Assignment #8 - Project Plan

Assignment #8 - Project Plan

Assignment #8 Overview

For this assignment,  you will integrate elements of the project from previous lessons)  into a comprehensive plan, the linchpin to a successful project!

You will prepare a plan for the City of Metropolis Geodatabase Design and Development Project that incorporates the various project plan pieces prepared in previous lessons. This is a summary document that contains essential information to communicate project objectives, team structure and stakeholders, tasks, deliverables, timing, and management/communication procedures. Your work for this Assignment should draw on work carried out in previous weeks on Assignments #3 through #7.

Your Submittal for Assignment #8

The integrated Project Plan should, at a minimum should include the following topics and parts:

• Cover Page (formatted like that in previous assignments)
• Table of contents
• Name of project and summary background (e.g., reference name of City and project name, explain purpose content of this plan, reference to the City's RFP, your company's name, other essential information to properly identify and explain the context for this document). Provide brief but sufficient information to explain the basis for the project, specifications, and the required deliverables. Make sure this conveys the fact that this is a City project, mention the City Project Charter and say a bit about the purpose and business case (reasons for the project). Mention leadership by the Public Works Dept with a City team with individuals from multiple Departments.  Then mention the contractor hired via the RFP to work with the City.
• Project stakeholders and project organization including a) narrative intro that emphasizes the collaborative nature of the project (City Team and contractor working together) and the roles of the City Team vs the contractor, b)  description of the City and contractor teams and project organization (identify and state the role of stakeholder organizations and teams). An annotated project organizational chart works well for this).
• Project Scope, Deliverables, Tasks, and Schedule: It is best to use subsections to cover the following topics: a) Introduction that summarizes the project scope/objectives and mentioned again the collaborative work by the contractor and City Team, b) summary of deliverables with the deliverable IDs, c) summary of tasks and schedule including mention of the planned start and finish dates and summary of high level tasks from the WBS (bullet list works well for this), c) Gantt Chart which may be summarized down to second level tasks (see Canvas Announcement with approach for pasting Gantt from Microsoft Project).
• A budget (summary of main budget items is OK). It is NOT necessary to show detailed hour estimates for individual project team members (a summary of labor costs by task is OK). Likewise, you do not need to show the details of individual direct expense items.  Subtotals for labor and direct expenses and a grand total by task is OK.
• Risk management. Include a summary about what project risk management is and how it fits in with the this project. Include the list of risks and risk matrix from Assignment #7 along with the narrative explaining htese parts of the document.  Include an explanation of risk response strategies (referenece the PMI) and your detailed risk analysis from Assignment #7. NOTE: It is only necessary to include 1 risk in this risk analysis section (the one you worked on for Assignment #7).
• Quality management (from Assignment #6). Provide an explanation of what project quality and quality management is and how it relates to the Metropolis project.  Summarize the characteristics and quality parameters for Deliverables MD2 and MD4, and the quality management processes for MD2 and MD4. You should include the flow charts and process descriptions from Assignment #6. Make sure to summarize the complementary quality management roles of the City and the Contractor and the process for tracking and acceptance of deliverables by the City.
• Project monitoring, reporting, and communications activities (tracking progress, status reporting, team and client communications, etc.). Make sure to make reference to the SD4 tool, SD2 status reports, project meetings, and the final report (MD6).  It is a good idea to briefly mention contract management, handling of risk events and issues, possible adjustments to the project plan scope or schedule, and even contractor invoicing and payment.

As in all written assignments, you should include a cover page which includes the following information: a) course number and name, b) assignment number and name, c) your name, d) submittal date. The cover page should also have the full project name and document title ("Integrated Project Plan"). In addition, since you represent the contractor performing work for the City, the cover should include the contractor company name. Your submitted assignment should be formatted as specified in the Format Quality of this assignment’s rubric below to earn maximum points. As you prepare this assignment, START WITH AN OUTLINE, with sections and subsections that cover the topics above. We recommend that you use the Outline/Heading feature of your word processing software in document preparation. It is expected that you will organize the document into numbered and named sections. It is best practice today, for technical and management documents to use a "decimal" outline numbering scheme (1., 1.1, etc.) as opposed to the older Roman numeral numbering approach.

There is more than one way to organize and present information for the integrated plan—the bullet point list above identifies minimum content in the plan but, we do not have a specific organization of sections and subsections. That is your job—to summarize material from the past Assignments in a way that makes sense and gives a reader a full picture of the project without going into too much detail. Your deliverable for Assignment #8 should NOT be just a pasting together of written deliverables from previous assignments. You should organize it well, summarize content, reference external documents (e.g., City's RFP, quality management plan from Assignment 6, etc.), make it into a clear, understandable plan.

Also, you should organize the document with numbered headings and subheadings as applicable. Also, for this deliverable, a table of contents should be included.  Also, your submittal should take into account instructor comments on previous assignments.

The total word count should be in the 7000 to 9000 range. As is the case for all written assignments, the word count is a target to give you an idea about the level of detail expected. As a general rule, it is best to keep it concise and as brief as possible, while still covering the necessary topics. No points will be deducted for submittals if they exceed the maximum word count by a small amount.

The project plan is the final assignment due for this class and is due at the end of Week 10 (see Canvas Calendar).

Don't hesitate to contact the instructor if you have questions or need to brainstorm ideas as you are preparing your plan.

Assignment Submittal and Grading

See Canvas Calendar for submittal date. The grading rubric and information is below.

This assignment is worth 60 points. The grading approach is explained in the rubric table below.

The instructor may deduct points if the Assignment is turned in late, unless a late submittal has been approved by the Instructor prior to the Assignment submittal date.