Project Management Plan For Writing An Essay.

1.Be able to devise and implement a project management plan and work effectively within a project team.

2.Understand the primary concepts and practices underpinning Project management.

3.Understand the contexts for project management and project planning in a localised and/or global context.

• Work as an individual to research, write and structure a report that demonstrates project management principles
• Understand the tools and techniques to solve problems associated with projects in real life scenarios.
• Enable the student to learn the primary elements of Project Management to such an extent that he/she is able to develop a detailed project plan for a small or large- scale project.

Give students an opportunity to be an individual contributor, working on a project team to define, plan and manage a project.

1.Network diagram is one of the important tools in project planning. You are required to construct the network diagram illustrating the backward and forward pass with necessary attributes. You will have to determine and highlight the critical path explaining and evaluating what this indicates and what significant effects it has on the completion of the project.

2.IT Projects have a terrible track record, as reported in a 1995 Standish Group study (CHAOS) found that only 16.2% of IT projects were successful in meeting scope, time, and cost goals; over 31% of IT projects were canceled before completion. Critically discuss the factors why projects fail.

3.Projects success or a failure can be dependent on the kind of projects that are selected. Discuss different selection methods with justification. 

4.In modern project management, it could be typical to outsource and manage several projects from overseas. Critically discuss how this could be achieved with virtual meetings.

Four Phases of Project Development

Purpose of Project Management Plan

The project management plan is developed for supporting the implication of the effective and smart project completion. The use of the document allows the project stakeholders for keeping track of the project execution. The project management plan has been developed for ensuring that the project would be completed successfully.

Assumptions and Constraints

Project would be completed in the estimated time duration, using the resources provided and by maintaining the quality.

Time is the most primitive constraint of the project. The other constraints include the resources, and IT support.

Work Breakdown Structure

The WBS can create the schedule at one of the most accurate potential levels. By following the WBS the necessary tasks can be captured accordingly even the steps those are necessary but not considered can also be identified.

According to Aloini et al. (2015), to successfully implement any project, it is necessary for the project head and the team members to follow the work phases properly one after another. Only completion of writing the book will not lead the project towards success rather it should grab a wide market position and from the publishing house. Therefore, development of a business case for this project is very much important.  

If it is found that the project is not leading towards commercial and economical success then based on the objectives proper additional changes along with the components are needed to be incorporated (Bilgihan and Bujisic 2015). Besides budget another thing that is needed to be developed by the project manager is the change control management.  

• Completion of the Charter Documentation
• Completion of the planning phase
• Completing the writing
• Final Documentation

Task Name	Duration	Start	Finish
Writing a book	97 days	Wed 7/4/18	Thu 11/15/18
Initiation phase	12 days	Wed 7/4/18	Thu 7/19/18
Development of business case	4 days	Wed 7/4/18	Mon 7/9/18
Undertaking feasibility study	3 days	Tue 7/10/18	Thu 7/12/18
Establishing charter	5 days	Fri 7/13/18	Thu 7/19/18
Planning phase	16 days	Fri 7/13/18	Fri 8/3/18
Deciding about the topic	5 days	Fri 7/13/18	Thu 7/19/18
Setting proper word count goal	6 days	Fri 7/20/18	Fri 7/27/18
Setting time for working on the book	5 days	Mon 7/30/18	Fri 8/3/18
Execution phase	58 days	Mon 7/30/18	Wed 10/17/18
Setting a total word count	6 days	Mon 7/30/18	Mon 8/6/18
Giving yourself weekly deadlines	7 days	Tue 8/7/18	Wed 8/15/18
Completing writing	45 days	Thu 8/16/18	Wed 10/17/18
Completion phase	21 days	Thu 10/18/18	Thu 11/15/18
Commit to shipping	8 days	Thu 10/18/18	Mon 10/29/18
Embrace failure	8 days	Tue 11/6/18	Thu 11/15/18
Modifying the Content	4 days	Tue 10/30/18	Fri 11/2/18
Final Documentation	5 days	Tue 10/30/18	Mon 11/5/18

Dependencies: The project schedule dependencies are an analysis of predecessors and successors and it have been shown below,

Task Name	Predecessors	Successors
Writing a book
Initiation phase
Development of business case		4,3
Undertaking feasibility study	2	7
Establishing charter	2	6
Planning phase
Deciding about the topic	4	12,8
Setting proper word count goal	3	16,10
Setting time for working on the book	6	11
Execution phase
Setting a total word count	7	14
Giving yourself weekly deadlines	8	15
Completing writing	6	17
Completion phase
Commit to shipping	10	17
Embrace failure	11	17
Modifying the Content	7	17
Final Documentation	12,14,15,16

The project cost budget management would be done based on the calculation of the expenses on the project activities. The cost management of the project is identified by the help of project phases and the expenses accrued for that period. The budget management is shown below,

WBS	Task Name	Cost
0	Writing a book	$1,250.00
1	Initiation phase	$500.00
1.1	Development of business case	$150.00
1.2	Undertaking feasibility study	$250.00
1.3	Establishing charter	$100.00
2	Planning phase	$85.00
2.1	Deciding about the topic	$50.00
2.2	Setting proper word count goal	$25.00
2.3	Setting time for working on the book	$10.00
3	Execution phase	$215.00
3.1	Setting a total word count	$10.00
3.2	Giving yourself weekly deadlines	$15.00
3.3	Completing writing	$190.00
4	Completion phase	$450.00
4.1	Commit to shipping	$200.00
4.2	Embrace failure	$50.00
4.3	Modifying the Content	$50.00
4.4	Final Documentation	$150.00

The time phased budget for the project is also shown below,

Quality Management forms the details of a project in such a way so that it becomes aligned with the standards of the client (Amrollahi, Ghapanchi and Talaei-Khoei 2014). The quality documentation formed in the planning phase must be executed in the next execution period. For writing any book it is the responsibility of the project manager and the project team members to maintain contact with publishing houses also who might sincerely and sensibly help the authors to sale their books.

Handling Dependencies and Managing Project Budget, Change Control, and Quality

The most important tool that is widely used by the project manager is a stakeholder management strategy (Kendrick 2015). Stakeholders and consumers are the most valuable resources for any business thus an accurate stakeholder management strategy should have to be prepared by the business professional.

Stakeholder Name	Document Name	Document Format	Contact Person	Due Date	Contact Information
Josh Lee	Project Charter	Report	Project Manager	12/08/18	+41-XXXX-XXXX lee.josh@*****mail.com
Amanda Jones	Design Template	Template	IT Engineer	18/08/18	+41-XXXX-XXXX amanda_jones@*****mail.com
Christie Nicolson	Resource Management Document	Template	HR manager	25/08/18	+41-XXXX-XXXX nicol.christie@*****mail.com
Laurie Keith	Project Charter	Report	Project Manager	26/08/18	+41-XXXX-XXXX keith.lauire@*****mail.com

	Writer	Analyst	Marketing Manager
Organization	not applicable	not applicable	not applicable
Role on project	To complete the book writing and publish it within estimated time	To give proper support social and environmental support while developing the project	To take all necessary actions while launching the book
Unique facts about stakeholder	Internal	Internal	External
Level of interest	High	Low	High
Level of influence	High	High	Low
Suggestions on managing relationships	Determining the expectation of the consumers and based on that strategies will be developed	Long term sustainable continuous management strategies for the stakeholders are developed.	In this activity the managers should identify the stakeholders

Project communication management include different processes those require ensuring timely as well as appropriate planning, gathering, creation, distribution, storing, retrieval, control, monitoring etc. Communication is not important in the planning phase but also in control phase the importance of communication is very much significant. Most of the times of the project managers are spent communicating with their project stakeholders and team members (Liberatore 2016). Accurate communication can establish a bridge like connection between the project head and the stakeholders. The cultural and organizational background of the stakeholders varies from each other thus the members and the project manager should use a standard communication approach while communicating with each other (Goetsch and Davis 2014). While managing any project the three process follows are plan communication management, manage communication and control communication.

The importance of communication process is elaborated below:

Help to manage the project implementation: In order to accomplish the project within estimated time and cost proper control over the project is very important. Therefore,

Team building: Effective communication helps to build project team which causes improved productivity (Ghosal et al. 2014). In addition to this the functional and operational activities also become much smoother.

Build employee morale: Effective communication develops the employee morale in the control period so that they can play prominent role to improve relationship.

Reduce internal conflict: The project objectives will become clearer to the project manager and team members at the same time the intra-organizational and inter-organizational conflict will also be reduced (Kerzner 2013). The team members will be able to deliver an error free progress report.

Increases creativity: The overall productivity from the project developer’s end will also increase.  With effective communication the creative ideas of the project team members will improve. The collective ideas and creativity will deliberately improve the change management program of the projects.

The risk management can be done by the help of development of risk priority matrix and using it for developing the risk mitigation strategies,

Risk ID		1	2	3
Author		Planner	Budgeter	Quality Analyst
Date Registered		14.08.18	26.08.18	08.09.18
Risk Category		Schedule	Financial	Performance
Description	Cause	Technical Issues	Error in planning the project resource requirements	Unable to search for authentic data
	Event	Delay in Completion of activities	Shortage of Budget for the project	Lack of information in developing the project budget
	Effect	Performance Issues	More Resource Requirement	Client Rejects the project
Impact	Inherent	4	3	5
	Residual	3	2	4
Probability	Inherent	2	4	3
	Residual	1	3	2
Expected Value	Inherent	8	12	15
	Residual	3	6	8
Proximity		Within Stage	Within project	Imminent
Risk Response Categories		Accept	Reduce	Avoid
Risk Response		Delay in project Completion should be accepted	Provisional Budget should be allocated	Hire an expert for managing the project quality
Risk Status		Active	Closed	Closed
Risk Owner		Planner	Budgeter	Quality Analyst
Risk Actionee		Project Manager	Client	Writer

Issue Management

For measuring the project issue control to meet the goal and objectives, the project control analysis act as an important activity. The comparison between the actual and target can be measured simultaneously. The project issue management details are supported by corporate management information regarding the corporate objectives (Kendrick 2015). In order to bring coordination among the systematic decisions goal relevant data are to be gathered and analyzed by the project manager and the team members. Thus, it can be said that the aim of the issue control process include early earning, time orientation, decision making, employee information division and segmentation planning etc.

Effective Communication and Risk Management

The project manager and the team members of the project are required to be followed this project schedule for the successful completion of the writing a book project. This is a four phased project comprises of project initiation, planning, execution and closure. According to Liberatore (2016), the developed project plan the total time estimated for the project is 102 days. It means that, if all the measures are properly considered then the project will be completed within 102 days. It is necessary to complete the project within time to balance the project cost line or avoid cost overrun. The procurement management would be done with the stakeholders for easing the development of the contract management and evaluation (Garton and McCulloch 2012). The various negotiation documents like design and build, cost plus incentive, and fixed cost method for forming the procurement document with the suppliers and contractors.

The compliance related planning involve the following steps,

Step 1: Development of Compliance Plan

Step 2: Review of the Compliance Plan

Step 3: Execution of the Compliance Plan

Step 4: Monitoring the outcomes

Step 5: Modification of the Implementation

Project planning is the second phase of writing a book project. All the phases of project development are interrelated to each other which imply that, the output of one phase acts as the input of the very next phase. Thus, if any such issue occurs with any of the project development phase then the entire project will be a failure. In order to minimize the load of the work from the team members of the project it is very much necessary to divide the entire task in small phases by the project manager. For each task different resources are allotted and these allotments are done based on their skills and knowledge. It is the role of the project manager to make sure that the work is being doing effectively by the project team members. A work Breakdown Structure (WBS) is created by the project manager so that the project writing a book can be completed successfully.  

Proper stakeholder management and managerial strategies are to be followed by the project manager and project team members for the successful accomplishment of this specific project.  The most important tool that is widely used by the project manager is a stakeholder management strategy. Stakeholders and consumers are the most valuable resources for any business thus an accurate stakeholder management strategy should have to be prepared by the business professional.

Insightful Stakeholder Management Strategies

It is the responsibility of the project manager and the project team members to identify the associate stakeholders, determining their expectation and requirements as well. For the successful completion of this project also accurate stakeholders register is needed to be prepared.  The details of the stakeholder management plan are illustrated in the below section.

Stakeholder Name	Document Name	Document Format	Contact Person	Due Date
Josh Lee	Project Charter	Report	Project Manager	12/08/18
Amanda Jones	Design Template	Template	IT Engineer	12/08/18
Christie Nicolson	Resource Management Document	Template	HR manager	12/08/18
Laurie Keith	Project Charter	Report	Project Manager	12/08/18

The goal of this section is to design a useful project framework to understand and satisfy the stakeholders. If the stakeholders are being satisfied then the publishing house and the author both will gain huge commercial revenue. For successful communication and influencing the stakeholders many techniques are available among them the most suitable one has to be nominated. Besides the stakeholder management a risk management is another tool that is widely used by the project team members for identifying the issues and developing the relevant management strategies.

	Stakeholder 1	Stakeholder 2	Stakeholder 3
Organization	NA	NA	NA
Role on project	To complete the book writing and publish it within estimated time	To give proper support social and environmental support while developing the project	To take all necessary actions while launching the book
Unique facts about stakeholder	Internal	Internal	External
Level of interest	High	Low	High
Level of influence	High	High	Low
Suggestions on managing relationships	Determining the expectation of the consumers and based on that strategies will be developed	Long term sustainable continuous management strategies for the stakeholders are developed.	In this activity the managers should identify the stakeholders

Project communication management include different processes those require ensuring timely as well as appropriate planning, gathering, creation, distribution, storing, retrieval, control, monitoring etc. While managing any project the three process follows are plan communication management, manage communication and control communication.

Benefits of Communication

Drawbacks of Communication

Help to manage the project implementation: In order to accomplish the project within estimated time and cost proper control over the project is very important. Build employee morale: Effective communication develops the employee morale in the control period so that they can play prominent role to improve relationship. Reduce internal conflict: The project objectives will become clearer to the project manager and team members at the same time the intra-organizational and inter-organizational conflict will also be reduced. Increases creativity: The overall productivity from the project developer’s end will also increase. Team building: Effective communication helps to build project team which causes improved productivity.

Time Consuming-Dependent: The communication exhausts time and is dependent on the time taken for communication. Requires Experience: The communication medium selected would be dependent on the experience of the person taking part in communication

However, the benefits of the communication surpass the drawback of it. Communication is not important in the planning phase but also in control phase the importance of communication is very much significant. Most of the times of the project managers are spent communicating with their project stakeholders and team members. Accurate communication can establish a bridge like connection between the project head and the stakeholders.

Prepared by: <Please fill> Date: <7/4/2018-11/22/2018> Project Name: Writing a Book Project Sponsor: <Please fill> Project Manager: <Please fill> Project Dates: <7/4/2018-11/22/2018> Final Budget: Total budget of the project is  $23,248

1. Did the project meet scope, time, and cost goals? It is learned that if proper project details are deployed and accommodated within the necessary sectors then the project manager will be able to complete any project within estimated budget and time. For this specific project the time, cost and scope that were estimated at the early stage have meet the objectives at the end of the project completion phase.   2. What was the success criteria listed in the project scope statement? · Proper decision making for managing changes · Accurate schedule with an achievable delivery dates · Lesser scope creep · Effective coordination with subcontractors and suppliers · Effective project control and progress over communication · Availability of proper resources 3. Reflect on whether or not you met the project success criteria. I think that the project budget, scope and time that has been estimated for the “writing a book” project has meet the project objectives and goal as well. In addition to this it has also meet the project success criteria considering the project resources, effective communication, stakeholder management plan, subcontractors and suppliers as well. Apart from this, the early start, early finish, late start and late finish time details are also considered for this specific project. I think there is no such difference between the p actual project expense and the planned project expense. Proper availability of the resources is other useful thing that helps me to meet the project success criteria accordingly.   4. In terms of managing the project, what were the main lessons your team learned? While managing project the main thing that I think both the project manager and the project team members needs to keep in mind is communication strategy. In proper communication strategy is being followed by the project team members then knowledge and skill sharing among the team members, intra organizational conflict related issues will be resolved.   5. Describe one example of what went right on this project. Support from the project team members is the main example for this project which is implied a correct thing during the development of the project. 6. Describe one example of what went wrong on this project. I think that time is the wrong thing which interrupted the project details. 7. What will you do differently on the next project based on your experience working on this project? From the experiences gained from this specific project for the very next project I think the main thing on which I will focus is the project goal specification and project objectives. At the initial phase I will set the project gaol and based on the knowledge and skills I will hire and form the project team. It is expected of these things are done properly the I will be able to meet the project objectives within estimated time and budget.

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Building Project Teams andManaging Employee Morale

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