Applied Project Management Final Assessment: Outline and Rubric Competency Name: Applied Project Management Competency Statement: Demonstrate an understanding of project management, applications, and tools used. Final Assessment Title: Project Plan Competency Objectives: 1. Demonstrate an understanding of the foundational concepts of project management, including the system view of project management and information systems development life cycle. 2. Demonstrate an understanding of the five project management process groups and their interactions, project integration management, and cost-benefit analysis. 3. Demonstrate an understanding of project quality, communications, and human resources management. 4. Create a project plan including project scope management and work breakdown, project timeline, project resources, cost management, and post-appraisal. Program Learning Outcome(s): N/A Institutional Learning Outcome(s): N/A Purpose of this Assessment People have been undertaking projects since the earliest days of organized human activity. The hunting parties of our prehistoric ancestors were projects. Large complex undertakings such as the pyramids and the Great Wall of China are also considered projects. Even something as simple as creating a dinner is considered a project. We use the term “project” frequently in our daily conversations. For this final assessment you are expected to demonstrate knowledge of project management, applications, and tools used by creating a project plan. Items Required for Submission The item required for submission is a 15 to 20-page Project Plan. Step ONE: Choose a Project Choose a project for your project plan. The project that you choose can be work or community related. As you choose your project for this assignment, consider the answers to the questions below. For something to be considered a project, the answer to all of these questions must be “yes.” • Is it unique? • Does it have a start and end date? (Is it a temporary endeavor?) • Is there a way to determine whether the project has been completed? • Is there a way to determine stakeholder satisfaction? • Is this project complex enough to meaningfully discuss each and every section of the project plan, yet limited enough to discuss in less than 20 pages? For example, creating a dinner for your family would not be complex enough to detail a meaningful staffing plan, communications plan, etc. Creating a dinner at Buckingham Palace would be complex enough, but possibly difficult to discuss 1 Final Assessment: Outline and Rubric Applied Project Management Final Assessment: Outline and Rubric thoroughly in 20 pages. Read through all the required sections for the Project Plan before you make your final decision about your project. • Do you know the project very well? Project Management is a highly transferrable skill from one profession to another, but most individual project plans rely on intricate, finely grained understanding of all the particular industry terms, components and relationships. For this plan, you cannot rely on technical jargon or industry standard operating procedures to describe the sections. Your plan must explain to a reasonable stakeholder, with very basic knowledge about the project, exactly what to expect. Step TWO: Write a Project Plan Once you have identified a project you must create the project plan. Recall that project planning is at the heart of the project life cycle and tells everyone involved where you’re going and how you’re going to get there. The planning phase is when the project plans are documented, the project deliverables and requirements are defined, and the project schedule is created. It involves creating a set of plans to help guide your team through the implementation and closure phases of the project. The plans created during this phase will help you manage time, cost, quality, changes, risk and related issues. It will also help you control staff and external suppliers, to ensure that you deliver the project on time, on budget and within schedule. Your Project Plan must include: • Introduction o The Introduction provides a high-level overview of the project and what is included in this Project Management Plan. This should include a high-level description of the project and describe the project’s deliverables and benefits. Excessive detail is not necessary in this section as the other sections of the project plan will include this information. This section should provide a summarized framework of the project and its purpose. Typically, you would look back at the Project Charter for information to include in this section. • Project Management Approach o Explain in general the roles and authorities of project team members. Include information about which departments, etc., will provide the resources and what resource constraints are to be considered. If there are decisions to be taken by specific persons, such information should be included here as well. • Milestone List o Provide a summary list of milestones, including dates for each milestone. Include an introductory paragraph in this section, which provides some insight to the major milestones. This section should also mention or discuss actions taken if any changes to the milestones or delivery dates are required. • Baselines o Schedule § The schedule baseline provides a reference point for managing project progress as it pertains to schedule and timeline. o Cost 2 Final Assessment: Outline and Rubric Applied Project Management Final Assessment: Outline and Rubric § This section contains the cost baseline for the project upon which cost management will be based. The project will use earned value metrics to track and manage costs while the cost baseline provides the basis for the tracking, reporting, and management of costs. o Scope/quality § This section should include the quality baseline for the project. The purpose of this baseline is to provide a basis for ensuring that quality can be measured to determine if acceptable quality levels have been achieved. It is important for all projects to clearly define and communicate quality standards and the quality baseline serves this purpose. • Project Scope and Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) o State the scope of the project in this section. The scope statement from the project charter should be used as a starting point; however, the project plan needs to include a much more detailed scope than the charter. This detail should include what the project does and does not include. The more detail included in this section, the better the product. This will help to clarify what is included in the project and help to avoid any confusion from project team members and stakeholders. o The WBS provides the work packages to be performed for the completion of the project. • Change Management Plan o This section should describe your change control process. Ideally, this process will be some type of organizational standard, which is repeatable and done on most or all projects when a change is necessary. Changes to any project must be carefully considered and the impact of the change must be clear in order to make any type of approval decisions. Many organizations have change control boards (CCBs), which review proposed changes and either approve or deny them. This is an effective way to provide oversight and to ensure adequate feedback and review of the change is obtained. This section should also identify who has approval authority for changes to the project, who submits the changes, and how they are tracked and monitored. • Communications Management Plan o The purpose of the Communications Management Plan is to define the communication requirements for the project and how information will be distributed to ensure project success. You should give considerable thought to how you want to manage communications on every project. By having a solid communications management approach you’ll find that many project management problems can be avoided. In this section you should provide an overview of your communications management approach. Generally, the Communications Management Plan defines the following: § Communication requirements based on roles § What information will be communicated § How the information will be communicated § When will information be distributed § Who does the communication § Who receives the communication § Communications conduct • Cost Management Plan o The Cost Management Plan clearly defines how the costs on a project will be managed throughout the project’s lifecycle. It sets the format and standards by which the project costs 3 Final Assessment: Outline and Rubric Applied Project Management Final Assessment: Outline and Rubric are measured, reported, and controlled. Working within the cost management guidelines is imperative for all project team members to ensure successful completion of the project. These guidelines may include which level of the WBS cost accounts will be created in, and the establishment of acceptable variances. The Cost Management Plan: § Identifies who is responsible for managing costs § Identifies who has the authority to approve changes to the project or its budget § How cost performance is quantitatively measured and reported upon § Report formats, frequency, and to whom they are presented • Procurement Management Plan o The Procurement Management Plan should be defined to clearly identify the necessary steps and responsibilities for procurement from the beginning to the end of a project. The project manager must ensure that the plan facilitates the successful completion of the project and does not become an overwhelming task in itself to manage. The project manager will work with the project team, contracts/purchasing department, and other key players to manage the procurement activities. • Project Scope Management Plan o It is important that the approach to managing the project’s scope be clearly defined and documented in detail. Failure to clearly establish and communicate project scope can result in delays, unnecessary work, failure to achieve deliverables, cost overruns, or other unintended consequences. This section provides a summary of the Scope Management Plan in which it addresses the following: § Who has authority and responsibility for scope management § How the scope is defined (i.e. Scope Statement, WBS, WBS Dictionary, Statement of Work, etc.) § How the scope is measured and verified (i.e. Quality Checklists, Scope Baseline, Work Performance Measurements, etc.) § The scope change process (who initiates, who authorizes, etc.) § Who is responsible for accepting the final project deliverable and approving acceptance of project scope • Schedule Management Plan o This section provides a general framework for the approach, which will be taken to create the project schedule. Effective schedule management is necessary for ensuring tasks are completed on time, resources are allocated appropriately, and helping to measure project performance. This section should include discussion of the scheduling tool/format, schedule milestones, and schedule development roles and responsibilities. • PERT Chart Development o The Program Evaluations Review Technique (PERT) is a technique used to plan, schedule, and control projects. This tool uses a precedence diagram technique which means an activity proceeds an activity and is represented through the use of associated graphics; arrows and nodes. When creating a PERT chart be sure to include the tasks or activities and present them as arrows. Then ensure the Milestone/Dates are captured as nodes. If you choose to code the activities and milestone dates, be sure to provide a key for the coded activities so the chart can be interpreted correctly. 4 Final Assessment: Outline and Rubric Applied Project Management Final Assessment: Outline and Rubric • Quality Management Plan o This section discusses how quality management will be used to ensure that the deliverables for the project meet a formally established standard of acceptance. All project deliverables should be defined in order to provide a foundation and understanding of the tasks at hand and what work must be planned. Quality management is the process by which the organization not only completes the work but completes the work to an acceptable standard. Without a thorough Quality Management Plan, work may be completed in a substandard or unacceptable manner. This section should include quality roles and responsibilities, quality control, quality assurance, and quality monitoring. • Risk Management Plan o This section provides a general description for the approach taken to identify and manage the risks associated with the project. It should be a short paragraph or two summarizing the approach to risk management on this project. • Stakeholder Management Plan • Staffing/Human Resource Management Plan o Discuss how you plan to staff the project. This section should include discussion on matrixed or projectized organizational structure, depending on which is being used for this project. This section should also include how resources will be procured and managed as well as the key resources needed for the project. Step THREE: Complete Checklist for Submission Before you submit your work, check to see if you have met the criteria noted below. Did you: ü Make sure your plan contains all required components as indicated in the guidelines, with clear and complete descriptions for each? ü Demonstrate sophisticated understanding of project management, applications, and tools throughout the project plan? ü Show that you fully understand the depth and breadth of the subject matter as well as all related concepts as they relate to project management? ü Make sure there are no errors in content or interpretation of the material? ü Use or apply project management methodologies throughout the project plan? ü Review your plan to see that it is logical, well written, and of the required length? Use accurate spelling, grammar, and punctuation? Follow APA formatting standards?
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