Project Planning and Time Overrun and Cost Overrun

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Internal Dependencies

The internal aspects which play a crucial role in the successful execution and also the completion of the project are called internal dependencies. These are given below:

- Sign off and consent by the management for different tasks

- Administrative staff for proper understanding of existing procedures and division of tasks into various categories.

- Time consumed to fulfil the task and students for their different tasks

- Calculation and suggestion of additional requirements by the IT sector of the college to improve IT infrastructure as required for the project.

External Dependencies

- Sellers of the tools and apparatus needed to install for the projects

- Maintenance staff and installation staff of the equipment.

- Reactions time of the maintenance and service operator in case any factors leading to interruption of functioning of system or outage.

The motive of Project communication plan is to remove the gap between internal and external dependencies and factors.

Critical Path

The least time in which a project can be completed is signified by critical path. The late completion of any activity on the critical path delays the whole project. Activities off the critical path are not time bounded and provide some flexibility to the project manager in scheduling.

Project Communication Plan

The project manager uses project communication plan to communicate the progress of the project. It is a process to create, gather, allocate, store, retrieve and arrange project information.

Project manager is required to invest time for the communication process with the stakeholders and team members of the project. The stakeholders may be external or internal. Communication with sellers, buyers, external parties and upper management are classified under external communication and communication with the team members of the project comes under internal communication. Every single person working on the project must have a detailed knowledge about the project communication and must be able to send and receive communication in an efficient manner.

The plan must be prepared considering the type of information required by the different stakeholders of the project. The means of communication to various stakeholders is needed to be defined in the communication plan. The format, periodicity and template can be prepared in such a way so that it is easy to circulate the information for a fair and brief communication.

The escalation and reporting procedure must be represented by the communication plan. It will help in communicating fastly with the upper management in case there is any deviation from the approved or planned project such as delayed schedule, cost overruns, and verdicts in case of external or internal changes.

Administrative Close-out

Administrative close out is a stage in which the project deliverables are achieved. It is the official closure of a specific phase of the project or ending of the project as a whole. It should also be confirmed by the project approval authority that the goals and objectives of a project stage have been achieved. Administrative closure comprises of preparing of documents, collection and disposal of the logistics and project documentation of the project to reallocate the resources that have been used for the running project.

Collecting Project Archive data

The project data should be collected and conserved so that it may act as an important source of information for the same kind of projects in future. Restoration of the project data is necessary so that it becomes convenient to identify the type of information required at a later time. Following documents need to be archived.

- Project Plan

- Project Charter

- Project Management Records

- Status Reports

- Meeting Minutes

- Correspondence and Communication

A special staff need to be appointed and should be given the responsibility of storing and archiving the data. The person appointed must have a good understanding of the documentation and its archiving.

If there is any staff member employed full time for the project, then that member must be relived off his duties so that he can carry out or perform his regular duties. The details of the performance of the employee must be given to the functional manger by the project manager. If remarkable efforts have been made by the employee then the function manger must be recommended for the rewards and recognition for the employee.

Proper care should be taken of the goods and property which project member s were provided specially for the project and must be returned on time. The closeout checklist given below can be followed:

- Evaluation of the project counter to objectives and goals has taken place or not?

- Whether the comparison has been made between the actual cost and approved cost?

- Changes has been made and documented in the approved costs or not if there were any?

- Changes has been made and documented in the approved dates or not if there were any?

- Comparison has been made or not between the project’s milestone dates and approved dates.

- Whether the handbook and documentation related to standard operating processes has been provided to the operation management.

- Whether the knowledge and training has been conveyed to operations organization?

- Whether the documents has been gathered, archived and disposed off according to the project plan?

- Whether the date has been fixed for the reviews after implementation?

- Has the duty of conducting post-implementation review been assigned to somebody or not?

Time Overrun and Cost Overrun

The unnecessary