ITP-7 – Project Execution, Tracking, and Changes

ITP-7 – Project Execution, Tracking, and Changes

Concentrate especially on the ITP consolidated project plan.

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Then,in your project team, before you do anything else, do these things:

1. Make all needed corrections or updates to the schedule and resources. It is important to start from a correct baseline.
2. Then, speaking of baselines, before you do anything else, save a baselined project schedule, or update the baseline if you had already saved one.

If you have not previously prepared a Change Management Plan (e.g., as part of the overall project plan), then develop and submit one now, and submit in MS Word format. Instructions for the Change Management Plan are below…

Required Changes

Finally (the important part), make the following changes in your current project schedule (not the baselined schedule) and update your MS Project (.mpp).  Use the Tracking Gantt Chart feature to compare the original, baselined schedule with the current, changed schedule.  The changes to the project are as follows; make the appropriate changes to your current schedule:

1. The project is half way finished (by calendar time).  Set the status date (“update” date) to reflect this.  Update the actuals to reflect this.  Assume that all tasks are on schedule and on budget except as noted here:
2. The equipment (hardware, servers, networking gear, etc) delivery from the vendor was late and took (or will take) twice as long as expected.  In most cases (depending on how you implemented the equipment delivery task), this means that its duration is doubled.  Its cost is unchanged.If your project scenario does not include equipment purchase or delivery, then please contact the instructor immediately and we’ll work out an alternative.
3. The software (of all kinds) will cost twice as much as expected.  It seems that in the time since the project was planned, the vendor(s) came out with a new release that cost significantly more than the previous version, and are no longer selling or supporting the previous version.  It will be delivered on schedule, however.
4. Construction for computer rooms, labs, and building modifications have been impacted by a disastrous storm which has had the ripple effect of sucking up much of the construction materials and labor in the country and increasing their cost markedly.  Your costs for all construction-related tasks and materials have doubled, and all your construction tasks will have a one month delay in their start date.  Their duration will be unaffected, however.

Note:  If your project scenario does not include construction-related tasks, then apply this change to installation tasks (i.e., all installation tasks delayed 1 month and installation costs doubled).If your project scenario includes neither construction nor installation tasks, then please contact the instructor immediately and we’ll work out an alternative.

1. Ripple effects:  Besides the obvious, what else might need to be changed as a result of these events? Address these changes in a short Word document.
2. Make the appropriate changes to the project schedule and budget.
3. Important:If the above changes do not make sense within the scenario or nature of your project, then contact the professor immediately for further instructions.

8. Document your changes for submission below. For instance, if there was no software (item 3, above), then what did you change instead to simulate a similar change?  What were the ripple effects (item 5, above) that the changes triggered?  And so forth.

1. If the changes take you over budget or past the target completion date then in the narrative questions (see below), discuss what you would do to remediate this.  However, do not make any changes to the .mpp to effect these remediations.  (This is quite enough work already without adding that in also.)

Assignment for the ITP-7 Project Deliverable

1. A Change Management Plan (CMP), in MS Word format.  See textbook, PMI.org, theLEO classroom, and other professional PM Web sites for details; use an Internet search if necessary.  Unlike the risk register, the CMP is not a list of changes and their status and handling.  Rather, the change management plan is what it sounds like: a plan for how the project intends to manage any changes that may occur.  The CMP should include at least the following:

• Methodology, strategy, and tools for handling changes
• Roles and responsibilities for change management
• Organization for change management (CCB, etc)
• Change process (flowchart and/or description)
• Budget for change handling process.  This is not the cost of implementing the changes listed in the “Required Changes” section above, but rather is the cost of the CCB and running the change process.  The costs of implementing the individual, specified changes, is a separate item that can be tracked via Earned Value calculations and other methods, below.
  • (Normally the change process budget would be part of the project budget from the beginning, but we neither mentioned nor required that in this class.  So for this class only, your change management budget will be over and above the project budget (i.e., in addition to the project budget) instead of coming out of your project budget as part of the project budget.)
• Important note:  Use of outlines, examples, and templates that you may find (including those in the textbook) is acceptable for the structure and outline of this document.  However, the substance must be your own original work and must include proper quotation, citation, attribution, and bibliography of sources and works used.

1. Updated project schedulein MS Project (.mpp)reflecting the specified changes listed in the “Required Changes” section above, including a tracking Gantt chart comparing the new schedule to the baselined schedule, in MS Project (.mpp) format.

3. Suggested fields to include should include those listed in the document titled: “MSP Fields to Include in ITPDeliverables” located in your Course Content area.
4. A brief narrative description of how you effected or applied the changes listed in the “Required Changes” section above. For instance, if there was no software (item 3, above), then what did you change instead to simulate a similar change?  What were the ripple effects (item 5, above) that the changes triggered?  And so forth.

1. A Word document describing what project documentation needs to be changed (and what the needed changes are) in order to implement the specified changes listed in the “Required Changes” section above. You need not update the documents, just describe, in general terms, what would need to be updated.

• (Note:  Ordinarily in a real-world project, we would also update and submit the consolidated project management plan (PMP) document (ITP-6) reflecting all changes and updates.  However, for this class, we will omit this step.)

1. Optional for additional points.  Overall earned value analysis. (That is, “overall” indicates do it once for the project as a whole, not for each individual task.  Though doing it for each task would be acceptable if MSP does it for you, only the overall whole-project earned value calculations are indicated for this assignment.  Do not do individual task calculations of EV by hand.)  You may use MS Project to do so, if you can, or you can do it yourself with a pocket calculator or (probably better yet) do it yourself in Excel; you can use the formulas on the Gold Card or the formulas in my weekly Commentary, or the formulas in the textbook.  Any way, you do it, you will get most of the data from your MSP .mpp, then plug it into the formulas.