Initiating the Project - Problem Set 16

Introduction

The scope of the project is to establish Residency Trial for the University of the Cumberland (UC) residency session by selecting a suitable location that best fits the project. The trial residency weekend is proposed to be conducted in Washington, D.C, within planned timeframes. The project should be completed before 5th February 2021 as the trial residency is conducted from 5th-7th February of 2021. The project scope is estimated to be performed within budgeted costs where the COVID-19 pandemic decreased as it does not exist as a contributing element for current project development. The project aims to validate the inputs of different processes associated with residency trial development. Residency trial weekend will be implemented according to requirements without compromising quality and cost linked with activities. As a part of the scope, changes in the residency project will be identified, and change requests are processed by communicating with team members. The residency trial will be implemented without compromising budget, quality, and timeline.

Project Charter

University decided to develop a new location to perform residency for the trial for the weekend. The main objective of the project is to identify a suitable site where the trial could be conducted on weekends by offering flexibility to instructors, support staff, and students. To implement the current residency trial, economic, technical, and operational feasibility exists that supports to achieve objectives. For the proposed project, the key vision is to build a residency trial weekend that creates flexibility to travel from different locations to Washington D.C location by enabling satisfactory lodging near to residency location. Human resources will be allocated for a project where team members who gather resources, plan, and execute residency trial are involved by assigning respective roles and activities. The key element of the business case is budget, where $45,000 USD is estimated to implement a residency trial. As a part of the business case, a communication plan is implemented to communicate with project team members to verify the project status and ensure that stakeholders are updated about project progress.

Team Operating Principles

· Team members will be well organized with all the paperwork required to conduct the residency weekend.

· Manage the obligations with all project-related vendors.

· Show expertise in planning and managing the whole weekend project.

· Advise the organization and the executive committee with the project planning, strategy, structure, management to ensure the success of the trial residency.

· Every team member will understand the project vision and will have a clear idea of our target.

· The team member will maintain good communication with all the students and staff by sending emails about the residency timings and responding to their questions.

· Each team member will share an equal amount of work and provide help to other members to complete the work as a team.

· Every member will communicate all decisions within the team, support the discussions, and provide recommendations in case if necessary.

· The team will maintain the confidentiality of all sensitive information.

· The team will maintain honesty and take responsibility for our own issues.

· The team will also have patience and assist all the staff, students, and workers in providing the facilities.

· Strive to fulfill our commitments towards the schedule by resolving the issues in a timely manner.

· Ensure all the security and safety measures as people will be traveling from distant places.

Stakeholders-Internal & External

In every project, stakeholders will play a most important role in order to achieve better outcomes and make a proper decision. Project success is mostly dependent on identifying and prioritizing stakeholders. The current project involves internal and external stakeholders. The major stakeholder who is involved in the implementation of trial residency weekend include students, course instructors, university board members, project team members, project manager, facility manager, and site location owners. These are the most important stakeholders for the development of the current project at a new location. Broad members are internal stakeholders who will make a decision for the current project related to the cost and other resources (Roeder, 2013). Whereas course instructors are also internal stakeholder will schedule and develops a plan. At the new site, this stakeholder will access all the resources and make the success of the program.

For conducting the residency trial chosen Washington D.C location. So, in the current city selected location owner is also a stakeholder who plays an important role in providing the location for conducting the program—students at the university impact by the current project. Mainly the internal stakeholders like students and instructors within the university will affect the complete program and influence daily activities in different ways. For current identifying, the project manager and the project team are most important because they have an interest in the project. The participation of an effective team in business will result in proper business outcomes. The team will help to reduce issues and meet the project expectation. In the current project, external stakeholders will not directly link to the project, but the impact on the complete project (Satzinger, Jackson, & Burd, 2015). Finally, these are major internal and external stakeholders who will impact the project outcomes. Moreover, manage the project stakeholder helps to increase the performance.

Risks

· Chance of flights getting canceled.

· Due to Washington, DC is a compact city; there is a high chance of heavy traffic.

· The chance of flights getting rescheduled would affect instructors, students, and support staff arriving for the residency site.

· If a student arrives late or misses a synchronous session, they will be counted absent for the entire residency weekend.

Risk Register

Assumptions

· Each student brings the I.D., which will help in the check-in process.

· The Internet on campus works well for students to successfully complete their tasks.

· Restrooms are accessible to all students during the residency.

· Availability of lunch on campus, which lets students purchase food.

· All the classrooms have a good supply of electricity.

· Heaters work properly on campus, considering the cold weather in Washington, DC, in Feb.

· All the six classrooms have projectors in working condition.

· All students bring their laptops.

· Correct classroom locations are provided depending on the course taken by the student.

Constraints

· The campus would be open only during timings

· Limited parking spots available for students.

· Classroom availability

· Seating availability for all the students.

Work Breakdown Structure

The WBS is a project planning tool defined as the principle of hierarchical decomposition for the transformation at the highest level of the project scope into deliverable work elements. Its composition continues until it makes it easier to efficiently handle these elements of work. At the job component stage, the WBS helps create an effective project schedule and cost estimates (Kloppenborg, Anantatmula, & Wells, 2019).

Please see the WBS for the proposed residency location for University of The Cumberlands Residency weekend:

WBS

RACI Stakeholder Listing

A RACI chart is a basic matrix used to assign roles and duties for each project mission, achievement, or decision. You can remove uncertainty by specifically mapping out the tasks are involved in each project activity, and at which level and addressing the age-old project query, Who is doing what? Please see below the stakeholder listing utilized at Washington DC, that will be utilized when deciding upon a new location.

RACI CHART

For this project calculation of the preliminary line-item budget, we have to follow general instructions that include budget narratives that will show calculations of all budget line items, and all expenses that are shared in multiple programs and narrative must be included in a detailed calculation it shows the amount is reflecting. For each budget we have to, it should include the following questions what it is? And how many? How much and for what purpose this 4 are the main factors we have to include before calculations and at the same way, we have to divide the Allocated cost as well that refers what is it, annual cost and what is the percentage or allocation for the contracted person and how we will calculate this one. So, we must maintain all calculations in an easy manner so we will be easy to recreate those if we find anything wrong, and now I mentioned all scenarios of budget expenses as below:

Equipment: For this three-day session, we need equipment for students, instructors, and support staff that includes needing to install highspeed Wi-Fi and set up desktop computers and laser printers and projects and printed materials, chairs, tables, etc. And we need to set up the following items as well in the office; we must set up a copier machine and fax machine. Now we will calculate the sample equipment cost. Desktop computers each will be $ 500, so there are six instructors and three support teams, so when we calculate this would be $ 4,500 and if we calculate another it set up, it would cost up to $ 1000, and other equipment will take lease as well that would be approx.—$ 5000.

Travel: Travel support team and instructors have traveled anywhere from the USA, so for this time, when we calculate the travel expenses need to include the following as well, flight tickets, and is there any delays and need to pick up staff from the airport and this one included meal also during the journey as well. If we calculate mean flight tickets, it would be $ 150, so nine members would be around $1350, and for their food, it would be around $ 200, and pick up from the airport need from one private vehicle it would rent three days around $250.

Supplies and Materials: It would include furniture and other supplies; for furniture, it would be desks, bookshelves, chairs and file cabinets, and other supplies included educational items, postage, training manuals, books, etc. So, when we calculated all Routine office supplies would be $ 80 per person, and it would be nine staff, so 9 x 80 = $720 and laser printers and projects will be $1000 approx.

Staff development: Conference, Workshops, and Continuing Education for Contractor staff. Sample calculation six staff, $75 per class, and it would be 6 x 75 = $450, and others will be $200.

Repair and maintenance: If anything is needed during the residence section under this one, so we have to allocate the budget to this one as well; it includes any custodial services and any service area maintenance or any other needed that time as well. Sample calculation when we allocated $ 70 per this one, it would be three days, so 3x 400 = $1200.

Rent: Rent includes a lot of things because management is planning to take a lease for three days to the current residence campus, so they have to pay rent it includes this section, and staff rooms, office supplies, equipment’s, vehicles, furniture this all included under rent, and we have to include some other things as well like some contract deliverables. Sample calculation Rent of the property will be $3000 each day, so it will be three days 3x 20 = $9000, and staff rents $200 per day, so it would be $600.

Professional services: These are the services that are purchased to support by the agency. It includes the legal department, I.T., and accounting, payroll, security. The sample calculation would be $400 to maintain all these services, so it would be around $2000, and other services will be $ 400 approx.

References Gido, J., & Clements, J. P. (2017). Successful Project Management. Stamford, USA: Cengage Learning. Kloppenborg, T. J., Anantatmula, V., & Wells, K. N. (2019). Contemporary Project Management. USA: Cengage Learning. Roeder, T. (2013). Managing Project Stakeholders Building a Foundation to Achieve Project Goals. Wiley.