Project Management Skills in a Building Conversion - Assignment Example

INTRODUCTION Project management entails the application of skills, tools and techniques to project activities to meet the project goals. It is ideally achieved through the appropriate application and integration of project management processes which comprise the five fundamental aspects. These are project initiation, planning, execution, monitoring and controlling, and closure of project (Larson, 2010). Office integrated in the project management perspective. We will see how activities will be schedule, resource management, and quality assurance among other fundamental principles surrounding this building project. PREDECESSOR ACTIVITIES The first crucial step is to seek a structural engineer to do an audit of the existing concrete block posts. This will need his approval for our company to know whether the existing structure can support another floor on top. (Larson, 2010).That is, whether the concrete block in existence is strong enough to have another floor up as 2nd level or another down as basement. Depending on the support, the approval may be issued or not. Afterwards, we can proceed to the preliminary design of the second floor. That is, the floor layout of the second floor required among other things like structural and electrical design, ventilation, insulation, vapour barrier and drywall installed on the walls and ceiling. . These specifications will be tailored to the client of this building. A detailed assessment of the existing building will be done to check integrity of the current building, the kind of foundation, parts of the building that are intact or need re-designing to fit in the preliminary design. This will be done with assistance of the current building’s construction team, the building inspection unit from the local authority and the proprietors of the new building (Larson, 2005). We may need to consider all renovations done previously and any recommendations from the local authority inspection unit. After the detailed assessment is performed, a provisional design is done incorporating the findings in the earlier conducted detailed assessment. The design is presented to the client for his approval and finally forwarding to the local authority for the purposes of seeking the building permit. Once the building permit is issued, the conversion works can officially commence with other revisions being made on the prior design if necessary but still approval from relevant authorities is mandatory. This is how this conversion will generally go. The detailed procedures will be modeled within the Microsoft Project 2007. KEY AREAS IN PROJECT MANAGEMENT In any project, whether product manufacturing, or service delivery, there are crucial aspects of activities that need to be addressed should we desire a successful project. These factors are necessary for the project manager. How he or she addresses these issues will show his capability and skills and project is no exception. Besides time, there are various key areas in project management (Larson, 2010) and these include cost management, project quality management, human resource management, project scope management, Risk management In this case time management and so will discuss about it. 1 Time Management Time management will ensure that this project is completed as planned. This has an impact costs and effectiveness in running the project. This sector covers the processes required to ensure timely completion of the project (Larson, 2010).The sequencing aspects is crucial. Certain activities can only commence after predecessor activities are completed. For this project our companies apply the fundamental activities involved in the conversion of 1 level building to 2 level residential building and a non-engineered design to an engineered design in accordance to Ontario Building Code. This way our company hope to schedule the vital activities like removing the non-essential building parts like roof top to meet the standard taste of a building the client needs. We will also cover the critical path. This is basically the path that should not be delayed as it will determine the overall project conclusion time. Milestones will help us monitor project course. Conclusion In conclusion, the project will take duration of 81 days and will have an expected budget of approximately US $ 9800. There are assumptions we have made such as no time delays and idle resources will not be present. For sure this project has been thoroughly analyzed and behaves within control owing to the computer aided project management tool. INTRODUCTION Project management entails the application of skills, tools and techniques to project activities to meet the project goals. It is ideally achieved through the appropriate application and integration of project management processes which comprise the five fundamental aspects. These are project initiation, planning, execution, monitoring and controlling, and closure of project (Lewis 2006). In this paper, we will be applying these unique set of project management skills in a building conversion. The floor in the case study is a second floor on an existing single level cottage at a nearby lake (383 kilometres from Thunder Bayinstall a second floor on an existing single level cottage at a nearby lake (383 kilometres from Thunder Bay. It has been selected to be a Grade B office building. This paper seeks to present key activities involved in conversion to Grade B office integrated in the project management perspective. We will see how activities will be schedule, resource management, and quality assurance among other fundamental principles surrounding any project. PREDECESSOR ACTIVITIES The first crucial step is to seek permission from the local authority in form of an application for change of user. This will need the approval of the local authority’s plans for the area. That is, whether the area is officially recognized as an industrial area only or a residential area. Depending on the prevailing by-laws, the approval may be issued or not. Afterwards, we can proceed to the preliminary design of the second floor. That is, the floor layout of the offices required among other things. These specifications will be tailored to the client of Ontario. A detailed assessment of the existing building will be done to check integrity of the current building, the kind of foundation, parts of the building that are intact or need re-designing to fit in the preliminary design. This will be done with assistance of the current building’s construction team, the building inspection unit from the local authority and the proprietors of the new building. We may need to consider all renovations done previously and any recommendations from the local authority inspection unit. After the detailed assessment is performed, a provisional design is done incorporating the findings in the earlier conducted detailed assessment. The design is presented to the client for his approval and finally forwarding to the local authority for the purposes of seeking the building permit. Once the building permit is issued, the conversion works can officially commence with other revisions being made on the prior design if necessary but still approval from relevant authorities is mandatory. This is how this conversion will generally go. The detailed procedures will be modeled within the Microsoft Project 2007. KEY AREAS IN PROJECT MANAGEMENT In any project, whether product manufacturing, or service delivery, there are crucial aspects of activities that need to be addressed should we desire a successful project. These factors are necessary for the project manager. How he or she addresses these issues will show his capability and skills and project is no exception. Besides time, there are various key areas in project management (Larson, 2011) and these include: cost management, project quality management, human resource management, project scope management, Risk management These are discussed as follows 2 Time Management Time management ensures that the project is completed as planned. This has an impact on costs and effectiveness in running the project. This sector covers the processes required to ensure timely completion of the project (Larson, 2011).The sequencing aspects is crucial. Certain activities can only commence after predecessor activities are completed. For this project we applied the fundamental activities involved in the conversion of an industrial building to an office building. We will also cover the critical path. This is basically the path that should not be delayed as it will determine the overall project conclusion time. Milestones will help us monitor project course. From the MS Project we came up with the following activities. Task Name Duration Start Date End Date Predecessor Building Conversion Project Schedule 81 days 19/4/2015 8:00 9/7/2015 17:00   Design phase 12 days 19/4/2015 8:00 3/1/2015 17:00   Team Meeting 1 day 19/4/2015 8:00 19/4/2014 17:00 Permit seeking from local authority 2 days 20/4/2012 8:00 21/4/2014 17:00 3 Plans layout 1 day 24/4/2015 8:00 24/4/2015 17:00 4 Review of plan to clients satisfaction 5 days 25/4/2015 8:00 29/4/2015 17:00 5 Satisfactory check by local authority 2 days 5/5/2015 8:00 6/5/2015 17:00 6 Project handover to Project Manager 1 day 7/5/2015 8:00 7/5/2015 17:00 7 Roof Analysis 9 days 4/5//2015 8:00 13/5/2015 17:00   Check on soundness of current building 3 days 4/5/2015 8:00 8/5/2015 17:00 8 Concrete posts check 2 days 9/5/2015 8:00 10/5/2015 17:00 10 Proposed Seciond floor layout 2 days 9/5/2015 8:00 10/5/2015 17:00 10 Bill of Quantities 2 days 11/5/2015 8:00 14/5/2015 17:00 10,12 Inspection unit to allow works commencement 2 days 15/5/2015 8:00 16/5/2015 17:00 12,10,13 Building Conversion Works 51 days 17/5/2015 8:00 8/7/2015 17:00   Flooring 10 days 17/5/2015 8:00 27/5/2015 17:00 14 Wall works 6 days 27/5/2015 8:00 1/6/2015 17:00 16 Electrical Works 3 days 8/6/2015 8:00 10/6//2015 17:00 17 Fire safety and alarm works 2 days 13/6/2015 8:00 14/6/2015 17:00 18 Partitions 4 days 15/6/2015 8:00 20/6/2015 17:00 19 Roofing 3 days 21/6/2015 8:00 25/6/2015 17:00 20 Paint works 3 days 26/6/2015 8:00 28/6/2015 17:00 21 Plumbing Works 2 days 3/6/2015 8:00 4/6/2015 17:00 22 Cabinetry works 4 days 5/7/2015 8:00 8/7/2015 17:00 23 Window blinds 2 days 11/4/2015 8:00 12/4/2015 17:00 23,24 Decorative works 2 days 13/7/2015 8:00 14/7/2015 17:00 25 Furniture Works 5 days 15/7/2015 8:00 30/7/2015 17:00 26 Lumber Delivery 2 days 22/7/2015 8:00 25/7/2015 17:00 27 Waterproofing and Drain Tile 3 days 26/7/2015 8:00 28/7/2015 17:00 28 Project Conclusion 9 days 29/8/2015 8:00 6/9/2015 17:00   Work and plan review 2 days 29/7/2015 8:00 30/8//2015 17:00 29 Building clean up 2 days 2/7/2015 8:00 3/7//2015 17:00 31 Site Inspection 1 day 4/8/2015 8:00 4/8/2015 17:00 32 Assurance survey 1 day 5/8/2015 8:00 5/8/2015 17:00 33 Project Reporting 2 days 8/8/2015 8:00 9/8/2015 17:00 34 Official Handover 1 day 10/8/2015 8:00 10/8/2015 17:00 35 As indicated, the project is divided into 36 activities. The critical path in indicated in the red color, as determined by project evaluation and review technique. Read More