Project Managers Name: Project Management Plan Company Name Final Project Plan Insert a Picture or a Logo for you project Project Management Plan Submitted to: Dr. Randy Butler Project Planning Part A Business Requirements: Part B Subject Matter Experts Part C Standard Requirements Template Part D Format Part E Project Schedule Part F Estimate Part G Refine Estimate Project Execution Part A Implementation approach Part B Project Schedule Part C Keep Leadership Apprised References (2 required -- examples shown below) Mind Edge Inc. (2014). QSO-640: Project management (custom) 2014 [e-learning resource]. Retrieved from: https://snhu.mindedgeonline.com/content.php?cid=51027 Graded Case Study 2, Part I The Project ECO-Trans is a European company providing "driver assist" technology for use in buses, trains, and other mass transit vehicles. Its flagship product, ECO-Stream, is a small, durable computer screen installed in a driver's space or an engineer's cab that provides operators with targeted suggestions. The ECO-Stream system analyzes the current route of a bus or train, including the scheduled time of arrival, and advises the operator on techniques (such as gear or notch choice, when to brake or "coast," etc.) that will realize the greatest fuel savings. These driving recommendations are based on data collected from the transportation network, including road or track configuration, maximum timetable speeds, traffic, or other speed restrictions and delays. In addition to better schedule adherence, the key benefits of ECO-Stream are savings on fuel consumption and reduction in CO2 emissions. Astrid Varga is a project manager for ECO-Trans. She is currently leading her team's implementation of ECOStream for a major client, Sunshine Rail Transit (SRT), which operates light rail commuter service between several major cities in the Southeast. SRT's Operations Department contracted with ECO-Trans to implement customized ECO-Stream systems in all 53 locomotives in its fleet. Schedule and Cost Varga is working with a detailed project plan to manufacture, install, and calibrate the system. The plan essentially spans two key phases: the first dedicated to the installation and monitoring of trial equipment, and the second dedicated to installing the ECO-Stream modules and equipment on the entire SRT light rail locomotive fleet. The first phase is critical in helping Varga's team determine the best way to configure the system so it provides the most benefits to SRT operations. QSO 640: Project Management Copyright © 2014, %year% MindEdge Inc. All rights reserved. Duplication prohibited. PMP, PMI-ACP, PMI-RMP, PMBOK, and the PMI Registered Education Provider logo are registered marks of the Project Management Institute, Inc. The implementation schedule covers a 15-month time frame, with the following summary of key milestones: Nov 2012: Project initiation April 2013: Complete system test on North Central line and document results May 2013: Confirm funding by state transportation authorities and SRT June 2013: Implement equipment for central control room Sept 2013: Equip first phase of locomotives with the system Jan 2014: Equip entire fleet with the system Feb 2014: Complete end user training The first four major milestones above were completed smoothly. The implementation of the fleet equipment, however, has run into some roadblocks that are creating delays. Specifically, the delivery of a key component in the ECO-Stream cab computer terminal has been found to have defects and must be returned to the supplier. Varga is under pressure from both her manager and John Schaller, the client's Project Sponsor, to deliver the system on schedule and within budget. Schaller has been clear that there is no possibility to allocate additional money (above and beyond the authorized budget) for the ECO-Stream project. To consider her options for compressing the schedule, she reviews the network diagram for manufacturing and configuring the ECO-Stream terminals: The ECO-Stream terminal contains the driver's interface screen that displays information and video. It also connects to a "communication box." The communication box sends and receives data on train speed, energy consumption, GPS location, and arrival and departure times; it does this by interfacing with multiple devices that collect this data. The defective component is needed to connect the terminal to the communication box. Delayed connection parts will delay the configuration of critical incoming and outgoing data interfaces to the driver's terminal. Looking at the network diagram, Varga decides that she can use crashing to get the necessary components from an alternate supplier. She knows that this supplier will charge more per part, especially with expedited delivery, but she cannot think of another way to restore the terminal manufacturing schedule and meet the client's installation target. QSO 640: Project Management Copyright © 2014, %year% MindEdge Inc. All rights reserved. Duplication prohibited. PMP, PMI-ACP, PMI-RMP, PMBOK, and the PMI Registered Education Provider logo are registered marks of the Project Management Institute, Inc. Before you move on to the next section of the case study, identify the problems and/or issues that you'll need to include in your analysis. Document this information, and consider how you will integrate it into your evaluation of the project. QSO 640: Project Management Copyright © 2014, %year% MindEdge Inc. All rights reserved. Duplication prohibited. PMP, PMI-ACP, PMI-RMP, PMBOK, and the PMI Registered Education Provider logo are registered marks of the Project Management Institute, Inc. Graded Case Study 2, Part II Performance Measurement Shortly after resolving the defective component issue, Schaller asked Varga to calculate a performance measurement baseline (PMB) at the current point (month 12) in preparation for an upcoming checkpoint meeting between ECO-Trans and SRT. The client was anxious to remain within the implementation budget and liked to keep abreast of any cost variance. Varga asked her assistant to provide her with the project's earned value (EV) to date, and she added the EV curve to her original cost baseline curve (planned value). She then emailed this to Schaller to include in his presentation for the checkpoint meeting. Project Resource Management Since the beginning of the ECO-Stream project, Mark Osborne, SRT's Transportation Department Training Manager, has expressed concern that the end user training occurs too late in the plan. Varga has heard from him and others at SRT that many of the locomotive engineers are complaining that they have not been involved in the process and are not prepared to use the equipment when it comes on board. Their union representative has repeatedly brought this issue to SRT management and has asked them to change the project timeline to initiate training earlier. In early October, Varga learned of a change on another ECO-Trans client project that pushed its training schedule back several weeks. As a result, two key ECO-Trans training specialists, Dominic Vonn and Marielle Beauchamp, were now available for a two-week window to be reassigned temporarily. An internal QSO 640: Project Management Copyright © 2014, %year% MindEdge Inc. All rights reserved. Duplication prohibited. PMP, PMI-ACP, PMI-RMP, PMBOK, and the PMI Registered Education Provider logo are registered marks of the Project Management Institute, Inc. member of the project team suggested that Varga assign Vonn and Beauchamp to do some preliminary end user training at SRT the following week. When Varga reviewed her schedule, however, she saw that the team would be heavily involved in activities to configure the operating system, and she did not want to disrupt her plans to kick off training. She also remarked that the locomotive engineers have been resistant stakeholders throughout the project. In general, these employees are averse to change of any kind, especially if they view it as adding any incremental burden to their jobs. Osborne, on the other hand, has been a vocally supportive stakeholder for the project. He has repeatedly offered to help positively influence the engineers' perception of ECO-Stream and to convince them it will actually make their jobs easier. He has asked Varga to attend one of his training blocks to give the engineers a demo, but she has not yet taken the time to make this happen. Although Varga knows that she is way too swamped to deliver a demo for SRT's locomotive engineers, she pulls up her resource calendar to check the resource allocation in the Product Management Department, which is staffed with a team of product specialists who routinely prepare and present product demos and presentations. Maybe she could send one of them to do a demo? Project Mgmt Resource Constraints Total October November December Hours Needed 10/6 10/13 10/20 10/27 11/3 11/10 11/17 11/24 12/1 12/8 12/15 12/22 Vin Siedek Max 10 hours per week 45 3h 2h Rohan Singh Max 20 hours per week 61 2 h 12 h 15 h 20 h 12 h Frank Hermann Unavailable 50 in Nov. 5h 5h Susanne Weitz Max 10 hours per week Eva Fischer Unavailable 20 12/8 -12/26 36 3h 5h 8h 4h 2h 9h 5h 3h 3h 3h 5h 5h 10 h 10 h 10 h 3h 12 h 3 h 3 h 12 h 5h 5h 3h 5h While looking at the calendar, Varga noticed some potential problems with upcoming resource allocation, but she didn't think it was necessary to resolve them at this point. She assumed that the product specialists would be willing to do whatever it took to make the SRT implementation a success. Before you move on to the next section of the case study, identify the problems and/or issues that you'll need to include in your analysis. Document this information, and consider how you will integrate it into your evaluation of the project. QSO 640: Project Management Copyright © 2014, %year% MindEdge Inc. All rights reserved. Duplication prohibited. PMP, PMI-ACP, PMI-RMP, PMBOK, and the PMI Registered Education Provider logo are registered marks of the Project Management Institute, Inc. Case Study 2, Part II Performance Measurement Shortly after resolving the defective component issue, Schaller asked Varga to calculate a performance measurement baseline (PMB) at the current point (month 12) in preparation for an upcoming checkpoint meeting between ECO-Trans and SRT. The client was anxious to remain within the implementation budget and liked to keep abreast of any cost variance. Varga asked her assistant to provide her with the project's earned value (EV) to date, and she added the EV curve to her original cost baseline curve (planned value). She then emailed this to Schaller to include in his presentation for the checkpoint meeting. Project Resource Management Since the beginning of the ECO-Stream project, Mark Osborne, SRT's Transportation Department Training Manager, has expressed concern that the end user training occurs too late in the plan. Varga has heard from him and others at SRT that many of the locomotive engineers are complaining that they have not been involved in the process and are not prepared to use the equipment when it comes on board. Their union representative has repeatedly brought this issue to SRT management and has asked them to change the project timeline to initiate training earlier. In early October, Varga learned of a change on another ECO-Trans client project that pushed its training schedule back several weeks. As a result, two key ECO-Trans training specialists, Dominic Vonn and Marielle Beauchamp, were now available for a two-week window to be reassigned temporarily. An internal QSO 640: Project Management Copyright © 2014, %year% MindEdge Inc. All rights reserved. Duplication prohibited. PMP, PMI-ACP, PMI-RMP, PMBOK, and the PMI Registered Education Provider logo are registered marks of the Project Management Institute, Inc. member of the project team suggested that Varga assign Vonn and Beauchamp to do some preliminary end user training at SRT the following week. When Varga reviewed her schedule, however, she saw that the team would be heavily involved in activities to configure the operating system, and she did not want to disrupt her plans to kick off training. She also remarked that the locomotive engineers have been resistant stakeholders throughout the project. In general, these employees are averse to change of any kind, especially if they view it as adding any incremental burden to their jobs. Osborne, on the other hand, has been a vocally supportive stakeholder for the project. He has repeatedly offered to help positively influence the engineers' perception of ECO-Stream and to convince them it will actually make their jobs easier. He has asked Varga to attend one of his training blocks to give the engineers a demo, but she has not yet taken the time to make this happen. Although Varga knows that she is way too swamped to deliver a demo for SRT's locomotive engineers, she pulls up her resource calendar to check the resource allocation in the Product Management Department, which is staffed with a team of product specialists who routinely prepare and present product demos and presentations. Maybe she could send one of them to do a demo? Case Study 2, Part III Team Conflict The training issue was only one source of conflict on the client side. Bernie Hays and Ed Hallman, the communications specialists in SRT's Mechanical Department, were tasked with installing the terminals and associated components on the trains. This would require taking the locomotives out of service for two days each at staggered intervals. Eager to schedule the work, Hays had reached out to Lisa Lindstrom in Transportation Operations, who was responsible for coordinating train assignments, including taking vehicles out of service. She refused to give Hays concrete time windows, because there were too many issues compromising the availability of the locomotives. The conflict had become heated, and Lindstrom had become nonresponsive on the issue. Because Hays, Hallman, and Lindstrom were all members of the project team, Varga was aware of the problem and realized it had the potential to impede the January installation deadline. Schaller had also informed Varga that the ongoing tension between Transportation Ops and Mechanical was nothing new; they had a history of blaming each other for problems and failing to work together. He has suggested that it might help if Varga, as an outsider, explains the importance of working out the ECO-Stream installation schedule so they can protect their investment and get the tool up and running. Varga, however, is not keen on getting involved in clients' conflicts. While there are situations internally at ECO-Trans where it is necessary to have confrontations, she is apprehensive about making enemies on the project team, especially when they are SRT's resources. She hopes that Lindstrom and the Mechanical guys will find a way to work out the scheduling issues on their own. Stakeholder Communication Up until the eighth or ninth month of the project, Varga felt that communicating with ECO-Trans and client stakeholders had been manageable. Early in the project, she set up an electronic Kanban board and showed project team members how to "drag and drop" activities into four status buckets: "Planned," "In Progress," "In Trouble," and "Completed." Even though the board was not regularly updated, project team members and stakeholders seemed to get ample information from weekly team meetings and occasional information requests via email or phone. She also prepared weekly status reports for all stakeholders. When problems with the terminals began to plague the project, some of the stakeholders shifted more attention to the project. As a result, project team members were getting interrupted frequently with questions and requests for status updates on numerous aspects of the project. For example, Roland Letessier, ECOQSO 640: Project Management Copyright © 2014, %year% MindEdge Inc. All rights reserved. Duplication prohibited. PMP, PMI-ACP, PMI-RMP, PMBOK, and the PMI Registered Education Provider logo are registered marks of the Project Management Institute, Inc. Trans' software specialist, was getting urgent emails from SRT's Operations Planning Director to see where things stood with customizing the interface. Letessier wasn't the first to complain to Varga; at least three other team members were getting similar pressure to provide status reports on various activities, and it was impeding their ability to get work done. Varga brought this issue to Schaller's attention and asked for his help in funneling communication directly to her. She asked him to remind stakeholders that all project updates would be covered thoroughly in her weekly status reports that they all received. Schaller agreed to do his best to mitigate the situation. He did, however, point out that the weekly status reports were very long and detailed. While this was useful for some stakeholders, he believed that others didn't bother to read through them. Before you move on to the next section of the case study, identify the problems and/or issues that you'll need to include in your analysis. Document this information, and consider how you will integrate it into your evaluation of the project. QSO 640: Project Management Copyright © 2014, %year% MindEdge Inc. All rights reserved. Duplication prohibited. PMP, PMI-ACP, PMI-RMP, PMBOK, and the PMI Case Study 2, Part IV Project Monitoring and Control When the first batch of components was ready to be installed on SRT's fleet, Varga decided that each and every part needed to be inspected to ensure that no defects found their way to the customer. She oversaw a process to inspect each piece of hardware for visible defects, boot up the operating system, and test the GPS devices and other components. In doing so, inspection staff used a checklist to make sure that each feature met the customer's requirements and was capable of its intended performance. Reviewing the completed checklist and other inspection documentation, Varga saw that some of the terminal casings did not meet the client's specified dimensions and would not mount properly in the cab space. Based on a cause-and-effect diagram and further analysis of the problem, the quality control team determined that the high percentage of defects was due to a flaw with one of the machines in the casing supplier's production facility. Varga sent the defective terminals back to ECO-Trans' assembly team to be reassembled in new casings. Because there were extra casings available on site, she didn't think it was necessary to discuss the problem with the supplier. As you complete this last section of the case study, identify the problems and/or issues that you'll need to include in your analysis. Document this information, and consider how you will integrate it into your evaluation of the project. QSO 640: Project Management Copyright © 2014, %year% MindEdge Inc. All rights reserved. Duplication prohibited. PMP, PMI-ACP, PMI-RMP, PMBOK, Milestone Chart Activity Activity Name Expected Completion Date Predecessor 1st Quarter Jan Feb Mar 2nd Quarter Apr May Jun 3rd Quarter Jul 1 2 3 = Expected completion date = Actual completion date Aug Sep 4th Quarter Oct Nov Dec
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