1. Examine the managerial responsibilities and action areas for each stage of the project lifecycle

In this paper, you have to prepare a group presentation along with the assignment on the core topic of a Project Initiation Document (PID) for a business management project. Along with this, make a report that covers your role in the project team. The purpose of this task is to check the proper usage of methods and techniques for project initiation, team building, project estimation and control. Moreover, to examine the managerial responsibilities and action areas involved in each step of the project lifestyle. The project for PID content is a youth centre development project in Hatfield. All the requirements are stated below.

Assessment Criteria

Learning Outcomes: Knowledge and Understanding tested in this assignment:

1. examine the managerial responsibilities and action areas for each stage of the project lifecycle; 2. appraise the opportunities and constraints that exist in the subject of project management; 3. explore how projects are evaluated and assess factors that contribute to a project`s success or failure

Learning Outcomes: Skills and Attributes tested in this assignment:

4. determine and assess use of appropriate methods and techniques for project initiation, team building, project estimation and control; 5. critique different organisational structures and their impact on projects.

 

Introduction

Student teams of four or five members will produce a group presentation for some of the core contents of a Project Initiation Document (PID) for a Business Management project as well as an individual report covering your role in the project team.  Students will agree their roles and responsibilities with other team members.

Assignment

Student teams are required to submit a Project Initiation Document for the project.  The required contents of the PID are listed below (see PID contents).   Project team members are required to monitor their planning and team meetings.

Student teams will be required to provide:

• Notes of their meetings normally via the StudyNet ‘Group’
• Individual contributions to the assessment task normally via the StudyNet Group area
• The completed assessment relating to the group work in appropriate format.

The notes of the meetings will be required to include the assessment task as an aim and the group objectives to complete the task. Regular meetings should be recorded and summarised in the Groups Diary (see contents of PID) to include:

• date time and venue of meeting, names of those present, topics discussed and agreements made, progress since the last meeting and planned actions with responsibilities and completion dates
• how team members were selected
  • how progress towards the completion of objectives, tasks and deliverables was reviewed and how any problems were dealt with

PID Content

Developing a Project Initiation Document for a youth centre development project in Hatfield

1.         Company Background and Business Venture

Your company ‘FitnessVentures Ltd’ (FV Ltd) , a private sector company, operates across the South East area and wants to create a youth centre in a disused building in Hatfield. This project will be the first youth centre of its kind for FV Ltd and if successful they will roll out further youth centres in 2018/ 19. Youth centres have been in decline and there is much written about the lack of safe social space for youths to gather and partake in activities. The youth centre is to cater for 13 to 18 year olds and will be open in the evenings from 4 – 10pm Monday to Friday and open from 10 am to 10 pm on Saturdays and Sunday. It will be open 10am – 10pm in the school holidays (excluding bank holidays). The building is centrally located near secondary schools and residential areas and the aim is to provide a range of facilities here for the local youth.

The project sponsor is the development director of FV Ltd who has been offered a 2 storeyed premise in Hatfield with a floor space of 30 metres square (900 square metres) on each floor in which to develop the youth centre.  The premises were a former warehouse and is structurally sound and has no fixtures or fittings remaining (i.e. shelves, cupboards). The floor and walls are bare and will need decorating. There is a stable usable staircase between the 2 floors though there is no lift or other access to the 1^st floor currently.

There will be a £500/month leasehold fee for the property for the first year and your group will require contractors to design the youth centre, build rooms are required, decorate it, source equipment and facilities, furnish and install equipment and other fixtures.

The youth centre should have games facilities such as pool, table tennis, table football, Xbox and so on as well as some rooms that can be booked out for clubs and specific activities. Additionally, a room is required with 10 -15 computers which can be booked out by the youth as required. Additionally, there will be a small café serving snacks and soft drinks/ tea/ coffee as well as vending machines if the teams think this will be useful. There will be a water fountain machine on each floor. The group can decide on other facilities like toilets, a chill out area, accessibility for youths with special needs by conducting research into youth centres online and tailoring it to what the group feels would be useful to have.

The youth centre will be run by a core number of paid staff supported by volunteers so there would need to be a reception/ office area for these staff.

2.         Project Requirements

You and your team, as employees of FV Ltd are now to develop a business case, called a Project Initiation Document (PID), which will determine the feasibility of the youth centre. This plan, which will be part of a complete business plan (not part of this assignment), is to be submitted to your company to obtain funding for the project.

The areas to be covered are detailing the requirements of the youth centre and designing a plan for the centre, obtaining quotations from suppliers, monitoring the refurbishment programme, purchasing the major items for the youth centre, supervising the development, acceptance and ensuring the youth centre is ready for handover to an operations team. You do not need to worry about marketing the youth centre or staffing it when it is opened. This is the remit of the operations team.

a)  Your PID must determine the tasks, costs, schedule and risks to determine the feasibility of developing the youth centre

b)  Your plan must include carrying out the following tasks (not necessarily in this order or a complete list)

• Requirements of the youth centre and a layout of the centre
• Discussion and negotiation with suppliers
• Deciding what games/ facilities you would have in the youth centre
• Discussion and negotiation with suppliers for equipment (games equipment, computers, furniture, café equipment and so on), refurbishment, security access and any other aspects the group has identified
• Commissioning and installation
• Monitoring the development of the youth centre
• Acceptance and testing the youth centre prior to handover

c)  The Project Initiation Document (PID) is to have the following contents:

Group Work

• Executive Summary and Recommendations
• Project Objectives
• Scope (Summary of the main headings of the WBS)
• Functionality of the youth centre
• Layout plan
• Constraints
• Assumptions
• Work Breakdown Structure (WBS)
• Schedule of Activities with Estimated Durations
• Dependencies and a Network Diagram showing critical path

Individual Work – see table below for who does what based on 4 or 5 person teams

• Project Organisation and Responsibilities
• Schedule of activities with estimated durations
• Dependencies and a Network Diagram showing critical path
• Resources required
• Project Organisation and Responsibilities (team to manage the development of the youth centre and not any marketing or operational functions.)
• Stakeholder Analysis
• Cost Estimation, Assumptions, Budget on a month by month basis
• Project Risk Management plan, including an initial assessment of key risks.
• Monitoring and Control
• Handover and Acceptance Plan (Groups of 5 only)

d)  The PID will be presented to your project sponsor on the week commencing the 4^th March 2019 (presentation submitted on canvas the 5^th of March) and used to decide whether to continue with the pilot implementation. Your project team is responsible for producing the Project Initiation Document, (PID). The project period for the PID (i.e. implementing and handover for the project) is from May to July 2019.   The project must be ready for operation on 1st August 2019 when the youth centre is due to open

Assumptions

a)      You can give yourself roles within the project team shown above and employ further staff, as you feel necessary. These roles are different to the A, B, C, etc., roles, which you adopt when you submit the assignment. See Assignment Submission.

b)      You will use external contractors and assume the manpower rate charged will be £250 per day.

c)      As employees you will only charge a notional amount to cover day-to-day costs, say £100 per day.