Project Management Essay For Virtual Delivery System Project.

A project management plan is an official document that describes how a project can be carried out. The development of a project management plan is important as it contributes to outlining the goals, budget, timeline and deliverables linked with a project (San Cristóbal et al. 2018). A project plan allows the project team to follow a common approach to the achievement of the project goals.

The aim of this report is to present a project plan for the Virtual delivery system project: The plan indicates the details of the project objectives and scope and further presents an idea about the time and cost associated with project execution and delivery. The report presents a detailed justification on why the project is required to be executed, along with the details of The Methodological Approach to be considered for project delivery. Based on the methodological approach chosen, a detailed plan for time and budget management is presented. Every project is associated with certain risks, and hence, planning an appropriate risk management process is necessary. Along with the risk management and analysis plan, a detailed plan for stakeholders’ management is further presented in the plan.

In the following paragraph, the details of the project implementation process along with the process of benefits realisation are discussed.

A project initiation document, or a PID, is an important document that defines the project's scope, objectives, and overall success criteria (Chawla et al. 2018). A detailed PID for the Virtual delivery system project is presented in the following sections.

A project of developing a virtual delivery system has been undertaken. During the pandemic, The University of Wales Trinity Saint David (UWTSD) London campus swapped from face2face (f2f) delivery to online delivery of lectures to reduce the risks to its students and staff. However, recently when the pandemic was in control, the University switched to a hybrid delivery system that involves delivering both online and offline classes. Through this process, the University aims to slowly return the students and staff to a full-time face-to-face mode of teaching.

The scope of the project is to design a virtual project delivery system that will enable UWTSD to deliver both online and offline teaching facilities. The in-scope requirements of this project are presented as follows-

• To identify the requirements and plan the virtual delivery system project
• To prepare the infrastructure for carrying out teaching through both the channels
• To test the virtual delivery system
• To integrate the virtual delivery system with the existing operations

Any work or activities that are not indicated in the above list are out of this project's scope.

The primary objective of this project is to design a system that will help the UWTSD to deliver classes virtually to support their initiative of offering both online and face to face lectures.

The primary expectation from this project is that it will allow the students and the staff to get accustomed to offline classes after the lockdown along with the online classes.

The accomplishment of this project is reliant on the successful development and implementation of the virtual delivery system project within the next three months or less.

The following are the assumptions associated with the project budget

• The project will be executed within a budget of £80,000
• It is assumed that the budget for this project has already been approved.
• It is assumed that the project is required to be executed within a fixed budget

The project is currently in its initiation stage, and hence, the overall planning process of the project is associated with certain assumptions. The primary assumptions associated with this project are presented as follows-

• It is assumed that there will be little or no resistance from the staff to this project
• It is assumed that the resources needed for this project will be available during project implementation
• It is assumed that UWTSD has the necessary infrastructure to implement this project

Stakeholders and their Involvement

Every project has certain constraints which are necessary to be addressed (Tereso et al. 2019). Timely management of the risks and constraints associated with a project is necessary to ensure its successful delivery. The primary constraint associated with this project is time, as the project is required to be executed as soon as possible.

Apart from the time constraint, the project is associated with certain other risks that are necessary to be addressed (Chen et al. 2019). The risk register presents the details of the risks that are needed to be addressed in this project-

Risk Description	Risk Severity/Impact	Likelihood of Risk Occurrence	Risk Score	Risk Mitigation strategy
Uncontrollable Delays	5	3	15	Regular project monitoring is necessary to be ensured to avoid the risk (Burkov et al. 2018).
Resistance from the Staff	4	2	8	The project will be communicated to the staff in advance to reduce the likelihood of occurrence of this risk.
Technical Issues	4	3	12	This risk can be transferred to a technical expert to address the technical issues (Masár et al. 2019).
Budget Issues	3	3	9	Proper budget supervision will be ensured to reduce the occurrence of this risk.
Poor Project Management	3	4	12	Regular communication flow is required to be ensured to reduce the occurrence of this risk (Alves, Ferreira and de Nadae 2021).

Table 1: Showing the Risk Register

The risk register presented above identifies the risks and constraints linked with the project. Timely management of these risks is necessary to ensure project success.

In project management, management of the expectations of the stakeholders is necessary as the outcome of a project is largely dependent on the involvement and their expectations (Nguyen et al. 2018). The following stakeholder register presents the particulars of the stakeholders linked with this project.

Stakeholders	Category	Power/Influence	Interest
Project Manager	External	Low	High
Staffs	Internal	Low	Low
Student	Internal	Low	Low
Sponsors	Internal	High	High
Software Vendor	External	Low	High
Technical Expert	External	High	Low

Table 2: The stakeholders’ register presents the details of the stakeholders

The management process of the stakeholders involved with this project is shown in the stakeholders’ matrix below-

Low                Power            High	Keep Satisfied -          Technical Expert	Manage Closely -          Sponsors
	Monitor -          Staffs -          Students	Keep Informed -          Project Manager -          Software Vendor
	Low                                                          Interest                                                High

The process of stakeholders’ management and engagement to be followed in the project is presented in the above stakeholders’ matrix.

The organisational structure to be followed for the execution of this project is presented as follows-

The above chart presents the details of the organisational structure to be followed in the execution of this project. The roles and responsibilities of each member are presented as follows.

Project Team Member	Responsibilities
UWTSD Board of Directors	This is one of the most important members of this project and is responsible for overall project supervision.
Sponsors	This member is responsible for looking after budgetary requirements and constraints associated with this project.
Project Manager	The manager is responsible for project planning and successful project implementation (Kerzner 2022).
Students’ Administration	This stakeholder is responsible for planning the study materials and process in such a way that it supports the proposed virtual system.
Technical Team	This team has the responsibility of looking after the technical necessities lined with the project.

Table 3: Showing the Roles and Responsibilities of the Team Members

The project will involve following the indicated structure for better project management as well as project governance.

The success of a project is reliant on the ability of the project team to enforce necessary controls on the scope, time, cost and resources associated with the project. Since the scope of the Virtual delivery system project is clear, this particular project is planned to be executed using a fixed scope. In the project control process of this particular project, the involvement of the project manager is essential (de Oliveira and Rabechini Jr 2019). Furthermore, the cost and time baseline will be set at the beginning of the project, and accordingly, the project progress in fixed intervals will be analysed. If the project progress does not match the requirements, the project manager will bring the necessary changes in the plan to manage and mitigate the issue.

In this project, proper reporting is necessary as the project is a high priority project. As a part of the reporting framework, a communication plan will be developed that will enable the stakeholders to easily communicate with each other. The project team is required to share daily progress with the team members to ensure better management and reporting of the project progress and the issues. The communication plan will indicate the medium and frequency of communication required for project reporting.

Project Organization Structure and Roles and Responsibilities

The timely delivery of the project is associated with the ability of the project team to deliver the milestones as per their expected date. This project has a fixed scope, and hence, proper project supervision is required to ensure that the project is delivered in accordance with the milestone date. The primary milestones associated with this project and their expected date of completion is presented in the table-

Milestone	Expected Date of Completion
Approval of Project Charter	Tue 27/04/21
Approval of Project Plan	Thu 06/05/21
The system is ready to Launch	Fri 02/07/21
Project Ends	Thu 08/07/21

Table 4: Showing the Project Milestone and their expected date of completion

The project management plan is a formal document that defines the process of project execution (Abdul 2019). The PID for the Virtual delivery system project is prepared, and based on the same, the final plan for this project is delivered as follows-

The project approach that is followed for this project is the traditional waterfall approach, where the entire project is executed in a sequential manner. Accordingly, the schedule planning is done. The choice of this particular approach is justified for this project, considering the fact that the scope of this project is clear. Furthermore, the use of the waterfall method contributes to the successful and timely delivery of the project (Ajam 2018). Since time is a constraint in this project, the use of the waterfall method will ensure that the undertaken project is delivered within a specific time. In order to address the disadvantages of the waterfall method, proper project reporting is enforced within the project.

The project scheduling is done on the basis of the waterfall approach to project implementation. In the following section, a detailed WBS and Gantt chart for the project is presented, which outlines the schedule plan to be followed for the execution of this project.

The detailed WBS outlining the tasks to be executed in this project is presented as follows-

Figure 1: Showing the WBS of the Project

Based on the WBS presented in figure 1, the following schedule planning is done for this project-

Figure 2: Gantt Chart Showing the Schedule Planning

It is possible to execute and complete the project within three months if the above-indicated schedule plan is followed.

The project had a budget constraint of £80,000, and accordingly, a detailed budget plan was prepared, which is presented in the following table-

WBS	Task Name	Duration	Resources	Total Cost
1	Virtual delivery System Project	64 days		£77,980.00
1.1	Project Initiation Phase	12 days		£8,680.00
1.1.1	Requirement Gathering	2 days	Project Manager	£1,120.00
1.1.2	Meeting with the Stakeholders	1 day	Project Manager	£560.00
1.1.3	Development of PID	3 days	Project Manager	£1,680.00
1.1.4	Project Feasibility Analysis	7 days	Business Analysts	£3,640.00
1.1.5	Develop Project Charter	3 days	Project Manager	£1,680.00
1.1.6	Approval of Project Charter	0 days		£0.00
1.2	Project Planning Phase	7 days		£5,120.00
1.2.1	Team Set-up	2 days	Resource Manager	£880.00
1.2.2	Budget Analysis	3 days	Project Manager	£1,680.00
1.2.3	Resource Allocation	2 days	Resource Manager	£880.00
1.2.4	Development of Final Project Plan	3 days	Project Manager	£1,680.00
1.2.5	Approval of Project Plan	0 days		£0.00
1.3	Project Execution Phase	41 days		£62,060.00
1.3.1	Inspection of the Existing Infrastructure	3 days	Technical Expert	£1,560.00
1.3.2	Report Generation	1 day	Technical Expert	£520.00
1.3.3	Infrastructure Preparation for Virtual delivery system	7 days	Software Engineer, Technical Expert, Networking Materials [1], Hardware [1]	£20,560.00
1.3.4	Software Installation	20 days	Software Engineer, Software [1]	£31,200.00
1.3.5	Testing	7 days	Technical Expert	£3,640.00
1.3.6	Bug Fixing (If Any)	3 days	Software Engineer	£1,680.00
1.3.7	Training the Users	10 days	Trainer, Training Materials [1]	£2,900.00
1.3.8	The system is ready to Launch	0 days		£0.00
1.4	Project Closure	4 days		£2,120.00
1.4.1	System Evaluation	2 days	Project Manager	£1,120.00
1.4.2	Documentation	1 day	Project Manager	£560.00
1.4.3	Resource Release	1 day	Resource Manager	£440.00
1.4.4	Project Ends	0 days		£0.00

Table 5: Showing the Project Budget

The above table presents the details of the project budget. The total budget is calculated based on each task's resource requirements and duration.

The Virtual delivery system project is an important project for UWTSD, and therefore, appropriate quality considerations are linked with this project. As a part of the quality planning process, regular project supervision will be ensured. Apart from that, the system deployed will be tested before launch to ensure that the system being launched matches the project's quality requirements (Ibrahim and Daniel 2019).  

As indicated in the PID, report sharing process in this project will be executed as per an appropriate communication plan. The communication plan to be followed in this project is presented as follows-

Description	Frequency	Channel	Audience	Owner
Progress Update	Once in a Week	Email and/or Face-to-Face	Project Stakeholders	Project Manager
Status Report	Once in two weeks	Email	Project Stakeholders	Project Manager
Risks Discussion	Twice a Month	Email	Project Stakeholders	Project Team
Budget Related Discussion	Once a month	Email	Sponsors	Project Manager

Table 6: Showing the communication plan

The communication plan presented above is subject to change as per the requirements and needs of the project and the stakeholders (Perrone, Sorenson and Johnson 2018).

The resource allocation for this project is done in the planning phase of this project for its better management. The primary resources associated with the project are presented in the table below-

Resource Name	Type	Std. Rate	Cost/Use
Project Manager	Work	£70.00/hr	£0.00
Business Analysts	Work	£65.00/hr	£0.00
Resource Manager	Work	£55.00/hr	£0.00
Technical Expert	Work	£65.00/hr	£0.00
Software Engineer	Work	£70.00/hr	£0.00
Trainer	Work	£30.00/hr	£0.00
Software	Material	£0.00	£20,000.00
Hardware	Material	£0.00	£8,000.00
Networking Materials	Material	£0.00	£5,000.00
Training Materials	Material	£0.00	£500.00

Table 7: Showing the details of the Resources Involved with the project

Each of the resources presented in the above table has been allocated with specific tasks, as shown in table 5. The resource planning is done in such a way that there is no risk of resource over-allocation.

The benefits realisation process of this project is associated with the University's ability to ensure normal face-to-face classes by the end of this year. The virtual system is being deployed in UWTSD with the aim of returning staff and students to normality after lockdown. Once the students get accustomed to the new system, it will be easier for the University to achieve this aim. The timeline set for benefits realisation is six months after the project launch.

References

Abdul, G.S.M., 2019. Project Plan.

Ajam, M.A., 2018. Project management beyond waterfall and agile. Auerbach Publications.

Alves, J.L., Ferreira, E.A. and de Nadae, J., 2021. Crisis and risks in engineering project management: A review. Brazilian Journal of Operations & Production Management, 18(4), pp.1-17.

Burkov, V., Burkova, I., Barkhi, R. and Berlinov, M., 2018. Qualitative Risk Assessments in Project Management in Construction Industry. In MATEC Web of Conferences (Vol. 251, p. 06027). EDP Sciences.

Chawla, V., Chanda, A., Angra, S. and Chawla, G., 2018. The sustainable project management: A review and future possibilities. Journal of Project Management, 3(3), pp.157-170.

Chen, T., Fu, M., Liu, R., Xu, X., Zhou, S. and Liu, B., 2019. How do project management competencies change within the project management career model in large Chinese construction companies?. International Journal of Project Management, 37(3), pp.485-500.

de Oliveira, G.F. and Rabechini Jr, R., 2019. Stakeholder management influence on trust in a project: A quantitative study. International Journal of Project Management, 37(1), pp.131-144.

Ibrahim, A.U. and Daniel, C.O., 2019. The Effect of Total Quality Management on Project Management. European Journal of Business and Management, pp.2222-1905.

Kerzner, H., 2022. Project management case studies. John Wiley & Sons.

Masár, M., Hudáková, M., Šimák, L. and Brezina, D., 2019. The current state of project risk management in the transport sector. Transportation Research Procedia, 40, pp.1119-1126.

Nguyen, T.S., Mohamed, S. and Panuwatwanich, K., 2018. Stakeholder Management in Complex Project: Review of Contemporary Literature. Journal of Engineering, Project & Production Management, 8(2).

Perrone, J.R., Sorenson, C. and Johnson, L., 2018. IDT605 Communication And Management Plan. 

San Cristóbal, J.R., Carral, L., Diaz, E., Fraguela, J.A. and Iglesias, G., 2018. Complexity and project management: A general overview. Complexity, 2018.

Tereso, A., Ribeiro, P., Fernandes, G., Loureiro, I. and Ferreira, M., 2019. Project management practices in private organizations. Project Management Journal, 50(1), pp.6-22.