Project Assignment: Creating a Project Plan Report for Executive Sponsor or Steering Committee

Project Launch and Team Composition

This project assignment allows you to apply both the course learning and your practical experience to a project of your choice.  Project scope, budget and schedule information are critical to the success of all projects.   This assignment requires you to select a project then provide the information as outlined below.  Create the report as a summary to be presented to an executive sponsor, a steering committee, or an investor.

Students will form teams of five (5) students each.  At the professor’s discretion groups may be formed by the professor or by the students themselves. Each group should include members with a variety of skills that complete the necessary skills required to complete the task. The professor will talk about this during the first week of classes. Groups should be formed by the end of Lesson 2. The composition of all teams must be approved by the professor. Choose team members roles and how they will contribute. There are no free rides in this project and your mark will reflect your work! 

In order to understand projects and project teamwork this assignment will be done in groups. 

The ability to work effectively and efficiently in a team is a skill required for the successful completion of major assignments in this course, which are identified as group work. For group assignments, like this Term Project, the group members are responsible for: 

•Establishing group organization 

•Establishing work group policies 

•Setting project objectives 

•Project scheduling and management 

•Controls for monitoring progress toward objectives 

•Group discipline and sanctions 

Reporting to the Professor

The project charter is the document that will formally authorize your project. It serves to provide a map for the route the project should take, complete with project boundaries and key high level information. The information contained in the project charter should suffice to provide the project manager the required guidance to fully plan, execute and deliver the project.

The final project plan report is the document that provides the project management plan for your project. This will contain detailed plans used to execute, monitor and control the project. 

Your final project plan report should be a professionally formatted document and written for the following audience: executive stakeholder and/or project investor. The report should be complete with a table of contents that should be organized to contain the following elements:

Project Name: Provide a project name and brief description

Project Charter: Identify the Business Case for the project, including the strategic reasons for the project, its expected profitability and competitive effects, as well as desired scope and any other technical results.

Project Scope: Identify the major activities that must be completed within the Project and by when. Include the Project Scope Statement.

Project Resources and Stakeholder Management:  List the resources on the project and their responsibilities.  You may want to create a RACI chart.

Project Schedule: List all project activities with dependencies, and resource loading and levelling where applicable. Identify your critical path. 

Project Budget and Cost control: List the overall budget, contingency, breakdown by phase and/or major resource components. Identify your plans for monitoring and controlling costs.

Risk / Quality Management and Issues Plan: Identify and describe the specific risk factors that apply to your project. Conduct a risk analysis and develop appropriate risk response strategies to address these risks. Organize this information in the form of a risk register. Summarize how you intend to monitor and control your risks. 

Project Status Reporting Template

Additional Content: Include any other appropriate criteria, i.e., contract plan, stakeholder register and management plan, as you deem appropriate to communicate the comprehensive plans for your project.