Project Management Lifecycle - Assignment Example

Project management questions Lecturer: What legal issues need to be considered when releasing items for bid? When leasing an item the owner has to make critical decisions as far as where the leased item is actually located such as a building. If it’s a car the owner has to decide on where it will be operated. In relation to this a lease agreement will be made on if the space will be secure or revenue be gained from the owned space for a case of building. In order to protect your interest, it is advisable to involve an attorney so as to help you in drafting a lease document. In drafting the lease document, other terms such as the rental rates, standards terms and space identification has to be done during the negotiation process so that they will be included in the document. In drafting the lease document, agreement such as whether the space rally fits the intended business or whether there are modifications that are to be done after the space has been leased. All these have to be included in the document. The leased space should be agreed upon on who and how to maintain the space. The two parties should come together and discuss so that disputes which may arise in future are resolved. Any bills or debts that might be bending on the space should be well defined to the other party so as to be aware. Rights of both parties should be look on to. Despite the fact that the land lord may require that its needs be looked onto more that the tenant, it should not happen as they are all equal before the law. What kinds of changes can be made to contracts and procurement documents and how should they be managed?  After the signing of a contract, it will be quite hard to change the details not unless the two parties come together to agree and modified the document once again. Modification of a contract may be done due to a number of reasons; and contract mat seem to delay due to some unavoidable circumstances, the two therefore would come together and modified on the dates of completion of the project. The contract may be extended, the two parties may have agreed to work on a give project, but at some point, another project arises that was not included in the contract. The two will also agree on terms and conditions on whether to extend the contract. A project may not need all the quantities of materials that were involved in the project. It might have been signed but later other things were irrelevant to the project, it will be there duty therefore to modify the document. On the contrary, the project may need additional materials due to the fact that the project was not well illustrated, and then there will be a possibility that the two will modify the document to suit their requirements with the condition that they both agree. Lastly, the term of payment may change because of other external factors such as government regulations and technological changed, the contract terms and conditions will definitely change thereby forcing the two parties to reunite and modify their contract. Describe how make-or-buy analysis can be most effectively used?  A make or buy decision is strategically making a choice on whether to produce an item internally or purchasing for vendors. A buying decision emerges when a product that was being produced by the firm is currently experiencing problems with suppliers. The product may have been modified thus changing the demand and the capacity of supply. It is at the operational and strategic levels that make or buy analysis in conducted. The main reason why strategic is selected is because it if in between the operational and tactical level. Current environment and expected environment are variables that are considered at the strategic level. Make or buy decision is strategically affected by the regulation of the government, competition and the trends of the market. It is the firm’s responsibility to purchase those items that would be hardened their in-line competencies. There are areas that give the firm a competitive advantage; these are strongest points of the firm. The rise in lean manufacturing that has brought about the issue of outsourcing. Manufacturers have decided to purchase sub-assembled items rather than piece parts and vary from outsourced activities of logistics to services in administration. An item that is outsourced is based if it cannot fit on the three categories which include: whether it’s critical to the productivity of the firm such as how clients perceive the product on it attributes, design is required and specialized skills ought to be applied when manufacturing and the type of equipment that are needed to manufacture the product are limited. Finally, the product is within the key competencies of the firm, or the firm is developing a plan for future implementation. On the other hand, make or buy decisions is done at the operational level. In analyzing the make or buy the firm should base its arguments on the lower costs, plant integration, quality control, size of quantities needed, lead time control, transportation, cost of warehousing, probability of getting a second source, social reasons, emotions and absence of competent suppliers. Describe how purchasing relates to the work breakdown structure (WBS).  Work breakdown structure is an important deliverable that keeps the work of a team organized by subdividing into manageable sections. It is a work hierarchical decomposition that is executed by a project team. The work break down structure subdivides the work by simplifying them into manageable sections which can be well understood. In a work break down structure details and information are provided (Alarcon, Rivas, & Serpell, 1999). An organization is made up of different functions which have different functions and responsibilities so as to collectively make the organization productive. Purchasing as a function is made up of various levels that are under it. It is the role of the team to identify on the deliverables and thereby subdividing them into smaller deliverables. It can further be subdivided into smaller deliverables to individual assignments. On the other hand, the work specifications at the lower level can be done and summed up to come up with grouped deliverable. a given unit of work is represenred by a work package through a list of tasks. The entire work package is usually grouped together and given to a specific function so as to perform the work. The departments that are assigned the tasks are defined within the break down structure of an organization so that the will be considered during when allocating of funds (Alarcon, Rivas, & Serpell, 1999). Purchasing function is in charge of tendering contracts. A decision made by an organization on whether to buy or make always originates form this function. After a contract have been offered to a selected contractor, it will be the role of the contractor to subdivide on the tasks so as to simplify its duties. In order to be considered, it has to display a simple breakdown structure. In purchasing function play a role of material evaluation on whether to purchase them at the quoted price or look for a better vendor with better prices so as to ensure maximum profits (Alarcon, Rivas, & Serpell, 1999). A purchasing function has the duty to ensure that the companies policies are complied with. What ethical considerations are involved in contracting and procurement?  It is required that contracting and tendering candidates should focus on ethical standards at the time of procurement and contracts, suppliers and contactors should ensure that they further the maintenance of standards of ethical procurement. Ethical procurement is a wide concept. Procurement function is also covered (Brotherton, Fried, & Norman, 2008). Rules and regulations should be respected both the procurement and contracting functions. Interpretation of rule and regulations should be done in accordance to what is being intended by the firm in question. Integrity is also a code of conduct that ought to be focused as it deals with one’s personal values which include truthfulness, honesty, freedom from corruption and fidelity. Ethical procurement therefore needs that decisions be made on basing on the whole cost of life, risks associated, success measured, and implications that are attached to the society and environment. Basing on the working conditions, it is clearly stated that children should not be involved in any kind of labor whatsoever. Work assurance should also be given on the employees on the conditions that they will be working in. any contract that is being awarded to ant contractor should be in a position to provide freedom to its people and the working conditions should also be favorable to the employees health (Brotherton, Fried, & Norman, 2008). On social rights, the authority in charge of contracts should be in a position to reflect on the social lifestyle of its employees. For instance it should be aimed at fighting poverty that may exist on the people. In order to improve on its productivity, the contracting authority should be aimed at motivating its personnel so that they work deep down on their hearts. Q6.When changes are made to schedule, scope, or resource allocation, how should they be reflected in the contract? What happens when contract adjustments are not appropriately made? What type of contract is used most often in your environment and why?  Optimizing schedule occurs in two different forms. One is during planning of the project and the other is to hit the stipulated time. Schedule optimization points to managing project dimensions with regard to one another. Though not a comprehensive quality management system, the system contains specifications, requirements and the acceptance of the fulfillment of the contract. The project scope is taken care off by work breakdown structure. It details out what is expected and what to be done to achieve the desired results. The outcome of scope management should be reflected in the contract schedule. Workloads must remain resource availability however workload leveling can be done. Hence this leads to fragmentation of critical path and subsequently interfere the contract initial expectations. In the event of poor contract adjustment one or either parties are bound to bear the cost resulting from it depending on which party the adjustment favored. However the contract adjustment emanating after the expiration date are sometimes settled in court. The most commonly used type of project within my environment is the cost type project. This is because if the prime contractor performs poorly he risks getting another contract thus he is tasked to produce quality work to safeguard future placements on similar contracts. Statement of work Overview ACME Development Corporation is a firm which is tasked with developing apartment complexes and homes and is based in the United States. The firm undertakes these projects in various places in the United States. There has been a need to have web-based scheduling software that will be used by the various project managers who are distributed in the States. This has therefore called for the development of the process that will be involved in the project. This statement of work will therefore outline the objectives that will be followed, the scope of the project and the deliverables of the project. The process of centralizing the scheduling process in ACME Development Corporation is so that it brings efficiency in the management process of the whole process. 1.1. Project Purpose, Objectives, and Success Criteria The purpose of this project is to implement a central scheduling system that will enable the project managers who are located in the various parts of the US working for ADC to schedule projects in uniformly. Currently, the scheduling software is installed in individual machines for each project manager. The corporation therefore spends more resources in installing and managing the scheduling systems for each individual project manager. The project will be guided by the following objectives: i. To come up with a central management scheduling system that will be used to schedule tasks ii. To develop a web-based system that will be used for scheduling iii. To align scheduling activities of the corporation so that they are handled centrally. Project scope This project will entail getting an online scheduling system that will be used by ADC in its operations. There are project managers each using their own scheduling software. There is therefore a need to centralize scheduling. There is the contracting of the tasks. Selecting one contact that fit ACME Development Corporation (ADC) needs would be impossible for this project. The selection the right contract for that task and then integrating the combination of contracts to make one they will meet ADC goal to standardize with one single project-scheduling tool and to have the tool installed and be operational within 90 days. To this end, the company is forming a central project management office (PMO).  Hiring technicians to install and configure the software for your environment for this type of work I would engage in a service contract which will specify the specifications of the software in question and the work that needs to be done by the technicians. The fixed price at cost contract would make most sense here (Kerzner 2009). This would evidently come out with the right clauses to ensure that the software installed is done correctly and that all related costs are addressed accordingly. The contract addresses the purposes and functions of this project in the sense that it provides for the proper payment of technicians who are carrying out the task but also provides the company with protection against any form of abuse or carelessness.  Hiring a training entity to teach the student PMs the mechanics of using the new tool the contract here would be a service contract specifically tailored to what is required to be taught and what needs to be explained to the students. The Time and materials contract makes more sense here as one can assess what needs to be done to teach the students by time and also covers the materials for the project. The selected contract meets the project objectives in the sense that it assesses the time required for the training as well as the materials which need to be purchased to make the training effective.  1.2. Project Deliverables Deliverable Recipients Delivery Date Delivery Method Comments Web-based scheduling software that will be installed on the Internet Project managers and users Internet platform where the web-based scheduling software will be installed Technical personnel and developers Configuration of the new scheduling system Project managers, technical personnel of ADC Testing of the system Users Implementation of the system NetMotion Wireless Training of project managers Project managers 1.3. Assumptions, Dependencies, and Constraints There are a number of assumptions that will be taken in this project. One of these assumptions is that it is expected that the resources that will be required will be available when required. This project will require supercomputers and servers. The project members assume that these computers will available when they are needed. There will also be some hardware and networking material and tools that will be required when working on the project. All these resources will be expected to be there when the project is initiated (Alarcon, Rivas, & Serpell, 1999). References Alarcon, L. F., Rivas, R., & Serpell, A. (1999). Evaluation and improvement of procurement process in construction projects. Retrieved February 29, 2012, from University of California: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.69.1235&rep=rep1&type=pdf Brotherton, S. A., Fried, R. T., & Norman, E. S. (2008). Applying the work breakdown structure to the project management lifecycle. Retrieved February 25, 2012, from Global Congress: http://www.ca.com/files/whitepapers/fried_wbs__pmi_global_congress_202925.pdf Read More