Assignment Task
Scenario
The following scenario describes a fictitious but realistic project (European Holiday) where you must plan and manage it as though you were the appointed Project Manager. You are also an active member of the project team and can be allocated to perform work on the project. You live with your partner/spouse and two pre-teen children in Perth, Western Australia. You work as a Senior Manager of a major engineering consultancy. With the region’s economic performance being impacted by the COVID-19 outbreak, you have successfully driven a reorganisation of your company and introduced an innovative skills development program focusing on the upliftment of Project Management competencies of your staff.
This approach has markedly reduced overheads and improved profit performance, despite the challenges that COVID-19 has introduced. As Australia is a member of the Commonwealth, member countries have agreed to share their knowledge on boosting their economies at a Commonwealth level, postCOVID, and Scotland has agreed to host a ‘Commonwealth Conference’ to facilitate this. As a consequence of your innovative contribution, your company has invited you to present a paper at the conference in Scotland to share the strategy and approach you took to uplift your team’s Project Management competencies. The conference takes place for three (3) days in Edinburgh, Scotland, starting on the 1st Monday in September. You will be presenting a keynote paper at the start of the conference, and you are expected to represent the company throughout the conference, where you hope to gain some significant business connections.
Your family are very enthusiastic about this opportunity. They have recently discussed the idea of an overseas family holiday now that some regions have opened their borders again and a vaccine is in place. In a family meeting, it is determined that the whole family will travel and make this a three (3) week European family holiday which must include at least three (3) countries (including Scotland) with at least five (5) full days (excluding travel) in each country visited, to appreciate the sights and the culture. You will be using your annual leave entitlement for the time away from work. Your family members understand that they will need to seek alternative arrangements (excursions) over the conference time, but otherwise, you will travel as a family.
Due to time constraints with work, you will have to start your trip with Scotland being the first country visited. Having accepted these constraints, you proceed to plan your holiday. Being the ‘Project Manager’ of this family project, you undertake all the Project Management related tasks and make all the plans, delegating tasks to the other family members, as required. Your work commitments are such that you cannot leave Perth for Scotland until after an all-day industrial hearing that you are required to attend in Perth on the Friday before the 1st Monday in September.
Identify a minimum of seventy-five (up to a maximum of one hundred (100) tasks to be represented in a Work Breakdown Structure (WBS)Each of the seventy-five or more tasks must be written as a ‘verb noun’.The initial Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) must have a minimum of four (4) levels. More than four (4) levels are acceptable.The initial Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) must be presented as a ‘tree structure’ showing the decomposition of the project into a minimum of four (4) levels.The initial Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) must be developed using applications other than MSProjectThe initial developed Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) must be saved in a PDF format and embedded inBased on the Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) developed in Task 1A, develop an initial Project Schedule using MSProject®, 2016 or above.The initial Project Schedule must reflect the following key columns in the Gantt Chart:Task NumberWBS CodeIndented Task ListStart Date, Duration, End DatePredecessors and SuccessorsFree SlackCritical StatusAssigned Resource NameBudgetThe initial Gantt Chart’s timeline must be shown in weeks, and Milestones must be visible.The initial Gantt Chart must be supported by a Network Diagram that has been logically structured and clearly shows the project’s Critical Path’.Explain (with the help of academic sources) what constitutes a Project ‘Assumption’ and a Project Constraint’.Identify four (4) Project Assumptions and four (4) Project Constraints and highlight which of the identified ‘Constraints’ is expected to have the most significant impact on your initial baThe sequence of tasks in a Project Schedule is based on dependencies, which may be either:Hard (Mandatory)Soft (Discretionary);ExternalBriefly define and describe (with the help of academic sources) each of these different types of dependencies.Using your Project Schedule developed in Part 1B, illustrate each of the dependency types mentioned above with the use of a specific example.
