University Relocation Project Management Plan Essay.

 Describe about the University Relocation Project Management Plan?.

Huge Baird University is based in Balliol Road Bootle. However, the location has high operating and administrative costs. Moreover, the University has a plan to improve its services through introduction of technological solutions that can enable university in providing better educational service to students and manage the campus activities more efficiently. Thus, the top management has decided to shift its location to a cheaper place after selling existing location which would save them some money that can be used up for incorporating their strategic plans. The project is planned to take 5 months starting in end of May 2016 and closing in 1st week of October 2016. 5 out of 10 people who would be involved in the project would be taken from the staff and 5 more would be hired from outside through the help of HR consultants.

This project has three objectives to accomplish and these include sale of the existing campus area of Huge Baird University, construction of a new premises for operation of university in Knowsley and re-location of all assets and human resources of the university to this new location. The project would begin with the plan of construction of the new premises for which a plan would be made for hiring of contractors and other staff for the development. Subsequently during the development of the new premises, the old premises would be sold off when the construction is nearing completion such that as soon as the construction of the new site is complete, the site has already been disposed of and is ready for making the shift of assets and people of the organization.

For the success of the project, the plan for development of new premises would start first such that the project manager has the fair idea of the investments that are required. The sale of the old premises would be planned according to these expenses in such a way that the money obtained would be utilized for construction and for building of additional technology infrastructure for the new campus of the college. This approach would ensure that the organization does not make any losses and is able to cater to all the needs of the university establishment and at the same time save money for operating the business after relocation.

Any major decisions related to working of the organization, including the relocation, are taken by a board of Directors. The sponsor of the project would be providing finance for the project and thus, would have the authority to get reporting on financial implications of the project on the University. The Principal is the key manager of college facilities and he has hired me as a Project Manager so I would be reporting to him. Internal departments that are the stakeholders of the project would be directly reporting to principal while 10 people chosen and hired for managing project would be reporting to Project manager.

Organizational Breakdown Structure

Project oversight is an independent review that is conducted in order to understand how the project is proceeding and if it is on track and would be completed within estimated cost and schedule. Oversight involves identification of any probable risks and planning of mitigation measures in the case of occurrence of risks such that the project schedule is not severely affected and the project expenses remain within budget. Oversights involves complete monitoring of all aspects of the project for which various functions of project management framework can be used including scope management, risk management, scheduling, issue management, budgeting, and compliance check for rules, regulations, standards and policies. To manage the project oversight for the university relocation project, the project would involve - establishing of a scope with the use of scope statements and project charter; clarification of deliverables that would be detailed in a Work Breakdown Structure;  explanation of how the monitoring of project would be done through establishing of organisational structure and assignment of roles to project team with planning of communication with stakeholders; Controlling of risks through the use of risk management plan that would be used in practice with recording of risks occurring in a risk register and so on.

Contracts are the agreements made between two parties that demand an obligation that has to be completed by one party while the other pays the party for the same after successful completion of all required tasks. While contractor is the prime recipient of the payment, actual work may not be done by the contractor in some cases and another contractor in the form of sub-contractor would be involved. Thus understanding of contracting and subcontracting duties becomes essential to be able to run a project smoothly.

Sub-contract agreements are influenced by the main contract arrangements. It involves development of statement of work that defines project goals that are proposed by the sponsor of the project. On the current relocation project, contract agreements would be made with main contractors and the responsibility of deciding on what part of work has to be sub-contracted would be left on the contractor. Contractor would also be responsible for selecting and hiring sub-contractors and thereafter monitoring sub-contractors for their compliance with rules, regulations, and performance requirements for which a surveillance plan would be made by the contractor (Kakande, 2014).

From the side of the University who is the main employer of the contractor, a prime contractor surveillance plan would be made that would involve documentation of compliance requirements, critical work processes, deliverables, schedules, and costs.

WBS Code	Task
0	University Re-location
1	Project Initiation
1.1	Project Management
1.1.1	Project Planning
1.1.2	Budgeting
1.1.3	Scheduling
1.1.4	Procurement
2	Project Planning
2.1	Requirements Identification
2.1.1	New University Requirements
2.1.1.1	Analysis of Student’s residence location
2.1.1.2	Physical Structure of Building
2.1.2	Project Risk & Constraints
2.1.3	University Staffing Plan
2.2	New Site Selection
2.2.1	Facility Contract
2.2.2	Facility Agreement
2.2.3	Sale of existing Building
3	Project Execution
3.1	New Campus Infrastructure Design
3.1.1.1.1	Computer Lab
3.1.1.1.2	Science Lab
3.1.1.1.3	Staff rooms
3.1.1.1.4	Boardroom
3.1.1.1.5	Meeting rooms
3.1.1.1.6	Staff Cubicles
3.1.1.1.7	Reception
3.1.1.1.8	Open Areas
3.1.1.1.9	Principal Cabin
3.1.1.1.10	Washrooms & Toiletries
3.1.1.2.1	Garden
3.1.1.2.2	Parking Space
3.1.2.1	Electric implementations
3.1.2.2	Flooring
3.1.2.3	Building Walls and Partitions
3.1.2.4	Furnishing
3.1.2.5	Fittings
3.1.3.1	Networking Requirements
3.1.3.1.1	Cables
3.1.3.1.2	Electrical equipment’s
3.1.3.2	Voice Network
3.1.3.2.1	Cables
3.1.4.1	Card Access for Staff
3.1.4.2	Personnel & equipment Physical Security
3.2	Construction
3.2.1	Construction permits
3.2.2	Bidding for Vendor selection
3.2.2.1	Invitation and Selection - Contractor
3.2.2.2	Contracts & Agreements with chosen contractors
3.2.3	Utilities
3.2.3.1	Account Creation
3.2.3.2	Account Activation
3.2.4	Interior Designing & Construction
3.2.5	Exterior Building Construction
3.2.6	Security measures at construction
3.2.6.1	Protective Equipment (PE) for labor
3.2.6.2	Boundaries & Warning Signage’s for Public Security
3.3	IT Networking Infrastructure
3.3.1	Bidding Process
3.3.1.1	Selection of Vendors
3.3.1.2	Contract development
3.3.2	Equipment Purchase
3.3.2.1	Vendor Selection
3.3.2.2	Contract development
3.3.3	Cabling
3.3.4	Internet provision in campus
3.3.5	Telephone system establishment
3.3.6	Implementation of new equipment’s
3.4	Interior development
3.4.1	Painting
3.4.2	Flooring
3.4.3	Furnishings and Fittings
3.4.3.1	Vendor Bidding and Selection
3.4.3.2	Contract negotiation and development
3.4.4	Equipment and facilities Installation
3.5	Project Quality Management
3.5.1	Compliance Check
3.5.1.1	Construction
3.5.1.2	Electrical
3.5.2	Building Occupancy Certificates
3.6	Sale of Existing Location
3.6.1	Invitation for bidding
3.6.2	Sale of university building
3.6.2.1	Estimation
3.6.2.2	Selection of purchaser
3.6.2.3	Cleaning of building
3.6.2.4	Ownership transfer paper work
3.6.2.5	Disposal of Building
3.7	Re-Location
3.7.1	Purchase of Packing Materials
3.7.2	Relocation of Facility
3.7.2.1	Cost Estimation
3.7.2.2	Vendor Selection
3.7.2.3	Insurance
3.7.3	Staff & Equipment’s Packing
3.7.3.1	Papers
3.7.3.2	Equipment’s and machines
3.7.3.3	Networking Hardware
3.8	New Set-up
3.8.1	Cleaning Facility
3.8.2	Staff Unpacking
3.8.2.1	Unpacking of PC & Networking Equipment’s
3.8.3	Packing Materials Disposal
3.9	New Campus Maintenance
3.9.1	Housekeeping establishing
3.9.2	Insurance
3.9.3	Sanitation Services Provision
3.1	University Marketing
3.10.1	Notification for Change of Address to
3.10.1.1	Students
3.10.1.2	Parents
3.10.1.3	Media – Print
3.10.1.4	Website – Content Modification
3.10.2	New Business Cards Printing for Staff
3.10.3	Creation of Letterheads and office Materials with new address
4	Project Closure
4.1	Releasing temporary resources
4.2	Prepare Project Closure Report
4.3	Close contracts and pay all vendors

Project Oversight

The understanding of quality requirements  and performance standards of the project is essential as they would help the stakeholders review the progress of the project which would be done against these quality and performance requirements such that any deviation can send an alert to the stakeholder such that appropriate decisions can be taken before a problem can go worse.

Some performance metrics would be used for the assessment of the performance of the project of relocation of university in this case. These include Schedule and cost variance.

Schedule Variance (SV) = Earned Value (EV) – Planned Value (PV)

PV = work planned to be finished in specific duration in terms of budget

EV = Work actually finished in specific duration in terms of budget

This SV would be targeted to remain positive which would reflect that the project is ahead of schedule. The moment it would go negative, the project would be delayed against the planned schedule. Thus, in order to have a control over the schedule, whenever project manager finds this value going closure to zero, appropriate actions would be taken to speeding up the remaining work or resolve issues that may be causing delays.

Cost Variance (CV) = EV – AC

AC – Actual Costs

If the cost variance is positive, the project is well maintained within budget but if these values go negative, the project has overshot the budget. When the project manager sees the CV going close to zero, provisions have to be made to get approvals for extra budget as this would indicate requirement of the extra cash for the project to continue. However, the project would be considered successful from the project management perspective only when this value does not go negative and the manager is able to control the costs below budget.

Costs would be incurred on project management, construction, furnishing and shifting as highlighted in the structures below:

(Failner & Tyrrell, 2014)

The total estimated cost of project would be £29,042,166. Over this a 10% contingency cost would be added for emergencies and the total budget would be £31,946,382.

In the initial stages of the project, the old premises would be sold so that cash can be generated for the management of project of construction and relocation of the university assets. As the total expenses including contingency costs are coming out to be £31,946,382, the premises would be sold with aim to receive some profit over these expenses and the target would be sell the same for £41,000,000 which would leave the company with a cash of £ 946,382 that can be used for operating processes of the university and for marketing of the new premises. The flow of cash during the first six months after the start of the imitation stage of the project is detailed below:

Sub-contractor arrangements

Initiation

This stage involves an understanding of feasibility and viability of the project from the perspective of business of the University. For this, a project scope statement is written and preliminary project charter is prepared. This stage would take one week to finish and would be completed at the starting week of the project.

Project Scope: Re-locate the existing University facility from Balliol Road Bootle to Knowlsey.

Preliminary Charter:

Business Need:

Development of technology infrastructure that supports the management plan for enhancing services

Attain some profits from the sale of old location and utilize the savings for improving University facilities

Reduce the operating costs of the University in the new location

Project Description:

Complete the relocation of facility within the allotted time

Monitor, manage and coordinate activities required for completion of project

Hire contractors for construction, networking, and relocation and ensure that their required deliveries are obtained as per schedule

Identify potential risks on project and establish a response plan

Benefits:

Improved technological capabilities and facilities at the University

Achieve savings from old property sale that would allow college to invest on facility improvement

Allow university to reach out to more students staying in locations near to Knowlesky

Improve facilities in University such that more students can be attracted to the college

Key Deliverables:

Sale of old property at price that fetches enough profits to accommodate planned improvements

Cleaning of old as well as the new property and disposal of wastes generated

Re-location of all assets belonging to University such as IT, stationery, and other materials

Construction and furnishing at the new location

Implementation of networking and electric systems in the new location

Shifting of internal staff to new location

Communicate the action plan for relocation to all stakeholders

Establish a plan for communicating with key stakeholders during the progress of the project

Planning

In this stage, all essential elements and aspects of chosen project are documented in a project management plan which includes incorporation of scope statement, WBS, Project Schedule, Cost breakdown structure, Responsibility assignment Matrix, Communication Management plan, Risk management plan, and Change controls. This stage is the major part of the project and every subsequent stage would depend on it and thus, a significant 10 days of time would be allotted to planning of the project after it has been initiated and approved by stakeholders and sponsor for the start.

Scope Statement: Sell the old building at Balliol Road Bootle and use the money obtained for the construction of Knowlsey and re-locate all the assets of the University from old building to new location.

Deliverables	PM	Admin	Contractors	Staff	IT	Finance	Legal
New building Permits	I	R	R	R	I	I	R
Project Progress Reporting	R	I	I	I	I	I	I
Packing & Shifting for relocation	R	ACI	R	I	I	I	I
Construction	R	ACI	R	I	I	I	I
Staff  movement	R	ACI	R	I	I	I	I
Facility Cleaning	R	ACI	R	I	I	I	I
IT infrastructure	R	ACI		I	R	I	I
Furnishing & Fittings	R	ACI	R	I	I	R	I

Work Breakdown Structure

Project execution will be observed by utilizing a progress report that will be updated and provided to the top-level management, on a monthly basis, by the manager of the project. This will be beneficial in establishment of control over the processes of the project. The outputs of project management during this stage will comprise of change management and status reports. This stage comes after the planning is complete and involves execution of all the activities are planned. This will go on for four months from the end of the month of May till the end of the September.

This will be project’s end stage. In this stage, the project will be operationally finished and will be provided to the users – college staff and management. The manager of the project will provide a final report of project management with the knowledge gained and an approval will be obtained from the benefactor for the Official Closure and Hand-Off. This stage comes after all required activities of the project are successfully completed. All activities are then wrapped up, formalities are completed and an official project closure report is submitted to the top management for final sign-off. This stage would last only for 5 days that would be accommodated from the last week of Sept to first week of October month. By 4^th of October, the final report would be approved by the top management. The timelines involved in all the stages of the project closure are given in the table below: 

Task Name	Duration (No. of days)	Beginning	End
University Re-location	96	24/05/16 – Tuesday	04/10/16 – Tuesday
Start	8	24/05/16 – Tuesday	02/06/16 – Thursday
Plan	10	03/06/16 – Friday	16/06/16 – Thursday
Execution	77	17/06/16 – Friday	03/10/16 – Monday
End	1	04/10/16 - Tuesday	04/10/16 – Tuesday

For the management of risks, first the risks would be identified and reviewed by project team and then mitigation plans would be generated. People who would be involved in risk management process include originator of the risk who could be anyone foreseeing the risk on the project from the team, project manager who would be responsible for recording and making plans for mitigation of risks, project team who would be executing the risk mitigation plans and the sponsor who would be making provisions for risk mitigation in case of their occurrence. All these processes would be primarily managed by Project manager who would be responsible for:

Receiving information about identifies risks from the team

Recording and assigning priorities to each risks for taking decisions in case of their occurrence

Reviewing all identified and occurring risks during the progress of project

Identifying risks that need changes to be made in scope, budget or schedule and communicating the same to sponsors using an appropriate reporting procedure and ensure that provisions are approved by the sponsor for risk resolution

Approve already planned mitigation actions in case of risk occurrence

Close risks that do not impact the project any more 

Risks Identified	Trigger	Impact and Probability	Plan for Risk Response
Re-allocation of employees cannot be performed according to schedule	Material for packing is insufficient. Unpredictable action need to be performed and can’t be evaded	Medium, High Low, High	Avoid – Hire packers and movers for assessment of packing requirements Mitigate – Full actions with minimum resources utilized within minimum probable time.
Setup of new location cannot be performed as per schedule	Legal interruptions while obtaining approvals. Interruptions caused due to inappropriate co-ordination of IT infrastructure setup Unpredicted delay during construction	Medium, High High, High Low, High	Avoid – Get legal department to obtain approvals. Mitigate – Establishment of processes of communication during project progress. Mitigate – Completion of work as quickly as possible.
Movers and packers cannot complete work as per schedule	Delays in contract approval. Disadvantageous conditions of weather not permitting movement.	Medium, Medium Low, Medium	Avoid – Have prior planning of contracts. Mitigate – Reduction of damage impact.
Furniture costs increased	Additional employees need to be recruited for management of activities. Clarity lacking on movement actions	Low, Medium Low, Medium	Avoid – Advance planning for HR Avoid – Have proper plan with all actions explained in details.
IT infrastructure costs increased	Unplanned foundation needed Improper building blueprint needs changes. IT foundation planning was inadequate.	Low, High Low, High Low, High	Avoid all possible actions in all cases.
Enhanced employee turnover because of shift in location	Improper comprehension of project impacts. Other universities looking to recruit employees	Low, High Medium, Medium	Avoid Mitigate – Establishment of measures of retention
Additional employees need to be recruited	Unpredictable actions taking place due to project work	Low, High	Mitigate
Unpredicted modifications to building blueprint	For incorporation of fresh employees, plan required changes. Incomplete building blueprint created from start	Low, High Low, High	Avoid Avoid
Injuries and accidents	Proper utilization of protective equipment by workers absent. Pedestrians getting hurt due to construction.	Medium, High Medium, High	Avoid – Establishment of appropriate policies of security. Mitigate
Equipment damage	Damaged during transport	Medium, High	Mitigate
Furniture Damage	Damaged during transport or due to manhandling	Medium, High	Mitigate
Workers went on strike	Movers call unpredicted strike	Low, High	Mitigate – Hire other contractors.

A communication plan would specify how the information generated on the project would be communicated to these stakeholders and what information would be provided to them. A communication plan contains information on various stakeholder groups or individuals, communication concepts, purpose of communication, who would be communicating, methods used for communication and the frequency with which the communication would reach stakeholders.

The first step would be to identify who are key stakeholders and this can be done by using a power interest grid which classifies various stakeholders of a project into four major groups that include stakeholder with high interest and high power, those with high interest and low power, high power but least interest and those with low level of interest with minimal power.

Power/Interest Grid
Power	High	Require Satisfaction Board of Directors Operations Sponsors	Major Players Finance Department Admin Department Principal
	Low	Minimum effort School Council Local public Counsellors Secretary	Keep Informed HR Consultant Project Manager Students College Staff Contractors and labour Target students
		Low	High
		Interest

The identified stakeholders would be managed through communicating progress of project with them through specific modes of communication with specific objectives and at desired rate of frequencies as tabulated below:

Action	Target	Objective	Frequency	Process
Commencement Meeting	Every partners	Collection of information	Project pre-initiation	Meeting
Project Plan Allocation	Every partners	Alert partners regarding project scope and goals	Initiation assembly	E-mail
Project Initiation	Every partners	Inform regarding responsibilities and plans of project	While project initiation	Meeting
Meeting	Project briefing assembly and particularizing with all stakeholders	Detailed analysis of project	Normally	Assembly
Project Completion	Head, partners, and managers of project	Identification of major lessons learnt, and enhancements	After project completion	Statements/Assembly

Prior to project initiation, a preliminary meeting will be performed. The meeting will proceed with participation from all the members. A preliminary baseline will be created during the project’s assembly. The project’s progress’s control measures will be the baseline. Additionally, one additional meeting will be performed, along with the partners, and this consists of – 

Meeting	Agenda	Frequency	Duration (mins)
Between manager of project and team	Outline and highlight evaluation	7-day basis	10
Project team members	Outline of schedule and work proficiency	Regularly	05
Guarantor and director of project	Assessment of project development	30-day basis	20
Guarantor and director of project	Deliberations regarding major problems which provides the stamina to move forward and the need to participate of top-level management for creation of conclusion	As per requirement	20

Stakeholder engagement involves communication about project progress to key stakeholders of the university in a systematic and organized manner. The communication would be received in the forms of meetings or reports specifying how their specific needs and expectations are being met during the progress of the project. For this to happen, stakeholders have to be involved at the initial stage of the planning itself so that their needs can be understand and according to same, a project plan may be created.

The communication plan presented in the previous section explains the methods that would be used for engaging stakeholders on the project. However, it is also important for the project manager to understand how effective the communication plan on the project is. To understand this, monitoring of project engagement is also required which can be done by certain mechanisms such as maintenance of stakeholder analysis register, establishing scope management plan, and so on. A stakeholder analysis register would be maintained for this project in which summaries of each meeting with the stakeholders would be documented and any recommended modifications in the scope or project plan would be highlighted such that a track can be kept on whether the stakeholders needs are understood and their suggestions are been incorporated.

Conclusions and Recommendations

This report was prepared to understand the use of project management methodologies and evaluate how the choice of methodology and design of project impacts the trade-offs between time and costs. The objective was to apply project management methodology to a real business situation and explore how the principles can be utilized for development of a project plan. The case of a re-location of university was considered and a project plan was created for the same. This plan had a scope of sale of the existing premises, acquisition and construction of new premises and shifting of all assets from previous location to the newly established location. The report covered various activities that would be involved in managing this project of relocation. This included understanding of project organization, creation of a WBS, exploring of key phases of projects, development of plan for communication, risk management, scope management and control.

The project’s key deliverables are –

Plan for project management for university re-location.

Licenses for all necessary inventories.

Management of vendors.

University re-location needs to be performed by the October, 2016, first week end.

The report of the project will encompass most of the project management domain; however, it needs to be detailed since it is concerned with the scenario of re-location. The plan of project needs to cover the change management processes. If a modification is needed in the requirements, then, the approvals need to be performed by the proper processes. When re-location of university is performed, then, some staff or teachers might have to tackle travelling problems. Thus, the management needs to offer cabs or vans for pick-up and drop-off. Re-location might tackle numerous problems from the staff, too. There might conflict-of-interest. Thus, it is the project manager’s responsibility to handle these problems and provide solutions. Specific recommendations that can be made for this relocation project from the perspective of understanding of the application of project management principles in practice include:

While WBS defines all the work packages required to be finished in the plan, nothing can remain certain and changes may be required while the project progresses which can affect the performance of the project if sufficient modifications are not made in the plan and thus, planning should not be assumed as a onetime process but a continues one such that after every milestone achievement, the required modifications must be made in the project plan

The project can only attain objectives within its constraints if it is loosely monitored against the set performance parameters and thus, the project manager must keep a tab on the cost and schedule variance and communicate any probability of reaching negative variances beforehand such that any problems causing these variances can be resolved to avoid failure of the project

Although a 10% contingency budget has been set but when the project performance is measures, it should be done on the figure reducing budget by 10% such that it can be ensured that contingency budget does not get exhausted in regular work but is only obtained in case of dire emergencies on the project

Monitoring of risks is an ongoing process but identification of risks is often considered as a onetime process. However, it should also remain updated such that any new risks not listed in the risk register are recorded on the project and immediate mitigation steps are taken as well as documented.

Lessons learned from the project including additional risks observed, reasons causing variations, etc. must be documented for the future use of any similar projects by the organization or the project manager.

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