IGNOU MBA MS-52 Solved Assignments 2010

Course Code : MS-52

Course Title : Project Management
Assignment Code : MS-52/SEM-I/2010
Coverage : All Blocks

Note: Please attempt all the questions and send it to the Coordinator of the study
Center you are attached with

1) Describe the important phases of a project life cycle.

Solution: This is the initial phase of any project. In this phase information is collected
from the customer pertaining to the project and the requirements are analyzed. The entire
project has to be planned and it should be done in a strategic manner. The project
manager conducts the analysis of the problem and submits a detailed report to the top
project justification, details on what the problem is a method of solving the problem, list
of the objectives to be achieved, project budget and the success rate of completing the
project. The report must also contain information and the project feasibility, and the risks
involved in the project.

Project management life cycle is the integrated part of management. It is attach with
project responsibility or failure of a project. For the MBA assignments it is the most
valuable chapter in production management.

The important tasks of this phase are as follows:

Specification Requirements Analysis (SRA): It has to be conducted to determine the

essential requirements of a project in order to achieve the target.

Feasibility study: To analyze whether the project is technically, economically and

practically feasible to be undertaken.

Trade off analysis: To understand and examine the various alternatives which could be
considered.

Estimation: To estimate the project cost, effort requires for the project and functionality
of various process in the project.

System design: Choose a general design that can fusil the requirements.

Project evolution: Evaluate the project in terms of expected profit, cost and risks involved
marketing phase.

A project proposal is prepared by a group of people including the project manager. This
proposal has to contain the strategies adopted to market the product to the customers.
Design phase: This phase involves the study of inputs and outputs of the various project
stages.

Execution phase: In this phase the project manager and the teams members work on the
project objectives as per the plan. At every stage during the execution reports are
prepared.

Control – Inspecting, Testing and Delivery phase during this phase. The project team
works under the guidance of the project manager. The project manager has to ensure that
the team working under his, implements the project designs accurately, the project
manager has to ensure ways of managing the customer, perform quality control work.

Closure and post completion analysis phase upon satisfactory completion and delivery of
the intended product or service the staff performance has to be evaluated. Document the
lessons from the project. Prepare the reports on project feedback analysis followed by the
project execution report.

The phase which involve in the above are:

The preparation stage involves the preparation and approval of project outline, project
plan and project budget.

The next stage involves selecting and briefing the project team about the proposals
followed by discussions on the roles and responsibility of the project member and the
organization.

The project management life cycle:

A Life cycle of a project consists of the following:

Understanding the scope of the project

Establishing objectives of the project

Formulating and planning various activities

Project execution and

Monitor and control the project resources

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2) Discuss the various methods of financial evaluation of the projects. Make

a comparative analysis of these methods.
Solution: The various methods of financial evaluation of the projects refer to an
assessment of the viability, stability and profitability of a business, sub-business or
project. It is performed by professionals who prepare reports using ratios that make use of
information taken from financial statements and other reports. These reports are usually
presented to top management as one of their bases in making business decisions. Based
on these reports, management may:
* Continue or discontinue its main operation or part of its business;
* Make or purchase certain materials in the manufacture of its product;
* Acquire or rent/lease certain machineries and equipment in the production of itgoods;
* Issue stocks or negotiate for a bank loan to increase its working capital;
* Make decisions regarding investing or lending capital;
* Other decisions that allow management to make an informed selection on various
alternatives in the conduct of its business.

Financial analysts often assess the firm's:

1. Profitability - its ability to earn income and sustain growth in both short-term and long-
term. A company's degree of profitability is usually based on the income statement,
which reports on the company's results of operations;
2. Solvency - its ability to pay its obligation to creditors and other third parties in the
long-term;
3. Liquidity - its ability to maintain positive cash flow, while satisfying immediate
obligations;
Both 2 and 3 are based on the company's balance sheet, which indicates the financial
condition of a business as of a given point in time.
4. Stability- the firm's ability to remain in business in the long run, without having to
sustain significant losses in the conduct of its business. Assessing a company's stability
requires the use of both the income statement and the balance sheet, as well as other
financial and non-financial indicators.
[edit] Methods

Financial analysts often compare financial ratios (of solvency, profitability, growth, etc.):
* Past Performance - Across historical time periods for the same firm (the last 5 years
for example),
* Future Performance - Using historical figures and certain mathematical and statistical
techniques, including present and future values, This extrapolation method is the main
source of errors in financial analysis as past statistics can be poor predictors of future
prospects.
* Comparative Performance - Comparison between similar firms.
These ratios are calculated by dividing a (group of) account balance(s), taken from the
balance sheet and / or the income statement, by another, for example :
n / equity = return on equity
Net income / total assets = return on assets
Stock price / earnings per share = P/E-ratio

Comparing financial ratios is merely one way of conducting financial analysis. Financial
ratios face several theoretical challenges:
 * They say little about the firm's prospects in an absolute sense. Their insights about
relative performance require a reference point from other time periods or similar firms.
* One ratio holds little meaning. As indicators, ratios can be logically interpreted in at
least two ways. One can partially overcome this problem by combining several related
ratios to paint a more comprehensive picture of the firm's performance.
* Seasonal factors may prevent year-end values from being representative. A ratio's
values may be distorted as account balances change from the beginning to the end of an
accounting period. Use average values for such accounts whenever possible.
* Financial ratios are no more objective than the accounting methods employed.
Changes in accounting policies or choices can yield drastically different ratio values.
* They fail to account for exogenous factors like investor behavior that are not based
upon economic fundamentals of the firm or the general economy (fundamental analysis)

Financial analysts can also use percentage analysis which involves reducing a series of
figures as a percentage of some base amount For example, a group of items can be
expressed as a percentage of net income. When proportionate changes in the same figure
over a given time period expressed as a percentage is know as horizontal analysis.
Vertical or common-size analysis, reduces all items on a statement to a “common size” as
a percentage of some base value which assists in comparability with other companies of
different sizes Another method is comparative analysis. This provides a better way to
determine trends. Comparative analysis presents the same information for two or more
time periods and is presented side-by-side to allow for easy analysis.

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3) What are the different organization structures recommended for project

organization and what are their advantages and disadvantages?
Solution:

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4) Explain the use and advantages of squared networks in Project

Management with the help of an example.
Solution: Project Management involves defining the tasks to be performed, scheduling
the tasks and developing the planning documentation needed to guide the work and the
workers. Allocating budget for each task and
assigned people to each task are additional planning functions that are not
treated in this Project Planning series. I treated assigning people to tasks in
the postings on Team Dynamics and I will treat budgeting in a later posting
because I believe it’s an important enough cause of project failures to deserve
its own article.

A big mistake inexperienced project leaders make is scheduling tasks before the tasks are
defined. Inexperienced project leaders try to combine these two planning steps
by listing the tasks to be performed and working out a schedule for the list.
Defining tasks should be done first, at least for complex projects, because
it’s just not obvious how tasks should be sequenced and structured as will be
explained below. Defining tasks means defining the inputs, the outputs and the
tasks the outputs support. Just having a list of tasks does not mean that the
inputs, outputs and the work needed to turn inputs into outputs are understood.
It should be obvious that schedules constructed without such understanding are
not likely to be executable without numerous corrections.

N-Squared diagrams are a simple but effective way to define tasks, determine the
optimum sequencing of tasks and quickly see which tasks can be done in parallel to
maximize lead and lag times. A detailed description of how to construct and interpret N-
Squared diagrams for project tasks is found in my book blog.

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5) Draw the project diagram from the information given below. Also
identify the critical path and determine the project completion time.

Task A B C D E F G H I J K L
M

Precedence - A B B D D E,F G G H,I C K

J,L

Time (Hours) 16 11 14 9 12 10 30 19 11 7 40 9
14

Solution: Coming soon ….

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