PROJECT MANAGEMENT 1

Undergraduate

Assignment cover Sheet

Student Number: 1525066

Unit Code: KAP027-3

Assignment Number: Assignment 1C

Unit Title: Project Management

Unit Coordinator: Dr. Golda Komanapalli

Due date: 27th Aug, 2016

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Table of Contents
Executive summary....................................................................................................................3

Introduction................................................................................................................................3

Project Scope and Project Management.....................................................................................4

Business Case.............................................................................................................................4

Time Management......................................................................................................................5

Stakeholder Management...........................................................................................................5

Risk Management.......................................................................................................................5

Conclusion..................................................................................................................................6

References..................................................................................................................................6
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Executive summary

The team endeavoured to engage in an activity that centred on helping the elderly in the
community. The NGO selected was the Against the Elderly Abuse of Hong Kong. The project
was to be run for the period of 6 weeks and involved the fundraiser process offering the
elderly a free meal set. The team members took various roles based on their expertise to
ensure that the project was completed on time.

The stakeholders were also involved in the project to make sure that all the set objectives
were achieved. The stakeholders of the project were; the NGO, the elderly, the social
workers, the volunteers and the donors. The project was able to raise a total sum of $ 5,630
which exceeded the set target by HK$630. The team members achieved a 112.6% success
rate. Indeed, this is an indication that the project was a success.

Introduction

Project management is a term that refers to the set of techniques and skills that are essential
for ensuring the effective utilisation of resources to facilitate the completion of a set of
activities within the fixed period, budget and requirements.

The aim for this assignment was to determine the main benefits of including a project product
description, a product breakdown structure, product descriptions, as well as business case
which have been used in the project. Furthermore, from this assignment, we will once again
focus on the time management technique with analysis of the network diagram. Lastly, we
will look at stakeholder management and risk management, which will clearly show the
importance of the stakeholder and how we manage the risk on this project.

Project Scope and Project Management

The importance of including a project product description is to provide a strategic direction

for the implementation of the project. By using this, each team member will clearly
understand what are the target products that we are going to produce, what sort of skills that
we would need to apply and how we could justify the quality of the product in order to
enhance the project so that it reaches the certain set expectation. Lastly, we will set up the
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quality tolerance of the product, that is to manage the project quantity. The combination of
these factors will definitely minimize the mistakes and make the project process more
efficient. As a result, cost saving has been implied due to the success. Moreover, a product
breakdown structure also focuses on clearly highlighting the methodology that the team will
use to ensure that the project is completed on time. (Great Britain. Office of Government
Commerce., Office of Government Commerce OGC, and Great Britain: Office of
Government Commerce, 2005). One of our main product description in this project is the
event, a non-governmental project that was selected after an in-depth research of various
organizations such as the Against the Elderly Abuse of Hong Kong.

The project was to run for six weeks from its initiation. The team members in the group
clearly outlined the objectives of the projects which have a limited budget of $4,200 that was
supposed to cover all our expenses. This project is composed of the NGO acceptance, lunch
boxes and fruits ordering, 200 elderlies attendance, volunteers & social workers. The
tolerance ratio was set at 10% less than the number of elderlies, in case of a lower attendance,
with the surplus lunch boxes to be delivered to a nearby nursing home, which was
recommended by the NGO. All decisions in the group were made through consensus to avoid
conflict and ensure the completion of the project on time.

Business Case

Business Case implementation is important for the project. That is because it outlines every
stage of the project, determining the human resources management, materials arrangement
and the scheduling. Every members will be delegated a specific role based on their
profession. As a result, the business case could be presented to the NGO for approval. To
prepare the business case is a time consuming task, it is required to list down all the activities
for evaluation. If there are any changes, the business case will need to be re-written and that
will reduce the flexibility of the project. Refer to Lock Dennis (2013, pg.42 ), the
coordination among the team members was an indication that the project was going to be
successful. We had clearly defined objectives, roles and time schedules that we operated
within. Additionally, the members we contacted to participate in the event confirmed their
availability on time.
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Time Management

The original critical paths for this project are activity 1,2,4,5,6,21 &24. If the project would
need to be done one week earlier, refer to James Taylor (2007, pg. 73) we would cut down
activity 4,5,7 &8. That is because marketing promotion on social media, funding raising, co-
work with social workers & invitation have the biggest flexibility for reducing the procedures
duration. Especially, as promotion & funding raising are the responsibility of the whole team
members, the frustration will be the less and there would be more cost efficiency. Regard to
activity 7&8, only one member to take up the tasks, perhaps, additional 1 member could be
add in for support, such as Team Manager. (Great Britain. Office of Government Commerce.,
Office of Government Commerce OGC, and Great Britain: Office of Government Commerce,
2005, Pg.70)

NEW NETWORK DIAGRAM

Stakeholder Management

Referring to Eskerod and Jepsen (2013, Chapter 2) the team members worked in close
coordination with the stakeholders to make the project a success. The three major
stakeholders are the NGO, the elderlies and the donors. The NGO has a very important role in
the project in that they are the host of the event. Without their acceptance of our proposal and
their connection with the social workers, the event could not be held. They act as a
communication bridge between us & the elderlies. When they have got any feedback, they
will share with us immediately for our review and improvement. We communicate with them
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on a weekly basis through emails, phone calls or meetings. A weekly report will be sent to the
NGO for updating the progress.

The elderlies are the target beneficiaries of this project as they are the ones who will directly
receive our product in this project. Thus, their show of interest or attendance is very
important. We communicate with them through social workers and we have set a weekly
review call/ meeting in order to listen to the comments from them.

Lastly, donors are another important part in our project, they are the one who support us on
the financial side. By receiving their funds, we could run out all expenses spending. Without
their support, this project could not be held. We communicated with them on a weekly basis
through Whatapps.

Risk Management

The project encountered the following risks:- weather, insufficient funding and food surplus .
Firstly, heavy rain delayed the project by a day. To handle this, team members and the
volunteers did more activities on a selected day to compensate for the hurdle. In regards to
insufficient funding, our team will consider to reduce the number of servings to the elderlies
in order to keep within the actual budget. Lastly, in case we have over estimated the
attendance numbers of the elderlies with an end result of a food surplus, we shall deliver the
extra food to the nearby nursing home, which was recommended by NGO.

Conclusion

The Charity project was completed on time and took into account all the various aspects of
project management in its implementation. Two hundred elderies attended the event,
according to Trevor Yong (2000, pg.7 ), expressing their sincerest thankful message to us.
This is a strong indication of the success of our project.
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References

1) Great Britain. Office of Government Commerce., Office of Government Commerce

OGC and Great Britain: Office of Government Commerce (2005) Managing
successful projects with PRINCE2: 2005. 21st edn. London: Stationery Office Books.
Pg.65

2) Lock, D. (2013) Project management. 10th edn. United Kingdom: Ashgate

Publishing. Pg.42

3) Taylor, J.C. (2007) Project scheduling and cost control: Planning, monitoring and
controlling the baseline. United States: J Ross Publishing. Pg.73

4) Great Britain. Office of Government Commerce., Office of Government Commerce

OGC and Great Britain: Office of Government Commerce (2005) Managing
successful projects with PRINCE2: 2005. 21st edn. London: Stationery Office Books.
Pg.70

5) Eskerod, P. and Jepsen, A.L. (2013) Project Stakeholder management (fundamentals

of project management). United Kingdom: Gower Publishing.

6) Young, T.L. (2000) Successful project management. 4th edn. London: Kogan Page.
Pg. 7
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APPENDIX Product Description

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Appendix 2 Activity List & Network Diagram

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