Project Management Governance - Assignment Example

CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF PROPERTY DEVELOPMENT OTTAWA WATER PARK PROJECT EXECUTIVE SUMMARY This report presents the critical analysis of the project management plan for the project of Carleton Water Park. This project management plan is prepared by KLSJ Consulting and it has been presented to the management of Ottawa–Carleton Water Park. This report has presented an analysis about the overall project management plan. This report starts with the project background and then the report analyzes how the project management plan is prepared and the structure of the plan. This report also analyzes about the project management plan and how this plan is helpful for the audience. The structure of the project management plan is analyzed with the general theories and what different researchers have said about preparing the project management plan. Contents presented in the project management plan are analyzed and whether the information presented in each section of the report are appropriate and informative for the audience. Each of the heading presented in the project management plan is analyzed and then the report presents the conclusion and recommendations for improving the project management plan. The project management plan is well-prepared however there are certain information missing in the plan. Moreover, the report has analyzed that some parts of the project management plan are very comprehensive and different project management tools and techniques are applied correctly. On the other hand, some sections of the report are missing important and critical information and if this information was included then it would have further improved the quality of the project management plan. Contents EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 1 Contents 3 SECTION I: INTRODUCTION 4 PROJECT BACKGROUND 5 AUDIENCE AND STRUCTURE OF THE PROJECT MANAGEMENT PLAN 6 CONTENTS OF THE PROJECT MANAGEMENT PLAN 10 Executive Summary 10 Project Background 11 Objectives 11 Project Team 12 Project Management Strategy 12 Scope of Activities 12 Project Schedule 13 Project Cost and Financial Analysis 13 Cash Flow and Cash Management 13 Cost Control Strategy 14 Resource Estimates and Leveling 14 Quality Control and Performance Measures 14 Risk Assessment 15 Project Documentation and Communication 15 Assumptions 15 CONCLUSIONS 16 RECOMMENDATIONS 17 SECTION I: INTRODUCTION Project management discipline of management has added a unique ability to the organizations for accomplishing unique objectives. Successful projects are critically dependent on well defined plans. Therefore project management plan is vital in successfully completing the project. Project plans if are not prepared well then it often results in failure of the project and the project is not able to achieve the desired objective despite incurring excessive cost, time and effort on the project. KLSJ Consulting Company has proposed a Project Plan for the Ottawa–Carleton Water Park on behalf of Carlington Aquatic Parks for the scheduled opening on May 21, 2005. This report is aimed at evaluating the project management plan prepared by KLSJ Consulting Company for the Ottawa–Carleton Water Park. This report assesses the level and quality of the considerations given to the aspects that are to play critical role in the project success. The assessment of this project management plan has been conducted in light of the conceptual and theoretical development in the project management discipline of study. Hence, the report has following sections: Section I: Introduction to this report as provided above. Section II: Background information about the project. Section III: Assessment of viability of the audience and strength of the structure of the project plan. Section IV: Assessment of project management plan with components in line with the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK® Guide) (PMI 2012) Section V: Concluding remarks on the assessment of the project plan. Section VI: Recommendations for the improvements of the plan. PROJECT BACKGROUND The project of Ottawa–Carleton Water Park facility on behalf of Carlington Aquatic Parks is prepared by the KLSJ Consulting Company. The project is proposed by the Dan Milks, president and CEO of the Carlington Aquatic Parks envisioned the need of the family oriented water part that offers attractive recreational facilities in National Capital Region. The site proposed for the region is the western portion of Ottawa- Carlington at a distance of 45 minutes drive from Eastern Ontario and Western Quebec having population of over one million. With this scope, the project time and cost were expected to be 32 months with a scheduled opening on May 21, 2005 and 12,450,000 Canadian Dollars respectively. The project has the capacity to entertain around 4,500 guests per day that would further expand to 7,000 guests per day. With the unique combination of the water related rides, the project has also accounted the car parking arrangement for around 1,000 cars. The stakeholders of the project are Owner Investors Government and related authorities Community groups Contractors Employees and other related business partners. The project has in-detail conducted the business plan which includes financial, personnel, environmental, operational, marketing, risk and other plans to concretely address and entertain the interest of the potential investors as well as the stakeholders. The project is given for the professional management to KLSJ in order to ensure that project is not delayed from the scheduled date of launch as delay can affect the quality and attraction of investors. The delay could also increase the cost as funding in the short notice is not easily available. Hence, the professional management is mandatory for the effective and efficient management of the project. AUDIENCE AND STRUCTURE OF THE PROJECT MANAGEMENT PLAN The project management plan is prepared for any particular audience. The audience of the project management plan has an important role in devising and writing the overall PM plan. This project management plan has been written by KLSJ Consulting and the main audience for this project plan is the Carlington Aquatic Parks of Ottawa and its management. The CEO of the company has identified the opportunity and potential of having a water park in the National Capital Region. Therefore this project management plan aims to formulate how the project would be managed and this project will be focusing on constructing a water park. The management of Carlington Aquatic Parks of Ottawa is looking to build and construct the water park and for this reason, this report has presented the project management plan. As the audience of this report is the management of Carlington Aquatic Parks of Ottawa and therefore they would like to know about what activities and tasks would be involved in this project. Moreover, the audience would like to know which tasks are important and critical along with other important details such as the cost of the project, how this cost will be allocated, the resources required for the project, the time duration of the project and other specific details. This project management plan is a comprehensive plan and it has included different details that the audience or the management of Carlington Aquatic Parks of Ottawa would like to know. The management of Carlington Aquatic Parks of Ottawa will be the main stakeholder of the project. The management will need to know how the project team would start the project and how they will manage the overall project. Therefore for this purpose, the project management plan would play an important role. The management would also like to know about the cost and financials of the project. Moreover, they would like to how the timings of the cash flows as well and where these cash will be utilized throughout the project. Detailed budget would be required by the management in order to make sure that the funds allocated for the project are used appropriately. Moreover, the resources of the project are also significant and as a result the management would like to know the resources required for the project. Also the management would like to know about the availability of resources and how the team would be managing these limited resources in making sure that project is completed within the three important aspects; cost, time and quality (Atkinson, 1999). In addition to this, the management will also be concerned whether additional resources and manpower can help in completing the project. The management would also be interested in knowing the cost of hiring additional resources and if the additional resources are hired, then the impact it could have on the completion of the project. Similarly, the management would like to know about the impact of not hiring any additional resource in terms of quality, cost and time. Also the management of Carlington Aquatic Parks would like to know about the reporting authority and the management of the project team as well as the qualifications and experience of project manager. The overall project management plan is broad and it has covered vital aspects that are required to complete the project within the cost, time and scope. The project management plan would be highly helpful for the audience as well as the operational staff. The reason for this project plan is important and helpful is for the management of Carlington Aquatic Parks of Ottawa is that this plan would provide a guide way to the team and management in knowing how the project should be handled and managed appropriately. Moreover, this project plan highlights different and important features of the project and by knowing these features and aspects, management of Carlington Aquatic Parks of Ottawa would be in a better position to know how to go about the project. In addition to this, the cost summary along with the cash needed at different stage would help the management in knowing the amount of cash that will be required at different stages and phases of the project. Similarly, risks have been identified and defined in the project management plan. All these identified risks can be used by the management and they can formulate strategies and communicate with the project team in formulating strategies to mitigate these risks. There are different formats and ways of presenting a project management plan. According to Cleland, and Gareis, (2006) the format and style of presenting the project management plan varies and there are different factors that influence the style of the plan. Some of these aspects and factors are the nature of the project, duration of the project, importance of the project, project team and the number of project team members, the organizational culture, the number of stakeholders involved in the project and how they are influenced by the project and several other factors. However many researchers including Hamilton (2004) and Lewis (2006) believe that there are some aspects and important information that need to be included in every project management plan. Different researchers Phillips (2003) has presented an outline of the project management plan and the outline presented includes most of the content that is already included in the project management plan of constructing the Carleton Water Park. However Tonnquist (2008) believe that Appraisal, monitoring and evaluation strategies should also be included in the project management plan and the current plan does not include these aspects. Similarly, Harrison, and Lock (2004) believe that the stakeholders analysis should be presented and the impact of the stakeholders on the project along with the impact of the project on the stakeholders should also be presented. Moreover, if there are stakeholders that can influence the outcome of the project then strategies should be formulated in order to mitigate such impact on the project so that the project is completed within the time, cost and quality. The project management plan presented by Bridge (2009) has included the logistics and procurement section, security plan and public relations however the current plan of Carleton Water Park does not include these three important parts. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (n.d) has presented the project plan for Design and Construction Projects. This project plan has also covered most of the parts that are included in the project plan of Carleton Water Park. However some of the aspects and important information missing in the Carleton Water Park’s project management plan are; information about the Executive Oversight Board, information about the Contract Administration & Status Reports and warranty protocols after construction has been completed. Another important segment missing in the Carleton Water Park project management plan is the design phase (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (n.d). Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority prepared the project plan for Dulles Corridor Metrorail Project in the year 2008 and this plan was submitted to Federal Transit Administration. This project plan included labour relations and policies to mange labour relations, conflict resolution, design of construction, and Environmental Analysis (Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority, 2008). However these important parts were not included in the project management plan of Carleton Water Park. Klinkenberg (2010) prepared a general outline of the project management. This project management outline includes most of the parts that are already present in the Carleton Water Park. However, some important parts that are not present include; Tender Documentation, Invoicing documentation, and performance documentation. Although the content of the Carleton Water Park excludes some important information but still the sequence in which information is presented is in accordance with most of the project management plans. CONTENTS OF THE PROJECT MANAGEMENT PLAN The report has included different important sections. This part of the report discusses each of these sections presented in the plan and analyzes the importance of these sections. Moreover, the information presented in each of the section has been analyzed in terms of its meaningfulness and whether appropriate information is presented in that particular section. Executive Summary Executive summary is an important section of the project management plan. This section defines and summarizes the overall project and how the management will manage the project. Moreover, the cost and benefits of the project along with the project management team are also discussed in this part besides the risks faced by the project. The project management plan of Carleton Water Park includes overall summary of the project along with the time duration of completing the project. A brief background of the project is also presented in this part of the report along with explaining about different project management techniques such as WBS that would be used by the project management team. This part of the report also discusses the risks and costs of the project and thus it can be said that this part contains appropriate information. Project Background This part of the report has presented the background information of the project along with the reason of accomplishing the project. The list of stakeholders is also presented in this part as well as the cost of the project. Although this information is appropriate however demand of such water parks and important statistics of other parks and their benefits could also have been presented in this part of the project management plan. This would have given better and more reliable information about the potential of such water park. Objectives One of the important sections of the project is the objectives of the project. By defining the objectives, this section has explained about what the project management team would like to achieve from this project. In this section of the report, different deliverables of the project are also discussed that would be delivered to the management of Carlington Aquatic Parks of Ottawa. Overall the information presented is appropriate though brief, and it would have been better if the project plan included the short-term goals and then these short-term goals would have led to achievement of long term goals. Project Team After defining the objectives of the project, the project management plan has discussed about the project team. This section discusses about the strategy of how the project team will work and how the tasks will be allocated among different team members. This section of the report also formulates the project organizational structure and thus it defines the authority and decision making power of the project. The project would be headed by the project manager and this project manager would have five important personnel’s that would be managing five important aspects of the project. These are important information that the audience would be looking for this information has been presented in the report and it can be said that this part of the plan is comprehensive. Project Management Strategy The project management plan has also presented the project management strategy. In this part of the plan, the project is divided into different phases and these phases are discussed. This section covers important information about marketing, financials, and responsibilities for completing the project along with outside expertise that will be required. Scope of Activities After the project is divided into five phases, the scope of these activities and phases have been presented in the project plan. Work breakdown structure is used by the project management team in order to breakdown the overall project into smaller phases and pieces (Brotherton, Fried, and Norman, 2008). In addition to this, project has also been divided into six functional areas and responsibility of each function is also discussed in this part of the report. Project Schedule This section also presents the starting dates and the ending dates of each of the phases along with key stakeholders of each phase of the project. In addition to this, important activities in each five phases are also discussed along with their starting dates. This part of the report also highlights the critical activities that need to be managed in order to complete the project within the deadline. Moreover, there are some non-critical activities that are important milestones and and these activities are essential to complete the project within the time. Thus, this part is well defined and comprehensive to present important information. Project Cost and Financial Analysis The next section of the project plan explicates the financial summary and analysis of the project. Costs expected to incur at different stages is presented along with cost by different project function. However, if the project management plan covered more details about costs then it would have given more comprehensive knowledge of expected costs to be incurred. Cash Flow and Cash Management This part of the report discusses about the cash flows and how the project team needs to manage the cash flows. The importance of having cash flows at the right time is critical in order to accomplish the project scope within the deadline. Cash requirement on a monthly basis has been presented so that the management is able to have sufficient cash flows at the time when it is required. So this information is very valuable for the management in ensuring that sufficient cash flows are available at the right time. Cost Control Strategy The plan also formulates Cost Control Strategy. However this section is very brief and covers more general cost control strategies. Therefore if the project management team would have presented more details of how the costs can be controlled and how much quantitative impact it can have on the project then it would have been very informative. Resource Estimates and Leveling Resources and management of resources are critical aspect in appropriately managing the project. KLSJ Consulting has therefore presented how the resources would be managed in the project in the resource estimates section of the report. Non-critical activities are delayed in order to level the resources and to make sure that the critical activities are managed in the most appropriate manner and project is not delayed. If the management plan would have presented a table in this part of the report showing in detail of each activity in all five phases and the resources that each activity will consume then it would have been very useful. Quality Control and Performance Measures Quality of the project is important aspect in defining whether the project is successful or not. Therefore the project plan also included the quality control measures that need to be implemented. Defining these important measures would be critical and would be helpful in making sure that the quality of the project is maintained. However the plan has generally defined the measures instead the plan should have formulated proper strategies of quality control and performance measures. Risk Assessment Risks in the project can hurt the time, cost and quality of the project. Therefore it is significant to identify and define risks (Jeston, and Nelis, 2008). Different types of risks are identified and then their impact is also analyzed qualitatively as well as quantitatively in this project management plan. Strategies to mitigate the risk would be formulated by meetings among the project team members. Decisions would be taken after consensus of the project team members. This part of the plan is broad and has ample information presented. Project Documentation and Communication In every project different documents are prepared and this plan has also covered about the important documents that would be required at different stages (Henderson, 2008). Project documentation section identifies different documents that would be needed at different stages. The plan would have improved if brief description about each of these documents were also presented in the plan. Assumptions In preparing this project plan, there are some assumptions made by the team. These assumptions are presented in the project plan document (Bredillet, 2004). If these assumptions are not correct then it can influence three main factors of project management; cost, quality and time. There are number of assumptions made by the project team and too many assumptions can influence the information presented in the plan. CONCLUSIONS The project management plan presented by KLSJ Consulting has presented important information to the management of the Carleton Water Park. The plan is comprehensive and has included valuable information that the management of Carleton Water Park would like to know about the project and about managing the project. The project plan prepared is in accordance with the format and style presented by different authors. Although the plan has covered different aspects, but still there are some sections that are overlooked and if these sections would have been included then it would have improved the quality and information presented in the plan. Different project management theories have been used by KLSJ Consulting in preparing the project plan. So this has helped in preparing the project plan in a better way and accomplishing the project in a sequential and appropriate manner. There are different aspects of this project management plan important and these aspects are significant to the outcome of the project. For instance, the way cash flow management section has been defined. This section has presented the cash that would be required at different stages so that the management can make sure that they have sufficient cash flows to manage and continue the project properly. The plan has some strengths as well as weaknesses. Strengths of the project plan are that different parts are comprehensive and very informative. For instance, the risk assessment section identifies the risk and also analyzes the impact of each type of risk being face qualitatively as well as quantitatively. However some sections are weak and general that would not provide useful knowledge for the management of the park. RECOMMENDATIONS The project plan could have been improved with the following recommendations: The objectives prepared should be SMART i.e. Specific, Measureable, Attainable, Realistic and Time-bounded. The objectives prepared in the project management plan were not SMART. Moreover, the objectives of the project should have been divided into smaller and short-term objectives and these short-term objectives should have resulted in successfully achieving the long term objectives. By dividing the long-term objectives, the project management would also be able to analyze and manage the project in a better way after it is divided into smaller segments. There should be more details presented about the costs of the project. The costs presented in the PMP are only related to the phases of the project or about functions. However there should be more details presented in the plan so that the management would know areas where high cost is being incurred. Project management plan has included the cost control strategy. However this part of the report could have been improved by formulating more specific strategies. Moreover, the quantitative outcome and impact should have also been discussed in this part of the report. The report did not include about relationships with the labors and suppliers and along with negotiation strategies with the suppliers and contractors. All these information was not included, and if it was included then it would have been helpful for the management. Statistics about the opportunity in the market was not presented in detail. Moreover, details about the number of visitors in similar parks were also not presented in this plan. Including such information would have highlighted the potential in the market. References Atkinson, R. (1999). Project management: cost, time and quality, two best guesses and a phenomenon, it is time to accept other success criteria. International Journal of Project Management, vol.17, no. 6, pp. 337–42. Bredillet, C. (2004). Project management governance : A situational approach.  EURAM conference. Munich, Germany. Bridge. (2009). Project Management Structure and Plan. Available from http://bridge-project.org/implementation/253-establishing-the-framework/742-project-management-structure-and-plan.html [Accessed 4 February, 2014] Brotherton, S., Fried, R., and Norman, E. (2008). Applying the Work Breakdown Structure to the Project Management Lifecycle. PMI Global Congress Proceedings: Denver, Colorado, Available from http://www.ca.com/us/~/media/files/whitepapers/fried_wbs__pmi_global_congress_202925.aspx  [Accessed 4 February, 2014] Cleland, D., and Gareis, R. (2006). Global Project Management Handbook. McGraw-Hill: London. Hamilton, A. (2004). Handbook of Project Management Procedures. TTL Publishing, Ltd: London. Harrison, F., and Lock, D. (2004). Advanced project management: a structured approach. Gower Publishing, Ltd: Surrey. Henderson, L. (2008). The impact of project managers' communication competencies: Validation and extension of a research model for virtuality, satisfaction, and productivity on project teams. Project Management Journal, vol. 39, no. 2, pp. 48-59 Jeston, J. and Nelis, J. (2008). Management by process: A practical road-map to sustainable business process management. Butterworth-Heinemann: London. Klinkenberg, K. (2010). Project management Structure. Available from http://www.10action.com/uploads/documentos/documentos_Project_Management_Structure_eeaecbc9.pdf Lewis, R. (2006). Project Management. McGraw-Hill Professional: London. Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority. (2008). Dulles Corridor Metrorail Project. Available from http://www.dullesmetro.com/pdfs/FinalPMPV6-0.pdf [Accessed 4 February, 2014] National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. (n.d.). Project Management Process (PMP) For Design and Construction Projects. Available from http://www.corporateservices.noaa.gov/~rpflo/PPMD/ProjectManagementProcess.doc [Accessed 4 February, 2014] Phillips, J. (2003). PMP Project Management Professional Study Guide. McGraw-Hill Professional: London. Tonnquist, B. (2008). Project Management. Stockholm: Bulls Graphics. Read More