MGT215 - Project Management Assignment - Maldives National University

Assignment Task

Executive Summary

This report looks into four areas in project planning. The areas are project leadership and governance, resource scheduling, risk assessment and mitigation and project monitoring and evaluation. These four areas of an ATM Software project for ABC Bank will be discussed as planned by Kin Links Inc. After going through each above mentioned area it is compared with the theoretical frameworks of project management. By comparing, it was found out that although some of the areas in the above mentioned project were quite similar there were some areas that were not. There were few differences in all four areas when they are in practice. The details can be found in this document.

1. Introduction

This report looks into a planning process of a medium-sized project and compares it with the theoretical aspects of project management. The project used in this report is a modified version of a real life project done on Nirvana National Bank. The following is the online link to the project document used for this report. The report will focus on the following areas of the selected project. The areas are, project leadership and governance, resource scheduling, risk assessment and mitigation and project monitoring and evaluation. The report will focus on how the aforementioned areas were carried out in the selected project and compare each area separately with the theoretical aspects of project management concerned with each area. Other areas of this project are out of scope for this report. The project selected for the above mentioned purpose is an ATM Software project taken by Kin Links Inc. to build the software for ABC Bank’s ATM service. ABC Bank is a newly started bank which hopes to expand their business nationwide. Kin Links Inc., a software solutions specialist firm, has proposed them with a plan of action for carrying out the project. The following are the scope, mission and vision, objectives and deliverables of the project.

2. Scope

Scope of the project is to build a fault proof software for managing the ATMs of ABC bank and a user-friendly software for the ATMs which will be used by the customers of the bank and to provide adequate training for the staff of the ABC Bank.

3. Vision and Mission

The vision of the Kin Links Inc. is to be the best software solutions provider in the nation. The mission for the project is to provide the ABC Bank with a working fault proof software that fulfills all the requirements expected by the Bank and to give proper training to the staff.

4. Objectives

The objectives of the project include the following:

• Completing project on the deadline given by the ABC bank
• Completing the project within the given budget
• Joining the customer database of the bank with ATM software to track the accounts
• Building a software for management and ATM interface that fits the specified criteria

5. Deliverables

The following are the deliverables of the project

• The software for management and ATMs
• Installation of the software
• Project and software documentations
• Staff training

6. Project Leadership & Governance

The project contractor is the ABC Bank, and it is carried out by the project manager of Kin Links Inc., Ahmed Mohamed. Kin Links project manager leads the project and has divided different tasks of the project to different groups. Each group has a leader who reports directly to Mr. Ahmed about the project. ABC Bank has to contact with Mr. Ahmed to get the details about the project. Any clarifications and/or tools required by the teams are passed to Mr. Ahmed who contacts with top management for any required tools and contacts with ABC Bank if further clarifications are required. Team meetings are to be held weekly to check the project progression and discuss other related matters. Participants of the meetings will be the group leaders and the project manager Mr. Ahmed. An organizational chart of respected parties can be seen on Annex 01 of this document.

Roles and responsibilities are assigned to each group. The group leaders will be responsible for carrying out the tasks and finishing them on the given deadlines. The work will be governed by these leaders while also taking part in the work itself. In case of one task being a preceding activity for the next task, as one group might sit idle, they will be helping other groups in ways possible. For example a multi-skilled person who works in designing area and knows to programming as well, can help the work in coding area. Roles and responsibilities are provided on Annex 02.

Above mentioned are how this project is governed by ABC Bank and lead by Kin Links Inc. Now let’s compare the above points with the theory of project governance and leadership. As mentioned by (Larson & Gray, 2011), Mr. Ahmed does not consider the possibility of workers under each team not sharing information with the team leader. However, he has sight of his role and has assigned the different tasks of the project to different groups within the larger team. Mr. Ahmed is dependent on many players in order to go forward with the project. He depends on his teams, team leaders (functional managers), top management and the contractor. As per (Larson & Gray, 2011), a project manager should understand how stakeholders can affect the project and should develop methods to manage the dependencies, instead of trying to do everything on his own.

7. Resource Scheduling

Kin Links Inc. project manager, Mr. Ahmed, has made tables showing number of experts required in each phase of the project. Table shows the hourly pay rate along with the amount of people required in each area. Table also specifies the total working hours for each specialist/specialist group. This table is provided on Annex 03 of this report.

Increase or a decrease in cost is to be addressed to the top management of Kin Links Inc. When materials are used, although they have abundant amounts to be used, Mr. Ahmed has allocated certain limits to each phase of this project. In case of lacking resources, meetings will be held with team leaders to know what extra is needed and a formal request is to be made from the top management. Then, the remaining time of the tasks are calculated before allocating new resources, so that as soon as work is done, additional resources can be removed or moved to a new task at hand.

When we compare it with the theory of project management. We come to know that Kin Links Inc. does not have to worry about resources. We can know that resources are available to be used at any time they want to use at. From this we can conclude that it is not a resource constrained project. Also the reallocation of resources shows proof to the aforementioned. From this it could be concluded that the project is more of time constrained than resource constrained. When we compare it with the theory of project management. We come to know that Kin Links Inc. does not have to worry about resources. We can know that resources are available to be used at any time they want to use at. From this we can conclude that it is not a resource constrained project. Also the reallocation of resources shows proof to the aforementioned. From this it could be concluded that the project is more of time constrained than resource constrained. 

An assumption stated by (Larson & Gray, 2011), says that level of resources used for an activity cannot be changed. This lined is followed by saying that this however does not exist in practice. From above mentioned points it is known that resources are reallocated as necessary. Moreover, as theoretical aspects of project management talks about creation of resource schedule tables, it is known from above points that this guideline is followed by Mr. Ahmed in this project as he has created resource allocation plans. This area is quite similar to what is taught in theory of project management.

8. Risk Assessment & Mitigation

Each project has risks that no amount of planning can overcome. Hence, risk assessment and developing plans to overcome them are necessary to go forward with any project. In this ATM Software Project, Mr. Ahmed has provided details of risk assessment in his project plan. A risk categorization table is used, from start to the end of the project, to store risks they might or might not face as project goes on, risks are rated with “high, medium, low” according to their level. This table is already listed with possible risks, and if it cannot be evaluated at the current stage of the project it is left with a dash “-”. As project goes forward these are updated. Moreover, team leaders are assigned with a task to gather up a list of possible risks every week as project goes forward and it is taken to weekly meetings where solutions are discussed with the project stakeholders. Risk table is provided on Annex 04.

Risk response plans are made for the project as it goes forward. As a risk is identified then a mitigation plan is develop in team discussion meetings when team leaders come up with potential risks that occur weekly. From theory point of view, (Larson & Gray, 2011) points out that some risks can be identified prior to project while others cannot be predicted at all. Due to this the project manager above mentioned has identified some of the initial risks in the project while also letting his team members come up with potential risks as they go on with the project. We also know that risks should and can be scaled on level on severity. In this project, risked are labelled either high, medium or low according to their level of impact. To come up with best solutions the project manager is involving whole team to solve problems that might occur along with the risks. However, risk assessment matrix is not used as taught on project management.

The manager has not gone into such depths with calculations identifying its impacts and there is no mention of risk severity matrix. Also mitigation plans are not developed beforehand. Only as project goes forward risks are identified and mitigation plans are developed. This might be the right way for some of the tasks as they cannot be evaluated at the start of the project.

9. Project Monitoring & Evaluation

ATM Software project is monitored through meetings and documents. Information requirements were specified by the ABC Bank. Also updates of the project are to be given to the top management of Kin Links Inc. as well. Mr. Ahmed has prepared table to show what information is required by the stake holders of the project. Also, another table is provided showing detailed information requirements of particular team members.

This way everyone involved can be updated about the project without much confusion. Each team will be able to know what needs to be done next. Hence, they can report on progress and any additional requirements. How communication goes within ABC Bank is for them to decide. Mr. Ahmed relays information to ABC Bank through the person in charge from the contractor’s side. Information are mostly shared through post or email. However, the intranet of Kin Links Inc. will be used to share information among project team members.

Moreover, presentations are held as well in Kin Links Inc. office where whole team takes part along with a representative from ABC Bank. This way doubts are cleared and everybody knows how far they have come in the project. According to (Larson & Gray, 2011) before project monitoring can be carried out it should be known that, what data are to be collected, how, when and who will collect data, how to analyze data and how to report progress.

The above mentioned information shows that these guidelines are well followed by the project manager. Stakeholders’ requirements shows what data to be collected and when to be collected. Mr. Ahmed and his team will know exactly what to do with the help of initially created tables which gives them guidelines to carry out the tasks. Reporting information is well discussed above as well. Further information regarding monitoring process of this project can be found with the help of Tables on Annex 05 and Annex 06.

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