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NIT1203
INTRODUCTION TO
PROJECT MANAGEMENT
Assignment
Group Project (3 Students per Group)
Overview:
Task: Develop a project in Microsoft Project based on the scenario provided in the assessment statement, Justify your
design constraints and present your project management
methodology
Length and Deliverables 2- Microsoft Project based .mpp files + Answers to project constraints (500-800 words) + 1 .ppt presentation
Due Date PART A+B=Week 9, Tuesday, 19th September, 2017 PART C: Week 10 and Week 11 Labs
Task Weightage This assignment has three parts, A,B and C: (12+8+10=30
% unit marks)
Relationship to other assignments: No.
Purpose of this assignment, and ULOs to be assessed
This assessment item is group assignment and group participation would be assessed as part of the assessment.
The case study simulates a project management scenario where the student takes on the role of project manager. The case information is not complete so where necessary students will have to make assumptions and argue the pros and cons for any recommendations they make. If necessary, students are expected to find relevant information in the academic literature to justify their answers.
To assist students in their assessment solution development the following information is provided:
• Product development case description
• Specific assessment questions that must be answered
• Information regarding the submission of the assessment
• Marking guide and Rubric
Unit Learning Outcomes (ULOs) assessed:
2- Describe the key elements of a project plan, including cost and time schedules;
3- Undertake project planning and documentation, considering all project requirements, constraints and risks;
4- Explain project execution activities, monitor and control project scope changes, risks, issues and the delivery of project team work activities;
Scenario:
Victoria Construction Pty Ltd is a medium sized company that develops custom hardware and mobile app solutions. You are an employee of Victoria Construction Pty Ltd and work as project manager for the company. Victoria Construction Pty Ltd have been approached by a company involved in environmental monitoring to provide a system that can be used by environmental scientists to collect data in the field and then further process the data back at head office. The people involved in preliminary investigations are:
• You - Mr. Brown, the project manager.
• Ms. Green - an experienced Systems Analyst.
• Mr. Black - an experienced Engineer with knowledge of handheld devices for data collection.
As a result of the preliminary investigations you are aware that software has to be developed for a robust/rugged handheld device for easy data capture in the field. Between them, Mr. Black and Ms. Green have a basic understanding of both the hardware and software requirements for the device, although a more detailed requirement analysis and requirement specification will need to be developed and approved.
Ms. Green and Mr. Black have provided you with the following information to develop a preliminary schedule for the project:
1. A work break down structure (WBS), resource estimates and some dependencies provided in Table 1 below.
2. In addition, Mr. Black provided you with the Activity-In-the-Box (AIB) network diagrams in Figure 1.
Note that the following abbreviations are used in the table:
• Electronic Engineer (EE)
• Software Engineer (SE)
• Environmental Scientist (ES)
• Analyst/Designer (AN)
Figure 1 shows the tasks to be completed for the tablet to be ready for the first field test. Note that the tasks to source the basic tablet and additional components cannot be started until the tablet requirements have been reviewed and approved (task 1.1.1.2 in table1). Approval to purchase will be by senior management. Senior management are not included as resources in the project and their time to approve the purchases is not included in the project costs. No resources are required for the delivery times.
Milestones
The milestones your team will use are: A. M1 Start of the project.
B. M2 All s/w and h/w requirements approved.
C. M3 all s/w designs approved
D. M4 ready for field testing.
E. M5 Field testing( 1) review and modifications complete and approved – ready for second field tests.
F. M6 Production approval.
G. M7 Batch of field ready tablets ready for use (end of project).
Additional Information
In addition to the work breakdown structure and AIB network diagram you have collected the following information.
• Assume that the start date of the project schedule will be 1/6/16 + (Number of days= sum of first digit of students IDs of all students in your group e.g. if Students IDs in a group are 43678, 67789 and 9885, its 4+6+9=19 Days . Therefore, their project starting date would be 1+19= 20/6/16)
• The company has an annual holiday period between 23/12/16 to 4/1/17. For the purposes of the assignment, assume that there are no other holidays. You must add these holidays to your .mpp files.
The resources work a 40 hour week from Monday to Friday (i.e. a 5 day week with 8 hour days). The functional managers have assured you that the resources are able to do all the tasks within their field of expertise (i.e. there are no differences in the abilities of the 5 software engineers compared to one another and similarly no difference between the abilities of the 2 electronic engineers).
You may also need to make some assumptions to complete your schedule and budget. If so, make sure that you list any assumptions you make at the beginning of your assignment submission.
Process:
TASK Part A : Microsoft Project Design Implementation
For part A of the assessment you must complete the following tasks and questions. Read all the questions before you commence the tasks. The schedule is to be developed in an appropriately named Microsoft Project 2010 file (see below) and the questions are to be answered in a Word document. As stated above, any
assumptions must also be listed at the beginning of the Word Document.
You have been asked by the operations manager, Ms. Whyte, to use Microsoft Project to develop the project schedule. Note that she has also asked you to include the milestones at the end of the task list in your schedule.
Based on the information in the case study description above, use Microsoft Project 2010 to produce a “Part A” schedule. Make sure that you:
a) Include the milestones at the end of the task list.
b) Include the resource allocation details on the schedule.
c) Have the project name (Victoria Construction Pty Ltd Schedule) as the top of the task list and have all other tasks and summary tasks indented according to the given WBS.
d) Make sure that the holidays described in the “additional information” are not included in the available working days for your project.
e) Use the Microsoft Project software to make sure that the critical path(s) are automatically displayed in red on the bars of the Gantt chart view of you schedule.
At this point there may be resource over allocation issues. Do not attempt to resolve these before answering question 2. Save this version of your schedule in ProjectSchedulePartA1.mpp. You will be required to submit this file as part of your assignment submission.
Now resolve all resource over-allocations. Create a copy of
ProjectSchedulePartA1.mpp in another file called ProjectSchedulePartA2.mpp If there were any resource over-allocation issues resolve these in this new EnvironmentalMonitorsPartA2.mpp without adding any additional resources. Save the “modified” version of ProjectSchedulePartA2.mpp
TASK Part B: Description and Justification of Project Constraints
At this point ignore any resource over allocations. Based on your
ProjectSchedulePartA1.mpp schedule (and assuming that you would have no resource constraints):
a) How long would the project take?
b) What are the start and finish dates of the project?
c) List all the tasks that are on the critical path.
d) Did the annual holidays make any difference to the end date of your project? Explain why/why not.
e) If you were asked to complete the project 3 weeks earlier by reducing the duration of some of the tasks in the project, what tasks would you target for reduction and why? In your answer, include specific suggestions about how you could reduce the duration of those tasks.
Now consider ProjectSchedulePartA2.mpp If there were any resource over-allocation issues resolve these in this new EnvironmentalMonitorsPartA2.mpp without adding any additional resources. Save the “modified” version of ProjectSchedulePartA2.mpp
a) Describe how you used/would use Microsoft Project to resolve any resource over- allocation issues?
b) In your Word document, list the tasks that are now displayed as “critical”.
c) Do the resource constraints have any impact on your project duration and end date? Explain.
TASK Part C: Presenting Project Management Blogs
Victoria Construction Pty Ltd CEO has limited knowledge of new project management standards and techniques. You have been asked to research and select one of the most popular Blogs on Project Management and summarize top 10 new stories or posts. Please use the link:
https://www.upwork.com/blog/2009/05/top-25-project-management-blogs/
select any one blog and prepare a PowerPoint presentation of 10 slides (maximum) about top topics and important findings in detail, and present it during Week 11 labs. Every member of the group with present some part of the presentation.
Products:
Submission Procedure:
Please submit separate soft copies of each assessment part on VU collaborate via the link titled ‘Assignment 1 Part A’ , Assignment 1 Part B’ and Assignment 1 Part C’ in the ‘Assessments’ section.
1- Part A file will be a single zipped file (including .mpp files). All assignments must have a signed assignment cover with clear student names and their IDs. Please note that marks will be deducted if the assignment fails to comply with specifications and deadlines above!
2- Part B file will be a single word file (a .doc file). All assignments must have a signed assignment cover with clear student names and their IDs. Please note that marks will be deducted if the assignment fails to comply with specifications and deadlines above!
3- Part C file will be .ppt file (single powerpoint file per group).
4- Each member of each team will submit Peer review Feedback marks filled file separately on a link Peer-Assessment.
Assessment criteria, the Originality Report, and submission
Students should use this marking guide as reference to find detailed marks distribution. However, an additional rubric has been provided for expectations at each part of the assessment. During marking the assignment we will have discretion in varying marks per person depending on the quality and effort that they provide to this assignment. In this group assignment I expect all students to contribute equally.
The marking criteria are given below:
MARKING CTITERIA (PART A+B) MARKS
PART A: The adequacy of the Project Schedule
• Tasks; correct WBS; overall summary task;
• auto scheduling
• Durations/effort
• Resources allocated
• Milestones
• Predecessor relationships
• Holidays
(may have resource over allocation at this point) 10
PART B: – (e) durations, CP, reducing schedule duration 5
PART B: – (c) dealing with resource constraints 3
Resource over-allocation resolved in ProjectSchedulePartA2.mpp file 2
Plagiarism/Copy case -20
Total Marks 20
Marking Criterion Marks
Allocated
Introduction
(How will you introduce the idea?) 2
Research and analysis
(How well you have researched and analysed the topics?) 2
Description and explanation
(How will you explain the topics?) 2
Group Work and Timing
(Management skills + answers to questions?) 2
Presentation skills
(eye contact + voice quality+ style?) 2
Total Marks 10
ASSESSMENT RUBRIC: Please find attached the rubric for this assessment.
Peer Assessment
1- Every member of the group will get individual marks based on his/her performance in the group
2- You will have to submit a peer assessment form provided on VU Collaborate. Individual marking policy will be applied. Each group member will mark every other member performance out of 10.
Individual marks would be calculated as:
Individual Marks= Group Marks *((sum of achieved score/total score))
Example: Your group marks are 30/30 with three members, You get ( 10/10, 5/10) from your mates.
Your marks= 30 *(((10+5)/20))=22.5 Marks
NOTE: Please keep an eye on relevant announcements at VU collaborate. In case of any question, please don’t hesitate to contact me after the Lecture.