MBA642 Project Initiation, Planning and Execution Report 3 Sample

MBA642 Project Initiation, Planning and Execution. Ass 3

Project Management – Report

Your task

Individually, you are required to prepare an eight-page project management plan for a company based on the assessment instructions below.

Assessment Description

The purpose of this individual assessment is to allow students to create an integrated project Management plan that meets industry standards and objectives. In analysing the organisational factors that promote effective project management, students will also consider factors that may lead to ethical compromises.

Assessment Instructions

Presume that you have just been employed by one of the companies listed below to manage the project to deliver the following new setup in Melbourne.

A music festival

A traditional chocolate shop

For the purposes of this assessment, you are to assume the setup in Melbourne will be an identical model and operations, with the location being entirely sustainable (without goods/services being shared between the two locations).

Within your research, consider the size, location, and requirements of the new setup in Melbourne and make sure you identify the unique operational, management and procurement needs of the company you select. Then, when considering your plan, think about your chosen company’s various operational and logistical requirements to begin operations in Melbourne.

Your final proposal must include the following:

• A one-page executive summary that covers all the significant proposal items (not included in the page limit)

• A one-page overview of the company, its operations and identifying the essential requirements for the move.

• In your own words, outline the project and briefly address the background, context, main
objectives and main work packages in the project.

• An outline of the main steps and work packages within the project life cycle, being your baseline for the further identification of risks, project team and requirements.

• Outline the resources (Human, material, services, approvals) required to deliver the project successfully.

• The following original documents as part of your Word document submission (not in pdf or other formats):

o Work Breakdown Structure, highlighting the main tasks and elements of your project.

o A Gantt chart showing the main tasks and overall project schedule (Minimum of 20 tasks and maximum of 40 tasks in different levels), including the define activities process.

o A scheduling flowchart showing the links, dependencies and critical path between your various tasks.

o Risk assessment plan, including identification, classification, categorisation, potential impact (likelihood and severity matrix), and a mitigation and action plan for the most critical ones for your project.

Your plan should detail everything required to have an open, functioning location with the same standards and specifications as the existing location. However, you do not need to consider any elements relating to marketing, communications, or other methods of gaining new customers for this location.

As this is a professional report, it is expected that you will complement your research with matrix diagrams, tables, or other formats to present your findings clearly and concisely that align with best practices in project management. Also, your report must include:

• Title page, table of contents, introduction, context and project objectives.

• The WBS and the Gantt chart. You may include the full Gantt chart in the appendix.

In preparing this proposal, you will need to utilise relevant theories and concepts covered in weeks 1 to 12, use at least 10 sources of information, and reference these following the Kaplan Harvard Referencing Style. These may include websites, government publications, industry reports, census data, journal articles, and newspaper articles. These references should be presented as in-text citations and a reference list at the end of your proposal. Wikipedia and other ‘popular’ sites are not to be used.

Solution

Overview of the company

Operations 

Glastonbury Festivals Ltd. is a popular firm in the UK that operates music and performing arts festivals in the surrounding parts of Melbourne. The organization offers comedy, dance, theatre, cabaret, circus and a variety of arts. As per the MBA Assignment Expert, They use their own style of experiential marketing to carry out their operations and help to cultivate mystery around the surroundings. By promoting creative forms of art and design among the youth population, Glastonbury Festivals Ltd. enable all the youths to take equal parts in a creative and fun event. 

As a part of operational requirements, Glastonbury Festivals Ltd needs to select a proper area in Melbourne for conducting the music festival and get in with the right equipment such as technological units, music system, stage arrangements and refreshment items. The performers and vendors should have their own entry points to get in and out from the music festival. Backstage areas, loading docks and unseen parts of the festivals are within the operational requirements that need careful planning (Bjørner 2021, p.107). 

Essential requirements for the implementation

Logistics requirements 

To begin operations in Melbourne, the organization needs to ensure proper logistics such as providing on-time participants on the stage, smooth intervention of food and drink, and an easy ticketing system. It is critically important within the logistics system to retail control over artist curation and incentivise the event management practices. Keeping the logistics requirements on time and ensuring detailed event planning is crucial to manage the setup in Melbourne with effective project management approaches. 

The project

Background

Project management plan refers to a set of plans that orders a blueprint to stakeholders in association with the project objectives and meet the needs of end-users by executing the upcoming project. The fundamentals of project management plan include project initiation, planning and execution that serve as a roadmap to ensure success criteria to the project. This plan not only reduces manpower but also helps the project management team to stay consistent on their tracks while delivering quality projects on-time completion. This study has highlighted the project management plan of Glastonbury Festivals Ltd. in reference to the set-up of a music festival in Melbourne.

Context 

Glastonbury Festivals Ltd. aims to conduct a music festival in Melbourne by enriching today's youth to participate in a new talent competition. This music festival can provide creative acts of any musical genre to the UK and Ireland as it is planning to give a chance to the youths to compete for a slot and win the main stage at the current year's Festival. To set-up the music festival, the organization has chosen Melbourne in consideration to the 9,900 square kilometre size and holding about 10.4 million people (melbourne.vic.gov.au, 2023). The location is selected as it can target a large number of youths and introduce fresh talent to audiences in respect to the visibility of new talents. 

Main Objectives

● To provide opportunity to many youths in showcasing their talents in the form of art, literature, culture and heritage
● To boost tourism in Melbourne and outskirts of the city by catering positive public image through the music festival
● To raise funds through the music festival and donate it to different orphanages, old age homes and other war-torn countries worldwide
● To organize the music festival event under the budget limit of £2,20,800
● To complete all the project tasks of the music festival within 3 months

Main Work Packages 

Identification and selection of work package design are crucial as it helps to estimate the overall cost a project is going to make (Keith, 2022). The project leader and the controller will be allocated payment on a daily basis, whereas human resources such technical team and auditing team will be assigned on an hourly basis. Suppliers for raw materials such as decorators, electricians, sound and security will be paid on a contract basis. Apart from that around 20% of the allocated fund is designed to reserve for use during emergency periods. Payment for the cleaning of the venue will be made on an hourly basis. 

Project Life Cycle

Initiation

At the first stage of the project phase, the team needs to decide on the specific tasks that can directly relate to the project management objectives and accomplish the needs of the project manager. This phase deals with matters like assumptions, constraints, strategic plan and selection. Budget is the most important constraint that might hinder in the project phase. It is expected that not all the tickets will be sold in Glastonbury music festival, so they need to calculate an estimated budget to lead an assumption for selling at least 80% of the tickets (Eid et al. 2021, pp.41-55). 

Planning

In the planning phase, the project manager needs to create concrete goals and determine the budget with allocated resources for the festival. Securing a festival venue and booking up the festival's line-up and vendors is also within the planning stage. It is important to build the marketing and advertising plan for Glastonbury festival as it can foster better project success and avoid lengthy phases of project completion.

Execution

To conduct a music festival, Glastonbury needs to formulate a new regulatory guidance checklist to get approval from the local authority of Melbourne and the corporate government of the country. Performers in the music festival should be provided with a visitor visa to participate in the music festival as per the proposed criteria. In the execution phase, the project manager needs to decide on the scheduling of tasks and financial resources that are important to conduct the music festival.

Closing 

At the closing phase, it is important to address the required criteria of project objectives against the tasks undergone in the project management. The project manager also needs to assess the final planning phase so as to meet the project goals of Glastonbury music festival. 

Resources

Human 

Human resources in the music festival involve organizers, designers, event teams, accounting staff, distributors and others, who is responsible for planning and managing the event. It is the prime responsibility of the human resource team of Glastonbury Festivals Ltd. to boost youths for making them participate in the event. 

Material 

Material resources for the music festival includes merchandising products for the youths such as T-shirts, free gift coupons and other resources such as marketing pamphlets, sound system, stage arrangements and leaflets. These resources are important to consider so as to host different attractions in the music festivals such as music genre, performance art, cultural foods, social or cultural activities. 

Services

In consideration to the music festival offered by Glastonbury, there are multiple services such as event management, recruitment of competent staff, hiring numerous benefits, running a trial for youths and other specific events (Wu et al. 2019, p. 2394). It is critically important to develop the most prolific platforms for youths in Melbourne and around the city for introducing their fresh talents to the audience and showcasing new music. 

Financial 

Financial resources for Glastonbury music festival includes the funds that are to be taken from the government schemes and other institutions. Separate amounts have to be kept in consideration to the payment of professional musicians, bands, choirs and orchestras. The financial resources also involve the additional cash required for permission from the Glastonbury authority. Traveling expenses for composers and songwriters also need to be considered in addition with the drums, stage, chairs and other musical instruments required in the festival.

Data 

In consideration to the data of Glastonbury music festival, the project manager needs to coordinate specific activities and tasks that should be stored in separate database.

WBS
(Refer to appendix 2)

The work breakdown structure for the Glastonbury Festival of Contemporary Performing Arts for the music section is crucial as dignified musicians from around the corner are planning to visit the place. Complexity in this project is higher. It becomes more accessible for the project handler if it applies WBS to manage the Glastonbury music festival activities in a synchronised way (Maulana and Latief, 2020, P.012005). The music festival is categorised into three segments the Pre- present & post-models of working. 

Some of the tasks are provided longer days to ensure quality output is provided further tasks of post-festival are much more complex where clearing of the ground, final payment of suppliers and Human force employed, and dismantling of tools and other equipment are present. Apart from that security concerns for attaining a music festival where human attendance is expected to gain remain always high. Special permissions from fire and local administrations are assumed to take over a well for which 8 days is considered. 

Gantt chart
(Refer to Appendix 3)

The Gantt chart is a graphical representation of task scheduling and the timeline over which the project is going to accomplish (Khalilov et al. 2021, p.204). The project is proposed to accomplish within 106 days, however, to ensure proper detailing and inspection of hidden risks present with evaluating their impact as well considering mitigation plans might result to accomplish the task for little over 106 days (Tian et al. 2019, pp.317-326).

Scheduling flowchart 
(Refer to Appendix 4)

Critical path
(Refer to Appendix 5 and 6)

Risk Assessment Plan

Risk identification

Mitigating plan

Ensuring proper project schedule

It is critically important to maintain a proper project schedule in the music festival organized by Glastonbury Festivals Ltd. to avoid any delay in the event. Dictating the tasks, effort and money is vital to plan the activities such as checking sound systems, counting the number of visitors and carrying out advertising or promotional plans (Nicholas and Steyn, 2020).

Preparing a fire evacuation plan

Application of a secure fire evacuation plan is effective for the organization to run the music festival without any interruption caused due to fire hazards. It is of utmost importance for the firm to conduct the music festival with the help of proper fire protocol guidelines that can prevent injuries or deaths of audiences in the event.

Keeping an up-to-date browser

As a part of the project plan of the music festival, Glastonbury needs to keep an up-to-date browser in their computer desktop and databases to avoid crashing of networks. This can aid them to run a smooth operation in the music festival without any interruption in the music or sound system. 

Maintaining strong collaboration with celebrities 

Celebrity endowments are success criteria for the popular music event projects, so the organization needs to maintain firm relationships with them. This is crucial to avoid cancellation of their plans and allow them to inspire the music genre youth as associated with the music festival (Ninan 2020, p. 102). 

Cost estimation 

References

Bjørner, T., (2021). The advantages of and barriers to being smart in a smart city: The perceptions of project managers within a smart city cluster project in Greater Copenhagen. Cities, 114, p.103-187.

Eid, M.S., Elbeltagi, E.E. and El-Adaway, I.H., (2021). Simultaneous multi-criteria optimization for scheduling linear infrastructure projects. International Journal of Construction Management, 21(1), pp.41-55.

Keith, M., (2022). Concert Curation: On the importance of audience engagement, and the improvement of the classical music concert.

Khalilov, R.T., Abdulloev, B.T. and Mirzoev, B.K., 2021. NECESSITY USAGE OF GANTT CHART AS ONE OF INDICATOR OF AN ACTION DURING PROJECT MANAGEMENT. ББК 1 А28, p.204.

Liu, B., Xue, B., Meng, J., Chen, X. and Sun, T., (2020). How project management practices lead to infrastructure sustainable success: an empirical study based on goal-setting theory. Engineering, Construction and Architectural Management, 27(10), pp.2797-2833.  

Maulana, F.A. and Latief, Y., (2020), December. Development of risk-based standardized WBS (work breakdown structure) for safety planning of coal mine project with surface mining methode. In IOP Conference Series: Materials Science and Engineering (Vol. 1007, No. 1, p. 012005). IOP Publishing.  

melbourne.vic.gov.au, (2023). About Melbourne City of Melbourne

Moradi, S., Kähkönen, K., Klakegg, O.J. and Aaltonen, K., ,(2020). A competency model for the selection and performance improvement of project managers in collaborative construction projects: Behavioral studies in Norway and Finland. Buildings, 11(1), p.4.

Nicholas, J.M. and Steyn, H., (2020). Project management for engineering, business and technology. Routledge.

Ninan, J., (2020). Online naturalistic inquiry in project management research: Directions for research. Project leadership and society, 1, p.100-102. < https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2666721520300028>

Tian, J., Hao, X. and Gen, M., (2019). A hybrid multi-objective EDA for robust resource constraint project scheduling with uncertainty. Computers & Industrial Engineering, 130, pp.317-326.

Wu, G., Hu, Z. and Zheng, J., (2019). Role stress, job burnout, and job performance in construction project managers: the moderating role of career calling. International journal of environmental research and public health, 16(13), p.2394.