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8/7/2019 PM - Art Gallery

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Project Management Tools

Every type of project presents unique challenges to a Project Manager. In this paper I willbe discussing two different projects and the tools that I can utilize for a successfulcompletion of each project.

The two unique projects I will be analyzing are:

Toronto Young Feminist Art Exhibition (TYFA): An exhibition to promote young femaleartists who have created art pieces focusing on women. The project has an inflexibledelivery date of July, 9

th, 2011 representing the 10

thanniversary of the Toronto Women

Artists Organization.

Campus Wide Network (CWN): The University of Western Toronto wants to upgradetheir Wi-Fi Network to accommodate the needs of its students. The project is budgeted toadd 10-15 hot-spots around the campus over the span of 1 year.

My paper will concentrate on the 4 key components of Project Management: Project Initiation Project Planning Project Execution Project Completion

For each component I will describe the tools and reports I would use for the two projects.Some tools/artifacts can be used efficiently for both but they will vary for others.

Project Initiation

Project Charter (Both) To begin any project, a Project Charter is one of the mostimportant artifacts that should be created at the beginning of the project. A ProjectCharter is a collection of information regarding the project and is part of a projectinitiation. It contains information regarding project objectives, priorities, high-levelscope, milestones, deadlines, high-level risks and the parties involved. (Kendrick, 2004).For both the Art Exhibit and the Campus Wide Network, the Project Charter will describethe business case for the project at a high-level. It helps all parties involved, especiallythe stakeholders to question any issues with the Project right at the beginning.

Stakeholder Analysis (Both) This tool is beneficial to both because Stakeholders needto be analyzed and prioritized for both projects. Stakeholders are unique in every projectand they need to be analyzed and prioritized for each project. Any approach taken by theProject Manager may require some trade-offs in deliverables for certain Stakeholders andthe analysis will help the Project Manager determine the best choices.

Technical Architecture Assessment (CWN) As this project is a technology basedproject which will enhance the current infrastructure, a technical assessment is requiredbefore the planning phase. This report will analyze the current architecture and thetechnology required to meet the new objectives. This report will explain many of thecosts that will be part of the budget because it will explain the hardware and software


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purchases that are required to meet the objectives of the project. This tool is not suitablefor TYFA as it is not an IT based project and a deep-dive such as this is not required.

Project Planning

Responsibility Assignment Matrix(TYFA) A responsibility assignment matrix clearlyoutlines the responsibilities of each member and group. This can be utilized with thework-breakdown structure to have an overall view of all activities and whichteam/member is responsible for each task.

Critical Path Analysis/PERT Charts (TYFA) The key concept behind the Criticalpath Analysis is that one activity cannot start until another is finished. For both ourprojects there is dependency in many activities, but the CWN is a much more complexproject and will benefit from a Gantt Chart more than the PERT Chart.Examples:

Art Gallery-

The Art Gallery cannot be set-up until the art pieces has been collected.Campus Wide Network The Network cannot be tested by the Quality Assurance teamuntil it has been setup by the Infrastructure team.

Work Breakdown Structure (TYFA) (need reference) The Project Manager can usethis tool to break each project into pieces and assign the project activity to amember/team. This tool can be used to breakdown each activity of the Art Galleryproject.Art GalleryThe root node will be the Art Gallery Show, but then it would branch out toindividual activities such as Art Pieces, Venue, Marketing etc. Then an activity likeMarketing can be broken down further into Online Marketing, Paper Marketing and soon.Campus Wide Network This tool can be used to get an overall understanding of all thetasks required for this project but because it is an ongoing project with multiple instances,there may be some overlap in the tasks which can make this tool less helpful.

Gantt Chart(CWN) Gantt Charts are suited for complex projects such as the CampusWide Network project to help plan and schedule. Gantt Charts also help monitor theprogress of the project as it is going-on. For a multi-phased project as the CWN, Ganttcharts can help identify the processes which are dependant, linear and sequential, andhelp the Project Manager manage the time and allocate the resources accordingly. TheArt Gallery can use a Gantt Chart, but it does not add enough value. A simpler PERTchart is more suited for the Art Gallery.Examples:

Campus Wide Network The Network cannot be tested by the Quality Assurance teamuntil it has been setup by the Infrastructure team.

Risk Analysis (Both) Risk Analysis is required for all projects to identify the threatsfor the project. Analyzing the risks allows a PM to estimate potential risks and thetechniques to manage them. The type of document produced will be vastly different due


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to CWN being a much more technically complex project with risks relating toinformation security and policies. (http://iac.dtic.mil/iatac/download/Vol11_No1.pdf).

Cost/Benefit Analysis (Both) Cost/Benefit analysis is a tool that will help the PMdecide between the available options for the project. For TYFA, it can be used to select

potential artists.

Artist Cost for rental Benefit

Tina McFay $1000/per piece. Winner of several awards.Will draw more audience.Agreed to make an appearance.

Ingrid Monroe $250/per piece Local artist, will draw local crowd.Modest price.

Similarly, cost/benefit analysis can be used to purchase the networking hardware andsoftware.

Project Execution

Quality Assurance/Issue logging (CWN) For a project that will be rolled out in phases,a Quality Assurance tool is critical. A good QA tool can maintain and track issues thatwere discovered in each delivery and store the resolutions. The information gathered inprevious phases can then be utilized to resolve issues or design alternate solutions for thenext phase. This tool is not particularly relevant to the Art gallery because that is a one-off event and many criterias of its success can be considered subjective, such as choiceof Artists.

Project Health check (CWN) As this project can be rolled out in multiple phases aswell as multiple instances being in progress at the same time, a Health Check tool can beused to identify which instances are not meeting its objectives. This can provide theproject manager with a high level view of the progress of each instance and whether anyof the completed phases of the project require further enhancements to meet the overallobjective of the project.

Communication (Both) Throughout the project, communication is very important forany project. It is the most important when the project has started, because different roleshave different responsibilities that are often completed independently. The PM isresponsible to bring the individual parts together to create the whole picture.

Communication can be in the form of weekly meetings, status updates or phoneconferences and is required for both projects.

Project Completion

Return on Investment Report (Both) A ROI reports the profit/loss of the project. Thistool helps the stakeholders and the investors really see what resulted from the project. Inthe case of TYFA, the profit/loss will directly and immediately reflect the success of the


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Exhibition. The CWN will be slightly different, because the benefit of a better Wi-Finetwork will be more related to customer (student) satisfaction, which indirectly resultsin profit. Since CWN is more of a Maintenance/Enhancement project, the ROIexpectations are different than TYFA.

Project Completion Report (Both) Project Completion Report is an artifact thatdescribes the project after complete. Its purpose is to provide guidance for future projects.It describes lessons learned, strengths, weaknesses and the assessments fromcustomers/stakeholders. This tool is required for both projects because both projects arepart of an organization that is likely to initiate a similar project in the future.

http://www.method123.com/project-execution-phase.php

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