Project Management Essay

Choose one of the following topic area for the project. I have a few examples below. I would encourage you to think about a project you’re thinking of completing either at home or in your work. The examples below are meant for guideline only. Feel free to choose something that appeals to you. Use some caution. Don’t select topic that is too broad in scope (e.g. design of car). Think of business you can start from home rather than thinking of building manufacturing facility. Also keep in mind you are not manufacturing product or offering service just designing or redesigning it.

Types of project

Design of New Product
e.g. Cookies, Candles, Crafts
Design of New service
e.g. Lawn Mowing, Consulting, etc.
Redesign of Product
e.g. Comfortable seating arrangements(table, chairs)
Redesign of Service facility
e.g. Environmentally conscious redesign of printing facility at computer labs
Design of Information System / App
e.g. Developing web-page for small business or mobile app

Answer following questions for the topic you have selected. Make suitable but meaningful assumptions.

Discuss your rational for selecting project topic. Were there more than one ideas? How did you reach to this topic?
Identify all the activities involved in your project. Develop work breakdown structure (WBS). Your WBS should have at least 15-20 activities.
List activities and interdependencies between them. Estimate time required to perform these activities. Develop network diagram. Estimate early start, early finish, and slack time for all activities. Find critical path and project completion time.
Estimate resources required and develop resource requirement plan. Include a stakeholder map identifying all key stakeholders. Do research on different templates that works for your project. Be creative.
Estimate cost required for each of the identified activities. Provide some rational (material cost, labor cost, labor hours, types of labor etc.) for estimated cost. Prepare total aggregate budge for the project.
Identify risks involved in your project. Prepare risk response plan for the project.

Submission Instructions:

Submit answers to above questions in one word document by last day of class. Put appropriate question numbers so that it is clear which question is being answered. Use suitable font with 1 inch margin on all sides. Report should be around 8-10 pages in length. If you use output from MS Project or Excel, copy & paste it into word document.