Using Project with Hurdles - Term Paper Example

1. Introduction This report is about the Alexandra Gardens playground project. This is mainly a report concerning the slight change in customer needs that posed some hurdle to completion of the project in accordance with the earlier Project Management Plan (PMP). The new propositions included new perimeter wall. The slight changes therefore came with a few hurdles to face in the project implementation, which led to rescheduling under baseline 1. The changes involved increase for job, which came with need for more time and resources. Following these needs, the client needed the job complete within 75 days (that would otherwise be completed in 150 days) and provided a budget allocation of $350,000.00. This amount was $150,000.00 more than the budget scope by the client in the earlier work scope, which gave an estimate of over $78,000.00 by project plan. Having factored in the considerations of project pressure in terms of time and resource deprivation in reference to an earlier plan the project planned again with the following ways of overcoming the above-mentioned hurdles of time and resource. 1.1 Resource Hurdles Increase in the scope had a direct implication in pressure in available resources. This hurdle was overcome differently for different resources bearing in mind that some activities could be executed using substitute resources available and bearing in mind that hiring acquiring new resources implied a bigger budget. The different ways of making up for the different resources was as discussed below. 1.1.1 Human resources As for the resources, hiring new employees was found to be the most economical thing to do. Two construction assistants were hired and an assistant for the main operations manager (Ahmed). This also helped in eliminating overtime issues and would be helpful in finishing the job in 75 days. 1.1.2 Material resources The scope and time pressure caused lack of enough material given the budget constraints. In averting the material resource problem it was considered more rational hiring subcontractors compared to acquiring material and managing the processes associated with the material. This would also help in reducing time problems. The new resource management is as shown in the diagrams below. It shows how the resource management looks like after considering that the project has to be finished within 75 days. 1.2 Time Hurdles In order to try to meet the time demands, the overtime tactic for some lengthy tasks was employed alongside hiring new employees to increase labour. However, this was done in accordance with considerations as mentioned. Factoring in the new scope and time needs of the project, the new project plan that comes about as the modified PMP and was as discussed below. 2. Modified Project management plan (PMP) Having considered the time demands vis a vis the budget constraints, the rescheduling of the PMP was done so as to meet the client demand s and avert the daily delay fee of $5000 owed to project. After the rescheduling, the new PMP aspects are as shown hereinafter. Table 1: Modified resource sheet. Table 2: Modified resource usage. For you to see if the progress is ok pertinent to the pmp I gave you Table 1: Modified PMP (Task sheet). From the PMP table, the project budget increases slightly to just above $343,000 which is below the amount set for it. The Task sheet also shows that there are no over allocated resources and that the project will be through in less than the 75 remaining days. It also shows that some of the tasks have already been completed including the preparation/defining stages of the project. For a quick view of the relationship between the tasks, the Gantt chart below gives details. Fig 1: Modified Gantt chart. The fig1 above shows that some tasks that were not highly related and/or depended on the predecessor have been made to commence without necessarily waiting for the other to be completed. This is seen to reduce time. In order to see the new sequencing of activities, the network diagrams are useful. Network Diagram The network diagram below gives the summary of sequencing activities too be followed in the project. Figure 2: Modified Network diagrams. The red boxes shows the critical summary of the tasks, start and finishing date, duration and number of resources work there. Where the blue shows the activities within the project. Each of the boxes has Id which we can refer to if any of the tasks has an error. New reports arising due to the modification include the cash flow, work overview, project overview, critical task, project progress, late tasks, and over allocated resource reports. Project overview report. The project overview report includes report on milestones, project summary, critical tasks, top levels and working days. The project overview reports from this ms project are as shown below. Iable3 : Project summary. The project summary gives us the details about the start dates, the work cost and task staus. From the summary it can be shown that there is no big variance (difference) between the scheduled and baseine estimates. Except for work (which has a negative value for variance), the project schedule is such that the project is scheduled well. Table 4: Progress report The tasks in progress report gives a breakdown for the monthly tasks. This makes it easy for understanding the period within which the tasks wil be expected to be complete. From this report one can as well get a clear view of when the resources will be needed for early preparation of the same. In so saying the need for availability of resources for this particular project is as shown in Table 2 above showing the tasks in progress report. The figure below shows a critical tasks report. The critical tasks are those which if delayed gets the whole project stuck. Critical tasks report Fig 5: Critical tasks report. As can be seen from the above fig 5 the critical tasks can also be said to be the main thing about this project. The rest can be said to be beareucratic since without them or if there were other means, the project would still go through to bring about the playground. Generally speaking the critical tasks are also expensive since most of the resources and (material and work) are centered here. The critical tasks are also seen to be in the execution stage of the project which, essentially speaking is the main projectwork. Costs report The costs report includes the cash flow report, budget report, overbudget resources report, overbudget costs report and earned value reports. The summary of the cost reports is as shown in the figures fig 3 and 4. Fig 3: Budget cost report. Fig 4: Baseline cost summary. From the two cost summary reports, it is clear that the cost of the project increases from an earlier plan of as $260,000. To about $350,000 due to slight changes in needs by the client as well. The later stages of the project that come by at the execution stage have a higher cost demand. This is because this is the most critical of the stages of the project and requires heavy inputs. Cash flow report. Fig 5: Cashfow summary report. From the cash flow summary report, it can be seen that more cash is needed towards the first quarter of 2016. This is because this is the time when most of the critical tasks are done and from the earlier reports, these stages are more expensive in terms terms of resources. Most of the material and work resources are used at this stage and that’s why the cash needs are high at this stage. The cummulative cashfow increases more during the time of critical stages as well. A more detailed cashflow report is as shown in the Table 5 below. This cash flow report gives the daily cash need and where it’s needed i.e the tasks where the cash is necessary. It can be seen that the cashfow reduces towards the end of the project. The cashfow is seen, as said earlier, to be high for the critical tasks which happen to be at the execution stage. Current activities reports Includes the unstarted tasks report, tasks starting soon reports, tasks in progress report, completed tasks, should have started tasks and the slipping tasks. The MS project current activity reports are as shown below. Assignments reports The reports include who-does what report, overallocated resources, to do list and who- does what when reports. Workloads reports Mainly give the task usage and resource usage reports. They are as shown in the diagrams. Work overview The baseline calendar was just the same as the standard calendar as shown below The above resources report illustrates the resources and the actual work done and the remaining work. From this report, it can be seen which of the resources has more work left with it and proper considerations can be made. For example, it can be seen in this particular project plan that Ahmed assistant still has the highest amount of jobs. Late tasks report So far, there are no late tasks in this project. Overallocated resources There were no overallocated resources. Fig 4: Work overview Resource overview From the resource cost summary report above, it can be seen that the work resources consumed a larger budget compared to the material resources. This is because most of the would be material resources were covered by contracting services which then falls under the work thereby making the work resources consume a larger budget here in the project. Conclusion The project plan is seen to be on course and is attaining success where there are no over allocations of resources. The project is set to be finished in time and therefore no fines will be charged by the client. Neither will it be a delay to the client. The project is also within the financial budget and therefore the project is expected to end successfully. Read More