Project Scope and Work Breakdown Structure (WBS)

Week 3 Discussion

“Project Scope and Work Breakdown Structure (WBS)” Please respond to the following:

Select a project, and determine at least two (2) aspects of the project scope that might have the tendency to go out of scope and potentially derail the project. Next, develop a WBS that contains the three (3) levels of detail and takes the two (2) eventualities you determined into account.

A specific project/mission that my unit has recently been activated to do is supply 2 million gallons of potable water to hospitals that were on a boiling water advisory. 

The project must be completed on a specific date, the scope can be scaled back in order to meet cost and time objectives, and when possible seek opportunities to reduce costs.

•Causes of Project Trade-offs

–Shifts in the relative importance of criterions related
to cost, time, and performance parameters

•Budget–Cost

•Schedule–Time

•Performance–Scope

One technique found in practice that is useful for this purpose is for the project to identify which criterion is constrained, which should be enhanced and can be accepted.

Work Breakdown Structure (WBS)

– Defines the relationship of the final deliverable (the project) to its sub deliverables, and in turn, their relationships to work packages.

— Best suited for design and build projects that have tangible outcomes rather than process-oriented projects.

The benefits of WBS:

Week 4

    • Facilitates evaluation of cost, time, and technical performance of the organization on a project.
    • Provides management with information appropriate to each organizational level.
    • Helps in the development of the organization breakdown structure (OBS). which assigns project responsibilities to organizational units and individuals
    • Helps to plan schedule, and budget.
    • Defines communication channels and assists in coordinating the various project elements.

    “Estimating Time and Costs” Please respond to the following:

    It has been stated that managers recognize time, cost, and resource estimates as critical if planning, executing, and monitoring and controlling are to influence the success of the project. Watch the video titled “How to Estimate Your Project” (3 min 35 s), located below. You can also view the video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rN0FrDpQNUk. After watching the video, refer to Week 3 Assignment 1, and determine at least two (2) factors that have an impact on the time and cost estimate aspects of a project. Support your answer.

    Time

    Starting off Karma Cartel’s brand is expecting to grow of over 1,000 customers within a 3 month timeframe. This plan is set out through word of mouth and media advertising. Karma Cartel’s key marketing strategy will be to expand awareness of the products beyond their existing customers to mutual friends of the current customers. To achieve this, Karma Cartel will create a variety of social media webpages, videos, and have images of its apparel available to view online.

    Cost

    $2,100 will be used to start the business. This amount includes all funds used to purchase merchandise from other vendors, copyright of logo/t-shirt design, and accessories. In the first year of business Karma Cartel is forecasting sales of $33,000 (400 t-shirts, 500 wholesale items, and 350 accessories) and estimated expenses of $21,450 (65% of sales). This will produce a running inventory of an additional $11,550 estimated to be about 400 products. In year two, Karma Cartel estimates an increase in sales of 3% or $33,990 with expenses increasing by 1% to $21,664.50.

    “Unscheduled Project Time” Please respond to the following:

    Define “slack” in the project management environment. Determine the key differences between free slack and total slack in the project management environment. Refer to Assignment 1 and give your opinion on why “slack” is important to your project. Provide an example or scenario of each type of slack to further justify your response.

    Slack is determined by the amount of time an activity or project can be delayed and not delay the project as a whole. (total) Slack can also be determined by the amount of time you can exceed an activity without altering the finish date of a project or affecting the deadline.

    Within Karma Cartel slack is very important due to the fact that clothing can be shipped early and sold at any time. The projected start date is supposed to be in late December but there may be an earlier start date depending on what’s in stock.

    Week 6

    “Risk Management” Please respond to the following:

    History has shown that the chances of risk events occurring and their respective costs increasing can change over the project life cycle. As a project manager, select at least three (3) risk events as they apply to your selected project, and explain how you would address the risks you selected. Next, determine at least one (1) strategy to mitigate each risk occurrence.

    With my project designing an online fashion boutique there are a number of risks associated with fraud.

    Week 7

    • Cyber Crime
    • With my project designing an online fashion boutique there are a number of risks associated with fraud.Cybercrime is a bigger risk now than ever before due to the sheer number of connected people and devices. Criminals committing cybercrime use a number of methods, depending on their skill-set and their goal. Proper controls and supervision over the website can prevent fraudulent attacks from entering our webpage. A strong security system will be in place to mitigate potential risks
    • Not meeting deadlines
    • Inventory can be a hassle with a sole proprietorship, therefore it is very important to have inventory in stock for customers and be sure to have promised release dates. Keeping track of inventory daily is a way to ensure this risk is not a stake.
    • Funds for supplies
      • Startup cost for the business shouldn’t be much of a hassle but maintaining the cost of new inventory coming in and keeping up with profits can cause revenue to decrease over time. Advertising the website and depending on sales determines how much inventory needs to remained stocked. Over stocking will lead to running out of business.

    “Resource Scheduling” Please respond to the following:

    Determine three (3) most common problems associated with multi-project resource scheduling.

    The three most common problems associated with multi-project resource scheduling are related to a lack of supply. There is only so much that can be distributed in terms of either time or manpower in even the largest businesses. Companies must pick and choose among their projects and decide which will get what kind of attention and when. This process is likely to cause competition within the organization as well as confusion and occasionally delays.

    Next, analyze at least three (3) ways in which outsourcing project work alleviates those common problems that you determined. Justify your answers.

    • Competition
    • Most businesses have more good ideas than they can reasonably expect to devote resources to. Management often must choose between projects assigned to different groups that have an equal chance of success. The resulting competitiveness must be managed to avoid bitterness within the organization. Once projects are underway, competition will also arise as each project head attempts to gain maximum project resources. This can make it hard for upper management to correctly gauge how successful any single project is or how much more in resources to provide. Upper management must inspect the progress of each project carefully to separate fact from fiction
    • Confusion
    • Because project heads can be prone to declaring greater likelihood of project success only if greater resources are allocated, there can be a great deal of confusion associated with multi-project resource scheduling. The more projects there are, the more conflicting signals a company will have to sort through before deciding who gets what. This isn’t a challenge that a business can afford to take lightly, since allocating appropriate resources to a project actually can make the difference between success or failure. If you use too much of your time or manpower on one project at the expense of another, it can lead to large financial losses.
    • Projects are often delayed due to untimely provision of resources that often results from the confusion and difficulties associated with multi-project resource scheduling. Many times, businesses lose out on at least some of the profits that they might have gained because they were late introducing a product to the market. In a free market, timing makes a great deal of difference in how your company performs. The most successful companies are those that are skilled at resource scheduling and able to minimize under-allocation.
      • http://www.ehow.com/info_12196344_three-common-problems-associated-multiproject-resource-scheduling.html

    By managing several projects simultaneously, a project manager also handles the risks at the same time. Outsourcing project work to a single vendor transfers some of that risk to the supplier. This helps mitigate unexpected events for the subprojects and helps ensure that projects get delivered on time and on budget. The project manager retains responsibility for the whole project, however. Managing outsourced resources effectively enables project managers to cut expenses, increase productivity, reduce time to market and develop a flexible resource pool to meet the many challenges of operating in a complex, global marketplace.

    Many solutions to the problems associated with multi-project resource scheduling have been proposed, with varying degrees of success. Some experts stress the value of interlinking projects so that different project heads are required to cooperate with one another in how they share resources. In this way, the employees involved in one project also become accountable for the success or failure of others. Another approach is to place more than one project under the management of a single individual who will then be responsible for successfully allocating resources between them

    Week 8

    “Project Audit” Please respondto the following:

    Watch the video titled “11.1 Project Closure” (8 min 24 s), located below. You can also view the video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ln9eNowUYgY. Next, determine three (3) major closure deliverables relevant to your selected project. Explain each deliverable in detail.

    Deliverables met: Showing that the deliverables were met is paramount to the successful project close. Mapping the final deliverables to the intended deliverables is important. However, usually there are many changes, sometimes even 180 degrees to the original direction of the project. It is most important to be able to document those changes and define in no uncertain terms what the final approved deliverables were intended to be and then to map that to the actual deliverables.

    Staying Way Ahead:In my opinion this is actually the most important part of the project close. This is what persists after the project is completed and closed, and is going to be the real value to the organization. The project has introduced some sort of change, and that change required a project to actually make it happen. The ongoing plan for continuing that change process, building in the processes for adapting to the changing environment, building in the capacity for maintaining the product of that project, and more are critical considerations that need to be addressed in handing the project over to the owner at the project close.

    Making your project close effective:Do not take the project close lightly. The project close if addressed properly will bring more value to the organization then almost anything else that has been done on the project. Of course, the project close includes the collectivization of all that has proceeded in the project, so all that has preceded it is important also. But the importance of what has preceded the close will be diminished if the project close is not executed with the excellence.

    Week 9

    Watch the video titled “Steve Jobs talks about managing people” (2 min 26 s), located below. You can also view the video athttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f60dheI4ARg. After watching the video below on a loose style of management and the value of teamwork while trusting others to do what they are assigned to, discuss how such style would be applicable to managing projects. Explain the pros and cons, and sum up a conclusion

    Loose style Management

    Many organizations are tightly coupled on paper but loosely coupled in practice. Employees at any organization tend to push back or try to circumvent attempts to supervise them too closely. For instance, employees at an accounting office might follow procedures perfectly when their supervisor is watching, but disregard the rules entirely when he is out. Some employees have specialized skills that the manager doesn’t understand well enough to supervise in detail, such as the ability to maintain a certain piece of equipment or use a certain kind of software. Managers sometimes find it more convenient to allow a looser structure in practice to keep the organization running.

    Teamwork style management

    If you want to expedite a project and optimize a process for completing that project, managing by teamwork is the way to go. When you motivate people to pool their knowledge, the results may exceed your expectations. Often, teams can tackle problems more quickly than what you can accomplish on your own. The give-and-take can create a process that you can replicate in other projects.

    Remember that successful teamwork depends on coordinated efforts among the staff, as well as solid communication skills. Reports must be clear and concise. Presentations must convey information that leaves nothing unanswered. Understanding logistics is critical, too. Probably most important, however, is your willingness to credit the team for its success and independence, rather than your savvy management skills.

    Indeed, when you get around to employee evaluations, remember to recognize those who were able to collaborate and maintain a team spirit, especially under pressure.

    Pros and Cons

    A potential disadvantage of loose coupling is inconsistency. A customer at a loosely coupled sandwich shop might not get his favorite sandwich exactly the same way every time he orders it, since the two locations might make it differently, and different employees might use different amounts of each ingredient. A potential advantage is flexibility. Employees have more freedom to customize the sandwich for individual tastes. Another potential advantage is that problems in one department can sometimes be quarantined from other departments because they all function independently. A potential disadvantage is that implementing any strategic change across the whole organization can be difficult.

    Week 10

    “Outsourcing” Please respond to the following:

    Provide at least three (3) reasons why organizations outsource project work. Next, determine the key advantages of outsourcing project work. Looking at your selected project, and assuming that you had the option to outsource part(s) of the project, which part(s) would you outsource? Explain your decision.

    Today, outsourcing critics suggest that organizations are reducing costs through the replacement of expensive full time employees with less expensive contractors. This is not a viable long-term strategy. In the organizations where I have worked, outsourcing was seen as a way to not only reduce costs, but add flexibility to the technology teams. Temporarily adding specialized skills to the bench allowed the firm to innovate, and enabled the firm’s technology teams to focus on core business issues. Today, IT services firms are expected to be strategic partners, invested in the success of their client, not just the project.

    A few reasons to outsource:

    “Improved Project Management” Please respond to the following:

    • Ability to deliver projects we did not have the skills to staff
    • Cost savings
    • Smoother project delivery

    Describe the three (3) most important concepts / strategies that you gained during this course, and suggest on how you plan to use these concepts / strategies in the future.

    Work Breakdown Structure (WBS)

    – Defines the relationship of the final deliverable (the project) to its sub deliverables, and in turn, their relationships to work packages.

    — Best suited for design and build projects that have tangible outcomes rather than process-oriented projects.

    The benefits of WBS:

    Causes of Project Trade-offs

      • Facilitates evaluation of cost, time, and technical performance of the organization on a project.
      • Provides management with information appropriate to each organizational level.
      • Helps in the development of the organization breakdown structure (OBS). which assigns project responsibilities to organizational units and individuals
      • Helps to plan schedule, and budget.
      • Defines communication channels and assists in coordinating the various project elements.

    –Shifts in the relative importance of criterions related to cost, time, and performance parameters

    •Budget–Cost

    •Schedule–Time

    •Performance–Scope

    One technique found in practice that is useful for this purpose is for the project to identify which criterion is constrained, which should be enhanced and can be accepted.

    Slack is determined by the amount of time an activity or project can be delayed and not delay the project as a whole. (total) Slack can also be determined by the amount of time you can exceed an activity without altering the finish date of a project or affecting the deadline.

    If you want to expedite a project and optimize a process for completing that project, managing by teamwork is the way to go. When you motivate people to pool their knowledge, the results may exceed your expectations. Often, teams can tackle problems more quickly than what you can accomplish on your own. The give-and-take can create a process that you can replicate in other projects.

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