Project Management Plan Assignment: Event for Generating COVID-19 Awareness by Tesco

Question

In the last year, COVID-19 has radically redefined how we relate to space and to each other. Prior to March 2020, people were not required to wear face masks in public spaces and there weren’t any restrictions in most countries in terms of how people conducted themselves in public spaces. Today, because of the nature of the disease, governments have had to impose lockdown on their economies which have led many organisations to switch to home-based working. Several analysts have predicted that this work-from-home phenomenon is here for good and will continue for the foreseeable future. As part of this, several communication technologies have been integrated into the new work systems and platforms like Zoom, Google meets, Teams, etc have been quickly integrated in the work culture and are currently being used at an alarming rate to manage work related engagements. Many individuals believe that even when the COVID19 pandemic ends, these disruptions into the workspace will remain somewhat significant and many of these organisations will never return to full office working.

Currently, several governments are carrying out mass vaccinations of people and there is an expectation that people may return to the office in the near future and some of these restrictions may be relaxed. It is important to recognise that because of public scepticism and cultural issues, not everyone have accepted to be vaccinated. It is important to state that sustained period of hardship often affects human psychology and behaviour and others may not want to alter the way they work moving forward. As a result of this, we expect that in some workplaces, some organisations may still want to continue imposing pandemic mitigation ideas in the workplace to protect those who may still be concerned that they may be contaminated by the virus. All of these issues may affect workers morale in many ways and those managing projects have to incorporate this into project planning and decision making. Project managers have to also test the ability of organisations to effectively deliver projects. While in some occasions, some projects and programs have adapted quickly and effectively, where managers and sponsors have been able to pivot to remote working, others have had substantial delays or total cancellations. There is no evidence that even those managing projects with organised and defined scope, schedules and governance structures have adapted better to the current reality as opposed to other. All of these issues have posed significant challenges to the business environment and to organisations. As the global business community and organisations start to return to a new normal after the recent wave of vaccinations, it is important to understand that many project managers will also need to adapt to these new changes, adopt short term or enduring strategies and also develop a view about projects that are sustainable and adaptable to varying and unexpected business situations and unexpected circumstances.

In light of the scenario above, identify an organisation that you either work for at the moment or have worked for in the past. If you have never worked for an organisation, then you will need to choose an extracurricular organisation you are involved in, or an alternative organisation that you know a lot about, in terms of what happens within the internal organisation environment (e.g. an organisation your parent/partner works for). If you are having problems choosing an organisation, please discuss this with your module lecturer.

Task:
Having chosen your organisation and reviewed the brief scenario above, you need to develop a 2500-word project management plan assignment for A NEW PROJECT, that can be undertaken by the company of your choice in order to achieve the business objectives during and post pandemic situation. You can choose any project with clear deliverables, start and end dates, etc e.g. Software development project, Construction project, Events planning project, Business Expansion project, Training project, etc.

Ensure that your report answers the following questions:

a) Introduces project management tools and techniques and their usefulness in light of the COVID-19 pandemic

b) Have a clearly prepared plan for the implementation of a project and the relevant communication strategies. The plan must also identify and rationalise any pre and post COVID19 changes.

c) Please do not infer any order or priority from this list; present in such a way as is most logical for your project.

d) Further, it is important to present a formal report in as clear and concise a way as possible. Your reader needs to grasp the main points quickly and easily, and so you should consider how well your report’s structure and format helps to communicate this information.

Answer

Background of Project Management Plan Assignment
Outbreak of covid-19 has altered the traditional function of different sectors and organisations need to incorporate new strategies within their activities that enable them to survive the pandemic situation. As the rate of virus transmission has been enhanced in the social gathering, therefore, the government has to completely shutdown all the business activities that force organizations to stop their business. In order to sustain the pre and post pandemic situation, organisations are now involving strategies that will allow them to survive the market condition and increase the engagement of customers again with the business. The report will analyse the importance of conducting an event for generating awareness about Covid-19 to the employees and customers of Tesco and encourage them to maintain all types of regulation to ensure the safety of each other and employees.

Scope of the project
Tesco is one of the popular retail organizations in the UK and they aim to conduct a seminar event that will encourage their employees to maintain basic level of protection that will stop the expansion of Covod-19 further. The UK is among the one of the global countries that has been hugely impacted by the outbreak of Covid-19. The pandemic has not only caused multiple death cases but also slowed down their economic growth as all types of organizational activities have been stopped due to the announcement of complete lockdown. Market performance of Tesco has also been impacted as customers are prohibited from entering the offline stores which decreased the level of customer engagement. However, the UK government has now relaxed the strict rules and regulations about Covid-19 and provide permission to organizations to open their stores. In order to gain the back the trust of customers and increase the level of engagement, management of Tesco has decided to conduct an awareness event to encourage their employees to maintain high level of precautions.

Conducting an awareness program will allow the organisation to take necessary steps to avoid any risk of virus transmission and also pinpoint the required resources that need to be involved within the organisational activities. The project will include a stakeholder analysis matrix to recognise the important stakeholder of the project and also involve a risk assessment matrix that identifies the probable risk of the project and take essential steps to lower the chance of risk occurrence. Classification of the risks will increase the visibility of the probability of risks and allow the project manager to include extreme measurements to avoid any type of delay within the project. The project will also include the Work Breakdown structure tool to recognise the dependable and independent activities in the project to complete the whole project within a limited amount of time and budget (Keers and van Fenema, 2018). On the other hand, inclusion of Asana will allow the project manager to streamline all the activities and monitor the progress of the project by assigning duties to credible team members of the project. The particular project management tool will develop an accurate view of the project and create a realistic timeline that can be achieved by the project manager and the team members.

Stakeholder analysis
Primary stakeholders
Employees
Employees are the primary stakeholders of the project management as the event aims to enhance their understanding about the recent rules and regulation about Covid-19. On the other hand, the effective involvement of the employees will enable the project manager to complete the project within allocated resources and under budget (Zaher et al. 2021).

Suppliers
Suppliers are the next important stakeholders of the project as they are responsible for delivering essential requirements to complete the event successfully. It is important for the project manager to select sustainable suppliers for the project that can add value to the event.

Participants
Involvement of an extensive number of participants will allow the project manager to conclude the event successfully. Members of the projects need to devote themselves within the project to generate a successful outcome by engaging sufficient numbers of participants to the project. It is important for the project manager to communicate with involved participants so that they can understand the vision of the project and act accordingly.

Sponsor
Sponsor is another integral part of the project as they will be responsible for generating financial support to the project. It is important for the project manager to build the list of potential sponsors that will allow them to conduct a successful event and bring value to the attendees.

Secondary stakeholders
Governments
It is important for the project manager to conduct the event under the health guidelines of the UK government and involve participants as per their instruction. Disobeying any rules or regulation can create complexity in the project development and ultimately impact the final outcome of the event.

Volunteers
Volunteers are those that willingly take part in the project and use effective efficiency to complete the project successfully. In this project, selection of the volunteers will be dependent on the rate of their experiences and skills that will enable the project manager to conduct the event in a successful manner.

Host community
The main aim of the project is to add value to the community and create concern about the ongoing pandemic and its effect on the population. Due to the changing nature of the virus, it is crucial for the community to take the necessary precautions to avoid transmission (Brink, 2017). This event will deliver adequate knowledge about the do’s and don'ts due to the evoking nature of the situation.

Media
Media will play a significant role in developing awareness about the event and enhance the involvement of public by advertising the news about the event. It is important for the project manager to constantly provide updates about the latest progress about the events and form constructive communication channels with the media that will add benefit to the project.

Figure 1: Stakeholder analysis

(Source: Brink, 2017)

Work breakdown structure

Figure 2: WBS structure

(Source: Hillsqn, 2017)

Inclusion of work breakdown structure within the project has enabled the project management to recognise the dependable and independent activities within the project and form a link within the activities that will enable the project manager to complete the project within a limited amount of time (Hillsqn, 2017). The whole project has been divided into four major parts, initiation, planning, execution and closure. Each part is involved with specific activities that need to be completed within a limited amount of time to ensure the success of the event. In order to complete the project successfully, it is essential for the project manager to select the most suitable venue that can allocate a sufficient number of participants. On the other hand, selection of skilled team members is another important task of the event that will play a major role in completing the project in a timely manner. The project manager and the team members are also responsible for designing creative designs that can boost the registration process and develop social media amplification to raise awareness about the event among the employees and participants. Selecting suppliers that are responsible for delivering food and beverages and add technological aid to gain the attention of participants and increase their knowledge about the Covid-19. Recreational activities have also been arranged by the project manager to refresh the mind of participants.

Involvement of resources
Resources of the project
Human resources
Human resources is one of the important resources in this project as they are responsible for conducting the project activities in a successful manner. Team members of the project contribute in carrying the necessary tasks of the project that can ensure the success of the project (Eskerod and Larsen, 2018). Involvement of the members with adequate technical and business skills can guarantee the successful projection of the project.

Material resources
Material resources reflect the raw materials, technical tools and other types of equipment that are necessary for completing the project within the time limit. In the project, involvement of project management tools and technique has played a crucial role in managing the progress of the project and developing effective communication within the involved team members.

Finance resources
In order to complete the project, the project manager needs to estimate the budget of the project that can generate a primary understanding about the required amount of resources (Matthews et al. 2018). The financial resources generally cover the labour charge, material charge and equipment charge that are required to complete the project within estimated resources.

Time resources
Time resource refers to the definitive time period within which each task of the project needs to be completed. The project manager needs to develop proper project planning that will present a visual presentation of required time to complete the project as per the project planning.

Consideration of resources
Considering resources within the project will enable the project manager to add another dimension to the event planning project and involve resources as per the demand of each activity of the project. The primary step of considering the resources is to involve expert judgment of the project manager that will ultimately help in pointing out the necessary resources that are essential to complete the project successfully. As the project is involved with planning an event that will create awareness about the Covid-19 virus, therefore, necessary resources need to be prioritized that will allow the project manager to achieve the objective of the project (Habibi et al. 2018). It needs to be understood by the project manager that resources are fixed and exceeding the limitation of the fixed resources can impact the progress of the project. The project has already pointed out the essential resources of the event planning project and also developed an estimated budget of the project that also includes the overhead cost; therefore, the project manager is bound to complete the project within allocated resources to deliver a successful outcome. On the other hand, inclusion of Microsoft project management software will help in designing the software in such a way that it will help in overcoming the budget constraints and allocate required resources as per the significance of project activities. Bottom up estimating enables the project manager to break down the complex activities in pieces and assign resources as per the requirement of each piece. Bottom up estimating process is one of the accurate forms of resource estimation that helps in assessing the whole project and involves greater accuracy in the resource estimation process.

Draft of cost

It has been estimated that a total of $8100 budget is required to successfully complete the event about the Covid-19 awareness program. The project manager needs to choose a venue that is local and encourage participants to get associated with the project. However, they need to make sure that only registered participants take part in the event to limit the gathering in the place. On the other hand, the labour charge of the project is estimated around $500 as the project is not involved with high physical activity. Team members only need to serve the guest and maintain the smoothness of the event. It is essential for the project manager and their team to include a proper sanitisation process to ensure the safety of employees and upcoming guests at the event.

Project schedule

It has been estimated that a total of 8 weeks will be required in order to complete the event planning project. The project manager needs to select the local venue that will be easy for the participants to attend. However, the venue needs to have sufficient capacity to allocate enough invitees. On the other hand, it is equally important for the project manager to include skilled and talented members within the project that have enough understanding about the objective of the event planning project (Kadri et al. 2018). Selection of suppliers that are reliable enough to deliver essential resources is one of the significant parts of the project. The project manager can also select the local suppliers as it will help in controlling the extra expenses of the project. It is also essential for the project manager to ensure the safety of the incoming guests by properly sanitizing the venue and maintaining social distances to avoid the transmission of the virus.

Risk assessment

Inclusion of the risk analysis matrix will allow the project manager to recognize the probable risk that has the ability to slow down the progress of a project and ultimately reduce the quality of the project outcome (Nguyen et al. 2018). Therefore, it is essential for the project manager to consider the probable risks and take necessary action to mitigate the impact of the risks factors. Failure of equipment and ineffective estimation of budget have the ability to affect the progress of the project.

Conclusion
Hence, it can be concluded that project managers need to prepare a team that is effective enough to manage project crisis and take concrete steps to eradicate the potential issue from the project. As the main aim of the event planning project is to create awareness among the involved customers and employees about Covid-19 virus and encourage them to take proper precautions to ensure the safety of the customers, therefore, it is necessary for the project manager to plan the project in relation to the event topic.

Reference list
Brink, T., (2017). Managing uncertainty for sustainability of complex projects. International Journal of Managing Projects in Business. Available at: https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/IJMPB-06-2016-0055/full/html [accessed on: 2.12.21]

Eskerod, P. & Larsen, T., (2018). Advancing project stakeholder analysis by the concept ‘shadows of the context’. International Journal of Project Management, 36(1), pp.161-169. Available at: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0263786317301114 [accessed on: 2.12.21]

Habibi, F., Barzinpour, F. & Sadjadi, S., (2018). Resource-constrained project scheduling problem: review of past and recent developments. Journal of project management, 3(2), 55-88. Available at: http://m.growingscience.com/beta/jpm/2689-resource-constrained-project-scheduling-problem-review-of-past-and-recent-developments.html [accessed on: 1.12.21]

Hillsqn, D., (2017). Managing risk in projects. Routledge. Available at: https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/mono/10.4324/9781315249865/managing-risk-projects-david-hillson [accessed on: 2.12.21]

Kadri, R.L. & Boctor, F.F., (2018). An efficient genetic algorithm to solve the resource-constrained project scheduling problem with transfer times: The single mode case. European Journal of Operational Research, 265(2), 454-462. Available at: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0377221717306549 [accessed on: 1.12.21]

Keers, B.B. & van Fenema, P.C., (2018). Managing risks in public-private partnership formation projects. Project management plan assignment International Journal of Project Management, 36(6), 861-875. Available at: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0263786317309092 [accessed on: 2.12.21]

Matthews, J., Stanley, T. & Davidson, P., (2018). Human factors and project challenges influencing employee engagement in a project-based organisation (PBO). International Journal of Managing Projects in Business. Available at: https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/IJMPB-04-2017-0043/full/html [accessed on: 2.12.21]

Nguyen, T.S., Mohamed, S. & Panuwatwanich, K., (2018). Stakeholder Management in Complex Project: Review of Contemporary Literature. Journal of Engineering, Project & Production Management, 8(2). Available at: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Tuan-Son-Nguyen/publication/326801226_Stakeholder_Management_in_Complex_Project_Review_of_Contemporary_
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Zaher, N., Sykes, C. & Keevers, L., (2021). A Process Study of Negotiating Challenges of Managing International Development Projects. VOLUNTAS: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations, 1-12. Available at: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11266-021-00371-5 [accessed on: 2.12.21]