Unit 14 Group Project
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Unit14GroupProject.docxUnit 14 Group Assignment
Part 1
1-Describe how a project manager can determine project progress for each element in the project balanced scorecard.
Balanced Scorecard is a performance management tool which began as a concept for measuring whether the smaller-scale operational activities of a company are aligned with its larger-scale objectives in terms of vision and strategy. The five aspects of project success are evaluated in the balanced scorecard approach is customer, internal business, financial, growth and innovation perspectives.
For project manager, there 4 steps for
1. Identify the project measures
· Project quality: audit results, project benefits, quality targets
· Project budget: Earned Value measures, project running costs
· Project delivery: milestones, customer satisfaction
· Project team: staffing levels, resource allocation, staff satisfaction or engagement
2. Agree the project targets
· Project quality: Red = All modules failed last verification, Amber = Over 20 modules failed last verification, Green = Under 20 modules failed last verification
· Timescales: Red = currently on track to miss published end date and/or more than 3 milestones on the critical path, Amber = currently not on track but expect to be able to still hit published end date and no critical path milestones impacted, Green = on track
3. Collate and share the results
The point of doing this is to record key measures and project performance, so it’s also important to build in some time to do something about the results.
4. Track trends
Gathering a set of standard monthly data items on a regular basis gives project manager the information they need to track trends on the project. Looking at the scorecard data might help them identify where the project team is struggling. An element that goes from Green to Amber is likely to go to Red next month unless they do something about it.
That’s how a project manager can determine project progress
3-Give specific examples of risks on a project that are within the team’s control, partially within the team’s control, and outside the team’s control. Tell how you would deal with each.
1. The project risk which is outside the team’s control:
Resistance to Change: Resistance to change is a common occurrence whereby departments and individuals defend the status quo and actively resist projects or organizational changes. One of the primary motivations for resisting change is the fear that it threatens an employee's future employment opportunities. Organizations can reduce such fears by offering training and career planning that offers a clear path to the career opportunities driven by change.
2. The project risk which is outside the team’s control:
Technology Risk: Technology risks such as service outages that disrupt the project. Like A security incident results in theft of customer data resulting in legal liability, reputational damage and compliance issues.
The way to deal with this kind of risk is finding ways to reduce risks by pooling resources with others. For example, a group of companies may reduce the risk of losing key executives by planning to transfer resources on a temporary basis in the case of an unexpected loss.
3. The project risk which is outside the team’s control:
Budget Risk: The risk of budget control issues such as cost overruns. Budget estimates are based on forward-looking estimates that typically involve some degree of uncertainty.
The way to deal with the budget risk is to do budget planning which is developing a budget for an organization, department, team, program, project or initiative.
7-List and give an example of when to use each of the seven project quality control tools described in this chapter.
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When to use |
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Flow Chart |
A flow chart is a tool that project managers use as they begin to control quality. Flow charts can be used to show any level of detail from the overall flow of an entire project. |
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Check Sheet |
Check sheets are customized for each application. Decide exactly what data will be useful in understanding, controlling, and improving a process, and create a form to collect that information. |
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Pareto Chart |
Once a check sheet is used, the gathered data can be displayed on an analysis tool such as the Pareto chart. |
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Cause-and-Effect Diagram |
The cause-and-effect diagram (also commonly known as the fishbone diagram, because it resembles a fish skeleton, and the Ishikawa diagram, named after its developer) is constructed with each “big bone” representing a category of possible causes |
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Histogram |
Once the additional data are gathered, they can be analyzed using a histogram, run chart, and/or control chart. |
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Run Chart |
Perhaps the project team wants to see how one specific aspect of the work process may change over time. If they collect data for two weeks on a daily basis and show them on a run chart |
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Control Chart |
This chart shows the final point above the upper control limit. This means the variation is enough that it is not likely to have happened purely by chance. Something is causing the variation—some sort of special cause. |
Part 2, Exercises 2, 7 and 8.
2. Use the following information to answer parts a through h. Describe what the results of each calculation mean to you as a project manager.
What do you propose to do?
PV $25,000
EV $30,000
AC $29,000
BAC $1,000,000
a. Schedule variance (SV)
EV-PV= $30,000-$25,000= $5,000
b. Cost variance (CV)
EV-AC=$30,000-$29,000= $1,000
c. Schedule performance index (SPI)
EV/PV=$30,000/$25,000=1.2 => 120 percent.
d. Cost performance index (CPI)
EV/AC=$30,000/$29,000=1.03 => 103 percent
e. Estimate to complete (ETC—first method)
(BAC – EV)/ CPI = ($1,000,000 - $30,000)/ 1.0345=$937,651.039
f. Estimate to complete (ETC—second method)
Second method (original plan is good estimate of future) ETC=BAC-EV
$1,000,000-$30,000=$970,000
g. Estimate at completion (EAC)
EAC= AC+ ETC
$29,000+$970,000=$999,000
h. To-complete performance index (TCPI)
TCPI= (BAC –EV)/(BAC –AC)
($1,000,000-$30,000)/ ($1,000,000-$29,000)=$970,000/$971,000=0.9989 => 100 percent
7. For a productivity improvement project, you discover the most frequent cause of delays in receiving payment is incorrect invoices. Construct a fishbone diagram to identify possible reasons for this problem. What action do you recommend with the results of your fishbone diagram?
Answer: Fishbone diagram is cause-and-effect diagram. Here is problem statement is incorrect invoices. Major cause categories can be machinery, methods of calculation, shortage of stuff or lack of knowledge, wrong materials might be used. This diagram helps to identify if productivity of the project is low.
Machinery People
Incorrect invoices
Methods Materials
Recommendations: 1. You have to make sure that working hours and working conditions of workers is good. 2. You have to make sure that you have enough staff who can do the calculation work.
8. Using the data below, construct a run chart to visualize how the number of customer complaints is changing over time. Describe what you find in terms of trends, repeating patterns, and/or outliers.
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Date |
Day |
Complaints |
|
1 |
Mon |
14 |
|
2 |
Tues |
17 |
|
3 |
Wed |
11 |
|
4 |
Thu |
12 |
|
5 |
Fri |
21 |
|
8 |
Mon |
15 |
|
9 |
Tue |
21 |
|
10 |
Wed |
19 |
|
11 |
Thu |
22 |
|
12 |
Fri |
23 |
Based on this diagram, we can see that number of complaints went up over the 2 weeks. However, according to above diagram, one day number of complaints went up and another day it went down. Despite of these changes, in general number of complaints increased during 2 weeks. Number of complaints are much smaller compared to number of complaints on Thursdays and Fridays. There are no complaints on weekend though.
Part 4
Q1. Give two examples of why a project might be terminated early for cause and two examples of why a project might be terminated early for convenience.
· Project termination for cause:
· Suppose a subcontractor is responsible for completing the work of tiling and painting the walls of 5 storied residential building. The due date for the project is in 2 weeks and the subcontractor has still not started the work and keeps issuing excuses that he is being delayed by other subcontractors. At this, time with the project looking to be delayed by him, the contractor can terminate his contract and hire someone else or do it by himself. The contract can be terminated as the subcontractor doesn’t look like he will meet the schedule nor is he showing promise of completion.
· Suppose a buyer agrees to buy a house from a developer as the contractor promised that the house would be ready by January 20. However, approaching January, it seems unlikely that the house would be ready before June. So, the buyer may terminate the contract/agreement to buy since the contractor doesn’t look like he will be able to keep his word.
· Project termination for convenience:
· Suppose while researching a new drug, a company contracts the research team of company A for a period of 5 years. 1 year into the project, the owner is approached by company B who promise to complete the project in 3 years. So, the owner may terminate the contract by convenience and rereward the contract to company B to save a year on the project.
· Suppose the government of California have a railway project that extends from San Francisco to San Diego going through Los Angeles. They hire a contractor company A to do the job. The contractor starts work on the San Francisco-LA leg of the project and are close to completion. The government changes in the 2 years the project is undertaken and decide the project is no longer a priority and decide to postpone it by 5 years. In this case, the government can terminate the contract by convenience and pay the contractor for the work they have performed.
Q4. A project manager is in the finishing stage of her project. It is apparent that one of the project’s deliverables will not be completed before the project is wrapped up. What options does the project manager have for this uncompleted deliverable?
- The options that the project manager has depends upon the customer of the project. If upon request, the customer is willing to provide more time for the uncompleted deliverable, then the project manager should be able to have it completed.
If the customer would not allow more time then the project manager has to bear the loss and provide the customer with a transition plan that states how the customer will use the deliverables in proper documentation. All uncompleted deliverables should be itemized and the project manager should clearly identify the responsibility for completion of the work. For example, if the contractor is responsible for constructing a house for a customer. The customer wants to close the project even when work is remaining to be done. In this case, the project manager would create a punch list of the remaining work and take responsibility for finishing it. The transition plan will help to avoid problems during the transition.
Further, the project manager may look to find funding from other sources, it could be either from the customer organization who believes the PM can complete the deliverable or from within her own organization.
Another option the project manager has is to be honest with her organization and call for early termination of the project with uncompleted deliverable.
Q5. Provide an example of how poor escalation of a project problem can create additional problems.
- As an inexperienced estimator in the construction industry, I come across many problems of which I am unaware of and sometimes are undiscovered by me. The major reasons for this are, not having a detailed understanding of what the specifications and the plans ask. This non-understanding of specifications can lead to estimation issues and finally budget issues. For example, while taking-off the quantities for concrete required for a particular curb, I calculate the requirement in cubic yards. I speak with a subcontractor who quotes me prices based on per truck. Unaware that each truck load carries 14 cubic yards, I estimate my prices for 1 cubic yard per truck load. This will value my total estimate for concrete at 14 times of what it should be. Now my estimate is 14 times the required and if it goes unchecked the total bid amount for the project will be a lot higher than what it should be. This may result in our bid being a lot higher than our competitors and may result in us losing out on the project. This is how poor escalation of a project problem can create additional problems.
Q6. How does celebrating the completion of a project benefit the project manager?
- Completion of a project is an important milestone for everyone involved in a project. As a project manager it becomes important to recognize and acknowledge the work put in by the team and award them with some form of celebration. It can be either by taking the team out for a meal or simply saying thank you. By doing this, the project manager gains the approval and respect from the team. This in turn makes the team want to work under the PM for future projects. Further, the recognition helps energize the team to get motivated for the next project. Thus a motivated team will help the PM start working on a new project better. Further, celebration enhances team bonding. It helps to look at the project in retrospect and learn from it together. A closer team will cover for each other and deliver better team work. In conclusion, a closer, motivated and respectful team will help the PM in delivering future projects.
Q7. Why is it important to go through the process of closing, even for projects that are terminated early?
- The execution of a project sometimes takes so much time that the final closing is often forgotten and given the least amount of importance. However, the closing even though maybe procedural work such as signing, approvals and paperwork, is an important stage for a project. For completed projects or project that are terminated early, it is necessary to have a complete close out procedure so that there are no lingering problems once the project is delivered to the customer. Some of the important steps that the PM or team goes through are,
· Creating a transition plan: A transition plan will help the customers use the project successfully. Even though a project may be incomplete, a transition plan will help them understand the work done and how they can use the work. The transition plan will further have itemization of incomplete activities and how the PM plans to complete them.
· Post project meeting: A post project meeting will help get the feedback from the team fresh after the end of the project. By encouraging honesty among the team, feedback regarding what worked and what didn’t should be taken. Mistakes made should be listed. Especially for a project that was terminated early, major and minor issues resulting in the early termination should be listed so that such errors don’t occur in the future.
· Complete paperwork: All paperwork should be signed and legalized so that no lingering problems or issues arise after the project has been handed over. All payments, invoices and contracts should be completed so that the team can move on to the next project. This stands true for early terminated projects as well.
· Release resources: After the projected is completed or terminated early, the team and the human resources on the project should be released so that they can move onto the next project.
· Archive documents: Everything learned in a project even though it may have been terminated early is experience and it should be well documented for future undertakings. The mistakes made during one project should not be repeated.
· Celebrate success: Even though a project may have been terminated early, you know your team put in a valiant effort to get it to where it is. Some mistakes may have caused early termination but that failures should be taken as a part of business and with this feeling the team should move on to the next project so that they aren’t stuck up on the previous one.
# of Complaints
Complaints 1 2 3 4 5 8 9 10 11 12 14 17 11 12 21 15 21 19 22 23
