the tasks. In order to determine the estimated total time required to complete the project, all the time is added which was assigned to each task. In order to identify the total human resources and their effort (working hours) required to complete the project, all the human resources and their working hours can be added. Similarly, the project pricing and costing can be done by adding all the costs allocated to one task and then adding all the costs of all the tasks to determine the total cost of the project. Then the costs, human resources and estimated time can be determined of the whole project. The WBS also facilitates to determine the scope of the project (Gardiner, 2005). References Gardiner, P. D. (2005). Project Management – A Strategic Planning Approach. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. pp 244 – 283 Mealiea, L. and Baltazar, R. (2005). A Strategic Guide for Building Effective Teams. Public Personnel Management, Volume 34, No. 2 ZeroMotors, 2014). Employment. 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