ASSIGNMENT ON PROJECT MANAGEMENT

Q 1: What are the various characteristics of a project?

What is the importance of each characteristic? Give
examples?
Answer:
It is well known to all that the organizations continue to grow year by year. As there is a
need to grow it becomes necessary for a growing organization to resort to proper growth
plan. The plan needs to be properly prepared. It is possible to prepare proper plans only if
the manager has sufficient knowledge of the various process of the project envisage for
growth. The manager has to work on the various life cycle stages and apply necessary
planning tools to come out with a proper growth plan of the company. The various
techniques of identifying the project items, work break down structure of the project, task
duration, estimation etc are to be done meticulously.

Characteristics

Any project may be considered to have the following characteristics:

a) Resource requirement - During the course of executing the project, it is seen that
the resource requirement increases from start to an intermediate stage of the project.
It further increases at rapid rate and becomes constant while the project is during its
80 to 95% progress stage. Thereafter the resources requirement decreases to zero i.e.
when the project comes to a finish.

b) Funds - The requirement of funds for the completes execution of the project also
follows the same trend as that of the resources. The two are more or less
proportional.

c) Probability of completion - The probability of completing the project can be

estimated based upon the normal distribution curve. In the initial stage of the project
the probability of completing the project is low though not zero. It gradually
increases and as the project approaches finish the probability of completing the
project tends to become 100%.

d) Risk - The risks involved in the project affecting its completion time is high at the
initial stages and low at the later stages of the project.

e) Design changes - The project during the course of its progress may be subjected to
changes because of some external factors. The influence of such external factors on

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the project may result in changes in the design f the project though not very often. It
is observed that such changes if any are normally high during the initial stages of
the project and decreases as the project approaches finish.

Q 2: State the principles of Deming’s Philosophy relevant to

Project Management. Explain how each one is applicable in
management?
Answer:
Dr. Deming's teachings and philosophy can be seen through the results they produced when
they were adopted by the Japanese, as the following example shows: Ford Motor Company
was simultaneously manufacturing a car model with transmissions made in Japan and the
United States. Soon after the car model was on the market, Ford customers were requesting
the model with Japanese transmission over the USA-made transmission, and they were
willing to wait for the Japanese model. As both transmissions were made to the same
specifications, Ford engineers could not understand the customer preference for the model
with Japanese transmission. It delivered smoother performance with a lower defect rate.
Finally, Ford engineers decided to take apart the two different transmissions. The
American-made car parts were all within specified tolerance levels. On the other hand, the
Japanese car parts had much closer tolerances than the USA-made parts - i.e. if a part was
supposed to be one foot long, plus or minus 1/8 of an inch - then the Japanese parts were
within 1/16 of an inch. This made the Japanese cars run more smoothly and customers
experienced fewer problems. Deming offers a theory of management based on his famous
14 Points for Management. Management's failure to plan for the future brings about loss of
market, which brings about loss of jobs. Management must be judged not only by the
quarterly dividend, but by innovative plans to stay in business, protect investment, ensure
future dividends, and provide more jobs through improved products and services. "Long-
term commitment to new learning and new philosophy is required of any management that
seeks
Transformation. The timid and the fainthearted, and the people that expect quick results, are
doomed to disappointment."

Deming philosophy synopsis

The philosophy of W. Edwards Deming has been summarized as follows:

"Dr. W. Edwards Deming taught that by adopting appropriate principles of management,
organizations can increase quality and simultaneously reduce costs (by reducing waste,
rework, staff attrition and litigation while increasing customer loyalty). The key is to
practice continual improvement and think of manufacturing as a system, not as bits and
pieces." In the 1970s, Dr. Deming's philosophy was summarized by some of his Japanese proponents with
the following 'a'-versus-'b' comparison:

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• When people and organizations focus primarily on quality, defined by the following
ratio, quality tends to increase and costs fall over time.
• However, when people and organizations focus primarily on costs, costs tend to rise
and quality declines over time.
• Deming offered fourteen key principles for management for transforming business
effectiveness.

 Deming’s 14 Points for Management:

 Create constancy of purpose toward improvement of product and service, with the
aim to become competitive and stay in business, and to provide jobs.
 Adopt the new philosophy. We are in a new economic age. Western management
must awaken to the challenge, must learn their responsibilities, and take on
leadership for change.
 Cease dependence on inspection to achieve quality. Eliminate the need for
inspection on a mass basis by building quality into the product in the first place.
 End the practice of awarding business on the basis of price tag. Instead, minimize
total cost. Move towards a single supplier for any one item, on a long term
relationship of loyalty and trust.
 Improve constantly and forever the system of production and service, to improve
quality and productivity, and thus constantly decrease cost.
 Institute training on the job.
 Institute leadership. The aim of supervision should be to help people and machines
and gadgets to do a better job. Supervision of management is in need of overhaul, as
well as supervision of production workers.
 Drive out fear, so that everyone may work effectively for the company.
 Break down barriers between departments. People in research, design, sales, and
production must work as a team, to foresee problems of production and in use that
may be encountered with the product or service.
 Eliminate slogans, exhortations, and targets for the work force asking for zero
defects and new levels of productivity. Such exhortations only create adversarial
relationships, as the bulk of the causes of low quality and low productivity belong to
the system and thus lie beyond the power of the work force.
 Eliminate work standards (quotas) on the factory floor. Substitute leadership.
Eliminate management by objective. Eliminate management by numbers, numerical
goals. Substitute workmanship.
 Remove barriers that rob the hourly worker of his right to pride of workmanship.
The responsibility of supervisors must be changed from sheer numbers to quality.
Remove barriers that rob people in management and in engineering of their right to

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pride of workmanship. This means, inter alia, abolishment of the annual or merit
rating and of management by objective.
 Institute a vigorous program of education and self-improvement.
 Put everyone in the company to work to accomplish the transformation. The
transformation is everyone's work.

Q 3: Explain the concept of concurrency in High

Technology Development?

Answer:

 Concurrency in High Technology

Development:
As the application of technology has become critical for the survival of organization it has
become imperative for organizations to initiate measures for the development of high technology to
be ahead of competition. No doubt, there are many specialized Research and Development firms
which offer their expertise to their clients’ problems. However, their services are available to the
competitors and many technologies developed by the company’s own research personnel cannot be
shared with outsiders. So the strategy would be utilize the services of external resource to the extent
they are suitable for our purpose, but with a strong base of R and D of our own. This will really
differentiate the best companies from other ordinary ones. The following give some guidelines in
the form of rules which would help organization to be strong in this area.

Building concurrency into every activity is essential to reduce the development cycle time
and to counter the technology obsolescence. Many of the tasks that are normally done in a serial
fashion can be done in parallel by synchronizing the flow of information. The practices of the
concurrent engineering where the design of the product and all its associated processes are carried
out simultaneously based on team work and participation. Would not only help in reducing the
development cycle time, but also improves the product functionality with regard to requirements.
Concurrency can be accomplished in many ways both for product development as well as
technology transfer, user evaluation and production. Example - Tactical Aircraft: Concurrency in
Development and Production of F-22 Aircraft Should Be Reduced (Letter Report, 04/19/95,
GAO/NSIAD-95-59).

Because the F-22 fighter plane is not urgently needed and the Defense Department (DOD)
has discovered engine and software problems with the aircraft, GAO urges that the F-22 be
thoroughly tested before large numbers of these expensive aircraft are acquired. Concurrency
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between the development and production phases of F-22 means that independent testing of high-
tech features of the aircraft will not be completed before the Air Force makes a significant
commitment to producing the F-22. Among other things, the F-22 boast an advanced architecture
for the integrated avionics system, a propulsion system that will allow cruising a supersonic speeds
without the afterburners that current fighters needs, and low observable technologies. The military
has already disclosed engine and stealth ness problems, and the potential for avionics and software
problems underscore the need to demonstrate the aircraft's capabilities before committing to
production.

Q 4: Explain in detail the project management review

process. What is the various post review activates?

Answer:
 Project Management Review Process:
There is mutual benefit for corporate and major information systems project teams and
many of the programs as a result of the information exchange generated by the Project
Management Reviews. Throughout the project lifecycle, project staff should collaborate and
communicate with staff responsible for capital planning, information architecture,
standards, information security, safety, configuration management, risk management,
quality management and assurance. The information exchange may address status, issued,
process, requests, requirements, approvals, and assistance in the areas of project plans,
schedule, budget, functional content, scope, staffing, infrastructure and operations.
Corporate and major information systems are reviewed from their inception to retirement,
i.e., throughout the Capital Planning and Investment Control (CPIC) phases of
Identification, Selection, Control, and Evaluation. The Project Management Review Process
includes the following steps:
 Identification of projects that will participate in the Reviews.
 Development and adherence to a quarterly reporting schedule.
 Compilation of standard project management data into a presentation data.
 Collection of detailed project files that support the information reported during the
project Management Reviews and may be requested for inspection during a formal
audit
 Participation in the Review meetings with any required follow-up activities.

 Post Review Activities:

Once the Project Management Review has been conducted, follow up with program/project
managers on any issues or concerns requiring attention, the status of open items from the

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review, and CIO reporting actions, e.g., reports to the CIO Council. The CIO may also
recommend quality assurance analysis be conducted.

• Issues or Concerns Requiring Attention:

The project manager is responsible for raising issues or concerns that require assistance or
guidance to the attention of the CIO. These items should be communicated whenever they
become known, and not held to the next Project Management Review. The CIO will assign
appropriate OCIO staff available to help resolve open items. The program / project manager
should communicate the status of these items in each quarterly review until the items are
resolved / closed.

• Status of Open Items from Review:

The program/project manager is responsible for tracking the open items from the review
and communicating the status in each quarterly review until the items are closed. The
supporting the scheduling of reviews will coordinate with the program/project manager
after the quarterly reviews to help ensure that new items have been captured for tracking
and action by the program/project manager.

• CIO Reports:
The staff supporting the CIO Quarterly Reviews will prepare a summary report after each
Project Management Review. The summary report will include the following information:
 Summary Status.
 Open Issues/Items.
 Status Performance Objectives/Measures.
 Status of Schedule/Cost
The summary report will be provided to the program/project manager to gain concurrence
on the content. The summary report will be used by the CIO when reporting status to the
CIO Council.

Q 5: Explain the structure of the documentation systems

as required by supply chain monitoring. What is the
significance of documentation? How does it help a
manager?

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Answer:

 Requirement of Documented systems in

Supply Chain Monitoring (SCMo):

It is possible today to establish a system aligned with an organizations supply chain. It can
be an add-on to existing ERP-systems. The main objectives are

 Prevention of stock-out and over supply.

 Early warnings, elimination of bullwhip effect.
 Optimized allocation in bottleneck situations due to network-wide inventory and
demand transparency.

The main Principles behind is the Integration of supply chain participants, Exchange of
demand
And inventory information, transparency & Visibility of inventories and demands for
multilevel supply chains. It also eliminates time lags in the information flow and ensures
synchronization of demand information. SCMo set up (Initialization) the main steps for the
set up are:

 Determination of the potentially critical part of the supply network Criteria:

 Mapping of Structures.
 High shortage risk and effect, long lead and reaction times, high total inventory cost,
frequent engineering changes.

 Main Features:
The main features of such system are –

 Releases and Iterations planning – It is a simple way to create project plan.

 Dashboard – It is a quick project status reporting tool.
 To-Do lists – Identify and list the integrated assignments.
 Integrated QA - Bug Tracking, Test Cases management, user story-to-bugs
 Trace-ability, QA stats and charts.
 Time Tracking - Create more accurate estimates of time.

 Significance of Documentation:
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It might sometimes be difficult for an organization to straightaway launch into a Project

Management exercise, even if they are well equipped, particularly if the project is too large
– for e.g., development of a new product, expansion of capacity, modernization of facilities,
diversification into a totally new business area, getting into a Joint venture etc. In this case,
the core project team itself might feel the need to have some major inputs before even a
tentative plan could be drawn up. A well-drafted Business Plan would ideally serve this
purpose, provided it is handled systematically & professionally. The documentation system
is intranet based to provide immediate access to current, up-to-date process documentation.
The system allows
Users to navigate through graphical structures to relevant documentation and processes
which were created with the ARIS-Toolset. The content of the process Documentation
System includes the area supply chain management from the Odette supply chain
Management Group. The system includes graphical process documentation, in the form of
process chains, as well as the entire range of documentation related to the processes. The
Process Documentation System gives, according to its objectives, as overview and a
detailed view of the relevant processes for SCMo. The entry point in the documentation
system is the model. “Process Overview SCMo”. This model is the starting point for the
navigation to other models. The vertical navigation is the navigation on different levels. The
horizontal navigation is the navigation on one level. Microsoft has a team project
management solution that enables project managers and their teams to collaborate on
projects.
The Microsoft Project 2002 products in this solution are Microsoft Project Standard 2002,
Microsoft Project Server 2002, and Microsoft Project Server Client Access License (CAL)
2002.

Q 6: Write down a brief outline on any assumed project

management plan?
Answer:
Various sections and subsections of this unit would cover as part of Project Management
Plan, the following key aspects:
 Project Management Plan – Sample
Project:
a) Project Summary-
Project Overview – Consider a firm XYZ as a Stock Broker/ Dealer firm. Any re
will have applications supporting the following components: First, a Brokerage
Account Opening application on XYZ’s Web site that will allow any internet user to
open a brokerage account with XYZ. Second, an account opening and maintenance

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application, which is primarily for XYZ’s representatives to open accounts for the
applications received in paper format.

b) Project Scope-
• To provide an effective, efficient means of amount maintenance activities.
• To allow representatives to provide information.
• To provide a complete picture to the client representatives for account status,
valuation, order status, and trade activity.
• To increase the intelligence of the update process.

 Project’s Value-add to the Customer:

a) Objectives-

Strengthen relationship with XYZ by delivered high quality software on time. Become
preferred vendor by developing expensive on XYZ product and systems.
·
b) Commitment made to customers.

 Assumptions made While Planning

Intelligent update to business partners will be incorporated in only the maintenance part of
the application and not in the Account opening engine. Qualified people will approve
Rational Unified Process methodology for implementing this project. XYZ reviewers will
take seven days to approve a milestone documents. If no comments are received within this
time period, it will be considered as approved.

 Standard Process Followed and

Deviation from standard process:
a. Tailoring Notes-

Requirement trace ability will be done through the requisite pro-tool. Physical data base
design may be refined | later iterations.
·
b. Change request tracking-
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Changes requested by customer will be logged in change request and analyzed for impact of
project Major change usually has an effort/delivery-on-time impact on the project. The
customer needs to formally approve these changes.

c. Requirement Trace Ability-

Requisite tool will be used along with estimated size and effort. This is the estimation
criteria to check everything is in place.

d. Automated Estimation Process-

Estimate the total effort with respect to each activity and effort for each phase of a project expressed
as of percentage of man days.

e. Scheduling and Estimation of Resources-

· People
· Hardware, software and Tools
· Training Plan

f. Quality Plan – Quality Goals-

 Project Goals:
Prepare a strategy for meeting quality goals indicating the expected benefits.
·
 Estimation of Defects to be defected
 Reviews.

g. Project Tracking-

Prepare the reports to be given to the customer which indicates –

• Milestone reports & weekly status reports.
• Issue requiring clarification.
• Plus other reports which needs to be given to Business Managers

h. Defect Control System Performance Summary-

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Prepare a list probable defects & defect distribution table to find out deviation for the same.
There were very few large deviations in the process performance; the actual performance
was close to what is expected. This will give a chance to improve the poor performance.

i. System Driver Risk Management-

Prepare a table on risk management indicating the type of risk, actual elapsed time,
estimated time, percentage slippage and reasons for slippage.

j. Global Delivery Model the Latest Trend in Project Management-

· Standardization.
· Modularization.
· Minimum Cutomerization.
· Maximum Micro Structure.

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