Reference no: EM13833715
1) INTRODUCTION
Your team represents a student team that has been employed to manage the production of a new Student paper.
It is expected that the student paper will be published each semester and have a circulation of about 5,000 at a cost of £1.00. Initial publication of the paper will be sponsored by the University, but the university expects the paper to fund itself thereafter. Content of the student paper should include a range of relevant articles, student advice, adverts and other relevant news.
As a requirement of funding the paper, your team is expected to submit a Project Plan of how the paper will be ready by the set deadline. The project plan must adhere to the fixed dates and show how the project will be delivered to the highest value, in the shortest space of time and at the lowest cost.
2) PROJECT PLAN
A project plan is a formal, approved document that is used to manage and control the project. The main purpose of the plan is to guide project execution, but also to document project planning assumptions, strategic designs, facilitate communication among stakeholders, define critical success guidelines and provide a baseline for progress measurement and project control. The project plan must be a consistent, coherent document and include the following sections:
Part A - Project Plan
a) Scope Statement
- The scope statement should include a full description of the project requirements, including the project aims, objectives and key milestones
b) Project Organisation Breakdown Structure
- This chart should clearly identify the project team, suppliers and all other project stakeholders. It should a clear hierarchy of authority, Eg, Editor, Deputy Editor, journalists, etc.
c) Project Work Breakdown Structure
- This chart should clearly identify how the project is to be broken down into manageable tasks. This includes all the activities involved in production of the paper, eg, what articles? What is involved in production of articles?
d) Project Responsibility Matrix
- This chart should identify the responsibility of each person and stakeholder involved in the project. This would include responsibility for each article.
e) Risk Management Plan
- This should include a risk register and responses to each identified risk in delivering the paper by the deadline
f) Cost Plan
- This item should identify all associated costs of resources in production of the paper presented in the form of an Excel spreadsheet or as a MS Project printout. It should also show actual income generated from the advertising to pay towards the production costs. The cost plan should also identify the number of papers to be sold, in order to cover the cost of the project.
g) Project Schedule
- This should identify all dates, resources and milestone presented in the form of a Microsoft Project Gantt Chart
Part B - Reflective Summary
Each member of the team is also required to submit a one page reflective summary. This should identify the contribution the team member has made towards the assignment; any problems or conflicts, successes and a discussion on the team member could improve.
SECTION B - BRIEF
The University expects the first issue of paper to be distributed for sale at the University shop, the student union and reception by Monday 1st December.
The launch, Christmas issue is expected to include, although not exclusively, the following articles:
- Interview with the Principal
- University News
- Gig Reviews
- Music Reviews
- Book Review
- Recipes
- Fashion Review
- Sports News
- Horoscopes
- The paper should also feature advertisements from local businesses.
Your team will need to organise and allocate responsibility for production of each article. This will involve allowing sufficient and realist time to produce the paper, whilst managing students own studies and coursework. Some team members may have dual roles as Editors, Deputy Editor, adverting etc. You will need to demonstrate who is responsible for each activity and how each activity is managed to deliver the paper by the set deadline.
In planning the paper, the team need to consider how long it will take to research and write each article. It is important that the articles are of the highest quality and therefor unlikely that an article can be written in less than one day, especially if the article requires research, interviews or reviews. Each article also needs to be reviewed by the Editor or Editorial team. The team also needs to allow sufficient time for design and 'typesetting' to be ready for publication.
Each team member working on the paper will be paid a basic hourly wage of £6.50. Editors will receive an additional numeration of £1.00 per hour, for Editorial work only. Sub/Deputy Editors will receive and an additional numeration of £0.75 per hour.
Travel expenses will be paid at £0.40 per mile or actual cost of bus fares. Other expenses will be paid at actual cost. The team also has a £100 stationary budget.
Printing of the paper can be done in-house by University Media. Office Manager, John Guttenberg has advised that they require a pdf of the final paper at least two weeks in advance of publication. The cost of printing will be £0.65 per copy
Ken Allen of Estates has agreed to distribute the papers, but requires 2 days to do so and does not work weekends. The cost to estates for Ken's time will be £160.
The recommended charge for advertising is: ½ page £175, ¼ page £100 and ? page £60
The confirmed list advertisers are as follows:
- Lucky Take Away ? page £60
- RBS Student Branch ? page £60
- Blackwell's Bookshop ½ page £175
- Tantastic Tanning Salon ¼ page £100
- Uncle Amos's Blues Emporium ? page £60
- Raquel Hair & Beauty ½ page £175
- Sparky Electrical ? page £60
- Chippy Joiners ? page £60
- Greggors Bakery ¼ page £100
- Todds Butcher ¼ page £100