Project Management

Scenario: You are employed as an Office Manager in a company based in the centre of London. The company provides consultancy services to businesses around the world, particularly in the area of management development. All of the consultants work remotely from home and the office function, with a team of 10 people, is purely administrative. The Managing Director has announced that the offices will be relocated to the area around Banbury, Oxfordshire in order to reduce costs. She has asked you to lead a small team from the office and involve consultants to plan and execute this move. She wishes to retain the same size administrative team. In her announcement, she also confirmed the current business objectives and the specific objectives associated with the move.

These include:

·        Continuing to grow business income by 10% annually

·  Enhancing profitability partially by reducing the physical costs associated with accommodation

·        Retaining the business earning capacity

·        Improving the quality of support the office provides to the consultants and clients

·        Improving the IT systems for the business

·        Minimizing the human resource costs associated with the move particularly associated with redundancy, recruitment and training.

Activity 1: The Managing Director wishes to understand the full implications of the office move. She has asked you to prepare an initial report which considers the various projects needed to deliver the move to new premises.

·   Appraise the business objectives listed above and identify the projects which will be needed to successfully carry out the relocation.

·  Considering your list of projects, develop the necessary project sub divisions and produce high level estimates of the resources needed to complete one of these projects including time and costs.

    Activity 2: The MD has read your report and agreed with the work completed to date. She now wishes to get an insight into the way in which you believe the projects should be planned and delivered. She has also made it clear that all members of the team need to have the same shared understanding. She has asked you to use your selected project and produce a handbook on The Project Management Approach, for use by all members of the team.

     The first section of this Handbook must:

·        describe and evaluate a suitable methodology for your chosen project

·        assess the feasibility of this project

·        include a structure for the management and administration of the project

·    define the roles and responsibilities of staff who will manage this project, producing a job description and person specification for a Project Manager. This person specification must include the interpersonal skills required for effective project management.

Activity 3: In the second section of the Handbook you must prepare and describe a detailed project plan.

         

Activity 4: In this section you must:

·        describe and assess alternative project team structures

·        design processes for quality management of the project

·        design procedures for how project change proposals will be managed

Activity 5: This section of the Handbook covers monitoring and control of projects.

·        Produce two tables which identify;

à the issues and risks that may impede a project

à the issues and risks likely to be encountered in the final stages of a project.

·        Design and describe systems which can be used for;

à monitoring and appraising the status of a project

à detecting and managing issues arising in the course of projects

Activity 6

The final section of the Handbook is an assessment of the tasks needed to be completed in the final stages of a project.

Task No:	Assessment Criteria	Suggested Evidence
1	1.1, 1.2	The report must include an appropriate list of projects required by the objectives provided. For the chosen project the learner should produce a high level breakdown of the project and from this realistic timescales and budgets.
2	1.3,1.4, 2.1, 2.2, 3.2	The Handbook must include an evaluation of the chosen methodology and a comprehensive assessment of the feasibility of the project. The job description and person specification for the project manager must be clearly presented and demonstrate that the learner understands the roles and responsibilities and the interpersonal skills needed by a successful project manager
3	2.3	A detailed structured plan must be constructed which demonstrates understanding of the importance of project planning.
4	3.1, 3.3, 3.4,	In this section the learner must produce a balanced assessment of different team structures. The two designs must be realistic, practical and well described and show an understanding of these aspects of project management
5	4.1, 4.2, 4.3, 5.1	The two tables should identify a comprehensive range of issues and risks likely to impede projects generally or be encountered towards the end of projects. The descriptions and designs need to show that the learner understands how to monitor and control projects; the issues which arise in projects and how these should be managed.
6	5.2	The assessment of the project tasks which need to be completed must cover the project process, results and future actions such as handover

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