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Description

Assignment Overview:


For this assignment, you will drafting three documents that are often part of initiating a project: the business case, the project charter, and an initial stakeholder analysis. The Business Case provides decision-makers with the information they need to make an informed decision about whether to approve a project or not.


Learning Connection:


This assignment is directly linked to the following key learning outcomes from the course syllabus:

  • Preparing or working with a business case
  • Creating or working with a project charter
  • Conducting a stakeholder analysis

In addition to these key learning outcomes, you will also have the opportunity to evidence the following skills through completing this assignment:

  • Critical thinking
  • Professional writing
  • Problem solving
  • Quantitative analysis

Assignment Instructions:


For this assignment, you be using the attached case study (see attached Case Study) to prepare a business case, create a project charter, and perform an initial stakeholder analysis. Specific templates with instructions have been provided for each of these documents (see attached PJM6000_Wk2_AssignmentTemplate). Here are a few notes on each item:

Case Study:

The case study is fairly straightforward. You are part of a team that is trying to decide whether to use internal or external resources for a training project. As part of this case study, you will not only make a recommendation, but you will 'charter' your project by creating a Project Charter. All the information you need is within the case study, but you will be required to draw reasonable conclusion from the case study, as every detail is not present. Please pay particular attention to the financial details provided, as well as, the considerations at the end of the case study, as it provides you with some 'hints' about how to consider various items. In a case study such as this, there are a range of good answers. So don't think that you have to select one option or the other. The key is to accurately analyze the case, and then provide a recommendation that is based on evidence you provide within the business case.

Assignment Template:

The assignment template contains three separate templates. Please see notes on each below:

  • Business Case
    • The business case has eight sections that lead you through an analysis of the case study. Instructions are provided within each section, along with sample questions, which act as prompts. The key to doing a good business case is drawing logical conclusions from the information provided. Take the time to read the case study carefully, allowing for reasonable assumptions on your part to complete the business case template. If this is your first time completing something of this nature, make sure to allow yourself sufficient time.
  • Project Charter
    • The Project Charter template contains many similar sections from the business case with only slight differences or focuses. Therefore, the more thorough your business case, the easier it will be to complete the project charter. Remember that the business case attempts to analyze whether a project should be pursued, while the project charter authorizes the work to begin. So although they have similar information, they serve different purposes. Please note: In most cases, you would submit your business case, and then the sponsor would make a decision. In this scenario, whatever you recommend in your business case, you should assume is what is approved in the project charter.
  • Stakeholder Analysis
    • At this point, we are only performing an initial stakeholder analysis, there will be many other stakeholders in a project such as this in addition to those mentioned in the case study. But for this analysis, focus on those specifically mentioned or directly implied in the case study. You will have to make some reasonable assumption to complete the analysis, but this is often the case this early in a project.

Below are some key guidelines you will want to ensure you follow in writing the paper. Think of this short list as a quality control checklist, along with the attached grading rubric.

  • Each section of template is fully completed
  • Calculation supporting conclusions are performed accurately, making use of the financial background data provided
  • A clear recommendation is made and supported as part of the business case
  • Paper is free of grammatical errors
  • Paper is submitted by DUE DATE using the Week 2 Assignment link below these instructions.

Please be sure to review the attached rubric that I will be using to grade the assignment. It along with these assignment instructions will ensure you have a solid understanding of the assignment requirements.

Unformatted Attachment Preview

Week 2 Case Study Case Background: Ms. Sally Jones, the CEO of Acme Company, recently was given a report published by the Project Management Institute called the Pulse of the Profession.1 In the report, she learned a startling statistic. PMI® reported that when projects are poorly managed, approximately $122 million is wasted for every $1 billion spent (12.2%). Now, her company’s annual project spend is much smaller (approximately $3 million expected in the next 12 months), but if she could experience even a partial amount of that savings, she could reinvest those savings for future growth. In order to accomplish this, she believes that she needs to adopt a more formal or mature approach to managing projects, and she needs to professionalize the project management teams and, specifically, the project managers. She has a colleague (Owu Jourdain) from a previous company who was the internal project management expert in the company who she believes might be able to help, so she gives him a call to get his take. Ms. Jones just finished a long conference call with Mr. Jourdain, and she now has a better idea of what this might take to move forward. In short, in Mr. Jourdain’s opinion, there is a way to experience the savings that Ms. Jones hopes for, but it will take some time and investment, so she thinks they should move forward with maturing their team and management approach, but, as noted, it will take an investment, so Ms. Jones needs to be certain that the savings will deliver sufficient business value. In short, is there a solid, defensible business case for such a project? Present Situation: Ms. Jones emailed you the Pulse of the Profession report over the weekend, and you are now sitting in her office at 9:00 am on Monday morning. She wants you to develop a business case for implementing a training program that will lead to maturing the organization’s project management practices. Based on her work over the weekend to see where some monies may be available for the unexpected project and her conversation with Mr. Jourdain, she provides you with the following information: • • • • • 1 The company expects to spend approximately $3,000,000 on project related work over the next 12 months (year 1) and $3,500,000 over the following 12 months (year 2) Based on her conversations with Mr. Jourdain, she believes the cost of training and implementing a more mature model will be approximately $175,000 as an initial investment Conservatively, she believes that the company will experience a savings of 3 percent in the first year and 4.5 percent in the second year Although the company will experience these savings for many more years in her opinion, she wants to show that the company will receive a sufficient savings within the first 2 years to justify this investment within the business case On most investments, the company would expect to see a return of 11½ - 12 percent (internal rate of return), and the cost of money (discount rate) is 6 percent. Including in assigned reading for Week 1. Part 1: Business Case Assignment Instructions & Considerations You have been tasked by Ms. Jones with drafting a business case for this potential initiative, and she has provided you with a template to use (see template attached to assignment instructions). She provides you with the following comments related to each section of the template, but she tells you that you will need to sharpen and expand on the ideas that she has provided. She expects your final draft to be ready to take to the company’s Board of Directors for review and approval by week’s end. • • • • • • • • • Background and Business Problem o She believes this has been covered in the contents of your initial conversation, where she provided you with background information (see above case study material) Strategic Case o She states that this is strategically tied to the company’s goal of becoming more project oriented, as they believe this will allow for more efficient and effective work, leading to the company being able to grow in a more scalable manner. Project Overview o In addition to what she has stated above, if the business case is approved, then she believes the basic project would be an 8 – 10 week training program for all project managers and team members that would train them in the adoption of a more mature project management model, and it would include some mentorships by the trainer. She believes this would cost a total of $175,000. Expected Benefits o The expected benefits would be increased efficiencies and effectiveness, as noted above. Financial Considerations o She has provided you with the investment amount to provide financial support for the investment Risks o She has asked you to look at primarily risks associated with the overall initiative, not necessarily those focused on the training aspect of the project. Timeline o Based on her conversations with Mr. Jourdain, she believes the project execution could begin within 60 - 90 days, depending on the path chosen for moving forward Recommendations and Next Steps o She has asked you to consider all the relevant data you collect and put into the business case, and then provide a succinctly stated and well-supported recommendation and concrete next steps if the proposal is accepted General Case Considerations for Business Case: o It is expected that you will need to make reasonable assumptions in completing the business case, so rely on the case study as guide. This is similar to how projects are conceived in the real world. We have a basic set of factors, and then we must make reasonable assumptions as we progress forward. Part 2: Project Charter and Stakeholder Analysis Instructions As noted above, Acme Company, your employer, has made delivering projects more efficiently and effectively one of its strategic priorities over the past couple of years. Prior to a couple of years ago, they talked about projects, but no one had the project manager title; they were accountants, IT developers, product managers, research managers, and a range of other functionally oriented titles, but they realized that most of the company’s work was really project work, and they have sought to become a more project-oriented organization by assigning project managers to lead these projects. Realizing the importance of becoming a more mature project oriented organization, your CEO, Ms. Jones, charged you with creating a business case for whether or not your company should invest in the expertise and training necessary to adopt a more mature project management approach. Your company’s Board of Directors has approved the project, and you are now charged by Ms. Jones with creating a Project Charter and initial Stakeholder Analysis. Upon doing a little research about current project management practices in the organization, you discover that your company already has two really standout project professionals: Stephanie Smith and Marcus Lopez. Ms. Smith recently completed a Master’s degree in Project Management, which greatly enhanced her ability to perform, while Mr. Lopez, who only joined the company last year, is veteran project manager who is certified as a project management professional (PMP®). Individually, they have outperformed their counterparts in the organization by an average of 8 percent in terms of efficiency and use of resources. Initially, you thought the best route would be to hire Mr. Jourdain to perform the training and implementation consulting, but now you think you may have the internal talent that could be used. So in chartering the project, you want to perform an analysis and offer Ms. Jones two options for moving forward with the training and implementation project. Present Situation: As the Board of Directors has approved the business case and you have a project management model that your company will adopt, your focus will be on chartering a training program to facilitate the adoption. Based on a conversation with the CEO, you will provide one day of classroom training each week for eight weeks, which is a total of eight days of classroom instruction. You will use space and resources (technology, classroom space, etc.), so there is direct cost associated with the location where the training will be held.2 This is the charge of your project: to implement a training program for project based workers (initially 40 persons) within your organization at a direct cost of $40,000 for the training portion of the project. This is the section that you are currently chartering. Your first order of business is to develop the project charter and within the proposal provide a recommendation about whether to use internal or external resources for training. You have two options to consider: an internal or an outsourced trainer. Here are the details for each option: Internal Option: 2 Assume a cost of $500 per day for use of the training space. Additionally, assume a cost of $500 per day for food and classroom supplies for each day of training. Stephanie and Marcus would act as co-instructors, as they have the most project management experience. During the eight weeks that the class is running, they will be devoting no more than 50% of their time teaching the class, preparing for instruction, as well as, providing coaching to various colleagues. In order to be prepared to deliver the instruction, they will need to spend one week at a ‘training the trainer’ seminar.3 Please review footnote 2 – 3 for additional information on costing. Outsource Option: Alternatively, your team can recommend to hire an external trainer who is very experienced with the PM model that your company is adopting. As part of your contract with her, she will provide the one day a week classroom instruction for the eight weeks, and she will also provide an additional day of coaching each week on-site. Her fee is priced at $17,500. Even though you would be using an external trainer, Marcus and Stephanie would still need to devote roughly 25% of their time over the eight weeks to support the trainer and the project, so there is also cost associated with them in this model, as well, which you will need to account for (see footnote 2-3 for information needed to calculate this cost). These are the two options for you to consider and provide a recommendation on which option to select. Regardless of the option selected, you have been charged with having the training completed prior to the end of this year, so that the new processes can have a fresh implementation in the coming year. Part 3: Case Consideration for Project Charter: In considering a case such as this, there are the obvious quantitative considerations that are provided within the information above, and you will need to perform an analysis of those options and justify your recommendation. But there are also qualitative factors to consider, such as whether or not there are intrinsic benefits to developing in-house talent to using outside talent, or whether or not the benefits provided by someone with an outside perspective and a broader understanding of the industry is more important than cost alone. As with any case, not all questions are directly answered, which is very similar to the realities of real world projects, therefore, you will need to use good judgment and make reasonable assumptions, reading between the lines to find those logical connections. Finally, a special note about the stakeholder analysis. You will complete the stakeholder register taking into account the stakeholders listed throughout the entirety of this case study document (project business case and project charter). You will have to make certain assumptions to complete this, as you will not have complete information for all stakeholders, and this is often true for projects at this point. You would continue to refine and sharpen this analysis throughout the project, so make reasonable assumptions when you don’t have complete information. 3 In order to compare the internal and external scenarios to develop your business case, you need to compare the cost of each scenario. Use the following information to prepare the cost estimate for the internal option. Assume that Stephanie and Marcus each earn $125,000 per year in total compensation. This is a weekly cost of approx. $2,400 each. Assume that the combined cost for them to attend the ‘training the trainer’ seminar is $6,500, which includes the seminar fee and all associated travel cost. Remember to assume that 50% of their time is allocated to this project for the eight weeks they are teaching the class and that they are gone for a full week while attending the ‘training the trainer’ seminar. Business Case1 Project Name: _________________________________ 1.0 Background & Business Problem This section should briefly describe how the current situation has been arrived at and, and it should briefly describe the business problem that the proposed project will address. This section should not describe how the problem will be addressed, but only what the problem is. 2.0 Strategic Case All projects should support the organization’s strategy and strategic plans in order to add value and maintain executive and organizational support. This section provides an overview of the organizational strategic plans that are related to the project. Essentially, where does this project fit in helping the organizational achieve its goals? This section should also list the business goals and objectives which are supported by the project and how the project will address them. 3.0 Project Overview This section describes high-level information about the project to include a description (high level scope), assumptions, and constraints. 4.0 Expected Benefits This section should describe the anticipated outcome if the proposed project or initiative is implemented. It should include how the project will benefit the business and describe what the end state of the project should be. 5.0 Financial Considerations Many consider this one of the most important parts of a business case as it is often the costs or savings a project yields which win final approval to go forward. It is important to quantify the financial benefits of the project as much as possible in the business case. This is usually done in the form of a cost benefit analysis. The purpose of this is to illustrate the costs of the project and compare them with the benefits and savings to determine if the project is worth pursuing. 6.0 Risks What the risks that you anticipate based on your analysis of the proposed solutions (i.e. project)? These are not the specific risks associated with your project’s performance, such as the project being delivered late, but are risks associated with whether or not the proposed solution will actually address the business problem you have identified above. 1 This document is based on an expanded business case template provided by www.projectmanagementdocs.com. 7.0 Timeline What is the high level timeline from this point forward? For instance, if the next step is to charter a project, how long until the results of the project are realized and the business problem is resolved? 8.0 Recommendations and Next Steps This section summarizes the recommendation(s) of the person(s) responsible for preparing the business case. How do you recommend that the organization proceed based on your analysis? As for next steps, should the project be chartered, or should a different outcome result from the analysis? *Be sure to remove the instructions before you submit your completed statement. Project Charter2 Project Name: _________________________________ 1.0 Project Purpose In this section, we include the rationale or purpose of the project. This should be tied to a business case / justification for why this project is being selected. This section should include a clear linkage to the organization’s strategic goals or initiatives. 2.0 Project Objectives In this section, state what specific objectives, the project should accomplish. These should be measurable objectives. 3.0 Project Scope Here you want to describe what is required in order for the project to be approved. Most often, this will relate to the scope of the project. For instance, the project must create ‘these deliverables’ in order to be approved. 4.0 Summary Milestone Schedule List the primary milestones for the project. 5.0 Summary Budget In this section, you want to provide a summary budget. It is best to provide a high-level budget for the major deliverables. To complete this, you will need to do a bit of high level / top down research. 6.0 Approval Requirements What constitutes success, who decides it, who signs off? 7.0 Assigned Project Manager You will want to name the project manager, discuss level of responsibility and authority 8.0 Charter Approval Name and title and signature of person responsible for authorizing project charter, who will act as executive sponsor of the project. *Be sure to remove the instructions before you submit your completed statement. 2 This document is based on the Elements of the Project Charter Table in The PMBOK® Guide. Preliminary Stakeholder Analysis Stakeholder Position/Role Type of Stakeholder Stakeholder Expectation(s) Stakeholder Interest(s) Influence on Project Result Stakeholder management strategies Position in the organization or role in project Internal or External High level needs or expectations for the project and/or product High/ Med/Low Supporter/O pposed/ Neutral Strategies and tactics to maximize positive stakeholder influence and minimize or neutralize negative stakeholder influence.
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Explanation & Answer

Attached.

Business Case1
Project Name: _________________________________

1

This document is based on an expanded business case template provided by www.projectmanagementdocs.com.

1.0 Background & Business Problem

The CEO of Acme Company, Ms. Sally was recently provided a report that the Project
Management Institute, Pulse of the Profession published. The report made her learn astonishing
statistics. The Institute reported that where there are poor management of the project, an
estimated amount of $122 million becomes wasted for each billion dollar spent which is 12.2
percent. Currently, the annual project of the firm is pending much smaller, around 3 million
dollar anticipated in the coming one year. However, in case where the CEO might experience a
partial savings amount, the CEO might re-invest it to the firm for future growth. Therefore, for
CZO to achieve this, she strongly believe that there is a need to embrace an increasingly formal
or even mature strategy to manage their projects. She, therefore, wishes to her project
management team to be professionalized. However, this needs to particularly be focused on
project managers. The CEO’s colleague called Owu Jourdain from the past company who was
then the internal management professional in the firm who the CEO believes can assists, has
been called by the CEO to get her view.

The CEO has had a prolonged conference with her colleague, and she is currently in a better
position to understand the idea of whatever this project may take to proceed. The CEO has
realized from the opinion of her colleague that there is a means to experience the savings she
desires for. However, this will not only taken...


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