Project Management Assignment: Project Outline Of NPO Medical Research Centre

Question

Task:
Project Management Assignment Scenario:
You are Alexis, the director of external affairs for a national not-for-profit medical research center that does research on diseases related to aging. The center’s work depends on funding from multiple sources, including the general public, individual estates, and grants from corporations, foundations, and the federal government. Your department prepares an annual report of the center’s accomplishments and financial status for the board of directors. It is mostly text with a few charts and tables, all black and white, with a simple cover. It is voluminous and pretty dry reading. It is inexpensive to produce other than the effort to pull together the content, which requires time to request and expedite information from the center s other departments. At the last board meeting, the board members suggested the annual report be up scaled into a document that could be used for marketing and promotional purposes. They want you to mail the next annual report to the centers various stakeholders, past donors, and targeted high-potential future donors.

The board feels that such a document is needed to get the center in the same league with other large not-for-profit organizations with which it feels it competes for donations and funds. The board feels that the annual report could be used to inform these stakeholders about the advances the center is making in its research efforts and its strong fiscal management for effectively using the funding and donations it receives. You will need to produce a shorter, simpler, easy-to-read annual report that shows the benefits of the center’s research and the impact on people’s lives. You will include pictures from various hospitals, clinics, and long-term care facilities that are using the results of the center’s research. You also will include testimonials from patients and families who have benefited from the center’s research. The report must be eye-catching. It needs to be 2 multicolor, contain a lot of pictures and easy-to-understand graphics, and be written in a style that can be understood by the average adult potential donor. This is a significant undertaking for your department, which includes three other staff members. You will have to contract out some of the activities and may have to travel to several medical facilities around the country to take photos and get testimonials. You will also need to put the design, printing, and distribution out to bid to various contractors to submit proposals and prices to you. You estimate that approximately 5 million copies need to be printed and mailed. The board asks you to present a detailed plan, schedule, and budget for how you will complete the project.

1. Determine the project main objective.
2. Develop a work breakdown structure.
3. Prepare a list of the specific activities that need to be performed to accomplish the project objective.
4. Create a network diagram that shows the sequence and dependent relationships of all the activities.
5. Develop an estimated duration for each activity.
6. Calculate the ES, EF, LS, and LF times and SL for each activity.
7. Determine the critical path, and identify the activities that make up the critical path (2 points).

Answer

Introduction
The project management assignment revolves around presentation of exhaustive information into a readable and eye catching format which showcases the points at hand. The entity concerned is a national not-for-profit medical research centre that wants to prepare an annual report that will rely more on pictorial representations since graphical illustrations register more to memory as compared to text outlines (Suryono & Hasbullah, 2020). Further, this will also overcome any unnecessary technical nitty gritties which the stakeholders, past donors and the targeted high profile donors may not be aware of. Hence, this assignment attempts to detail a project outline towards achieving this objective.

Project Main Objective
The main objective of the project is to produce a report that facilitates easy data readability and to present voluminous information in a concise manner. In precise terms, it is to have a visual printed short dashboard that facilitates easy understanding and provides a reasonable basis for stakeholders and donors to make a decision with respect to staying invested in this research centre.

Another main objective of the project is to structure dealing in such a manner that will harmonize various components alongside the information supply chain to provide correct information which can be consolidated into a single information piece (Hendradewa, 2019). This will also involve putting into place certain placeholders with respect to functionalities and agendas that need to be carried out when it comes to getting pictorial representations and testimonials. Finally, the last step would be outsourcing the printing of this information in a manner that is both visually appealing and distributable to the average adult donor, whether it is an individual or a corporation.

Work Breakdown Structure
The Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) to be followed here is a deliverable based WBS which will have sub activities to ensure the achievement of that deliverables (Ray, 2019). We will have 4 deliverables for our project in question:

1. Concise Presentation
2. Data Consolidation
3. Dashboard preparation
4. Systematic Communication

The WBS is showcased herewith:

Activities needed to be performed
Taking into account, the Work Breakdown Structure (WBS), we will need to undertake the following activities under every deliverable:

Under the first deliverable, i.e.Concise Presentation, we will need to take into account the following activities:

1. Applying materiality levels to chalk out major line items that tend to be the focus are for every stakeholder.
2. Using analytical tools, such as Ratio Analysis or Common Size Statements to help in giving some meaning to the number crunching (Mehlawat& Grover, 2018)
3. Finding out the key output analysis to be highlighted.

Under the second deliverable, i.e.Data Consolidation, we will need to take into account the following activities:

1. Applying a cut-off scenario, as to which regions would be covered by employees internal to the organization and which would be covered by the outsourced agency (Blaga, Pop, Hule, Karczis&Buzdugan, 2021)
2. Sufficiency of data by way of testimonials and photographs

Under the third deliverable, i.e. Dashboard preparation, we will need to take into account the following activities:

1. Graphically illustrating the key data points taken into consideration and consequently finalized under the Concise Presentation deliverable.
2. Cherry picking the best testimonials and photographs that put the research centre in good limelight. However, a balanced testimonial will also be injected into the dashboard to show suggestive approaches given and how the centre has worked upon the same (Montazeri, 2017)

Under the fourth and final deliverable, i.e. Systematic Communication, we will need to take into account the following activities:

1. Inviting tender offers from contractors for designing, printing and distributing these dashboards.
2. Striking a balance between price and quality to get an optimum bargain.
3. Setting quantifiable targets to achieve the 5 million distribution target.
4. Verifying the final work before distribution (Bishnoi, 2018)
5. Post verification, the final work shall be distributed both physically and via electronic means at specified time intervals.

Network Diagram
The following network diagram in question tends to showcase the sequencing of activities and their inter dependency amongst them:

Estimated Duration
On the basis of reasonable estimates, we assume that we have 10 employees internal to the research association and the contractor hired has 5 employees.

Application of materiality levels will take 40 minutes taking into account the pervasiveness of financial statements. Further application of ratio analysis and gauging the key outputs will take 2 days ~16 hours (Assuming working hours of 8 per day)

Total time 16 hrs 40 minutes = 1000 minutes

Having 10 employees working on this simultaneously will net 100 minutes i.e. 1 hour 40 minutes.

Considering Data Consolidation,

Application of cut off criterias will take 2 days ~16 hours

Sufficiency of data will take 15 days ~ 120 hours

Assuming a 67:33 workload distribution wherein 67% will be shared by internal employees and 33% by outsourced

120 hours worth of work will be performed simultaneously by 15 employees = 8 hours

Under Data Consolidation, total time spent = 16+8 hours = 28 hours (14 hours for testimonials, 14 hours for medical facilities pictures)

Considering Dashboard Preparation,

Graphical illustrations and cherry picking data to be projected thereby creating an optimum dashboard will take 15 days ~ 120 hours

Considering 10 employees working on it simultaneously, the work load will be 12 hours.

Considering Systematic Communication,

For the purpose of getting tender offers – a 10 day window will be opened (Since the tender offer will be open for 24 hours, we will consider 240 hours here)

Selection will be done during working hours within the next 5 days ~ 40 hours.

Setting quantifiable targets and publishing 5 million copies will take 30 days ~ 240 hours

Since the workload will be divided amongst 5 employees, workload will be ~ 48 hours

Verification of work done will take 2 days ~ 16 hours divided amongst 10 employees, thereby taking 1.6 hours

Distribution will take 20 days ~ 160 hours. Since the workload will be divided amongst 5 employees, workload will be ~ 32 hours

Therefore, total duration at:

1. Concise Presentation - 1 hour 40 minutes
2. Data Consolidation – 28 hours
3. Dashboard preparation – 12 hours
4. Systematic Communication – 361.6 hours (240+40+48+1.6+32)

This brings the total duration at : 403.27 hours

Considering 8 hour working days, the total duration comes to 50 days approximately

ES EF LS LF SL for each activity (in hours)

Critical Path
Float = LS – ES (Olivieri, Seppanen, Alves, Scala, Schiavone, Liu & Granja, 2019)

The activities having 0 float will make up the critical path

The activities that make up 0 float are:

1. Key Outputs = 0.67 – 0.67 = 0
2. Cherrypicking and Dashboards = 16.67 – 16.67 = 0
3. Verification = 280 – 280 = 0
4. Printing and Distribution = 281.6 – 281.6 = 0

Hence 4 activities make up the critical path.

Conclusion
The essence of giving effect to this project highlighted the importance of following an integrated approach towards operations. While putting these goals into place, may seem like an objective, it is only the first step towards the achievability of these goals. A concrete response that would involve considering the nitty griities of every aspect, whether it be distribution, collection or data analysis, various pointers are required to be kept in mind while ensuring the prospect of achieving those deliverables.

References
Bishnoi, N. (2018). Critical path method (CPM): a coordinating tool. International Research Journal of Management Science & Technology, 9(1).

Blaga, F. S., Pop, A., Hule, V., Karczis, A., &Buzdugan, D. (2021). Using critical path method for a new project scheduling-the case of a new product launch in production. In IOP Conference Series: Materials Science and Engineering (Vol. 1009, No. 1, p. 012005). IOP Publishing.

Hendradewa, A. P. (2019, May). Schedule Risk Analysis by Different Phases of Construction Project Using CPM-PERT and Monte-Carlo Simulation. In IOP Conference Series: Materials Science and Engineering (Vol. 528, No. 1, p. 012035). IOP Publishing.

Mehlawat, M. K., & Grover, N. (2018). Intuitionistic fuzzy multi-criteria group decision making with an application to critical path selection. Annals of Operations Research, 269(1), 505-520.

Montazeri, B. (2017). Comparing critical chain project managemenet with critical path method: A case study.

Olivieri, H., Seppänen, O., Alves, T. D. C., Scala, N. M., Schiavone, V., Liu, M., & Granja, A. D. (2019). Survey comparing critical path method, last planner system, and location-based techniques. Journal of construction engineering and management, 145(12), 04019077.

Ray, S. (2019). What is project scheduling?.