PROJECT MANAGEMENT PLAN ASSIGNMENT

Assignment
In our previous assignment we developed a project charter which completed the
project’s initiation phase. It is now time for our dream house project to enter
into its planning phase. During this phase we will develop the project plan for our
dream home.

For this assignment, you can assume that the project charter has been approved
and you can now take on the role of the project manager in planning the project.
You have your project team of knowledgeable people who will work on a project
and help you to develop a project management plan.

Assignment Purpose
In this assignment you will develop an approximately 10-page1 project plan (also
known as a Project Management Plan [PMP] or a Project Implementation Plan
[PIP]) for the construction of the dream home project.

PMBOK®: “A project plan is a formal document designed to guide the control and
execution of a project. A project plan is the key to a successful project and is the
most important document that needs to be created when starting any business
project.”

To prepare for this assignment, read the following sections of the PMBOK®
Guide:
• Section 4.2 Develop Project Management Plan
• Section 5.1 Plan Scope Management
• Section 5.2 Collect Requirements
• Section 5.3 Define Scope
• Chapter 6 Project Schedule Management: Sections 6.1 – 6.5
• Section 7.1 Plan Cost Management
• Section 7.3 Determine Budget
• Section 8.1 Plan Quality Management
• Section 9.1 Plan Resource Management
• Section 9.4 Develop Team
• Section 10.1 Plan Communication Management
• Section 11.1 Plan Risk Management
• Section 11.5 Plan Risk Responses
• Section 13.2 Plan Stakeholder Engagement

1 Typically, students can complete this assignment in approximately 10 pages

(not including cover page, Table of Contents or bibliography).

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Assignment Objectives
Your personal learning objectives for this assignment are to:
• Develop an understanding of how a project plan is used within a project
environment.
• Demonstrate a practical understanding of the actual information content
needed within a project plan.
• Describe a project using project management terminology, concepts and
industry best practices as outlined in the PMBOK®.

"Planning your Dream Home" Background

Some information regarding this assignment:

1) While this assignment follows the same theme as your previous one (the
project charter), it is intended to be a stand-alone assignment and it is not
dependent upon your project charter.

2) If you encounter gaps in the information that has been provided, you are
allowed to make assumptions (or if needed, simply make up the missing
information).

3) For this assignment you are not expected to have any previous or specific
knowledge of home building or of construction in general. The house
construction scenario is intended purely as a way to provide you with an
opportunity to demonstrate your understanding of project management
principles.

4) Your assignment should be approximately 10 pages in length (not

counting the Table of Contents, cover page or bibliography).

Grading: The following grading scheme will be used to assess the

assignment.
Maximum
Section / Description
Mark
PROJECT INTRODUCTION SECTION
Project Background 5
Project Scope 5
Project Work Breakdown Structure 5
WBS Dictionary 15
Project Schedule
Gantt Chart 10
Network Diagram 10
Risk Management Plan 10
Quality Management Plan 10

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 Communication Management Plan 10
Human Resource Management Plan 10
Budget Plan 6
FORMATTING MARKS:
Generic Contents (title page, bibliography and Table of Contents) 2
Presentation (clear, concise, logically developed, well presented)
Format (professional, business-quality document) 2
Grammar and Spelling
TOTAL 100

Notes
Individual or Team assignment: If you wish, you can team up with one or more
other students and work as a group on this and/or any other course assignment.
Please let the facilitator know if you have a teaming arrangement in place and
make sure that all group members’ names appear on your assignment.

Use of External Material: Algonquin College has strict policies regarding

plagiarism and academic misconduct. While you can research material from the
internet, you cannot use it directly for this assignment. You need to ensure that
all materials, including external templates, are appropriately cited and
referenced. If unreferenced third-party material is found within your submission,
either the offending section will be assessed at zero or the entire submission will
be rejected. The College can impose additional sanctions, if deemed to be
warranted.

Late Submissions: If a valid reason exists and you cannot submit the
assignment on time, you must notify the facilitator at least 24 hours in advance of
the due date. Extensions are possible under certain conditions. If an
assignment is submitted late without approval, it can be subject to late penalties,
as well as being returned with only a grade assessment (without accompanying
detailed feedback and comments).

Submission Method: Electronic submission (upload your file to the course

BrigtSpace page) by the due date - please name your assignment files as:

File Title format: MGT5164_FirstName_LastName_Project Plan

If a group is submitting an assignment, you can simply place one of the group
members’ names, or list all Last Names on the file title, but make sure that all
group members are identified on the title page of the assignment. Each member
should submit the same file individually from their course account.

You can refer to the Frequently Asked Question post on the course page, for
some questions raised by your peers in previous classes.

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PROJECT MANAGEMENT PLAN WRITING GUIDE
For this assignment, you are to use the information provided in the following
template to demonstrate the project management industry best practices, tools,
techniques and concepts that appear in the PMBOK® to describe the project.

The following template has been provided to guide you in your efforts. Your
Project Management Plan shall contain the following sections:

1) Title Page: You can have fun with your title page (for example, you can
include illustrations and graphics), but at a minimum, the title page must
present the following information:

• Your name (or the names of all of your group members, if applicable),
• The course name,
• Project name (have fun and think up a name for your project!)
• The date submitted, and
The following statement: “All material prepared for this assignment was
produced by the authors, and material from a third party (such as the
internet) has been cited and referenced.”

2) Table of Contents: The Table of Contents must be generated using your

word processor’s built-in ‘Table of Contents’ generation feature (found within
the [Reference] Tab of WORD).

3) Project Background: In this section you should present the reader with the
key (previously published) information that they need to understand this
document. You are to summarize the relevant highlights from your (previous
assignment) Project Charter; do not re-publish the project charter – instead,
just pick out and summarize the key highlights in a paragraph or so.

4) Project Scope: Provide a short description of what the project will produce.
For the purpose of this section, the term ‘Project Scope’ is defined as the
‘sum of the products, services, and results to be provided within the project’
(paraphrased from the PMBOK® Glossary). Do not mix up this term up with
similar terms such as:

• ‘Scope Statement’
• ‘Scope Baseline’
• ‘Product Scope’:

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5) Work Breakdown Structure (WBS): Based on the supplied ‘Dream House
Task Table’ (see below), create a project WBS.

You are to use the information contained in the following table for the tasks
that are needed to complete this project – the tasks have placeholder names
to identify the various required tasks (note that you do not need to use proper
task names such as ‘construct frame’ or ‘install roof)’.

Although you can think of the individual tasks as being actual jobs that would
be required on a construction project, for this assignment please use the
generic placeholder task names as they appear in the following table when
creating your schedule and any other section of the project plan that requires
these tasks. Feel free to rename tasks, but keep task durations and
dependencies as they are listed in the table (otherwise it will take much more
time if you would like to completely reconstruct the WBS).

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 The project related information that has been supplied is as follows:

Dream House Task Table

WBS Item Activity Name DEP (Activity DURATION

Dependencies) (days)

100 Foundation & Landscape

101 Excavate - 2
foundation
102 Construct foundation 101 8
103 Landscaping 204 4
200 Outside
201 Frame House 102 5
202 Finish Roof 201 4
203 Install Siding 201 2
204 Install Soffit and 202,203 1
Fascia
300 Inside
301 Electrical Plumbing 201 12
Mechanical
302 Drywall 402 7
303 Finish Carpentry & 401, 302 8
Fixtures
400 Inspections
401 Frame 201 1
402 Electro-Mechanical 301 3
Inspections
403 Final 303, 402 1
404 Milestone#1 204 0
405 Milestone#2 403 0

Options: - As already discuss above, in case you would like to submit a Project Management
Plan based on a "real" project from your work place, or you would like to tackle project topic of
your choice then by all means do so, but let the instructions here guide you in providing content
for the assignment. You can use the above WBS as generic work breakdown structure and
replace task names with those matching your project.

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6) WBS Dictionary: After creating your WBS using the placeholder names,
select (or modify to your liking) a house construction task that you are
comfortable with and create a WBS dictionary entry for this task. For
example, you can select “Landscaping”, or come with your own task like
“Painting”, or anything that you are comfortable discussing for the purpose of
this assignment. Having selected a task, you are then required to create a
WBS dictionary for this task as listed below (i)-(viii).

The information provided in your example WBS dictionary should include the
following topics (note that each topic needs to be included as its own sub-
heading):

i. Task Name: A descriptive task name.

ii. Task Assumptions: Identify assumptions that would be appropriate for

a task of this nature.

iii. Task Constraints: Identify schedule- or resource-related constraints

that would be appropriate for this task.

iv. Task Project Requirement): Provide 2-4 examples of requirements that

would be appropriate for a task of this nature.

v. Task Quality Standard(s): In this section, specify two quality standards

and quality requirements for your selected task. The quality standard
should describe how the work is to be performed (this is different from a
project requirement that describes what must be done).

vi. Task Deliverables: List three examples of tangible deliverables that

would be appropriate for this type of task and provide a short description
of each deliverable. (Note: Do not specify the ‘work’ that would be
required to produce the deliverable – only identify the deliverables
themselves.)

vii. Task Mandatory Dependency: Identify one or more scheduling-related

mandatory task dependencies. A task dependency is another task that
would have to be completed before this task could be started.

viii. Task External Dependency: Identify any organizations, agencies or

individuals who are outside the project manager’s direct control, but
whose cooperation, support or approval is required for this task to
succeed.

7) Project Gantt (Bar Chart) Schedule: Using the information supplied in the
Dream House Task Table, create a management-level Gantt chart showing
the project schedule.

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 You do not need to use any professional scheduling software; if necessary, a
digital image of a hand-drawn Gantt chart will be acceptable.

8) Critical Path (Network) Diagram (PMBOK® Section 6.5.2.2.): Prepare a

full network diagram (using the critical path method that includes both the
forward and backward pass information) for the project.

You do not need to use any professional scheduling software like MS Project;
any drawing package using msWord, Excel or PowerPoint, should be
sufficient. Even a simple digital image (taken by your phone) of a hand-drawn
network diagram will be acceptable (actually, this could be the most efficient
way to prepare your network diagram).

9) RISK MANAGEMENT PLAN (PMBOK® Section 11.1.)

Risk represents uncertainty on a project. In this section you should demonstrate

practical examples of events that may or may not happen on the project, and
how you would deal with them based on the industry best practices outlined in
the PMBOK® Chapter 11.

• Overall Risk Plan Prioritization: Risk can affect many different project
characteristics (budget, schedule, quality) - indicate which of these
characteristics you feel should be prioritized to be protected within your
risk plan, and why you feel that (for this particular project) it is best that the
risk plan prioritize and protect this characteristic.

Remember: A risk management plan cannot protect the project from all
risks; usually, there is not enough money to manage all risks, and risks
are inter-related, so it is often the case that protecting against everything
is not possible – for example, protecting the schedule might mean
sacrificing the budget, just as protecting the budget might mean sacrificing
quality and ensuring quality might mean sacrificing the schedule, etc. As
such, you need to prioritize which project characteristic you will protect
over other characteristics.

• Contingency Fund and Managerial Reserve Fund: Briefly explain how

you would determine the funding requirements of both the project’s 1)
contingency reserve fund and 2) managerial reserve fund for a project
of this nature. It is important that you describe the formulas or approach
that should be used in establishing both of these reserve funds.

• Risk Registry Based on appropriate tasks for a project of this nature,

develop a risk registry (also known as a risk log). Using the table below,
provide examples of risk information that would be appropriate for a
project of this nature and that demonstrate your knowledge of risk related
terms:

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WBS Risk # Title / Description Likelihood Impact Strategy Response

The following notes provide guidance on how to fill in your risk registry table:

• Risk Likelihood: Using industry best practices identify the likelihood of

the risk occurring.

• Risk Impact: Using industry best practices describe the potential impact
of the risk on the project’s three primary constraints (schedule, budget and
quality impact).

• Risk Strategy: Identify your overall strategy or strategies for dealing with
the particular risk and briefly justify the strategy. Strategies include the
following:

o For threats: Mitigate, Transfer, Accept, Avoid

o For opportunities: Accept, Exploit, Enhance, Share

• Risk Response: Using appropriate industry best practices (such as fast

tracking, schedule crashing, buffers, insurance policies, contracting
mechanisms, contingency funds, management reserve funds, etc.) to
describe how you would propose to manage your identified project risks.

10) QUALITY MANAGEMENT PLAN (PMBOK® Section 8.1.)

Based on the task that you described in your WBS dictionary, create a quality
control checklist that demonstrates how the project could verify that your
tasks’ quality standards and requirements (that you identified in your WBS
dictionary) could be quantifiably and measurably achieved.

Briefly explain how you would integrate this quality checklist into the project’s
overall workflow.

11) COMMUNICATION MANAGEMENT PLAN (PMBOK® Section 10.1.)

Based on the communication requirements of the task that you have

previously identified, develop a communication plan that adheres to the
communication management plan requirements outlined in the PMBOK®
Keep in mind that the project communication requirements should only
include formal, contractually required communication that would be
appropriate for a project of this nature.

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 You can use the table below as a communication plan template. Some
examples of project related communication can be found in the PMBOK®
chapter 13.

Stakeholder Information to be When and how Who will How the Who will
communication communicated frequently the send the information will be receive the
requirements information will be information communicated information
communicated

12) HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT PLAN (PMBOK® Section 9.1.)

For your human resource plan, identify the following information:

• Demonstrate an example of your team’s organizational chart
• Select one of your team members from your organizational chart and
identify and describe their roles, responsibilities and authority on the
project
• Create a RACI Responsibility Assignment Matrix (RAM) that assigns
responsibility for all of your project’s WBS entries to the project team
member identified in your organizational chart.
o Provide a practical example of how you would address one of
the following HR-related topics: Team Building; Team Ground
Rules, or Team Recognition and Rewards

13) PROJECT BUDGET: Develop a project budget – only include sufficient

detail to be able to monitor and control project expenditures and overall
project progress.

A basic budget table as shown below will be sufficient for the core financial
information (additional rows will have to be added for each WBS item).
Ensure that you fund each WBS level 3 task.

WBS # Allocated Funds Total

Material Labor

Your budget should also include a line item for your project’s risk
management reserve and risk contingency reserve funds. Please note that
the cost and time estimates are not withing the scope of this course, so make
any estimates you feel are reasonable (you are not going to be graded on
accuracy of those $ figures)

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Bibliography: You should not have to use third-party material to complete this
assignment; however, if you do, it is important that you provide proper citation of
all open-source resources that you have used in preparing your assignments.

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