WBS Scheduale
Unit Outcomes:
Create a risk response strategy document for your project
Discuss techniques that you can use to identify risks.
Identify tools, techniques and planning documents that you can use to start identifying risk.
Update the WBS project schedule for your proposed technological solution.
Identify how items completed previously in the project’s Planning process will assist you in building the project schedule.
Apply technical solutions to solve client needs and defined goals and objectives.
Analyze the technical requirements of your proposed product / solution as defined in the project.
Purpose
You will understand and practice the risk assessment process and continue to identify all the tasks necessary for project creation during the planning phase.
It is important to understand that all tasks, down to and including all work package level tasks, should be identified now, before actual execution begins. You will execute your project based on these tasks, not on tasks as may become identified during the actual solution development / execution phases.
If you do not already know your tasks at the detail level, you will need to research and deeply think/imagine those tasks in order to get as close to a full plan as you possibly can. This is easier if you have past experience with a similar project type. If you cannot possibly identify all the tasks now, you will need to keep track during project build activities because you will need to have a full task list by the end of Unit 9. You will be able and will be required to add these late found tasks for each unit from now until end of the project. Adding these tasks after the planning process is finished is not a normally acceptable project management practice, but is sometimes necessary in this course because we sometimes, as students, do not have sufficient experience to do it during the planning phase.
Please make sure to fully read and understand this important assignment information. If you have ANY question please make sure to bring it up in seminar.
Important Assignment Information
Now that we have the basic project definition completed, it is time to look at some advanced criteria in order to ensure that we can safely and effectively move to the project execution phase. This assignment will add schedule information to the existing WBS and will also identify and analyze likely project risk scenarios. In particular, for the WBS / Schedule, you should remain in your simulated environment where you are the PM for a “team” of 4- 6 people working on the project, each with specific skills, roles and/or responsibilities. You will maintain that simulation relative to the WBS for the remainder of the course. The WBS will be further modified, added to, and submitted as part of most future assignments. It is very important to achieve the level of detail that fully and completely lists and describes all tasks related to your project, including meeting, milestones, communication activity, and training of staff, users and developers, if necessary. Don’t forget user acceptance testing that relates directly back to your S.M.A.R.T goals and objectives. You will, in all likelihood, continue to discover additional tasks and task groups in this unit and upcoming units. It is normal for inexperienced project teams to have trouble in early task identification, but as the actual work on your project continues apart, you need to continually bring the tasks into the WBS on a continuous basis as if they had been there all along. By the end of Unit 6, you should have identified ALL the tasks for your project, but it would be better if you can work to get as many as possible now.
Assignment Instructions
Project – Risk Assessment and Project Schedule
In this Assignment, you will create a Project Risk Assessment and Project Schedule based on your Final Project.
Note – You will use the appropriately named templates WBS – Schedule Template – Excel and the Risk Assessment Template.
Using information obtained from your research and from extending the scenario in an imaginative direction to add detail, you will develop your project Risk Assessment and WBS Project Schedule. See below for some detail on the meaning and information contained within these documents.
Update/Extend your WBS – Schedule – You have already created your WBS in Unit 3. You will utilize previously unused columns in the WBS to accomplish this assignment. Now you will add the remaining detail for planned start date, end date, task duration in man hours and responsibility. You should remain in your simulated environment where you have a “team” of 4- 6 people working on the project, each with specific skills, roles and/or responsibilities, even though only you will actually be doing the work. You can easily see how you could turn the results into a full project schedule, which is even more detailed. You also may want to add new items to the WBS, this is usual at this stage. Managing projects is an iterative process, you often go back to adjust previously completed documents as new information is discovered and stakeholders react to the discussions generated by the increasingly detailed project definition.
Create a Risk Assessment document – Your Risk Assessment template provides you with thought provoking categories in which to begin to identify and categorize the potential risk your project may face. In addition, you are asked to think about the likelihood of the risk and possible strategies that can be used to mitigate that risk.
In both instances the more detail you have, the better your results should be. It will take a bit of thought and imagination.
Assignment Requirements
The project documents are shown to and referenced at the highest level of the organization. In order for your project to be successful, these documents will need to be formatted in a business professional manner. They will be complete consistent, clear and concise.
