ABC STICH Project Management - Essay Example

?PROJECT MANAGEMENT 0 INTRODUCTION: World business dynamics are changing with golden opportunities growing in BRIC countries. Among four, India andChina are the fastest growing consumer markets with accelerating increase in their population. Several businesses around the world have moved their operation in this part of world to take advantage of cheap labor and high return with comparatively lesser formalities of investment and other matters than their own part of world and all these changes has brought changes in how projects are managed around the world1. Also businesses have started focusing a lot more on techniques like project management to achieve their objectives 2 In line with all big corporations making attractive profits, small investors have also started to direct their way to these parts of world. ABC being Australia resident also wanted to directly invest in business with his friend in India. They have planned to start cottage stitching factory in name of ABC STICH in slum area of India in beginning and later proceed to expansion based on results. With vast variation on present in two countries business methodologies, it is agreed upon to use basic project management technique to evaluate business idea and its processes. 2.0 PROJECT MANAGEMENT Project is complex non- routine, one-time effort limited by time, budget and resources and performance specifications designed to meet customer needs. To accomplish project work in due course of planning to accomplish desired results, application of project planning is very important 3. There are different ways or techniques of managing a project. These techniques discusses all the activities that are expected to become part of project, possible time and details required to complete each activity as well sequence of activities and their dependency on each other4. ABC STICH will be using the following techniques to evaluate feasibility of the project and manage it: Work Break Down Structure (WBS) Gantt chart Project / Program Evaluation and Review technique (PRET CHART). 2.1. WORK BREAKDOWN STRUCTURE: Work Breakdown Structure as the name suggest is the breakdown of entire project into smaller chunks that identify various tasks’ details 5. It provides break-up of task in various levels in an organized way usually presented in hierarchical form; however, tabular form is also no exception6. Work Break Down is the foundational building block to initiating planning and executing, monitoring and controlling processes used in managing projects. It represents an explicit description of the scope, deliverables and outcome of the project; both internal and external deliverables. Highest level defines the ultimate outcome of the project while each lower level defines more details into small job chunks in logical manner. It only addresses the input, deliverables and output and not the process and schedule for these; therefore, forming base for other techniques. 2.1.1 Few Key characteristics of Work Break down Structure are as follow: Deliverable Oriented: every level is aimed at producing / completing certain task or phase that makes it aligned with due deliverables. Hierarchical Decomposition: hierarchical breakdown provides more manageable pieces of work that effectively provide greater details of work that contributes to overall project in question. The 100% Rule: The 100% rule states that Work break Down Structure encompasses the entire scope of the project from starting to end point while including all interim processes. Every chunk of the broken structure is an important contributor in overall project completion. Presentation Method Flexibility: presentation method flexibility depending on the project from hierarchical to tabular or any other presentation method also makes it more adaptable to various business and project needs. 2.1.2. APPLICATION OF WORK BREAKDOWN METHOD ON ABC STICH: To identify various levels, work break down structure of ABC has been so developed: 1. Identification of various possible locations. 2. Analysis of various locations based on factors like suitability for small scale business, investment requirement, electricity arrangement, labor availability and cost, infra-structure and legal formalities etc. a. Selection of appropriate location 3. Customer and market research a. Analysis of possible customer segments b. Selection and analysis of target audience 4. Investment Analysis a. Profitability analysis b. Planning and budgeting c. Finalization of deal. 5. Refurbishment of selected location 6. Human resource identification for various works. a. Test and interview of potential candidates b. Human resource selection and recruitment. 7. Capital Resource arrangement (including cash and other capital sewing machines etc) 8. Orientation. 9. Operation beginning. These are activities that are required to be conducted for bringing business into operational form. Given above is the work breakdown structure of the factory setting. Work break down structure to incorporate these activities are divided into various levels of work activities in the flow chart. Level one defines the complete scope of project which is establishment of ABC STICH factory. The second level begins with identification of two parallel activities that analyzed location as well as customer trend. At this level, selection of location and target audience is achieved. Next level i.e. level 3 conducts the investment analysis that defines the feasibility of the project and the deal is finalized. Also HR function has also been conducted at this level. Level 4 conducts task of preparing land as well as HR for conducting business with respect to needs of capital resources and HR training etc. Finally in last level, the operation of the project begins which is also an outcome for the project. Hence the three categories of levels include following levels: 1. INPUT: That defines the scope and level 1. 2. PROCESS: that defines the entire conduct of the work at interim point into various levels of jobs. It consists of level 2, 3 and 4. 3. OUTPUT: That provides the due output of project i.e level 5 in the given case. The chart provided above provides guidance about various activities that are required to be completed to bring factory into operational condition. Break up of the activities into small chunks ensures every area is accounted for. GANTT CHART: Most important factor that determines the success of the project is its completion on time. And very little number of projects out of total is able to achieve their success on deadlines front. Importance of the time does not need any debate as almost all factors change their position with change in time; hence, change in time changes the project. With most importance being given to time, evaluation of project activity on time-wise basis becomes evident. Gantt chart is a visual symbol of project schedule7. Schedule aligns the entire project activities broken into small activities with their start and end time. Such scheduling also benefits in optimum and economic use of resources as when and how much needed for the task to be completed on time. It requires establishing the schedule where interdependencies are also addressed. 2.2.1. SEQUENTIAL AND PARALLEL ACTIVITIES: Every project consists of list of small activities that are either dependent on completion of certain other activities before they can be started. As an example, constructing building requires getting it first designed by architect and only then entire structure can be build. Preparing land with certain level of dug-out can however; be done along with its designing. Hence, there are certain activities that go sequential in line or linear and their assumption is conditional on completion of other activity whereas certain activities in a project are independent and they can be performed parallel to other activities. So completion time of the project reduces as compare to conducting entire project with sequential order. Without clear identification in schedule of starting and ending dates of various activities with their parallel and sequential activities will adversely affect the project as it not be able to provide the due guideline. Along with usefulness in planning and scheduling projects by assessing parallel and sequential activities, time duration taken by each activity helps monitoring the evaluation of project activity from actual and chart analysis. Since human brain can perform certain numbers of tasks at a time, therefore, conducting all various activities parallel that are not sequential ensure early completion of project that would take longer when activities are performed one after the other. Such manner also causes project to halt as and when any obstacle arises in any activity and resumption is on the mercy of that problem resolution. SCHEDULE FOR GANTT CHART: The entire project is divided into 16 chunks of jobs usually referred to as packages. The additional information this chart provides as compare to the Work Breakdown Structure, is time duration required by each activity. It also provides clear information related to time when an activity has to be started. It also informs of activities that can be conducted parallel to other activity or can only be started once the previous activity can be completed. Gantt chart and schedule for same project assuming project to begin on 10th September 2012 is established below: TASK EARLIEST START LENGTH TYPE DEPENDENT ON 1. Identification of various possible locations. 10.Sep 3 Sequential - 2- Analysis various locations 13.Sep 4 Sequential to 1 1 3- Selection of location 19.Sep 1 Sequential to 2 2 4- Customer and market research 13.Sep 4 Parallel to 2 1 5- Analysis of possible customer segments 19.Sep 3 Sequential to 4 & Parallel to 3 4 6- Selection and analysis of target audience 24.Sep 1 Sequential to 5 5 7- Investment Analysis 19.Sep 4 Sequential to2 ,4 & Parallel to 3,5 2,4 8- Profitability analysis 25.Sep 1 Sequential to 7 7 9- Planning and budgeting 26.Sep 7 Sequential to 8 8 10- Finalization of deal 5.Oct. 1 Sequential to 9 9 11- refurbishment of selected location 8.Oct. 15 Sequential to 10 10 12- Human resource identification 8.Oct. 11 Sequential to 8 & Parallel to 9 8,10 13- Test and interview of potential candidates 23.Oct. 5 Sequential to 12 12 14- Selection and recruitment 30.Oct. 1 Sequential to 13 & Parallel to11 13 15- Capital Resource arrangement 8.Oct. 5 Parallel to 11, 14 10 16- Operations Begin 31.Oct. 1 Sequential 10,11,14,15 This scheduling has helped to conduct entire project in 50 days. It has been managed by assuming certain activities in parallel to other. This way, if any problem arises in certain activities that are parallel to other, the work flow of other activity is not affected. However, considering if all activities of said project are aligned in sequence then 67 days (sum of length of days each activity requires) would be required to complete the project. To mention this time length is subject to completion of every activity in given time frame. Although the length difference in days is not very large but it is so for this case as it was a small project and most of the activities had to be conducted in sequence. However, the scale of benefit enlarges with increasing size and complexity of project. PERT CHART With schedule and visual diagram prepared for time required to complete each task on time, businesses are always concerned to get work done at the earliest as well as with the least possible cost. PERT charts are devised to achieve this task. PERT charts main area of work arises when large scale projects with higher level interdependency on tasks that are performed sequentially as well as parallel. PERT chart defines critical path that highlights the entire path that must be critically followed to get the task complete on time that leads to completion of entire project on time. For project management, it helps in analyzing the resource allocation and reallocation to catch missed or overrun tasks to take back project on designed plan. Further benefit it brings to the project is it provides information of minimum length of time it takes to complete the project. In case, where projects are required to be completed on urgent basis, this method with its critical path analysis of interdependencies will highlight where accelerated efforts will lead to completion of urgent project on time. If only critical path analysis is used to manage and communicate the tasks then confusion can arise as the relation of task with respect to its time is not as clear as it is in Gantt chart. This makes critical path analysis sometimes difficult to understand without Gantt chart. Given below is the network diagram for the project. It has been broken into two halves to fix into page. Part A carries flow till profitability analysis and selection level and other half continues from there to last level or end of project. Two halves have been separated by green line between to reduce chances of confusion. In the given network diagram, critical path is one which follows red line. If refers, that every activity within this path shall be completed on time in order to ensure the completion of entire project on time. In the given, chart and case, most of the activities are critical and hence, the due benefit is less obvious. In cases, where the large and complex activity structure is carried with higher interdependencies and more activities are taken parallel the benefit of PERT is more evident, where single activity from which series of activities began is focused to be accurately completed on time. 3.0 CHALLENGES Project management tools have benefitted the businesses in many aspects. Its impact is evident from the fact that it now studied as a course in all. Along with the benefits, it has challenges which vary from business to business in achieving due results. Moreover, software skills are fundamental to benefit from these tools. Large organizations can hire project manager for the process, but small scales business face problem in handling the case. Larger number of sequential activities also challenges the benefit from these tools. These have been arrived by understanding the parameters in Indian side which may not be as required by the party abroad and geographical parity can have its impact. Project management tools; however, makes more sense when all the supporting contents are also considered. For instance, in this case, if the counter party in Australia has issues with just hiring people without any consultant firm, unlike the procedure usually followed in India. Similarly, quick changes that are required to be made part of project may not be adaptable for the project design. 4.0. RECOMMENDATION To achieve the required results from project management tools, one needs to have clear understanding of the techniques used in project management. Any error on part to understand the same can affect the entire project. Project managers can increase their efficiency in project completion by using trial and error method, if hiring expert or self proficiency is not up to mark. Moreover, it is important for project managers to not only use these tools to good effect but at the same time understands the positives and negatives of these tools in order to get the best results. 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