Young at Heart Centre - Essay Example

YOUNG AT HEART project Management plan Purpose of Project Management Plan The purpose of this project plan is to present a detailed project management plan of preparation of an annual report of the Young at Heart Centre performance results, accomplishments and financial status The intended audience of the Young at Heart PMP is the project sponsor - the Board of Directors of the Young at Heart centre. objectives and Assumptions OBJECTIVES: to produce a eye-catching, multi-color, easy-to-read annual report that shows the benefits of the centre’s research and the impact on people’s lives to print and distribute 1 mln copies to the centre’s stakeholders, past donors and high-potential future donors ASSUMPTIONS: The main assumption of this project is that more interactive, colorful and user-friendly version of the Yong At Heart annual report will enable the Centre to get to “in the same league” with other large not-for-profit organizations with which it feels it competes for donations and funds. Thus, the newly updated and refreshed version of the annual report will better inform centre’s stakeholders about the advances the centre is making and will serve as a tool for attracting funding to the organization. Minor assumptions include: medical facilities will agree to provide testimonials patients and their families who have benefited from the centre’s research will agree to provide testimonials financial department will provide financial information no later than Feb 16, 2015. Work Breakdown Structure In order to achieve set goals and objectives of the project, it is critical to breakdown the workload and tasks, which should be done in order to complete the project. A work breakdown structure is a “deliverable oriented hierarchical decomposition of the work to be executed by the project team” (The Project Management Body of Knowledge, cited by Workbreakdownstructure.com, n.d.). Below is presented detailed work breakdown structure, with the details on sub-deliverables of the project. 1. Project Initiation 1.1. Development of the project management plan (PMP) 1.2. Presentation of the PMP to the Board 1.3. Approval of the PMP and budget by the Board 2. Preparation of content for Annual Report 2.1. Gathering information from the centre’s departments 2.2. Gathering information from several medical facilities in the country 2.2.1. Composing a list of potential medical facilities 2.2.2. Contacting the selected medical facilities and getting of a preliminary agreement for visit + request for testimonials 2.2.3. Visiting of the selected medical facilities within the country 2.2.3.1. Getting testimonials 2.2.3.2. Making high-quality photos for annual report 2.3. Gathering testimonials from patients and their families 2.4. Getting information from centre’s financial department 3. Design and Layout of the Annual Report 3.1. Selection of contractor for designer work 3.1.1. Definition of the scope of work and objectives for designer 3.1.2. Bidding for potential contractors 3.1.3. Selection of the best contractor (based on price/quality balance) 3.1.4. Signing of contract 3.2. Coordination of the work of designer 3.3. Approval of final design and layout 4. Printing of Annual Report 4.1. Selection of the company for printing 1mln copies of annual report 4.1.1. Bidding for potential contractors 4.1.2. Selection of the best contractor (based on price/quality balance) 4.1.3. Signing of contract 4.2. Printing of 1 mln copies of the annual report 5. Distribution of the annual report 5.1. Selection of contractor for distributing 1 mln copies of annual report 5.1.1. Bidding for potential contractors 5.1.2. Selection of the best contractor 5.1.3. Signing of contract 5.2. Distribution of the annual reports to the stakeholders 6. Closeout Schedule/Time Management Success of any project depends on the accurate estimation of the activity duration. The project requires estimation of the various requirements of cost, time and resources throughout the project. In order to ensure that the project will be completed on time it is necessary to understand how much time each activity will require (Pcubed, n.d). Below is given the list of activities for this project, along with their estimated completion timeframe in weeks/days. Project initiation part is excluded from this list. Preparation of content for Annual Report Content from centre’s departments – 4 weeks Content from medical facilities (testimonials + photos) – 5weeks Testimonials from patients – 5 weeks Information from financial department – 2 days Bid for designer – 3-4 weeks Bid for printing agency/company- 3-4 weeks Design development for Annual Report – 4 weeks Approval of Annual Report design and layout – 1 day Producing 1mln copies – 1 week Distribution of 1 mln copies – 4 days Project Closeout Even though the estimation of each activity’s duration provides information of the time it will take to complete the whole project, activity duration estimation is dependent on the other elements of the project, including time and resource estimates (Pcubed, n.d.). This issue will be addressed in the next sections of the report. RESPONSIBILITY ASSIGNMENT MATRIX # Code Project Team Members Other Stakeholders Project Mana-ger Marketing specialist Writer/ editor Staff Assistant Sponsor Designer Printing company Distribu- ting company 1 Project Initiation 1.1. R 1.2. R I I I 1.3. I I I A 2 Preparation of content of Annual Report 2.1. I I R 2.2. C R I C 2.2.3 R 2.3. I R I 2.4. R 3 Design/Layout of the Annual Report 3.1. R I I I 3.2. I, C R 3.3 A R I A 4 Printing 4.1. R 4.2. A I I R 5 Distribution 5.1. A R 5.2. A 6 Closeout In order to complete the project there will be involved different stakeholders and people. It is critical to track roles and responsibilities of every team member (Viswanathan, 2014). The project team is comprised of 4 key people, including: project manager, marketing specialist, writer/editor, and staff assistant. This team will perform the main job related to the preparation of content of the Annual report, design, and bidding for subcontractors for designer’s work, printing and distribution. However, the project also requires involvement of other stakeholders (excluding subcontractors). The Board of Directors (Project Sponsor) will have a responsibility to approve the final layout and design of the Annual Report before it will go for production. Below is presented a responsibility assignment matrix which shows the extent of involvement of each party, whereas the following abbreviations are used: R – Responsible (Who is responsible for execution of the specific task?) A - Approval (Who has to give approval for specific task?) C - Consulted (Who are the subject matter experts who to be consulted?) I - Informed (Who are the people who need to be updated of the progress?) (Viswanathan, 2014) Cost/Budget Management The project for preparing, producing and distributing the Young at Hear Annual Report 2014 requires not only time and human resources but also financial resources. It is critical to understand what is the cost of each task and the overall movement of these costs. The project can quickly fail in case there is not clear understanding of the cost items (Office.microsoft.com, n.d.). The total budget for the given project is estimated to be $223 320,000. This sum includes the following costs: Direct costs for labour (salaries of the project management team members); Recurring costs (service of designer and travel costs); Non-recurring costs (cost of producing and distributing of 1 mln of copies of annual reports) Note: For calculating the costs of subcontracting services there was used benchmark of average market prices for similar services and scope of work. The costs may vary slightly depending on the pricing of the selected subcontractors, the type of materials (quality of paper, etc) used and volume of the annual report (number of pages) Below is presented time-phased version of the budget Gantt Chart Below is presented a GANTT chart for the given project management plan Early Start, Early finish, Late start and late finish of the project Assuming that the project has been accepted and approved by the Board of Directors, The project is comprised of 5 key taks, including: content preparation, developing desing of the report, approval of the final layout by the Board of Directors, printing, and distribution of 1 mln of copies of annual report. Below is presented a table with assumptions on early start, early finish, late start and late finish of major task. The last column also shows the estimated total slack for each activity. The Total Slack field shows “the amount of time a tasks finish date can be delayed without delaying the projects finish date”(Office.microsoft.com, n.d., n.p.). Thus, it is possible to see that while some activities have significant space for “floating” (content preparation, except financial information) and selection of subcontractors, other activites such as providing financial closure information, approval of the layout/design by the Board, production and distribution of 1 mln copies do not have any time for slack. The activities with no slack time are the activities that make up critical path. More information on the critical path is provided in the following section of the plan. Critical Path Analysis Critical path analysis is used in this report as it helps to predict whether a project can be completed on time and can be used to reorganize the project both before starting it, and as it progresses, to keep the projects completion on track and ensure that deliverables are ready on time (Investopedia.com 2011, n.p.). Activities that make up the critical path include the followng: getting a financial information based on the FY 2014, approval of the design and final version of the report by the Board of Directors, production of 1 mln copies of the annualo report, and distribution of 1 mln copies of annual report. The content of annual report can not be finalized until the financial closing information is available. In case the financial department will submit the financial informaiton later than 18th of February, the project can fail as it will be impossible to print and distribute 1 mln copies within less than 10 days. In case the Board will not approve the final version in 1 day after the whole content is ready, this will cause delays and also might result in the project’s failure. Also, these delays might result in increase of the cost of the project because of urgency. Above is presented the graphical representation of activities and its dependencies. The diagram below shows those activities that should be completed in a specific order, so that the project was completed successfully without delays (Investopedia.com, 2011).Arrows indicate on the required consequnece of the activities and shows the relationship between these activities. Planned resource utilization chart In order to ensure that the project tasks will be performed on time or within the possible time slot, it is important to allocate and utilize the resources available in the most effective way. Below is provided the planned resoure utilization chart with the estimate of total hours of the employee’s involvement. The graph below provides an information on the total hours in the resource plan table instead of timephased values. Resource profile for each resource In order to provide a better understanding of the resources that are planned to be used/utilized for implementation of this project it also may be helpful to see the profile for each resource. Thus, we have: -Joanne, who is a marketing specialist and will perform a great portion of work related to the preparation of content/design for the annual report; - Henare – writer/editor will edit and profread the whole text part of the annual report (and also help in gathering some information); - Prynaka – staff assistant - will travel to the medical facilities in order to get testimonials and make nice pictures; also she will help and assist to the the project management team; - Project manager (me) – will lead the project, manage it and will be responsible for succesful completion of the project. I have all necessary qualifications: tool a course on project management at advanced level at AUT. Below is provided a table with the resource profiles of resources that are planned to be utilized in this project. These resources inlcude only work resources. Below is given description of the meaning of each column: Resource Name – names of resources (indicated where the names are known) Type: type of resources (in this case used only work resources) Group – group/department to which the resource is related + roles are indicated where applicable Generic Resources – The generic resource flag provides the ability to create generic resources that are utilized for resource loading purposes prior to assigning a named resource to the project (Pm-foundations.com, 2014, n.p.). Current Max Units % – Max units represents the % resources are available for work that is scheduled in MS Project Server; Rate – The rate fields establish the standard and overtime rates utilized for costing / billing purposes (Pm-foundations.com, 2014, n.p.). References: Investopedia,. (2011). Critical Path Analysis Definition | Investopedia. Retrieved 30 August 2014, from http://www.investopedia.com/terms/c/critical-path-analysis.asp Office.microsoft.com,. Project management goal: Manage costs and the budget - Project. Retrieved 30 August 2014, from http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/project-help/project-management-goal-manage-costs-and-the-budget-HA101951699.aspx Office.microsoft.com,. Total Slack (task field) - Project. Retrieved 30 August 2014, from http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/project-help/total-slack-task-field-HP045305403.aspx Pcubed (n.d.).Estimate activity duration - Project. Retrieved 30 August 2014, from http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/project-help/estimate-activity-duration-HA001139963.aspx Pm-foundations.com,. (2014). Resource Utilization | PM-Foundations. Retrieved 30 August 2014, from http://pm-foundations.com/tag/resource-utilization/ Workbreakdownstructure.com,. (2014). Work Breakdown Structure (WBS). Retrieved 30 August 2014, from https://www.workbreakdownstructure.com/ Viswanathan, B. (2014). Understanding Responsibility Assignment Matrix (RACI Matrix). Project-Management.com. Retrieved 30 August 2014, from http://project-management.com/understanding-responsibility-assignment-matrix-raci-matrix/ Read More