Introduction
Any Project should be managed by experienced and well equipped people who have the technical knowhow on how to handle and integrate the different activities that pertain to a specific project. Project management is essential in achieving the set time limits, goals and objectives of the project. It also makes sure that proper time management is installed when carrying out a project. For timely and successful completion of a project, work plans, packages and the breakdown of the different activities have to be put into consideration. All these are essentials when it comes to proper implementation and completion of the project.
Body
Work packages act as the foundations on which the work breakdown structures are laid. The work packages permit the project management team to define and clearly outline the procedure to be followed for successful completion if the work or the project. In a more conclusive manner, work packages are divisions of the main project . The divisions can also be known as sub- projects. When all the different work packages are combined together, they collectively form the project. Breaking the project into work packages is highly advised and comes with high recommendations from all the project teams that have successfully accomplished their projects. The reason project managers are advised to breakdown projects into work packages is because work packages allow multiple teams to work concurrently on the individual parts of the project. The project that I was involved in was in construction and equipping of the school library. We were divided into work packages to incorporate the different departments that needed books to research on the best and quality books to put in the library. By so doing, the whole project was completed faster and each component of the project done to the best of the individuals present in the different teams.
The defined teams follow the procedures prescribed in the work package that pertains to them and accomplishes the operations in the time set by the overall overseer. Work packages are of two major types. Horizontal work packages are packages that take care of the management of the project. Content work packages are the packages that are concerned with tasks that achieve the project outcomes. Work packages are of great importance to the project. Moreover, work packages assist in the creation and use of Work Breakdown Structures. There are several advantages that the team in-charge of managing a project can enjoy as a result of having work packages incorporated in their project. First, each work package has the ultimate goal of achieving the overall goals of the project. The members entrusted with a particular package work hard to achieve the set goal in their package. By so doing, the project is accomplished having achieved all the set goals.
Work packages also assist in describing the activities to be carried out so as to achieve the targets of the project. They, therefore, assist in making sure that no activity is left out during project implementation . Another very vital role that work packages have in the implementation of the project is that they assist in timely conclusion of the project. Due to the division of the project in bits, the project management team can make a new pragmatic estimate of the duration that a project will take to its completion. As all the packages are being worked on concurrently, much time is saved and the project is completed on time. Different work packages have different results at defined stages of completion. The results generated from different stages are of help in ascertaining the stage of the project as well as knowing if the project is moving in the right direction. Work packages are, therefore, very important in creating the breakdown structure of the project. Work breakdown structures describe the scope, outcomes and deliverables of the project. If a project uses the work breakdown structure, it is guaranteed that it will cover 100% of the project.
A work breakdown structure also ensures that the project does not add unwanted activities to its scope. Project managers are entrusted with the task of designing a standard work breakdown structure. Work packages assist in the formulation and designing of work breakdown structures. A work breakdown structure tries to simplify the work packages further. The breakdown is essential in estimating the costs that the project will incur and is also crucial in the controlling objective. A work breakdown structure ensures that all major and minor activities of a project can be accounted for in a case where the monitoring process is conducted. Responsibilities are also clearly stated in the work breakdown structure. In our team, the work breakdown structure involved making sure that only the most relevant materials and books were incorporated and brought to the library.
Even after the creation of a work breakdown structure and work packages, it is critical for the project management team to establish how much the activities of the assignment are probable to cost. To have a more precise value to work with, many project managers establish a measurement baseline that monitors and measures the cost, as well as the scheduled performance. The baseline helps in measuring the performance of both the project and the manager. It is a benchmark where the performance of the project is measured against to establish the success and completion stage of the project. The measurement baseline acts as the measure of how long the project has taken to its current level and how far the teams are from completion of the project. The managers of a project determine the schedule and cost variances using the performance management baseline. The baseline is conceptualized during the initial phases of the project. Performance measurement baseline compares the additional costs and the total spending projections with the timeline of the project. The correct figures are derived from the work breakdown structures also constructed in the initial project planning phase.
The process of establishing the cost and schedule performance measurement baseline should be followed word for word so as the desired and most likely figures are gotten and used for comparison. The three baselines that are taken onto consideration when coming up with the final figure are technical, cost and schedule. The technical baseline takes into consideration aspects that may include developing technical logic, determining the approach and scope, performance of functional analysis and developing work breakdown structures. All these assist in the development of a technical baseline. The schedule baseline involves defining activities, estimating the time frames of activities, identifying the order of activities and making sure that all activities follow the plan. In our project, the baseline was time. The time given to finalize the whole project was limited and as teams, we had to put extra effort to accomplish the objectives for each group.
The cost baseline identifies and determines the resources, shows cost estimates and determines the constraints that may affect the funding of the project. Several steps have to be followed to establish a performance measurement baseline properly. One, the project should be broken down into work packages. Each work package should have a deliverable of its own. The work packages assist in tracing all requirements and needs in the project. The second step is assigning responsibilities to people who will be bestowed with the responsibility of delivering the targets of the different work packages. The third step in establishing a cost and schedule performance measurement baseline involves arranging the work packages in a logical manner. The arrangement should portray the movement and connection of events and processes from the start of the project to the end. The fourth step in developing a measurement baseline involves making a Time-Phased Budget Cost for Work Scheduled (BCWS). The budget should incorporate the costs of both materials and labor incurred in each of the work packages.
The total in each work package should be added to arise to the total costs of the whole project. Proper resource allocation is paramount and budget profiles should at least match the expectations of the sponsor of the project. The fifth step to be followed to arrive at the baseline to measure the performance of the project is to assign the work package performance measures to each of the work packages. The measures should be analyzed and a summary obtained to verify the performance of the whole project. Upon completion of all these steps, an overall baseline for performance measurement should be set. The baseline should incorporate schedule matrix as well as give an estimation of the total costs of the project.
Proper planning, control, and measurement are paramount to the success of project management. The planning has to be set out clearly, starting with known financial constraints, time and cost constraints. All these were set out clearly in the school library project. The analysis of any project is not an easy task and governments and companies use Earned Value Management to produce standard projects. Earned value management assists the project managers to evaluate the performance of the project. It is a process which is systematic and is used in the calculation of variances in projects. The variances are determined on the foundation of comparisons between the work planned and work performed. Earned value management is applied in the schedule and cost control and is a crucial tool that can be used in project forecasting. Earned Value Management has the goal of detecting the problems associated with performance early enough in the project life cycle. The performance of the task is deliberated against the initial plan of the project.
If earned value management is used accordingly, it can unearth any discrepancies and looming problems on work in progress as well as any budget overruns. To clearly illustrate how Earned Value Management helps the project supervisor in determining the category of the project, ratios and variances are used. Some of the most basic variances used in the evaluation will include the difference between the plan value and the earned value, which is known as a scheduled variance. The cost variance is also another measure of project development. It is calculated by getting the difference between the actual cost and earned value. If the result is a positive variance, it indicates that the project is either ahead of the schedule or is still operating in the stipulated budget. For the ratios, the ratio of earned Value to plan, known as the Schedule Performance Index and the ratio of Earned Value to Cost, known as the Cost Performance Index, are used in the analysis. If the resultant figure goes above one, the project time and costs are favorable.
The project manager may also incorporate the use of charts in addition to Earned Value Management to indicate the progress of the project. Control charts are quality tools that show process data that transpired in a defined period and are displayed against the limits of process control. A control chart contains three basic components. One is a centre line. The line represents the mean value calculated from all the points of data. A control chart also contains horizontal border lines, Lower Control Limit (LCL) and Upper Control Limit (UCL). These three lines explain the limits that are caused by common variations. The third essential component of a control chart is the data. The information is posted over time. The project manager may use control charts to establish if a definite process is stable or unstable.
If the process is stable, only common cause variations are contained in the process. If unstable, the process is subject to variations caused by special occurrences. Controlled variations, also known as common cause variations are expected in the process. The variations are expected and predictable. Uncontrolled or special cause variations arise as a result of external factors. If these variations are discovered in the process, the process goes to the unstable state. The project manager can plot the critical ratio in the control charts. The ratio reveals whether the performance of the project is stable or not. It also predicts the future performance of the project if stable. Through the chart, the project manager can identify any special cause variations that occurred in the life of the project and also display any trends or patterns that pertain to the performance of the project. We drew charts and graphs to establish our performance and progress over time. There were minimal variations and no uncontrolled variations were experienced in the course of the project.
Change management process is crucial if any project has to succeed. The transition from one leader to another has to be tactically done to achieve the desired results. Change management is the process of administering and tracking changes if the undertaking of a project. An effective change management process that can lead to the triumph of the assignment will be preparing the project team for the change. The preparation stage will involve defining the strategies of the management and preparing the management team that takes over. The process will also include the managing change phase. The phase will incorporate developing the plans for change management as well as taking necessary action when implementing the change. The last phase in the process will be reinforcing a change. The phase will include collecting and analyzing feedback, managing change resistance and implementing corrective actions to make sure that the process is effective.
Conclusion
Project management is essential in making sure that the project achieves its objective. Monitoring, measuring and assessing the level of the project are, therefore, critical in ascertaining the success of the project.
References
Alleman, G. B. (2012). Establishing The Performance Measurement Baseline. Northern Utah Chapter, 1-40.
Dwivedi, U. (2014). Earned Value Management Explained. Project Smart.co.uk, 1.
European Commission. (2014, May 17). Managing Projects- What is a work package. Retrieved May 17, 2014, from Consumers, Health and Food Executive Agency: http://ec.europa.eu
