Project Management, Network Diagram and Critical Path Analysis - Coursework Example

Project Management Student’s Name College Instructor’s Name 2012 Executive Summary Organizing a sporting event for the purpose of raising money for charity is a taunting task. The event will require money which will be used to hire facilities which will help in meeting the operational costs of the project. The project will have the university fraternity as its target audience as well as the public. The event will require stadium, athletic paraphernalia, organizing human resource furniture and participants. The project is set within £1,200 which is specifically dedicated to hiring facilities where the activities are to be hosted in, creating the internet portal for the event, and increasing the management teams to coordination procedures before, during and after the event’s fulfilment.. The participants will be required to make registration by paying £40 and tickets for spectators at £10 which will be used for charity activities such as creating a music band, theatre club and other activity which will help reduce a number of street people within our society. Besides the fact that this event drives in a huge chance of profit earning for business organizers in the area, the Events also intend to establish sports camaraderie among participants as the spectators would be coming from all the different parts of the community. Enhancing healthy interaction among the participants is what this event wants to establish. The organisers along with the project management counsels from the consultants are supposed to have an effective system of communication to provide them the best chances to coordinate with each other as the activities for the plan are being held. Note that the target date for the event’s beginning is set on July 2, 2012 and any delay in the process could result to failure of the events planning. Understandably, as the meetings began May 2012, the committee handling the project still has at least two months to complete every single responsibility they need to complete. Table of table I Executive Summary 2 II Table of Contents 3 III Introduction 4 IV Background 4 V Business Case 6 VI Work Breakdown Structure 8 VII Marketing 10 VIII Network Diagram and Critical Path Analysis 12 IX Gantt Chart 15 X Conclusions 15 References 16 Appendix 1 17 Introduction Organizing special events requires competent human resources, including a resourceful business owner, talented managers, experienced supervisors, and skilled labourers. Besides, appropriate material resources are required depending on the type of event to be organized. It is the target audience that decides the expertise of human resources and the type of material for organizing a special event. In a sports event project management will play a role in ensuring that the resources are allocated well and used adequately. It has its activities scheduled using various project management tools. Some other specific objectives include the following: (a) To provide a more workable environment for the sportsmen to show their talent in through hiring facilities where the sporting activities shall be held. (b) To provide efficient and cost-effective ticketing services for the stakeholders. (c) Raise money to support a charitable activity (d) To create an effective flow of communication hierarchy between the officials involved in the planning especially during the event. As for the project that is being formulated through this plan, the primary purpose is focused upon the idea of making the event a rather unforgettable and specifically successful especially for the stakeholders involved (Nicholas, 2000). Background The number of street people is increasing in our town. This social problem needs to be tackled by all organization including our university. The street people have caused a lot of insecurity for the university fraternity. Most of our staff members and students have been marked or robbed of their property while making it to or leaving the University for their Homes. When reporting of the crime the first suspects becomes the street people because the nature of crimes they commit such as handbags snatching, demand of money while welding penknives, and pick pocketing. This has created a crisis which may taint the reputation of the university. These crimes appear to be committed by individuals who have no means to provide for themselves. As it is known 90% of all crimes are committed as result of idleness, misuse of drugs and excessive use of drug. Therefore arresting of this people and taking them juvenile training schools or prison will not solve the problem. The university needs to solve the social problem by creating job opportunities which this people can fit in. this is done by raising money which will be used in charity activity. The charity activities that will solve problem once all by coming up with project which will employ adults with gang like life styles. This will ensure parental neglect, is reduced and children have their parents or guardian. With the boy advancing normally in career of Delinquency the horoscope of it is future reveals a vision of two terminal institutions, almshouse and prison. If we follow the life styles of this street people will find that there are of socially irresponsible parents, the mother may be clandestine prostitute who entertains men in the town. A broken mother, a hardened and discouraged father, a group of brothers and sisters not greatly removed from the convict in their thinking and conduct-these make up a household which by the fact of this girl's delinquencies has received a shock that will materially retard its efforts to keep out of poverty. The first long stretch of unemployment will seem like the last straw. No one can say to what extent crime in this case may have tended to reduce this family to poverty or to keep them so, but that it is a heavy and depressing factor defeating ambition and courage in life, there can be little doubt. Therefore it is necessary for us as university to create projects that will rehabilitate and reduce the threat of their increase. Business case The intention is to organize sports event where money will be raised to sponsor projects which will improve the lives of street people in our town. The event will require necessary paraphernalia which will make it successful. There will 400 participants paying £30 sales for an international concert requires an establishment of a project plan that will ensure the sale is successful. Such kind of an event are common and regular however this particular one has international arts involved who will entertain guests a venue for the event will be require, advertisements will be made and other event related to logistics will be taken into consideration. It is first time to hold the event and it is now facing the challenge of actually offering the stakeholders of the concert with the most comprehensive event that they expect from the management and the event managers. The event will require the following budget for it to Description Cost Venue hire 600 Equipment hire 300 staff 300 Awards 1000 Total costs 2200 Financing Sponsor 1200 400 Participants @ 40 16,000 Total revenue 17,200 Surplus 15,000 Deliverables there are some points of consideration to be given attention to in the project being proposed for completion and these are as follows: a). coming up with idea b) enquire the venue availability c) Pay for the venue of facilities d). Hiring Effective Human Resource Personnel e) Print brochures f) Advertise g). Hiring of equipments h). Print tickets i). register participants j). Sell tickets k). have the event l) feedback Within the given budget of £1,200, organisers in need of coordinating with each other and creating planned procedures to which all the responsibilities they have are to be successfully addressed amidst limited budget. Work Breakdown Structure The practice that will be employed is to formulate a work breakdown structure. Work breakdown structure will make team of the project consider all the various stages of the project and ink out the important tasks of each stage. This is done by focusing on the final objective or goal and then step by step, breaking it down into doable portions. The WBS allows easier controlling of the scope of the project (Nicholas, 2000). The following is the Work breakdown structure of this project; Marketing Organising committee will require to use the four P’s of marketing to successfully market the event to the audience. Marketing efforts will be effective only when the target is rightly identified. The product in question will require human involvement in delivering sports service. The customer oriented marketing communication techniques can be employed in order to improve upon the customer satisfaction. In terms of cost, the service is very attractive since the customers do not have to bear any cost. The university must remember that the sports is not in itself the focus; rather the focus is the participants. It must aim to improve upon the participants’ centric approach being adopted if not sufficiently definitive. While the participants are being told that they are the core focus of the service, they must be made to feel this too. They must be made aware of the sports in a manner that makes it more attractive and sensible to the people. The sensibility can be induced by allowing the people to observe a sample illustration of the manner in which the people will be served by the service. Pricing- In line with preserving good relationships with its participants, the pricing policy must be flexible based. A rigid pricing policy will create a scenario in which there is potential that it will lose money. To note, the pricing should be based on the overall budget placed, which means that its earnings should be considered. In order to optimize upon the pricing aspect of the marketing mix, the university has to carefully consider the three C’s of pricing, namely, customer, costs and competitors. They should prefer its pricing structure because this is also the preference of its existing and potential clients. However, in order to enhance its earnings based on pricing, the organising committee has to factor in several costs in generating a given service package. Thus, they will have to consider searching costs, transaction costs, its venue costs, ticketing costs and life cycle costs. In setting a purchase for a service package, the crucial question that university needs to ask is what the maximum economic benefit that the customer can derive from purchasing this service? Service Package- sports is unique in that it may be classified as custom-designed. Thus, to effectively harness its marketing mix in the context of service line, and in order to enhance its competitive advantage, this product line must be presented according to four dimensions: Customer function dimension, which identifies the benefits that are provided by a service or product in order to satisfy the needs of organizational buyers – an example of which is mobile messaging. Technological dimensions, which refer to the alternative means that a specific function may be performed. An example of this is a mobile phone that serves as a pager and camera at the same time. Customer segment dimension, which pertains to the unique needs of customer groups that must be served like, perhaps a political campaign or advertisement for an individual running for public office. Promotion-Intangibility will be a problem while designing the promotional strategies. Promotion mix is in the hands of the marketing manager who may use it depends up on the segment the product is targeted to. Advertising is a good means to create awareness among the masses about the brand as well as the utility of the product. The university will be using traditional as well as internet for our promotions. Internet has some advantages over traditional marketing. Internet is cost effective. Even there are chances of publicity using internet and social media. Traditional marketing on the other hand, advertise in news papers, magazines etc. If the advertisement is in the Newspaper it has only a day’s life and the cost is also very high Magazines- The university advertises in magazines which will be read by the target market. Magazines related to sports may be a good place to advertise, as these types of magazines are usually read by our target market. Banner Adds- We will also be using banner adds to promote our product. These banner advertisements will be inserted in websites which usually has traffic from our target customers. Banner ads, are a very convenient way of advertising in the internet. Main advantage of banner advertisement is the response can be measure. There are two methods for measuring the effectiveness are used, click through rate (CTR) and CPM. (Cost per thousand) A good way of reaching a wider selection of customers is to use the internet. The internet is a viable means and an effective channel that can be used to communicate with the people. The website of the product is attractive; however it should present the people with more information about the people in order to induce them into participating. Explaining that the internet is not a safe place to exchange potential critical financial information may be difficult to the consumer. So it would be more efficient to explain to the customer that complete transfer of information would not be possible on the internet. The customer may assume that the organization is mal-adapted to handling situations where security and sensitive information is involved. Consequently the reputation of the organization will be damaged. Place- Since, the university is offering a service; it will be delivered in the venue. However, the ambience is very important, to make the program effective. The venue will accommodate 300participants and 10,000 spectators. Network Diagram and Critical Path Analysis The network diagram below shows the activities of the project with the critical path being marker ked with arrows that are bold. Activity Preceding Time (days) A coming up with idea 2 B enquire the venue availability A 2 C Pay for the venue of facilities B 3 D Form committee A 2 E Hiring Effective Human Resource Personnel D 3 F Print brochures D 14 G Advertise C 3 H Hiring of equipments E 1 I Print tickets F 6 J register participants G,H,I 14 K Sell tickets G,H,I 2 L have the event J,K 2 M Feedback L 3 Critical Path Analysis Critical path is A-D-F-I-K-L-M Gantt Chart The Gantt chart helps in implementing the project, as it gives a logical flow of activities indicating the start time and close time(Stevenson, 2005). The project has the following Gantt chart Conclusions Project progress is based on comparison between the actual project progress according to plan and Work Breakdown formation (Nicholas, 2000). When the actual project progress is deviating from the plan either in terms of time frame or budget, corrective measures are applied to control the situation. Project control is important in project management since it gives useful data for progress measurement, prediction and re-scheduling. Control therefore plays a very significant role in project management. A project plan should therefore bear important elements such as time frame, budget and objectives to ensure that its execution, control and closure are a success Reference Nicholas, JM 2000, Project management for business and technology: Principles and practice, 2nd edn, Upper Saddle River: Prentice Hall, New Jersey. Appendix – MS Project file Read More