Reference no: EM132374595
For this week, identify an industry for the project and 2-3-page synopsis of your chosen project. In your synopsis, provide a rationale for how the project will meet the course objectives and describe the anticipated scope and project outcomes.
You should carefully consider the scope of the project so that you can complete the necessary work in the compressed time frame of this course.
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Week
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Deliverables
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Week 1
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- The proposed project topic paper
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Week 2
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- The statement of the goals and objectives of the project
- Stakeholder and project requirements
- The project scope statement
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Week 3
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- The project communications plan
- The organization and human resources plan
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Week 4
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- The project schedule and budget
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Week 5
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- The project closeout plan
- The final presentation and paper
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EXAMPLE OF GIVEN PROJECT TOPIC:
Ashley is a project manager for Business Solutions with Swedberg. Swedberg is a regional insurance company that provides auto, homeowners, and other personal property coverage. Ashley is extremely thorough and organized in her way of working. Her success is a result of all the dedicated hard work she has done over the four years that she has been with Swedberg.
It is Friday afternoon, and Ashley's boss, Jim Vincent, asks her to meet him immediately. The following is the conversation that happened between both of them:
Ashley: Hi Jim! You wanted to talk to me?
Jim: Yeah! Sit down. Something important has come up. We need to implement a new customer relationship management (CRM) system. It will cut across all lines of our business-auto, home, personal property, financial planning-basically the entire company.
Ashley: That sounds huge. What do you want me to do?
Jim: I need a plan for this ASAP when I return. I will send you all the e-mails and documents I have on this. I don't need to tell you that this is a big project-the CEO will be monitoring this closely-it's his brainchild.
Ashley: Wait, that's it?! Where are you going?
Jim: Got a boat to catch.
Ashley: Oh, your cruise to Argentina. But I will need more information than what you just gave me.
Jim: If you have any questions, just get with Mat. I will be gone for fifteen days, so step on it.
Before she begins work on this, Ashley wants to be sure that the assignment given to her by Jim is indeed a project. She knows that a project is a temporary endeavor and is in contrast to normal business processes or operations that are continuous or repetitive. A project has defined goals and is undertaken to create a product or a service or to achieve a specific result. Analyzing the facts and documents, Ashley concludes that the assignment given to her is a project as it would create a new CRM system.
Now that you know what a project is, how would you define the role of a project manager? A project manager is responsible for planning, executing, and closing a project. Because a project manager is given full responsibility of a project, he or she is also given the necessary level of authority to complete the project successfully. Although a project manager is responsible for making administrative decisions, he or she does not make technical or creative decisions as these decisions are made by project team members who specialize in these areas.
Building, directing, and managing a project team are simply some of the aspects of project management. While coordination and integration of various project activities and phases are integral to project management, these tasks alone do not constitute project management. Project management involves the methodical and systematic application of defined practices and tools and techniques to a project from start to finish.
Ashley correctly concluded that the task assigned to her is a project because it would produce a unique product-an implemented new CRM system.
Quality Management guru, Joseph Juran, provided an interesting definition of a project. He observed that a project was a problem scheduled for solution.
As a project manager, Ashley would be responsible for initiating the work (beyond Jim's lackadaisical direction to her on Friday). However, she would not be the long-term manager of the new system once it is in place and handed over to the users.
After she initiates the project, she would be managing the project. Some of these tasks would include:
• Planning the work
• Executing the work after it is planned
• Monitoring and controlling the quality of the project
• Closing out the overall project effort after the scope of work has been accomplished and the customer has accepted the product
The supplemental material includes numerous articles that will be useful for your research in the course.