Sunday, August 1, 2010
Saturday, July 31, 2010
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Friday, July 30, 2010
WEEK 16 (03.AUG.2010) - PROJECT LIFE CYCLE - Project tracking and control
16 weeks of lessons simply flew pass without us realizing it. We are now already at the end of the semester. Joyous moment that we had throughout this semester will always be a memory to all of us. Project management course that we initially thought were so hard, difficult and tough, yet we have successfully gone through every single challenge of it smoothly.
But hang on.......we have yet to reach the climax, although we are almost there, but still there is one more gigantic challenge that we need to face....PRESENTATION!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
For this week, it is time to hand over our hardship work to our dearest lecturer Mr Yap. So, here we summarize our project assignment that we have done up till today. Here our project done by our team members, Boo Wei Chong, Suhana, Ruth and Regina :)
PROJECT CLOSURE REPORT
PROJECT NAME: Annual Warehouse Sale
DEPARTMENT: Project & Marketing Department
FOCUS AREA: To generate sales and eliminate products that are obsolete.
PRODUCT/PROCESS: Electronic Goods
Project Closure Report Purpose
Annual Warehouse Sale for HP has been successfully planned and implemented. The objectives of the project are met.
This project generates a profit of SGD $95K from selling of existing electronic goods that are no longer marketable. The surplus products are sold to generate revenue instead of being dispose at a cost.
This Project Closure Report is created to accomplish the following goals:
•Review and validate the success of the project.
•Confirm outstanding issues, risks and recommendations.
•Outline tasks and activities required to close the project.
•Identify project highlights and best practices for future projects.
Project Closure Report Goals
This Project Closure Report is created to accomplish the following goals:
•Significant reduction in product being obsolete/dead stocks.
•Successfully create product and brand awareness with the help of marketing efforts and media publicity.
Project Background Overview
•Streamline inventory management and reduce fixed costs.
•Improved visibility of supply chain inventories and actual consumption rates to help ensure production level closely match demand.
•Reduce operating cost, by optimizing the inventory level and reduce storage cost for stock on hand.
•Reduce errors, fulfillment cost and lead-time.
•Enhance controls and replenish stock to retailer from the return of low-end products or products near expiry date.
Project Highlights and Best Practices
Project Highlights:
•Increase inventory turnover.
•Increase revenue.
•Eliminate wasted travel time and cost to dispose obsolete product.
Best Practices:
•Early anticipation of any technical issues (eg Machines breakdown / malfunction during AWS) and possible solutions put in place prior to its happenings.
Project Closure Synopsis
Prepare a handover report that identifies all variations to the original contract and seeks acknowledgment as follow:
•all project objectives and deliverables have been met and accepted, terms and conditions for parties concerned.
•win-win solution for both consumer and company.
•all deliverables have been delivered .
•all training has been completed.
•the product or service has been fully tested and are in operational condition during the Annual Warehouse Sale event.
•all appropriate documentation has been provided the service support arrangements are in place.
Goals and Objectives Performance
•Duration of project completion was on schedule base on the event dates, project completed within 48 days, with a buffer of 2 days.
•Initial cost objective was SGD$85,000 and actual cost was SGD$ 78,096.
Success Criteria Performance
•Reduced surplus inventory due to be obsolete.
•Maintain real-time information with retailer carrying the products loyalty.
•Improved production scheduling and capacity utilization of warehouse space.
•Streamlines inventory management, reduces fixed cost.
•Provides a positive impact on productivity and information flow.
Budget Performance
Project Budget Overview:
• This project involves no investment cost
• Targeted costs was estimated at SGD$78,096
• Project was successfully carried out below targeted cost.
SGD
BENEFIT $173,520.00
COSTS $78,096.00
Formula Calculations
ROI = Benefits - Costs: 95,424.00
ROI = Benefits-Costs/Cost : 1.22 = 122%
Project Budget Actions:
•The main budget were allocated to the rental of venue, Sales & Marketing, printed material as well as the transportation of products.
•Manpower cost reduced drastically with allocation of internal staff employ for the Annual Warehouse Sale.
Metrics Performance Recommendations
•To negotiate for even lower rental / contractor set-up costs for future Annual Warehouse Sale venues.
•Negotiate & secure better instalments plans from banks prior to AWS.
•Manpower cost budgeted for SGD$ 9500 for IT, assembling and customer support.
Resource Management
Resource issues:
•The venue locations and staff personnel resulted in the major contribution to cost.
Resource solutions:
•To hire internal staff as part of the Annual Warehouse Sale event for important job functions.
•Consider hiring students, homemaker and retirees for jobs to handle customer enquiry and leaflets distribution.
Issue Management
Issues:
•The event dates are fixed and we have to work closely with the contractor to set-up the venue on time and within schedule.
Issues managed:
•Contractor is given a timeframe to ensure job completed as per schedule.
Risk Management
Project Risks :
•Pilferage and products loss will be a main concern.
Quality Management
•Storage location for products was selected to ensure a secured and surveillance available at all time.
Communication Management
•The Annual Warehouse Sale was carried as planned and within budget.
•Negotiation was successful as all parties’ established good relation and win-win solution.
Customer Expectation Management
•Customer requirements for a secured, convenient and accessible venue location were met.
Asset Management
•Work closely with warehouse operation and freight forwarder to manage the product to be transported to the events venue.
•Co-ordinate with Human Resource on the manpower needed for the Annual Warehouse Sale.
Lessons Learned
•The concepts of having an annual warehouse sale worked well and it was proven to save cost by generating revenue for the company and minimizing manpower resources.
•The products are made available to consumer to purchase at a fraction of cost thereby able to reduce inventory on hand and result in a market share gain.
•Communication management is an important factor which helps to clinch important deals for future advancements of the company.
Postproject Tasks
•To explore and implement project to various business unit and divisions within the company that could benefit from this event.
•Further enhancement and improvements could be implemented to facilitate our inventory control.
Project Closure Recommendations
Main recommendation would be to gain project closure approval from the stakeholders and management who have been kind in their support and understanding of our project. With this, we hope to obtain their agreement and commitment in the project to be fulfill yearly, bottom line to generate additional revenue for the company.
Reflection: Coming to an end of the coursework, we were able to visualise the actual workload of doing project management for our event, Annual Warehouse Sale. The stages that we went through to arrive at where we are currently has been a long journey. The life cycle of the project has came to the final stage.
A recap of our project snapshot : While working on this project conflict arose, and we had to overcome these conflicts as we had learned in one of the activity. Additionally, communication is also a key to a successful team. Believe through the learning process, we have emerge as a knowledgable person in project management and able to relate it back to our current work situation. The closing of the project has provided us a summary of what we had work on and to provide to the stakeholder and management a comprehensive view of our project, the Annual Warehouse Sale.
But hang on.......we have yet to reach the climax, although we are almost there, but still there is one more gigantic challenge that we need to face....PRESENTATION!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
For this week, it is time to hand over our hardship work to our dearest lecturer Mr Yap. So, here we summarize our project assignment that we have done up till today. Here our project done by our team members, Boo Wei Chong, Suhana, Ruth and Regina :)
PROJECT CLOSURE REPORT
PROJECT NAME: Annual Warehouse Sale
DEPARTMENT: Project & Marketing Department
FOCUS AREA: To generate sales and eliminate products that are obsolete.
PRODUCT/PROCESS: Electronic Goods
Project Closure Report Purpose
Annual Warehouse Sale for HP has been successfully planned and implemented. The objectives of the project are met.
This project generates a profit of SGD $95K from selling of existing electronic goods that are no longer marketable. The surplus products are sold to generate revenue instead of being dispose at a cost.
This Project Closure Report is created to accomplish the following goals:
•Review and validate the success of the project.
•Confirm outstanding issues, risks and recommendations.
•Outline tasks and activities required to close the project.
•Identify project highlights and best practices for future projects.
Project Closure Report Goals
This Project Closure Report is created to accomplish the following goals:
•Significant reduction in product being obsolete/dead stocks.
•Successfully create product and brand awareness with the help of marketing efforts and media publicity.
Project Background Overview
•Streamline inventory management and reduce fixed costs.
•Improved visibility of supply chain inventories and actual consumption rates to help ensure production level closely match demand.
•Reduce operating cost, by optimizing the inventory level and reduce storage cost for stock on hand.
•Reduce errors, fulfillment cost and lead-time.
•Enhance controls and replenish stock to retailer from the return of low-end products or products near expiry date.
Project Highlights and Best Practices
Project Highlights:
•Increase inventory turnover.
•Increase revenue.
•Eliminate wasted travel time and cost to dispose obsolete product.
Best Practices:
•Early anticipation of any technical issues (eg Machines breakdown / malfunction during AWS) and possible solutions put in place prior to its happenings.
Project Closure Synopsis
Prepare a handover report that identifies all variations to the original contract and seeks acknowledgment as follow:
•all project objectives and deliverables have been met and accepted, terms and conditions for parties concerned.
•win-win solution for both consumer and company.
•all deliverables have been delivered .
•all training has been completed.
•the product or service has been fully tested and are in operational condition during the Annual Warehouse Sale event.
•all appropriate documentation has been provided the service support arrangements are in place.
Goals and Objectives Performance
•Duration of project completion was on schedule base on the event dates, project completed within 48 days, with a buffer of 2 days.
•Initial cost objective was SGD$85,000 and actual cost was SGD$ 78,096.
Success Criteria Performance
•Reduced surplus inventory due to be obsolete.
•Maintain real-time information with retailer carrying the products loyalty.
•Improved production scheduling and capacity utilization of warehouse space.
•Streamlines inventory management, reduces fixed cost.
•Provides a positive impact on productivity and information flow.
Budget Performance
Project Budget Overview:
• This project involves no investment cost
• Targeted costs was estimated at SGD$78,096
• Project was successfully carried out below targeted cost.
SGD
BENEFIT $173,520.00
COSTS $78,096.00
Formula Calculations
ROI = Benefits - Costs: 95,424.00
ROI = Benefits-Costs/Cost : 1.22 = 122%
Project Budget Actions:
•The main budget were allocated to the rental of venue, Sales & Marketing, printed material as well as the transportation of products.
•Manpower cost reduced drastically with allocation of internal staff employ for the Annual Warehouse Sale.
Metrics Performance Recommendations
•To negotiate for even lower rental / contractor set-up costs for future Annual Warehouse Sale venues.
•Negotiate & secure better instalments plans from banks prior to AWS.
•Manpower cost budgeted for SGD$ 9500 for IT, assembling and customer support.
Resource Management
Resource issues:
•The venue locations and staff personnel resulted in the major contribution to cost.
Resource solutions:
•To hire internal staff as part of the Annual Warehouse Sale event for important job functions.
•Consider hiring students, homemaker and retirees for jobs to handle customer enquiry and leaflets distribution.
Issue Management
Issues:
•The event dates are fixed and we have to work closely with the contractor to set-up the venue on time and within schedule.
Issues managed:
•Contractor is given a timeframe to ensure job completed as per schedule.
Risk Management
Project Risks :
•Pilferage and products loss will be a main concern.
Quality Management
•Storage location for products was selected to ensure a secured and surveillance available at all time.
Communication Management
•The Annual Warehouse Sale was carried as planned and within budget.
•Negotiation was successful as all parties’ established good relation and win-win solution.
Customer Expectation Management
•Customer requirements for a secured, convenient and accessible venue location were met.
Asset Management
•Work closely with warehouse operation and freight forwarder to manage the product to be transported to the events venue.
•Co-ordinate with Human Resource on the manpower needed for the Annual Warehouse Sale.
Lessons Learned
•The concepts of having an annual warehouse sale worked well and it was proven to save cost by generating revenue for the company and minimizing manpower resources.
•The products are made available to consumer to purchase at a fraction of cost thereby able to reduce inventory on hand and result in a market share gain.
•Communication management is an important factor which helps to clinch important deals for future advancements of the company.
Postproject Tasks
•To explore and implement project to various business unit and divisions within the company that could benefit from this event.
•Further enhancement and improvements could be implemented to facilitate our inventory control.
Project Closure Recommendations
Main recommendation would be to gain project closure approval from the stakeholders and management who have been kind in their support and understanding of our project. With this, we hope to obtain their agreement and commitment in the project to be fulfill yearly, bottom line to generate additional revenue for the company.
Reflection: Coming to an end of the coursework, we were able to visualise the actual workload of doing project management for our event, Annual Warehouse Sale. The stages that we went through to arrive at where we are currently has been a long journey. The life cycle of the project has came to the final stage.
A recap of our project snapshot : While working on this project conflict arose, and we had to overcome these conflicts as we had learned in one of the activity. Additionally, communication is also a key to a successful team. Believe through the learning process, we have emerge as a knowledgable person in project management and able to relate it back to our current work situation. The closing of the project has provided us a summary of what we had work on and to provide to the stakeholder and management a comprehensive view of our project, the Annual Warehouse Sale.
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
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Sunday, July 18, 2010
WEEK 15 (27.JULY.2010) - PROJECT LIFE CYCLE - COMMUNICATION & CONFLICT
Today, we are shown few videos by our lecturer for our better understanding on the topic that we learnt today...COMMUNICATION & CONFLICT.
We did a group discussion in a class on the effective communication, anger management and conflict handling. We did a presentation and teacher shot us with challenging questions to our answers. But our group leader was witty and quick enought to convince teacher and justify our answers. However the point raised by teacher were valid, and we took back into consideration if we faced the same challenges in our work situation we may know how to handle them.
Our tutorial 5 was thrown back to us because we made some error on our risk assessment portion. Teacher suggested that those cost that are deemed necessary to be incurred must be included in our cost budgeting. So we have taken back into consideration that we will amend our cost budgeting and which will intern affect our ROI calculation.
Hopefully it will be right this time.... :)
Task for next week will be to re-submit tutorial 5, and we will be finally come to the end of the project management assignment. We are required to submit the full report of all the weekly tutorial that we have and prepare project closure.
For now..we are all lost..... :( .. but we will do our best!!!!
Reflection: Every project will have communication breakdown at some point of the stage. Through this activity, we are able to learn better as with proper communication we are able to understand each other needs and objective in getting the project done on schedule and by the given timeline. This tutorial on which we are assigned - to work on the budget had us thinking as we have to look at each job activity to forecast and anticipate the actual cost involve. We brainstorm, analyse and re-calculate the actual cost for each job funtion to ensure that it is justifiable and accurate as per what its expected in the current work environment. Fortunately, we are able to derive a solution and understand the flow of the working calculation.
WEEK 14 (20.JULY.2010) - PROJECT LIFE CYCLE
This week we are discussing about how to work on our Tutorial 5. For this tutorial we are required to do a risk assessment on our project. As what we have learnt in week 11, risk management, we are to discuss and do a brainstorm on the risk severity, probability and ranking those risks which we have derived from our WBS activity. Thereafter, we will be discussing on the impact, contigency plan and contigency cost of the risks.
Time for brainstorming gang!!!!!
Reflection: The project itself turned out to be a great learning experience for every member of my team, including myself. From our project, we are able to learn the risk analysis of running up to conceptionalisation of doing a mega project such as Annual Warehouse Sale (AWS). Of course, there are many risk involve in doing any project of this largescale. Therefore, we have to base on the fact and data gather to make an informed decision on the risk management affecting our project. We will analyse on the top ten risk applicable and later narrow down to the top two. This way we able to foresee what are the most prominent issue on hand and how to go about getting the risk identified and to reduce the impact to the project where cost are involve, which will in turn affect company bottomline.
WEEK 13 (13.JULY.2010) - PROJECT LIFE CYCLE - SWOT ANALYSIS
A strength could be:- Your specialist marketing expertise.
- A new, innovative product or service.
- Location of your business.
- Quality processes and procedures.
- Any other aspect of your business that adds value to your product or service.
A weakness could be:
- Lack of marketing expertise.
- Undifferentiated products or services (i.e. in relation to your competitors).
- Location of your business.
- Poor quality goods or services.
- Damaged reputation.
An opportunity could be:
- A developing market such as the Internet.
- Mergers, joint ventures or strategic alliances.
- Moving into new market segments that offer improved profits.
- A new international market.
- A market vacated by an ineffective competitor.
A threat could be:
- A new competitor in your home market.
- Price wars with competitors.
- A competitor has a new, innovative product or service.
- Competitors have superior access to channels of distribution.
- Taxation is introduced on your product or service.
Task for this week - comlepletion and submission of Tutorial 4.
For tutorial 4, we are expected to perform a network analysis (AON) with a stated assumption. Using the derived WBS, we have to use microsoft project to create a schedule.
Based on the scheduling calculation of the WBS, the timeline schedule for our project will be in total of 50days (includes 2days float). Here attached is the network schedule of our project timeline.
Reflections :During this class, we did a class activity using the SWOT analysis. Most of us do not use SWOT analysis in our normal course of work and we had to think hard... but once we understand how useful SWOT is, we were all very happy and some of us even starting thinking of its application in our course of work ! This is very exciting as we can now propose this tool to our bosses to improve our job areas/scope.
WEEK 11 (29.JUNE.2010) - PROJECT LIFE CYCLE - RISK MANAGEMENT
A risk is something that may happen and if it does, will have a positive or negative impact on the project. A few points here. "That may happen" implies a probability of less then 100%. If it has a probability of 100% - in other words it will happen - it is an issue. An issue is managed differently to a risk and we will handle issue management in a later white paper. A risk must also have a probability something above 0%. It must be a chance to happen or it is not a risk.
The second thing to consider from the definition is "will have a positive or negative impact". Most people dive into the negative risks but what if something goes right?
The second thing to consider from the definition is "will have a positive or negative impact". Most people dive into the negative risks but what if something goes right?
The second thing to consider from the definition is "will have a positive or negative impact". Most people dive into the negative risks but what if something goes right?
Risks are circumstances or events that might occur. Risk have a probability of occuring and a specific impact. Risks can be known and unknown. Risks have positive or negative effects on at least on of the project objectives (scope, cost, schedule, performance).
From the work breakdown schedule activities, we will do the risk assessment. Firstly is the risk identification; analyse the project to identify the sources of rist. Next, risk analysis which is assess risks in terms of likelihood of occurance and severity of impact. Followed by risk prioritisation, which is rank or prioritise each risk in order of improtance.
Risk control is the phase which we response to a plan in controlling each risks. Risk resolution is the elimination of a risk by executing activities in the risk response plan.
Contigency planning is an alternative plan that will be used if a possible foreseen risk event actually occurs. A plan of actions that will reduce or mitigate the negative impact of a risk event. Having no plan may slow managerial response. Decisions made under pressure can be potentially dangerous and costly.
We submitted our tutorial 3. We are happy that we managed to complete our tutorial 3 just in time. For this tutorial, based on we have learnt in class, we applying the same thing into our tutorial 3.
- First, we must apply the WBS concept into costing. Therefore, we we have to work on the fixed cosr, variable cost, and other cost.
- We have to perform an ROI (Return on Investment) to indicate how long is required to gain back the profit, and how much percentage of return we are making for this project.
After calculating, we are expecting to have quite a big profit margin. But this are all the early estimation. There might be unexpected cost that we may need to count in as time goes by.
For now, our ROI is set at 142%!!
Reflections :
Coming up with possible Risks and Impacts is a real pain ! We had to think out of the box for most of us as we were not exposed to such exercises. During the class activity, we did a small case-study on risk management and it was really tough. We racked our brains to come up with the possible risks and then had to rank them (we didnt know how to rank properly until Wei-Chong taught us a method !) and then we had to list down what are the contingency plans we had to do for each of the highly ranked risks. This wasnt easy but we somehow managed ! Phew.... what a week !
Friday, June 4, 2010
WEEK 7 (1.JUNE.2010) - PROJECT LIFE CYCLE - BUDGETING
Next week is our mid-test week...everyone kinda stress.. :)
For this week, we are given a new task to complete tutorial 3, for submission on 29 June 2010. Even though it might sound still long way to go for submission, but the reason why we are given out this task at earlier date as we believe there will be lots of research need to be done for this tutorial.
What is project without $$$... :)..so for this week tutorial it will be a continuation work from our previous tutorial 2 which we have done on the work breakdown schedule and activities. We will be looking at the cost budgeting for each activity that we have listed down under our WBS. The cost will be allocated into 3 category, that are Fixed Cost, Variable Cost, and Other Cost.
WBS --> Resource planning --> cost estimation --> cost budgeting --> cost control
* proper budgeting to avoid shortage of budgeting in the period of project
* play with budget cost by set aside some buffer
Each of our team member is responsible for a different task and activity, so what we have plan to do is, each of us will work on individual responsibility taks and come out with a reasonable cost budget that are needed.
Next, we have to calculate our Return of Investment. This will be our gain/benefit that we will make from our Annual warehouse project. Our group leader, Mr Boo Wei Chong, will work on the financial report of our product selling.
We'll see what will be our ROI for this project...
A best wishes from our team members to all our fellow student for our Mid Semester Test next week..Good Luck All!!!
For this week, we are given a new task to complete tutorial 3, for submission on 29 June 2010. Even though it might sound still long way to go for submission, but the reason why we are given out this task at earlier date as we believe there will be lots of research need to be done for this tutorial.
What is project without $$$... :)..so for this week tutorial it will be a continuation work from our previous tutorial 2 which we have done on the work breakdown schedule and activities. We will be looking at the cost budgeting for each activity that we have listed down under our WBS. The cost will be allocated into 3 category, that are Fixed Cost, Variable Cost, and Other Cost.
WBS --> Resource planning --> cost estimation --> cost budgeting --> cost control
* proper budgeting to avoid shortage of budgeting in the period of project
* play with budget cost by set aside some buffer
Each of our team member is responsible for a different task and activity, so what we have plan to do is, each of us will work on individual responsibility taks and come out with a reasonable cost budget that are needed.
Next, we have to calculate our Return of Investment. This will be our gain/benefit that we will make from our Annual warehouse project. Our group leader, Mr Boo Wei Chong, will work on the financial report of our product selling.
We'll see what will be our ROI for this project...
A best wishes from our team members to all our fellow student for our Mid Semester Test next week..Good Luck All!!!
Wednesday, May 26, 2010
WEEK 6 (25.MAY.2010) - PROJECT LIFE CYCLE - SCHEDULLING
Microsoft Project is a software that being used widely for the purpose of prject scheduling framework. Most of us in the class is not very familiar with this application, and also there are numbers of the students that never come across of this application software before.
We are applying last week lesson, which is the network diagrams, from manual method to a computerised system method using this microsoft project application.
We went through the lesson on how to use this microsoft application by using example as below.
1. set the project title
2. set the calender
- must understand how to use micforsoft office to gant chart
- must know how to convert microsoft office to microsoft excel
it is so tough tough tough..not easy to do if we do not pay full attention in class about how to use this microsoft program. but it is fun and something new to most of us in class as not everyone is fully participate in real working project management. :)
how is our tutorial 2 progress? :) ..so far so good...on this week we continue to do on the work duration schedule and costing. We link these 2 factors into our WBS.
We are applying last week lesson, which is the network diagrams, from manual method to a computerised system method using this microsoft project application.
We went through the lesson on how to use this microsoft application by using example as below.
1. set the project title
2. set the calender
- must understand how to use micforsoft office to gant chart
- must know how to convert microsoft office to microsoft excel
it is so tough tough tough..not easy to do if we do not pay full attention in class about how to use this microsoft program. but it is fun and something new to most of us in class as not everyone is fully participate in real working project management. :)
how is our tutorial 2 progress? :) ..so far so good...on this week we continue to do on the work duration schedule and costing. We link these 2 factors into our WBS.
Wednesday, May 19, 2010
WEEK 5 (18.MAY.2010) - PROJECT LIFE CYCLE - NETWORK DIAGRAMS
This week lesson is all about calculation on the scheduling time plan.
Activity is an element of the project that requires time, either while people working or while people waiting. It is a time from the starting of the project until the end of the project.
Critical path, is the longest path through the network. If an activity on the critical path is delayed, the entire project will be delayed.
We did a lot of exercises in class to ensure that all of us really understand on how to work on the network diagrams...finding the start and finish date of a project scheduling.
Here are the progress of our tutorial 2 (weekly update)..
- brainstorming on the WBS...the main activity, and subtask. We have came out with 7 main activities. Each of us are responsible on each of the activity. So, we are all come out with possible acitvities...
- we meet up to run through on the sub-task that we have think of. From here we are filtering every subtask and pick the ones that we think are the best to be put into our project assignment.
- we are using mind-map software to adapt the above mind-mapping.
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
WEEK 4 (11.MAY.2010) - PROJECT LIFE CYCLE - WBS
Task for this week - comlepletion and submission of Tutorial 2.
With the completion identifying the project objectives and scope in terms of costs, duration, responsibility, and etc..this week we are looking into the work breakdown structure (WBS) and mind-mapping of the project objectives and this will lead to the tasks and responsibility that every team members have to focus on.
What is WBS? WBS is ...is work breakdown structure in project management, is a tool used to define and group a project's work discrete elements or tasks in a way that help organize and define the total work scope of the project (source: wikipedia).
From the WBS, we convert it into a mind-mapping concept by using the application of free web-based mapping tool, http://www.mindmeister.com/.
The psychologists say our brains can normally comprehend around 7-9 items simultaneously. A project with thousands or even dozens of tasks goes way over our ability to grasp all at once. The solution is to divide and conquer. The WBS helps break thousands of tasks into chunks that we can understand and assimilate. Preparing and understanding a WBS for your project is a big step towards managing and mastering its inherent complexity.
The WBS is commonly used at the beginning of a project for defining project scope, organizing Gantt schedules and estimating costs. It lives on, throughout the project, in the project schedule and often is the main path for reporting project costs.
WBS design should try to achieve certain goals:
1. Be compatible with how the work will be done and how costs and schedules will be managed,
2. Give visibility to important or risky work efforts,
3. Allow mapping of requirements, plans, testing, and deliverables,
4. Foster clear ownership by managers and task leaders,
5. Provide data for performance measurement and historical databases, and
6. Make sense to the workers and accountants.
Reflection:
This week we learnt a lot about project. To be truth, this is the first time that our team members really heard of the work WBS, except for our leader Boo Wei Chong as he is an engineer which involved a lot in project management at his work place. Aside from WBS, we are also exposed to new knowledge of doing a gantt chart using Microsoft Project Solver.
We had a lot of fun adding the various pictures and icons as well as struggled with the various functions and keys necessary to set up the gantt chart correctly to reflect our project. As 3 of us in the group do not have Microsoft Project Solver in our offices or personal computers, we had to depend on our leader Wei-Chong to do this gantt chart. However, it was not easy as he only had this program in his office.
In the end, one of our team members, Regina, managed to get hold of this Microsoft Project Solver, from her sister's laptop and we could now do it at our own time during the weekend. It was a mad rush, but we managed to meet up and discuss the criterias, managed the basic workings of this program and finally came up with the gantt chart. It was real challenging ! Phew....
With the completion identifying the project objectives and scope in terms of costs, duration, responsibility, and etc..this week we are looking into the work breakdown structure (WBS) and mind-mapping of the project objectives and this will lead to the tasks and responsibility that every team members have to focus on.
What is WBS? WBS is ...is work breakdown structure in project management, is a tool used to define and group a project's work discrete elements or tasks in a way that help organize and define the total work scope of the project (source: wikipedia).
From the WBS, we convert it into a mind-mapping concept by using the application of free web-based mapping tool, http://www.mindmeister.com/.
Here is the example of mind-mapping that we have done in class.
The psychologists say our brains can normally comprehend around 7-9 items simultaneously. A project with thousands or even dozens of tasks goes way over our ability to grasp all at once. The solution is to divide and conquer. The WBS helps break thousands of tasks into chunks that we can understand and assimilate. Preparing and understanding a WBS for your project is a big step towards managing and mastering its inherent complexity.
The WBS is commonly used at the beginning of a project for defining project scope, organizing Gantt schedules and estimating costs. It lives on, throughout the project, in the project schedule and often is the main path for reporting project costs.
WBS design should try to achieve certain goals:
1. Be compatible with how the work will be done and how costs and schedules will be managed,
2. Give visibility to important or risky work efforts,
3. Allow mapping of requirements, plans, testing, and deliverables,
4. Foster clear ownership by managers and task leaders,
5. Provide data for performance measurement and historical databases, and
6. Make sense to the workers and accountants.
Reflection:
This week we learnt a lot about project. To be truth, this is the first time that our team members really heard of the work WBS, except for our leader Boo Wei Chong as he is an engineer which involved a lot in project management at his work place. Aside from WBS, we are also exposed to new knowledge of doing a gantt chart using Microsoft Project Solver.
We had a lot of fun adding the various pictures and icons as well as struggled with the various functions and keys necessary to set up the gantt chart correctly to reflect our project. As 3 of us in the group do not have Microsoft Project Solver in our offices or personal computers, we had to depend on our leader Wei-Chong to do this gantt chart. However, it was not easy as he only had this program in his office.
In the end, one of our team members, Regina, managed to get hold of this Microsoft Project Solver, from her sister's laptop and we could now do it at our own time during the weekend. It was a mad rush, but we managed to meet up and discuss the criterias, managed the basic workings of this program and finally came up with the gantt chart. It was real challenging ! Phew....
Monday, May 3, 2010
WEEK 3 (04.MAY.2010) - PROJECT LIFE CYCLE & INITIATING PHASE
Third week has come....time passes very fast. We are all very happy that we have finished our first task, Tutorial 1, just in time.
We have assigned responsibility of each of team member, clearly defined on the objective that we are going to achieve, discussing on the issues that we are expecting to face, and most importantly is the costing budget.
Based on the project management cycle process we are currently in the stage of developing a project plan, which includes defining and confirming the project goals and objectives, identifying tasks and how goals will be achieved, quantifying the resources needed, and determining budgets and timelines for completion.
We have assigned responsibility of each of team member, clearly defined on the objective that we are going to achieve, discussing on the issues that we are expecting to face, and most importantly is the costing budget.
Based on the project management cycle process we are currently in the stage of developing a project plan, which includes defining and confirming the project goals and objectives, identifying tasks and how goals will be achieved, quantifying the resources needed, and determining budgets and timelines for completion.
We are given a task to complete in class. This is a group work which we are given a question paper about the project life cycle of implentation of MRP (manufacturing resource planning) system. This class activity assignment is a guide for us to understand better about our project management assignment. We work as team and each of us are given a task to come out with an idea on each of the project cycle phase. It wasnt that easy..but we managed to complete it within an hour and submit to lecturer in time! :)
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
WEEK 2 (27.APR.2010) - PROJECT LIFE CYCLE - PROJECT MANAGERS & STAKEHOLDERS
Task for this week - comlepletion and submission of Tutorial 1.
On this week, our group is discussing on the roles and responsibilities that will be carried out by each of the team members. Everyone of us will have a function of work to focus on, but still, we will be helping each other to ensure that our group achieve towards our goal to have the best project proposal for this Project Management in the Supply Chain course.
Team Members and their Responsibilities:-
On this week, our group is discussing on the roles and responsibilities that will be carried out by each of the team members. Everyone of us will have a function of work to focus on, but still, we will be helping each other to ensure that our group achieve towards our goal to have the best project proposal for this Project Management in the Supply Chain course.
Team Members and their Responsibilities:-
- Project Leader and Financial Controller - Boo Wei Chong
- Sales & Marketing - Suhana Bukhari
- Planner - Ruth Ho
- Warehouse Coordinator - Regina Chow
We will be starting our project by recognizing all the work processes that are needed along the way to complete our project.
First, we will identify and look at the most important part of this project, which is the Project Objective.
Next, we will scope down our discussion to the estimated duration, estimated costs, responsibility matrix, current issues, man power requirements, resources requirement, and etc.
Our target is to finish this week's job in 1 week's time.
Reflections :
We racked our brains for this tutorial. We had to come up with project objectives, scope, responsibility matrix, estimated costs, budgets etc. This is real tough and we had to "dig" for information from our own companies. We do a lot of research from internet on other companies warehouse sale to get ourselves familiar on the background of annual warehouse project.
INTRODUCTION TO PROJECT MANAGEMENT
Deciding on a project topic to select wasn't a simple thing. We have come across out with so many ideas such as organizing a dinner & dance event, setting up a new warehouse, implementing a new MRP system, charity event, and etc. At the end of discussion, we all have decided to choose "annual warehouse sale" as our project management topic.
Team Members:-
Project Objectives:
Team Members:-
- Boo Wei Chong (Leader)
- Suhana Bukhari
- Ruth Ho
- Regina Chow
Project Objectives:
- To clear obsolete stocks
- To eliminate dead stocks
- To gain market share
Reflections :
We are all very excited to get started on this project as it is something that is new to all of us. Our lecturer told us that he will teach us new skills and tools that will aid us in the project as we go on.. so we are looking forward to learn all these skills and tools. Hopefully we can use them in our own projects at work !
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