Reference no: EM132973221

PRJ5003 Project Constraint Management - Asia Pacific International College

Project Scope, Time and Cost Management

Assessment - Presentation of project plan and status to a sponsor for a project case.

This assessment is designed to assess your technical skills in analysing a project case, writing, a project status report, and communicating a project status report effectively to different stakeholders. You required to work individually.

You are required to prepare power point presentation slides that include adequate information about the project status, then you will need to present your analysis and report (verbal presentation).

Project Case Background:

Lean Construction is a general contracting company based in Sydney, Australia. The company performs general contracting work mainly in the area of construction. The company executes approximately 15-35 projects at any given time and each project is managed by a senior project manager.

Most government contracts are awarded to Lean Construction on the fixed cost basis contract and on "design-bid-build" basis procurement method. That is, Lean Construction bids on the projects after the design has been completed by the government and Lean Construction major tasks is building only. Lean Construction is not involved either directly or indirectly in any design aspects of the project.

The general contracting organisations like Lean Construction that work on the fixed cost "design-bid-build" projects can only be profitable by completing projects on time and within budget. However, in construction projects, cost and/or schedule overruns could occur due to a variety of internal and/or external factors. These costs or schedule overruns can quickly wipe out profit margins and may result in a loss. Project losses generally are the result of problems of a few activities in a project which may impact other activities and hence, the entire project may be impacted negatively. It is not possible to avoid all schedule or cost overruns (like schedule overruns due to severe weather conditions), however, proper project monitoring can reduce the impact of these overruns.

Recently Lean Construction awarded a contract by Parramatta Council in Western Sydney for building a community centre for people in Western Australia in the basis of the fixed cost "design-bid-build" projects.

Project Case Data:

The following Data are presenting the project case
Table 1: is the project Main and sub-tasks (outline WBS) Table 2: is the schedule plan baseline
Table 3: is the cost plan baseline

The Problem:

The project was planned to start on 1st of Jan. Working hours and days are 8 hours Monday to Friday. At the end of December, just two weeks before the starting of the project, a severe thunderstorm disrupted the construction site. The Project team managed to start the project on time as planned and to complete January's tasks, but more than two weeks of work time was lost from February's tasks due to the flooding of the site caused by the storm. This loss of time could not be made up by an extension of the project time. The building had a major event scheduled at the end of construction.

By the mid of March, another problem surfaced related to the quality of work performed by a sub-contractor. The foundation sub-contractor failed to meet the standards set in the contract. About 20% of the work completed in March by this sub-contractor had to be redone. This resulted in delaying some of the activities, but the project manager and the team did not update the schedule and cost baselines.

In June, the project manager realized that the sub-contractor for interior work was having problems in procuring cabinets and other specialty items. A meeting with the sub-contractor revealed that the sub-contractor was having problems with labour and finances. The project manager did not monitor the project performance and progress since the start of the project, and the project manager now is not yet sure of the problem. At this time, hiring a new contractor is not an option. The government requested a status report from the contractor. A new project manager took place of the old project manager and first thing he asked for is a status report for End of June 2021.

Requirements and supporting documents:
You are required to complete all the tasks below (1-6)

1- Assume that you developed the project plan at the time of the bidding, summarize your key aspects of your project plan (Project Scope Statement, WBS, Schedule Baseline, Cost Baseline). This means you need to create the following (A-F)
A- Complete the Project Charter and the Project Scope Statement for this Projects (Just complete the charter and PSS templates) use the information provided and complete the relevant section in the templates (make appropriate assumptions).
B- Draw a WBS for this Project (hierarchal WBS) use the excel sheet template provided during the class.
C- Create WBS dictionary for each main task and its sub-tasks (consider each main task is a Work Package).
D- Draw the project network diagram using the precedence diagram method, use CPM Analysis and find each task ESD, EFD, LSD, LFD, TF, and FF, project duration and the critical path (s). Assume F-S relationship between the tasks.
E- Establish Project schedule with Gantt chart and show ES, EF dates, Floats and the critical Path. Use the excel sheet template provided during the class or any software you are familiar with.
F- Create time phased budget for each main task only, this means for the main task A to F (A. Site Development, B. Foundations, C. Walls + Roof, D. Interiors,
E. Bathroom and Kitchen, F. Finish), use the template provided during the class.
2- Assume you are required to present a status report to Parramatta Council about your project status on end of June 2021, use the information provided and utilize Earned Value Analysis Method (EVA) to report about your project status.
3- Present what actions do you recommend to the sponsor given your findings from the EVA on end of June.
4- If any change required to the scope, schedule, and cost, complete the change request form, and explain what changes should happen and how to record it, to update baselines and to communicate it
5- Write down the lessons learned from this project.
6- Given the actual costs in previous months (Table 5) and given the percentages of completed work in previous months (Table 4), utilise EVA and determine when would the project manager have recognised that there is a problem in the project if he/ she was monitoring the project progress and performance monthly? What would you do back then if you were the project manager?

Attachment:- Project Constraint Management.rar