Understanding the concepts of project management

The project plan is base on construction work of Omagh Enhanced Local Hospital. The project is based on building of the hospital building so that it can provide effective healthcare services to the patients. It is considered as a time management tool which helps the project manager analyze the critical path of the project activities (Turner 2014). It is a diagram where the project activities are involved in project to arrange as well as sequence the project activities according to how the project work is carried out by group of project resources. The diagram is a way to manage the construction projects. The benefits of network diagram are as follows:

• To justify the time estimate for the project work
• To plan, organize and control entire project plan based on project activities and goals (Heagney 2016).
• To show interdependencies of the project activities
• To show the workflow so that the project team will determine the sequence of the project activities (Meredithet al. 2016)
• To identify the project opportunities for compress the project schedule
• To show the progress rate of the project plan

Critical path method is a step and technique for planning and organizing the project with various construction activities. CPM is such a tool for the project management as it recognizes the critical as well as non-critical tasks to overcome with the project conflicts (Larsonet al. 2014). This method is applied for the project network diagram to make maximum efficiency of the project work. One of the objectives of CPM is to complete the plan in shortest time as possible (Turner 2016). Following are list of activities which are selected for construction plan of the hospital such as:

The critical path method helps to keep the project on track and identify the project activities that should be completed on time for completion of project on time. It shows how each of the project tasks can delayed and how long it would provide an impact on the entire project schedule. The critical path method calculates minimum amount of time it takes to finish entire project work (Meredithet al. 2016). Critical path analysis is sequence of the project activities with longer durations. It is a delay of the project activities which will cause delay in entire project work. In the critical path two of the terms are used such as forward and backward pass. These two terms are used to determine early or late start or early or late finish of the project activities. Forward pass is such a technique which moves forward throughout diagram for calculation of the activity durations (Lock 2017).  In order to determine the early start of the project activity, the dependencies are done by earliest start date. Backward pass is represented moving backward to end result for calculating late start or find if there is any slack within the project activity.  

Forward pass calculation

Backward pass calculation

In the project management, slack is amount of time that the project task in the network diagram can be delayed without causing any delay of project. The critical path is path through which the project network in which none of the project activities have slack, that is the path through which the early start, early finish, latest start, latest finish for the activities in the path are determined (Leach 2014). Any delay in the project activities can cause delay in completion date of the project work. Slack will help the project manager to run the project work properly without compromising the quality of the project plan.

Devising and implementing a project management plan

From the above table, it is analyzed that the critical path are A-C-G-I-J which have a slack of zero. Therefore, the total critical paths are (34+159+195+82+107) days = 577 days. It is the delay in the project activities which can cause delay in completion date of the project work so that it impacts on the business reputation.  

Revision History

Date of next revision:

Approvals

Distribution

Communication management is a knowledge area to manage and deliver the projects. The purpose of effective communication for the managers in business organization is to perform the management functions such as planning, leading as well as controlling the project work. The objectives of communication management strategy are to help the managers to carry outworkswith responsibilities (Mir and Pinnington 2014).The scope is that in order to complete the job task, the organization is required for effective communication.The project manager is responsible for the communication management strategy.

One of the most key significant communication methods among all the methods is face-to-face communication. This method helps to expand the network and enhance the future communication (Binder 2016). This method boosts success of relationships.It is better for persuasion, engaged the stakeholders along with leadership.

The set of communication tools and techniques used for the communication in the project is status and progress reports, daily meetings and communication management plan. Communication management plan is preferred for the project as it anticipates what information is required to communicate to audience segments (Turner 2016).

Communication records are required which support documentation as well as provided evidence of the work activities and made them accessible in the public. It will record all the communication information in electronic form.

A performance indicator is used as reporting in the communication process as measurable value demonstrates how the company is achieving the business objectives. It is used to evaluate the project success at achieving the targets (Turner 2017).

At the end of the planning stage, the formal communication activities are undertaken. The stakeholders are identified and communication methods are selected to discuss the problems.

People those are involved in the communication are:

 Stakeholder Analysis

Information Needs

Cost estimation is considered as important activity in the project management. There are various methods of estimation such as:

Analogous estimation:It is a top down estimation which consists of the historical data to develop for estimation of project cost.

Bottom up estimation:This estimation method divides the project deliverables in work packages that are made of set of project tasks (Leach 2014). This technique is used to estimate the total cost for each of the project tasks and add them to calculate the total cost.

Parametric estimation: It entails an analysis of the project cost and technical data for identifying the cost drivers as well as developingthe cost models. The project team divides the project in units of work and then determines the cost for each unit (Schwalbe 2015). By multiplying the number of units by the cost per unit, there is total estimation of the project cost. This cost estimation method is successful.

Among the three cost estimation method, bottom-up estimation is used in this particular project plan. It is a method in which people are going to perform work in estimating process. All the project activities are identified and total cost is estimated based on each individual project activities. In order to do the construction work of Omagh Enhanced Local Hospital, the total cost estimated is £1,183,800.00.

Therefore, the project manager is responsible to meet with the project timeline and budget for better completion of the project work. 

References

Binder, J., 2016. Global project management: communication, collaboration and management across borders. Routledge.

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

Larson, E.W., Gray, C.F., Danlin, U., Honig, B. and Bacarini, D., 2014. Project management: The managerial process (Vol. 6). Grandview Heights, OH: McGraw-Hill Education.

Leach, L.P., 2014. Critical chain project management. Artech House.

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

Meredith, J.R., Shafer, S.M., Mantel Jr, S.J. and Sutton, M.M., 2016. Project management in practice. Wiley Global Education.

Mir, F.A. and Pinnington, A.H., 2014. Exploring the value of project management: linking project management performance and project success. International journal of project management, 32(2), pp.202-217.

Schwalbe, K., 2015. Information technology project management. Cengage Learning.

Turner, J.R., 2014. Handbook of project-based management(Vol. 92). New York, NY: McGraw-hill.

Turner, R., 2016. Gower handbook of project management. Routledge.