School of Minerals and Energy Resources Engineering

GSOE9820 Assignment Tasks 1-3

Purpose

The project management plan (PMP) includes all the information required to successfully manage your project to completion. It documents the careful planning work done by the project team before the project enters the execution phase. It is the project team’s description of how they are going to manage the project to achieve its objectives, within its constraints. One way to think about the PMP is to imagine your team is moved to another, higher priority project and your recently completed PMP document is given to the new team. Will they be able to manage your project to completion using your PMP?

In a professional setting, a PMP may vary between enormous, multiple volume guides for example in large infrastructure, or defence procurement projects, to a simple 2-page project brief for a quick internal project in asmall workplace. In any case, creating some variation of a PMP is ubiquitous in industry, and an important piece of experience to take with you from this course.

Skills

In this assignment you will show that you can perform. the first four course learning outcomes (CLOs), which are:

1.  Translate organisational objectives to project deliverables

2.   Formulate project scope

3.   Select and apply project management methods

4.   Integrate and justify project plans

Refer to the learning outcomes document for more information on these.

Knowledge

This assignment will also help you to become familiar with the following important content in this discipline:

The Project Charter                   Risk mitigation                   Change management

Budgeting                                 Project scope

Stakeholder management           Design Thinking

Scheduling                                Teamwork

Risk management                       Resource management

Project integration                      Communications

Human Resources                       management

The PMBOK Guide                       Procurement

Estimating cost and time              Requirements definition

Contingency planning                  Planning for opportunity

Task 1-Scope Definition

Instructions

Carefully read the project brief that you have chosen to work on. It gives a general description of the  objectives of your project, but it may not say how these are going to be achieved, or what exactly the project will deliver in order to provide a solution.

Consider what your project will need to do to fulfill its objectives and to realise the supposed benefits. What are its major deliverables? What smaller deliverables constitute these major deliverables? What  other work is going to be necessary to make sure the project is a success, and what are the tangible outcomes of this extra work?

Review the lecture content, especially the week 1 and 2 Scope slides.  Read PMBOK (6th  Ed.) Sec. 4.1.3, Sec. 5.3.3.1 and Sec. 5.4.

1.   Write a statement that defines the purpose of your project in under 30 words.

2.   Draw a work breakdown structure (WBS) diagram that shows the major deliverables of your project and decomposes each of these down to the work package level.

3.   Write a scope statement for your project in under 100 words.

Hand in your WBS diagram and project purpose/scope statements by the deadline.

Task 2 - PMP Components

Instructions

For Task 2, develop the (PMP) for the same project you described in Task 1, while demonstrating the application of PM Methods.

Structure your PMP according to the PMBOK guide Sec. 4.2.3.1.

Add an introduction section to your PMP that demonstrates a direct link between the project benefits, its major deliverables, stakeholders, and the strategic objectives of the client organisation.

Include baselines and management plans for the five PM knowledge areas covered by the C3PE methodology shown in week 1, which are the management of Stakeholders, Scope, Risk, Schedule, and Cost.

To further strengthen your plan, include two further PMBOK knowledge areas. Communications and  Resources management are covered briefly in the lectures. You can alternatively spend some further time researching other knowledge areas, represented by the PMBOK chapters, on your own or with your group.

To demonstrate your application of the PM knowledge areas, you can include content in your subsidiary management plans that relate to the following categories:

1. Baselines

Results of work done by your team, to develop the plan. This is the most direct and simplest kind of work to include because it forms your actual baseline project plan. E.g., your project baseline schedule, project risk register and baseline budget would be examples of this.

2. Methods

Descriptions of PM methods used by your team, to develop the project plan. E.g., describe how you analysed stakeholders, how you decomposed the WBS, or how you ranked risks and opportunities for your project. While these accounts are not your actual plan, they show how you have applied PM methods, and why you selected them.

3. Plans

Guides to how to manage the project - for your team, or the PM who executes the project if this is not you to successfully complete the project. E.g., describe how the project team should continue to iterate scope, elicit requirements from stakeholders or continue to develop the project plans. How should they evaluate progress and closeout the deliverables? This category shows what management tasks will need to be continued after the start of project execution and shows that you understand what this work is.

Task 2 - Wk 6 Individual Progress Check Presentation

In the week 6 meeting with demonstrators, student teams are requested to present an overview of all   parts of their PMP project, in which each team member will spend one minute to show and summarise the work that they have completed for the PMP. This activity is provided as an opportunity for students to receive final guidance on how to improve integration between different parts in their PMP assignment.

Crucially, the group presentation also gives demonstrators a clear overview of the contribution of different team members, and this insight becomes apart of the grading of the PMP assignment. For this reason, full participation is strongly recommended for everyone in the team. This will happen during your tutorial session and attendance will be recorded.

Task 3 - PMP Integration (interview assessed)

Change

After you hand in Task 2, you will be asked to make a change to your PMP. The requested change may be tailored to your project and so it is not possible to list all possible options for change in advance. By way of example, this change could include, but is not limited to, the following possibilities:

•    Changes in the budget

•    Changes to scope

•    Changes to assumptions and risks

Integration

Review and update your PMP, with a particular focus on implementation of your change request and full integration between the different parts of the plan. You may change the PMP as much as you like. See the references to the PMBOK Guide for the definition of project integration [1]. To quickly get a good understanding of integration, consider that when reading through a PMP displaying excellent integration, you should be able to say ‘yes’ to the following questions:

1.  Have all the work packages (the lowest level of the WBS) been costed? are they all in the schedule? Are they in the budget?

2.  Can the risks be traced to actual WBS and schedule items?

3.  Can you trace the risks to the stakeholders, or to other project items?

4. Are the risk mitigation and contingency strategies comprehensive, properly costed, estimated for scheduling, and included in the budget and schedule?

5.  If you've said you will do something in the resourcing plan, does it appear in the budget and the schedule?

You must hand in your updated PMP before your interview. The updated PMP change will not be graded as a separate assignment, but this document will be referred to by the assessor in your interview and you will need to be able to answer questions about its content.