CEN4009-N Advanced Project Planning and Visualisation Assignment Sample
Module code and Title: CEN4009-N Advanced Project Planning and Visualisation Assignment Sample
Part – 1:
1)
Proper communication plays a vital role in executing the tasks of a project effectively and efficiently. This also helps to reduce the overall complexity that is being raised while execution of the project and a project manager can also help to show a proper direction on which the entire project work is to be carried out (Wu et al. 2017). In fact a project manager who is responsible for tracking the progress of innumerous projects internationally is required to use a project management tool so as to gain a proper transparency of the overall project. Which will help to observe each and every part of the project that has been completed or is being needed to be completed. Whereas this tool is also capable of assigning the overall works with proper detailed descriptions to the team members so that the entire project can be completed at the allocated time in meeting the standard procedures to fulfill the entire project (Kerzner2022). Moreover managing a remote project raises huge unique challenges in order to find the essential solutions of the problems at a specific time so the overall progress of the work does not halt or to make inconvenience among the team members to complete the project. Further, there are huge benefits which is being completely associated while working remotely and controlling the project from a different locations such as easy managing of the tasks on the entire project which is being executed, saves huge costs as well as valuable time of the company that are being raised due to the visiting of the sites, enhances work-life balance and thus also helps to provide essential reporting along with the essential feedbacks which are being required for enhancing the project.
2)
When a company executes a certain project internationally a project manager is solely responsible to make a proper communication with the project in charge. Where the project is being executed fluently where the assigned tasks, feedbacks and the reports can be understandable easily by the project in charge without having any communication barriers (Kerzner H 2019). Moreover, there are certain steps which is to followed properly by the project manager in order to manage a multicultural team properly which are as follows
- By overcoming the cultural and language barriers: This is being completely referred to as one of the biggest challenges that is being completely faced by the project managers while executing their project internationally. So in order to reduce this problem a common language is to be selected on which the project in charge and the project manager can easily transfer their views, reports, understandings, complications, status, progress, etc. of an assigned project.
- Planning of projects in different time zones: Supervising an international team virtually is being considered as one of the difficult tasks due to the difference of the time zones. Thus it is also referred to opt for the particular time zones on which the company and the geographic location where the entire task is being conducted to practice a common time so that there will be effective communication in between the project in charges as well as to that of the project managers (Layton et al. 2020). In fact time management apps or the software can be used by the project managers so as to track the overall effectiveness of the entire project along with the current activities that are being performed by the employees who are working in the assigned project.
Moreover the project manager should willingly involve to adopt the cultural differences or to encourage the teammates in providing the basic communicating terms or sentences to motivate them to work.
3)
During execution of the project a project manager is solely responsible for the tasks which are assigned to the team in order to complete the overall project and are also responsible to answer the questions from the stakeholders. Which is being completely based on the cost as well as time. Generally a project complexity raises huge uncertainties in order to complete the overall project with due respect to the time and the cost that have been mentioned while estimating. So if a project manager has to fully cope up in handling the overall pressures that are being exerted by the stakeholders with respect to the time and cost should implement the advanced planning and scheduling techniques should opt for PERT i.e. “Program Evaluation and Review Technique”. PERT helps in providing a “proper estimate for the overall duration of the project along with the visual representation of the major activities on a project” (Straka2017). Thus in this scheduling model the overall activities are being displayed according to the sequence just like a roadmap and thus the entire tasks are being connected throughout the “activity line of the chart”. Which is being critically followed by the calculation so as to determine the overall time required to finish the task by
“Optimistic Time (O)”: It denotes the fastest time which is required to complete the given project.
“Pessimistic Time (P)”: It denotes the highest time which is required to complete the given project.
“Most Likely Time (M)”: It assesses the overall time that is being required to complete the given project if no complications are being raised.
The PERT equation is:“(O+4M+P) / 6”.
By this way the project manager can showcase the relevant outputs that consist of expected time required in completing the overall project to the stakeholders.
Part – 2:
In on-going construction work it is generally associated with the exposure of limitations and risks that are to be addressed in ensuring the project’s ultimate success. However, the three primary constraints are to be completely followed by the project managers so as to familiarize with the “Time, Cost and Scope” (Sandhu and Khan 2018). Which is also known as “The Triple Constraints”. Where each constraint is being connected with the other two that helps to enhance the scope of the project that simultaneously raises the overall cost of the project as it requires huge time as well as money. In fact, speeding up the entire timeline of the project helps in cutting the major costs and can result in not getting or not fulfilling the overall scopes of the project.
The Three Constraints of the Project Management are as follows
Time Constraint: It is generally referred to the overall project’s scheduling in completion that critically includes deadlines for completing the entire phases of the project along with the exact date in which the project is to be delivered. Thus the below steps are to be taken in order to make effective time management.
- Planning’s – It critically includes properly defining of the main goals which is being attained to the entire project team in order to attain or achieve complete goals along with the primary steps which leads to the success of the entire project.
- Scheduling – the entire team of the project management must involve in plotting out of the realistic timeframe that will be required in completing the each phases of the project.
- Monitoring – It is required for analyzing the past steps that have been successfully implemented into the ongoing construction project and also helps in focusing on the overall trends as well as impacts of the plans that are to be implemented in the project via addressing the findings to the relevant stakeholders.
- Control – In this step the entire team must focus as well as communicate on the results to be obtained or which has been obtained at each and every phase of the project so as to move forward with the plans accordingly. Thus which means that the things which run smoothly should focus on the factors that contribute to the determining of the positive outcomes (Jackson 2020). That will help to further the continuing of the entire project. If in some cases it is found that there is a derailment then the entire team must know the reason behind the derailment and its consequences so these kinds of mistakes don’t occur in the future.
Scope Constraint: It is generally defined as an overall scope of a project which helps to critically define the specific goals, features, deliveries, and functions with respect to that of the additional tasks needed for fulfilling the entire project completion. Moreover, the overall scope of an entire project should be clear and hence should be regularly communicated with the stakeholders so as to ensure the “scope creep” (Harris et al. 2021). “Scope Creep” is a term which is used when “changes are being made to the scope at the middle of the project avoiding the same levels of controls. In order to check the overall scope of an entire project the following points are to be met
- Clear documentation of the entire project scope is to be provided at the very beginning of the project where all the requirements are to be mentioned.
- A process is to be set up in order to manage the overall changes. If changes are made as per the suggestions then the controlled system will help to review whether the suggestion should be considered for implementation or is to be rejected.
- Frequent communication is being required to discuss the scope with the stakeholders.
Cost Constraint: It is being completely defined as the overall cost of the project which has been dubbed the entire project budget and where the overall financial resources are being compromised in order to complete the entire project on time into its predetermined scope. Further the overall costs determine the huge capital that is being completely spent apart from materials are labor costs, quality control costs, vendor costs, etc. Moreover, a construction project included both cost i.e. fixed and variable costs into the entire course span of the project (Zidane and Andersen 2018). In fact there are few ways which can be used in order to completely determine or to properly estimate the costs which arises into a project and which are as follows
- Historical Data – Reviewing the costs that have been raised while completing similar types of projects in the past.
- Resources – Proper estimation is required for calculating rate of goods and labor.
- Parametric – It is also being required to compare the data that has been raised from the past with respect to the recent works.
- Vendor Bid – Over here the average bid of the vendors are being totally considered in order to make a proper chart where new vendors are to be chosen by overviewing the bids.
Therefore it is recommended to follow or to make a proper Gantt chart that will help to overview the entire timeline of the project in tracking of the project constraints.
Part – 3:
A:
1)
Figure 1: Gantt chart. (Source: Self-Created in draw.io)
Figure 2: Gantt chart. (Source: Self-Created in draw.io)
2)
Figure 3: WBS diagram of the project. (Source: Self-Created in draw.io)
WBS i.e. “Work Breakdown Structure” completely helps the project managers to prepare their plan for executing the works or the tasks in an efficient way. However, an entire project is being characterized by time-limiting activities where “fixed time frames and costs are being completely assigned. Therefore after the completion of the project it should fulfill the needs of the stakeholders that were designed as well as addresses in it (Johnson and Babu2020). Moreover. The project management has to prepare a proper plan in which the proper scheduling, fixed costs along with the “functional completeness of the project and assigned responsibilities’ ‘. Furthermore, the WBS helps to make effective as well as consistent planning’s so as to provide an effective way in project execution. Thus the benefits that are being achieved from this WBS tool is to create “measurable and independent tasks, assigning cost to each task, track progress in a schedule, define the scope of the project, fulfill intended purposes and assign responsibility for the tasks”.
3)
Identification of critical paths is being considered as an important tool as it helps in assessing the “actual time versus the planned time” in order to observe the overall position in which the project work is to be executed (Chang et al. 2019). Moreover, this also helps in allowing the identification of the materials that take huge time as expected, the tasks which are on track and the tasks which are ahead and being scheduled.
In fact the critical path changes after the critical parts are being completed or which have been delayed due to starting of the other tasks that have been lined up in the entire process. Hence making or emerging of a new critical path that entirely becomes a series of tasks which is being observed closely so as to follow a new series of tasks within the project completion date.
If the entire project is being developed using the “As Late As Possible Method” then there will be any sort of delay in the activity over the critical path and hence the critical path will reduce the total amount of float that is being available in the project. Moreover a project can also attain a negative float which indicates the overall calculated completion date of the last activity is later than the overall targeted completion date established at the very beginning of the entire project.
B:
2)
The overall purpose of resource leveling is to obtain the most common yet prolonged available resources while working within the boundary of the project’s time logs and which critically follows constraints like time, cost and scope (Avalon et al. 2017). However, it has been considered as one of the challenging parts for the managers as it completely requires overall balancing of the demand for the entire project across the different resources which can be used in order to complete the given assigned time in respective time logs.
Resource pool is a set of resources that are being completely available for executing a certain completion of the assignment or project tasks. It is being completely assigned by the project managers
3)
Resource Leveling is being considered as one of the project management techniques which is being used for completely resolving the overallocations or scheduling conflicts so as to ensure the overall project that can be completed with the presence of available resources at an allocated time being. However the resource typically includes time, tools, materials, etc. which is being required to complete a construction project (Hunt and Sahimi2017). Thus certain benefits which is being obtained by using proper resource leveling is to completely optimize the resources, minimize the overall deficits, to prevent from the tasks overloading and to ensure high quality project output.
Part – 4:
1)
There are huge reasons on which the conflicts may raise into an overall construction work and certain steps are to be needed in order to follow the particulars standards as well as procedures by the project manager in order to reduce the overall conflicts (Haezendonck and Langenus2019). However, proper detailing with exact description of the models from the planning’s are to be dictated among the project in charge as well as to that of the employees so as to understand which type of work is going to be executed in an sequential manner.
2)
Generally a 4 D i.e. four dimensional planning is being completely defined as an planning model which allows the planners as well as the construction staffs in order to visualize the overall parts of the entire construction work that is being executed in sequence including proper stages as well (like cranes, access to proper materials, proper storage of the materials, site access, etc.). Moreover, this 4D planning helps to identify errors in the plans and also helps to fully optimize the path of construction. In other words it can also be defined as a combination of 3 D model with respect to that of the project schedule in order to create a proper simulation of construction activities.
The purpose of implementing 4 D systems as a project management tool into an Engineering Industry is to ease the complete operations of a particular task by dividing the entire task into events (Mao and Li 2022). However, this also helps the businesses or the industries to execute their proceedings efficiently thus providing access to track the tasks assigned on the ongoing project, schedules, level of complexity achieved, probable time required to complete the assigned tasks, etc.
The benefits which is being achieved through implementing 4 D systems as a project management tool into an Engineering Industry helps to provide the essential details which are as follows
- High-Level Project Overview: If a project is involved in completing a particular project in which it includes multiple departments, then the use of a 4 D system as a project management tool will help to ease the overall complexity that is being raised over the entire project (Mazars and Francis 2020). Thus it will help to ensuring as well as managing the overall team so as to complete the assigned project on time. In fact the latest updates or the status of the project can be easily tracked down by signing into the “cloud based project management software” so as to attain the latest updates and further to communicate with the team.
- Managing Tasks: While managing a project it is required to track the overall progress of the tasks that are being assigned individually. So this project management tool helps in assigning the tasks, receiving the notification after the completion of the tasks and can also deal with managing the due dates along with the deliveries in order to keep the team on track.
- Reporting: This also helps in building fruitful reports into the dashboard of each and every project as per their status (Getuli and Capone 2018). This helps to inform each and everything that took place into a project while tackling major risks in real time.
- Time Tracking: This helps the management to track the time logs of each respected individual who is working into a particular organization and for what period of time (Islamiet al. 2017). Thus making a comprehensive project report that can be sent to the clients and team members as well.
Reference List
Journal
Getuli, V. and Capone, P., 2018. Computational workspaces management: a workflow to integrate workspaces dynamic planning with 4D BIM. In ISARC. Proceedings of the International Symposium on Automation and Robotics in Construction (Vol. 35, pp. 1-8). IAARC Publications.
Haezendonck, E. and Langenus, M., 2019. Integrated ports clusters and competitive advantage in an extended resource pool for the Antwerp Seaport. Maritime Policy & Management, 46(1), pp.74-91.
Harris, F., McCaffer, R., Baldwin, A. and Edum-Fotwe, F., 2021. Modern construction management. John Wiley & Sons.
Hunt, A.G. and Sahimi, M., 2017. Flow, transport, and reaction in porous media: Percolation scaling, critical‐path analysis, and effective medium approximation. Reviews of Geophysics, 55(4), pp.993-1078.
Islami, A., Chaimatanan, S. and Delahaye, D., 2017. Large-scale 4D trajectory planning. In Air Traffic Management and Systems II (pp. 27-47). Springer, Tokyo.
Jackson, B.J., 2020. Construction management JumpStart: the best first step toward a career in construction management. John Wiley & Sons.
Johnson, R.M. and Babu, R.I.I., 2020. Time and cost overruns in the UAE construction industry: a critical analysis. International Journal of Construction Management, 20(5), pp.402-411.
Kerzner, H., 2019. Using the project management maturity model: strategic planning for project management. John Wiley & Sons.
Kerzner, H., 2022. Project management case studies. John Wiley & Sons.
Layton, M.C., Ostermiller, S.J. and Kynaston, D.J., 2020. Agile project management for dummies. John Wiley & Sons.
Mao, X. and Li, A., 2022. Unconscious priming shares a common resource pool with the manipulation subsystem. PeerJ, 10, p.e13312.
Mazars, T. and Francis, A., 2020. Chronographical spatiotemporal dynamic 4D planning. Automation in Construction, 112, p.103076.
Sandhu, M.A. and Khan, A., 2018. Improving performance of construction projects: multi-cultural perspective. International Journal of Business Excellence, 14(1), pp.87-100.
Straka, D.A., 2017. Collaboration in multi-stakeholder, multi-cultural organizational environments. Issues in Informing Science and Information Technology, 14, pp.163-175.
Wu, G., Liu, C., Zhao, X. and Zuo, J., 2017. Investigating the relationship between communication-conflict interaction and project success among construction project teams. International Journal of Project Management, 35(8), pp.1466-1482.
Zidane, Y.J.T. and Andersen, B., 2018. The top 10 universal delay factors in construction projects. International Journal of Managing Projects in Business.
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