Introduction
The case examines the project for construction of a Business School for the University of Exeter, which was completed on time and within the forecasted budget by 2011. The objectives of the University involved (1) delivering a world-class research and teaching facilities to the University, (2) satisfying the needs and expectations of the student during and after construction, (3) enhance the School's position in the international educational arena.
The objectives of the project team, however, included a variety of more complex elements. The core goal of the project was to deliver the facility according to the University’s project, within the given budget and timeframe. Secondly, the project team had to effectively manage the varied interests of primary and secondary stakeholders, affected by the project. Thirdly, the project should be conducted in a way that does not affect the operations of the University on the day-to-day basis. Finally, the university demanded the compliance with all the “green standards” and delivery of the facility which would as a minimum comply with the BREEM standards.
Evaluation
Application of Concepts and Principles
The team prepared a comprehensive and detailed project execution plan, which a specific master program, broken down to the sub-programs. This step is the conceptualized the appropriate approach to handling the typical project management challenges with multiple primary and secondary stakeholders involved in the process (Keller and Horn 45-52). The core principle of project management is the definition and distribution of skills and roles, which aims at addressing the time, scope, quality and cost of the project. It is evident that T&T built on a solid structure, which enabled clear communication between the various stakeholders and project teams as well as defined the objectives of the project in a way that the high-level goals were effectively “translated” into specific and measurable milestones in a Gantt chart and work breakdown structure (Lewinson 57-65).
The company managed to reach the desired outcome despite numerous challenges, related to the clashes of interest, difficulties in communication between the functional teams and the client. Effective leadership addressed in the timely resolution of the disputes and rapid decision-making allowed the project management avoid and catch up with significant delays in the program, consequently adhering to the timeline of the project and its budget (Basu 101).
Gantt Chart
The Gantt chart is built upon several major assumptions. First, the project lifecycle is assumed to be 1 of December 2007 until 1 of January 2011. It is estimated the project will be executed in three major stages, including preparation process and approval, execution phase and finalization phase. The WBS and sub-processes within the execution stage will be prepared in functional Gantt charts by the responsible parties in the core delivery team (Pinto 205-209).
Gantt chart is critical for the understanding of the scope and scale of the project as well as addressing the alignment issues between the work teams, budget planning, and risk management. The current chart allows understanding the approach of the company to the risk management through effective time allocation and milestone overlap. This parallel run off some of the specific project stages will enable higher flexibility in the project and reduction of the headcount cost to create financial and operational buffer in the execution and start-up stages
Work Breakdown Structure (WBS)
Work Breakdown Structure is the detailed hierarchical tree diagram, which outlines the deliverables, tasks, and allocated budget, required to deliver the project. The WBS is the continuation of the Gantt chart and should use the same codes and names for the milestones to ensure that all the project teams and stakeholders “talk the same language”. The WBS for the Exeter University Business center involves three levels. The below tables outline the tree diagram view of WBS (Lewis 23-45).
Based on the above, the project team can see the complete work breakdown structure as well as understand the allocation of the budget to develop a comprehensive control mechanism and risk management plan.
Payback Period
The payback period for the Exeter Business School is calculated, based on several major assumptions, reflected in the table below:
A total of 584 memberships per month;
Variable costs are assumed based on the qualitative research and current situation in the market;
Fixed costs are assumed as the budget allocated for the T&T construction project (Knutson 101-112).
Quality Management Plan (QMP)
The Roles and Responsibilities
The Tools and Environment
Quality Management Process
The quality management process will involve planning, execution, and control. With that in mind, the organization will be broken down to Quality Planning (QP), Quality Assurance (QA) and Quality Control (QC).
Communication Plan (CP)
Project communication, in contrary to many other aspects of effective project management, is the joint effort of all the team members and parties, responsible for the project deliverables. There are five critical steps to ensure effective internal and external communication. First, the T&T must identify the audience. Secondly, it must analyze the information needs. Thirdly, the project management team should decide on the communication channels and media use. The fourth step is defining the timing of the communication strategy delivery. Finally, the CP should have a clear breakdown of roles and responsibilities (McNamara 15-32).
Communication Plan Table
Change Management Plan (CMP)
The change management plan aims at paving an outline of the change management initiatives through the project life cycle. The core stakeholders of the CMP include all the project management teams and senior leadership, who play key roles in the decision-making process for the project. The Compatibilities the procedures for submission, coordination, evaluation and review of any change to the project baseline (CPC 1). T&T project was characterized by multiple change requests and to be able to address them, the management required effective and flexible CMP (EBS 4)
Change Request (CR) Submission and Evaluation Process
The change requests (CR) are any requests to the project management team which will in one or another way change the baseline of the project. All the CRs will receive (1) approved, (2) on hold or (3) denied status and will be evaluated based on the same criteria. The CR process will involve the following stages:
Authorization Process
First, the complexity of the construction project allows foresting a large flow of change requests at all stages. To be able to effectively address these changes, the project management team should be able to use a comprehensive framework for prioritizing and segmentation of the same.
The projects will be segmented into the following categories:
Risk Management Plan
The purpose of the Risk Management Plan (RMP) is to address the events or condition, which place the baseline or the completion of the project at risk. The RMP is built to identify, monitor, report and prevent potential risks.
Risk Categorization and Probability
The event or condition, which is considered a potential risk for the project, will be assessed on the qualitative basis by the T&T Project management team. Further, each risk is assigned one of the three impact levels: (1) high, (2) medium, and (3) low. This factor is determined by the perceived probability of occurrence, where ‘high’ indicates the probability above 70%, ‘medium’ is between 35% and 70%, and ‘low’ is any risk with probability factor below 35%.
Risk Response Planning
The response to the risk will be segmented in the following strategies (Carpenter 45-54):
Avoid – done by addressing the cause of the risk and its elimination;
Mitigate – develop a strategy to mitigate and minimize the negative impact of the threat;
Accept – evaluate and monitor the risk, but do not take active action to address it;
Ignore or Transfer – the risk will be ignored or the responsibility will be transferred to another party.
T&T applied each of the strategies several times during the cause of the project. Interpersonal conflict is considered the major risk and was handled with mixed mitigation and avoidance strategies, while macroeconomic threats often had to be ignored to focus on other elements of the project.
Conclusion
The construction of the Exeter Business School was a winning project, where the T&T managed to overcome multiple challenges in management not only operational side of the project but also cultural, personal and professional diversity of its stakeholders. T&T met and exceeded the expectations of the client and delivered the project on time and in compliance with the baseline, despite the economic crisis, multiple delays, and conflicts of interest. The key to the success of the project was a comprehensive Project Management Pan, Communication, and, importantly, the Risk Management strategies, which allowed early identification of the risks, effective communication and decision-making process and flexible response to the situation.
References
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