Project definition/Parameters and risks

The purpose of this report is to demonstrate the ability of the decision making regarding the overall delivery and management of an entire project. DBCL Engineering, a marine and offshore construction company operates in the large fabrication yard on the North East Cost of England. Pretoria Oil project is won by the DBLC Company that is expected to be delivered before 21^st September 2018. Project managing includes an extended knowledge on the best practices and decision-making that can enhance the productivity of the project and manages to deliver the project within the estimated constraints. Considering the deployment of this project, project planning and management needs to delivered in an efficient and effective way as the company can have high penalties of the project is not delivered within time and proposed budget. This is highly deemed project for the DBCL Company and hence, the planning is being proposed in this project.

The project manager needs to consider the project scope, time, cost and quality as the most critical factors for the successful and efficient delivery of the project. ‘Iron triangle’ is being represented as the “metaphor pointing out that the project manager is asked to reach a reasonable trade-off among various concurrent, heterogeneous, and visible constraints (Muller 2017).” The traditional iron triangle can be demonstrated as schedule, budget, scope and quality of the project.

Schedule: There is schedule constraint which affects start as well as end date of the project. It is seen that the project work was started on time but due to delay occurred because of Pretoria is entitled to demand. The completion date is 21^st September, 2018 and delay in the project causes DBCL to pay Pretoria Oil a damage of £500,000.  

Scope: DBCL is not able to meet with project goals, deliverables and project tasks; therefore it provides a huge effect on the project boundaries. 

Budget: DBCL faces budget constraint as its estimated budget was £59.5m, and it is exceeded its budget limit to bear first 5% of the cost. The budget constraint occurs when the customers are limited in the consumption patterns by a particular amount of income.   

Quality: The quality of the products for the construction work should meet with the client’s requirements. DBCL has time restrictions, therefore they are required to increase resources assigned to the construction work result in quality reduction (Kerzner and Kerzner 2017). For DBLC, the construction being delivered should be capable of holding expected weights and strong in long run.

The average (fully inclusive) cost of an engineer was estimated to be £59.00 per hour and for a technician £36.00 per hour. The company generally works a standard five-day week and eight-hour days. The fixed costs for each task are shown in Table 1 are in £m.

Microsoft project data feed:

The following table consist of the activities involved in this project in addition to the time required for completing the respective activity (in weeks). The resources required for the management and delivery of every activity has also been proposed. 100% resource equals one unit and hence, the percentage is allocated accordingly considering the number of resources required for delivering the proposed activity. The engineers and technicians will be paid 59 and 36 pounds per hour and hence, the cost for the activity is duration*8 times the cost per hour.

Iron Triangle Parameters’ Importance for DBCL Project Manager

Table 1: Project Plan as per DBLC Manager

The following network diagram is prepared considering the above predecessor along with the calculation of the early start, early finish, late start, late finish, and slack in the disturbance of the project deliverables (Nicholas and Steyn 2017).

Figure 1: Network Diagram using above table

The above diagram is analysed for identifying the shortest path that can be taken by the stakeholders to meet the final delivery of the project. The A-C-G-L-N is the selected critical path as rest of the paths are taking longer time as compared to this path. It will take 36 weeks.

Figure 2: Critical path with slack calculation

The following table presents the list of the activities, required time in weeks with 8 hours of daily work and five days’ work in a week in addition to the predecessors of every activity and the initiation and finishing date.

Table 2: Project Calibration

Figure 3: Gantt chart

Considering critical path, the project will be completed in 180 days and will be finished on 14^th September 2018.

Total cost spent on the project: 53,038,400.00

The project will be completed before 21^st September and hence, DBCL will have not to pay £500, 00 for a single time.

The revenue of the project is £59.5 m

Projected gross profit: £59.5m-£53.1m = £6.4m

On 30^th April, the project report presented include the following details:

No other tasks had started yet or incurred any expenditure.

Table 3: actual progress and spending after 16 weeks

The following table shows the different project values after selecting the project tracking and rescheduling the project activities. The planned value of the project activities has been set as the baseline of the project based on which the progress report is calculated using MS project and following results were collected regarding the project cost, fixed cost, baseline, variance and actual budget spent till the date.

Table 4: Actual v/s Planned values

Figure 4: Gantt chart recorded with reporting date of 30^th April 2018

Tracking the project, the identified results less than the reviewed report proposed in the requirement. The reflected work completion is less than the proposed completions and hence, the project is ahead of the schedule. It was identified that the project is running ahead of the schedule and under the budget through analysing the provided result as the projected data till 30^th April 2018 had low work completion percentage (Meredith et al. 2014).

After rescheduling the percentage of work completed considering the delivery and management of the every activity. The earned value table consist of following details based on which it can be said that despite of the three activities highlighted in the table, every activity of the project is under budget and going on planned schedule.

MS project allows to calculate the earned value of the project considering project schedule as mentioned in the following table: the SPI value can be effective in determining whether the project is on schedule or late from the estimations. The activities with SPI value equals one is moving as per the project plan developed in planning phase (Eskerod and Jaspen 2016). The value less than 1 denotes the activity is lagging in schedule and hence, modifications are required to complete the project within estimated timeline.

Risk Register

MS project allows to calculate the earned value of the project considering project budget as mentioned in the following table: the CPI value can be effective in determining whether the project is under budget or going over budget. The activities with SPI value equals one is moving as per the project plan developed in planning phase. The value less than 1 denotes the activity is lagging in schedule and hence, modifications are required to complete the project within estimated timeline. “For the result is more than 1, as in 1.25, then the project is under budget, which is the best result. A CPI of 1 means the project is on budget, which is also a good result. A CPI of less than 1 means the project is over budget (Hagney 2016).”

Network Diagram using MS project

For the first table, the SPI value is one for all the completed task and is relatively same as compare to the percentage of work being done. It means that the work is being completed as it was planned and the project is on schedule (Heagney 2016). For the uncompleted tasks, the values are lower than 1 and hence, the project deliveries are not meeting the estimated amount of work being done.

Moving forward towards the earned value cost indicator, it is clear that the value of CPI for all the tasks are greater than 1 excluding three activities. It means that other than those three activities, the project progress is under budget (Lock 2017). For the three activities, the project is going over budget and hence, the project needs a monitoring and controlling plan that can assure that the future deliveries can fill this gap and result the project to be cost effective.

The above calculated data can be used for modifying the existing or planned information of the project and hence, new Gantt chart can be prepared that will alternatively result in the new critical path for the project:

There are two critical paths identified that can be considered for further project delivery for which we have options: FJKN and GLN that will alternatively take 19 weeks each to complete the project for rest of the activities after 30^th April 2018. Since FJKN consist of four activities it can be considered as the critical path to be followed for further modifications in the project for delivering the project successfully. GLN path has not been recommended as it has less number of activities.

For the instance, if all the proposed recommendations are applied than the project delivery can be made earlier and could be delivered by 27^th July 2018. Considering the cost and schedule all options can look better however, it will result timeloss and quality of the project as the resources are being much overloaded after that. And so, modifications on the existing critical path can be opted for further project modification (Fleming and Koppleman 2016). It will no doubt be helpful and effective in managing the timeline, cost and quality of the project.

The project will be completed in rest 19 days that will result in the following earned value analysis:

Earned Value analysis can be stated as:

Conclusion

It can be concluded that the iron triangle can be an effective strategy for assuring that the project managers deliver their section of work and manage the entire project thoroughly. Various project management approaches have been used in this project including the project progress monitoring and implementing the changes those are best suited for the successful delivery and management of the entire project. The MS project software has been used for predicting and demonstrating the project planning and its constraints. The proposed changes can bring positive outcomes for the DBLC Company and manage the budget and schedule of the entire project. The above report demonstrates how delay in a single activity could reflect alterations in the entire project and how complex and crucial conditions could born.

I get to know that schedule and budget of the projects are always interrelated to each other and manipulations or uncertainties in either of the parameter could bring a drastic change in the overall delivery of the project. I also identified that even in small projects, high calculations and better decision-making are very crucial considering the planned progress and actual progress of the project. The iron triangle can be an efficient strategic approach towards assuring the project constraints’ deliveries as it has been planned to.   Projects have always a tail of risks those are capable of impacting the entire project, the project managers’ primary role is to analyse detect, and propose counters measures to the risks those could possibly influence the project in negative manner.  I performed the risk analysis for this project after discussing about the iron triangle. The risk register can be very crucial to build however, it is very informative and efficient in developing the strategies those could allow the project manager to fight them. As mentioned above, the iron triangle includes time, scope, budget, and quality of the project. I understand that all these parameters have significantly impact on others. The project cannot have any one parameter very high and effective and other one very low and of no use.  I used MS project throughout the entire report preparation and thus, I learnt very new knowledge that can be used in the future professional and personal development.

I noticed that the project manager of the DBLC had developed a sophisticated projectplan that could be an efficient and successful planning if followed strictly.  I used the same data for the preparation of the Gantt chart and the budgeting of the entire project and its activities using the MS project.  Calculation is not my very string subject however, I know about the formulas those could be used for solving the requirement file. However, I decided to  use the MS project software as it could save a lot of time and with exceptional errors.  Thus, the above projected results on simulating the project activities n MS project could be used for the successful delivery of the project. I have not very strong command over the MS project as, I wasnot in regular practice for using the MS project. So, I went to for the inline video tutorials by reputed engineer, business man, and project manager to enhance and improve my knowledge extent. I used those data and information in an effective and efficient manner.  Planning and budgeting plane can be smoothly proceeded, through the application of the software. It was very efficient tool that allowed e to get the project details exactly and accurately as it was demanded.  I learn how to deliver the necessary changes through setting a baseline of the project during its initiation stage. The monitoring of the entire project can be an efficient and effective strategy focusing on the development and introduction of the new strategies those could finally meet the project needs and requirements.

I also performed the cost benefit analysis and noticed that the paper calculations cannot be easy and it can also impact on the reliability of the final results. However, MS project allows us to bring those data in the form of tables in the meantime.  I learnt various options and selection of the strategies in the MS project that can allow the users to instantly calculate the big calculations and make decisions accordingly. Earned Value analysis was the most difficulty section for throughout the entire project lifecycle.  And so, the calculation needs to be accurate in manner to make sure that the recommendations could be made that can bring project towards the success. I am not very smart in using the MS project and so, I took various helps from the YouTube that helped me in strengthening the knowledge related to the various applications of the MS project. I identified that I will need practice on using the MS project in much efficient manner. I will be continuously use the MS project for better understanding on the various applications those could be delivered in an efficient way and in no time through using this software.

References

Basu, R., 2017. Fundamentals of Project Management. In Managing Quality in Projects (pp. 27-46). Routledge.

Eskerod, P. and Jepsen, A.L., 2016. Project stakeholder management. Routledge.

Fleming, Q.W. and Koppelman, J.M., 2016, December. Earned value project management. Project Management Institute.

Heagney, J., 2016. Fundamentals of project management. Amacom.

Kerzner, H. and Kerzner, H.R., 2017. Project management: a systems approach to planning, scheduling, and controlling. John Wiley & Sons.

Lock, D., 2017. The essentials of project management. Routledge.

Meredith, J.R., Mantel, S.J., Shafer, S.M. and Sutton, M.M., 2014. Project management in practice. Wiley.

Muller, R., 2017. Project governance. Routledge.

Nicholas, J.M. and Steyn, H., 2017. Project management for engineering, business and technology. Routledge.

Verzuh, E., 2015. The fast forward MBA in project management. John Wiley & Sons.