Project Management A Case Study Of Rockn Bands - Sample Solution

Question: Discuss about theProject ManagementFor a case study of Rockn Bands. Answer: Ensuring the Project should Complete in Time and at Minimum Cost For a project manager it is important to complete a project in the due time with minimum cost. The reason behind this is if the project is not completed in the deadline, then it may attract penalty in the cost and client dissatisfaction (Chang and Torkzadeh 2013). The steps are initiation, defining the project, planning the delivery and in the last step the project delivery. The initiation is about ensuring that the project meets all the requirements, defining is about the written project report about the project so that any conflict can be avoided. In case of delivery planning the WBS done in this phase and the total task is divided into parts. Therefore, in order to complete a this project the project manager should try to implement crashing scheduling. The crashing is a type of project scheduling in which the primary objective is to decrease the total project duration with the least project completion cost by doing a thorough analysis of the project. Since, each phase in the project requires some different amount of resources then its obvious that with the time the cost for the project also varies. In this approach the aim is to get a balance between the cost and the competition time (Crawford 2014). To do this there are four steps, i) finding the normal critical path for the completion ii) Computing the crash cost for all the activities for each time period. This can be done by using the following formula. Crash cost/time period= (crash cost-normal cost)/(normal time-crash time) iii) Selecting the activity in the critical path with minimum crash cost. This activity should be crashed to the maximum possible. iv) After crashing it is to be checked that the critical path remains critical. Different Skills Required to Complete the Project Successfully To successfully complete a project a project manager need to have some skills that will help the manger in different course of actions like planning, budgeting and implementing the plans. The different skills include the communication skills, team building skills, skills to manage conflicts, knowledge about recent industry trends, time management. LEAERSHIP SKILLS Useful in managing the teams and motivating the people to achieve the desired goal. COMMUNICATION SKILLS Helps in negotiations in the meetings, influencing the people CONFLICT MANAGEMENT SKILL Helps in removing the different disagreements and the conflicts between the team members who are developing the project RISK MANAGEMENT SKILL Helps in predicting the risks involved in the undertaken projects and the ways to avoid them. Table 1: Skills of a project manager (Source: Chang and Torkzadeh 2013 ) Communication Skills: For the communication skills, its not about the sweet talks with the stakeholders and clients its about evaluation of the problem and the risks related to the projects in front of the individuals related with the project (Hwang and Ng 2013). Moreover, the listening and understanding of the issues of stakeholders and clients of the project. Leadership Skill: Again if a project is undertaken by the project manager then the manager must have the skill to motivate and build up a reliable team for the completion of the project. These skills can be also defined as the leadership skills (Nixon et al. 2012). This reliable group or team can help in getting the goal in deadline. Conflict Management Skill: Conflict management or negotiation skill is the skill that every PM should have. The reason behind this is, while implementing a project, there are lots of different kind of peoples. In this scenario the conflict and disagreements is something that must happens in a team (Su et al. 2016). So the project manager should understand the conflicts and have to able to resolve them. Risk management skill: Risk management skills are also required for the effective management. If the risks can be predicted related with the project then the chances of delivering the project successfully increases with the time. Different Project Management Tools Used In Delivering The Project While delivering a project there are some major tools that are used in various phases of the project. Like the work break down structure, Gantt charts and other project management WBS: The work break down structure can help in dividing the different tasks to the different members of the team. Again from the work break down structure the cost break down structure can be derived (Jia et al. 2014). This cost break down structure helps in monitoring the expenditure on each item and each divided task. The WBS is important in the project management since The break down structure helps in breaking the whole task into subtasks. This helps in the easer monitoring and execution of the each subtask and the related risks in the project. Also the project manager can easily estimate the duration of the each sub task. Since the tasks are divided then it is possible to monitor the regular progress respect to the budget and resource allocation. Figure1: WBS example (Source: Carstens et al. 2013, pp-56) Gantt charts: The Gantt charts in a project are helpful to plan the time period or the scale for the different phases. Also to estimate the required resources, planning the phases, coordinating and tracking the different tasks are done by the Gantt charts (Crawford 2014). Critical path analysis: The CPA is a project management tool that helps in the better time approximation of the tasks so that the whole project can be completed in time. As a tool it helps in establishing relationship between the different augmented tasks. Also it helps in optimized resource allocation. PERT Chart: The PERT is the abbreviation of the program evaluation and review technique. As a project management tool it is used to plan and control the difference phases of a project. In many cases the PERT is developed from back to the front. Since the completion time for a project is pre determined whereas the starting date is flexible for the project managers (Frame 2014). The basic aim of the PERT is to identify the different critical activities that are crucial for the completion of the project in time. Figure2: Example of a PERT chart (Source: Hwang and Ng 2013, pp- 281) Gantt Chart to Illustrate the Way to Achieve the Objectives of Rock n Bands Figure 3: Gantt chart for the Rock-n-Bands Project (Source: created by author) Project Schedule Task Name Duration Start Finish Predecessors A(Contract negotiation with selected music groups) 3 wks Mon 6/20/16 Fri 7/8/16 B(Find a construction firm build the stage) 5 wks Mon 7/4/16 Fri 8/5/16 3 C(Contract negotiation with roadies) 2 wks Mon 6/20/16 Fri 7/1/16 D(Screen and hire security personnel) 3 wks Mon 6/20/16 Fri 7/8/16 E(Ticket distribution arrangements) 1 wk Mon 7/11/16 Fri 7/15/16 1 F(Organize advertising brochures and souvenir program printing) 4 wks Mon 7/11/16 Fri 8/5/16 4 G(Logistical arrangements for music group transportation 1 wk Mon 7/18/16 Fri 7/22/16 5 H(Sound equipment arrangements) 3 wks Mon 7/11/16 Fri 7/29/16 3,4 I(Processing of travel visas (for international groups)) 5 wks Mon 8/8/16 Fri 9/9/16 6,8 J(Hire parking staff, and make parking arrangements) 4 wks Mon 8/8/16 Fri 9/2/16 2,5,8 K(Distribute media passes and arrange for MTV recording) 5 wks Mon 7/25/16 Fri 8/26/16 7 L(Arrange for concession sales and restroom facilities) 2 wks Mon 8/8/16 Fri 8/19/16 6 References Carstens, D.S., Richardson, G.L. and Smith, R.B., 2013.Project Management Tools and Techniques: A Practical Guide. CRC Press. Chang, J.C.J. and Torkzadeh, G., 2013. Perceived required skills and abilities in information systems project management.International Journal of Information Technology Project Management (IJITPM),4(1), pp.1-12. Crawford, J.K., 2014.Project management maturity model. CRC Press. Frame, J.D., 2014. Project Management Tools and Techniques: A Practical Guide.Project Management Journal,45(4), pp.e4-e4. Hwang, B.G. and Ng, W.J., 2013. Project management knowledge and skills for green construction: Overcoming challenges.International Journal of Project Management,31(2), pp.272-284. Jia, P., Gao, Q., Ji, X. and Xu, T., 2014. Task decomposition method of RD project based on product structure tree.Journal of Software,9(7), pp.1894-1902. Nixon, P., Harrington, M. and Parker, D., 2012. Leadership performance is significant to project success or failure: a critical analysis.International Journal of productivity and performance management,61(2), pp.204-216. Su, C.M., Chang, K.Y. and Chang, Y.H., 2016. Applying Possibilistic Linear Programming to Multi-objective New Ship of Sign on Proceeding Project Management Problem. InProceedings of the International MultiConference of Engineers and Computer Scientists(Vol. 2).