MGT 530 SEU Module 12 Project Management Concepts in Organizations Critical Thinking

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enovr1410

Writing

MGT 530

Saudi electronic university

MGT

Description

Critical Thinking Assignment: Project Management

Instructions:

Consider a recent project that you have worked on. This could be for a company or organization with which you are familiar, or even a personal project such as purchasing a home or planning a party.

After your opening paragraph, which includes your thesis statement, identify your selected company or organization in no more than three paragraphs. Then, complete the following:

*Note: for the charts/diagrams, use MS Word, Excel, Google Docs or Google Sheets. You may also use any other suitable project-based software. A free Project management software called Libre is also available for download here https://sourceforge.net/projects/projectlibre/

1. Create either a Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) of the project or Gantt Chart for planning and scheduling the project. Discuss why you used the type of chart you did.

2. Determine and document both probabilistic (t0, tp, and tm) and deterministic time estimates. Discuss how you arrived at these time estimates.

3. Using MS Word, Google Docs, or similar software, create a PERT network diagram with the Critical Path (CP) identified.

4. Calculate the slack time for each activity. Discuss the ramifications of slack in the CP for the activities and the project as a whole.

5. Develop the network diagram from the probability estimates. Discuss which path you would take and why.

6. For each activity, determine hypothetical costs in a table. Include budgeted costs, percent complete, actual/projected cost, and over/under budget (and total). Discuss the rationale for how you derived these costs.

7. Crash an activity on the Critical Path. Discuss the ramifications of crashing the activity you crashed.

Formatting requirements:

● Your essay is required to be 5-6 pages in length, which does not include the title page and reference pages, which are never a part of the content minimum requirements.

● Charts/diagrams should be labeled and can be added within the body of your paper.

● Support your submission with course material concepts, principles, and theories from the textbook and at least three scholarly, peer-reviewed journal articles. Use the Saudi Digital Library to find your resources.

● Use Saudi Electronic University academic writing standards and follow APA style guidelines.

Course Material: Stevenson, W. (2018). Operations management (13th ed.). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill Irwin. ISBN-13: 9781259667473

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Explanation & Answer

Attached. Please let me know if you have any questions or need revisions.

Running head: APPLICATION OF PROJECT MANAGEMENT CONCEPTS

Application of Project Management Concepts in organizations

Student Name
Institution Affiliation
Course
Instructor
Due Date

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APPLICATION OF PROJECT MANAGEMENT CONCEPTS

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Introduction
Successful Projects require management skills because they are more resources resource
which are budgeted. The ability to successfully manage and implement a project from the start to
the end requires application of project management skills, principles, procedures and policies.
According to Stevenson (2018), project management can be termed as the application of
knowledge, skills, concept, processes, tools and techniques required to achieve the objectives of
a particular project according to the project requirements and within the specified timeframe.
Project management ensures appropriate expatiations are set around what will be delivered, by
when, who, and for how much as well as quality and consistency of what is being delivered. This
paper, therefore, provides a recent project what I have worked on in organization.
ABC Company is an organization that has been offering financial consultancy services in
various states in the USA for more than a decade. However, due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the
company found it difficult to offer its services to the clients in various states. This is as result of
social distancing, curfews and lockdowns amongst other disruptions brought about by the
COVID-19 pandemic. During the pandemic, most of the clients have shifted dramatically toward
online channels thus rising competition and forcing the company to find a way to meet their
needs. ABC Company, therefore, had to seek appropriate tools and solutions to stay competitive
in the industry.
For the ABC Company to continue serving its existing and new clients, as well as
upholding a competitive edge in the marketplace, the company’s executive opted for new
strategies and practices for working remotely to manage virtual teams, resources, scheduling and
tracking implementation progress. They opted for an online platform that would enable the

APPLICATION OF PROJECT MANAGEMENT CONCEPTS

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company to continue offering financial consultancy services. The suggested platform would be
inform of a website that would allow clients to request and pay for the services. The portal would
also allow different employees from various department to collaborate while on working on
different tasks to ensure that quality services are delivered to their clients, just as they would do
while working on physical offices. The development of the web portal project has had a series of
activities, and its implementation required project management skills, principles, procedures and
policies.
Gantt chart
Gantt chart was used for planning and scheduling of the project. The Gantt chart used
shows the list of project activities, start dates and the duration for each activity. The Gantt chart
is shown if Figure 1 as follows.

4/1/2020

4/6/2020 4/11/2020 4/16/2020 4/21/2020 4/26/2020 5/1/2020

Information Gathering(A)
Planning(B)
Design( C)
Content, Writing and Assembly (D)
Coding( E)
Testing, Review and Launch (F)

Figure 1: Gantt chart for the project activities
The Gantt chart was used for several reasons. The Gantt chart help to keep project teams
members and sponsors well informed about the progress as well as communicating project

APPLICATION OF PROJECT MANAGEMENT CONCEPTS

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activities that are complete. Gantt charts are suitable because they help in project planning and
scheduling planning; they help project managers to assess the time required to each project
activity and also the total time required to complete the entire project (Galli, 2018). Gantt charts
are convenient in tracking a project's progress once it has started because as a project manager,
you can see what should have done in a specified date and duration and if the a certain task is
behind the schedule it can be brought back on course.
Seymour and Hussein (2014), by using a Gantt chart, it is possible to note activities that
are overlapping and task dependencies; they indicate which tasks are dependent on each other
thus giving project teams more clarity about each task and motivation. Project managers always
want to set a clear direction concerning the project actives as well as the entire project. Thus,
through the use of Gantt charts, it is possible to see if there are any bottlenecks within the project
and plan accordingly to ensure to ensure the project is completed within the specified timeframe.
This is due to the fact that Gantt charts present the duration for each activity in a visual format
thus making it easy to iden...


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