Seb723 Engineering Project Management Answers Assessment Answers

The iron triangle models constrictions of project management together with its limitations are regarded as “iron” since it is not possible for one the alter any of the constraints without affecting the rest of the constraints. According to the pioneer iron triangle recommended by Dr. Martin Barnes in 1969, it takes the waterfall line of attack in the development of the project products, which means that the variables such as the scope, time and resources are fixed (Gemünden, 2015, p. 5). In that case, it means that the software project development team has to start the project by describing the product requirements by determining the project’s scope. The project’s scope is a list of the items required for the project. Therefore, the schedule as well as the resources are only but variables, thus they are only approximated with regard to the fixed scope.

Constraints of the Iron Triangle

Despite the iron triangle being faced by three major constraints scope, resources and time its core aim is to act as the compass direction for project management team under the leadership of the project manager. As a result the project manager has to make sure that the project team has been provided with the necessary information as far as the project development is concerned (Bronte-Stewart, 2015, p. 26). It should be noted that for the project to achieve its target the project manager has to provide the project tem with all these requirements as well as necessary information to make trade-offs that are capable of supporting the business. For instance, in case the project team is faced with a fixed scope when they are halfway the project and find out that they have not or will not be in the position to hit the projected deadline; the only variables that they can play is time and resources (Badewi, 2016, p. 763). The team can accept a new release date or they can decide to increase of the workforce supply to the project and this will automatically raise the costs of the project.

Features of the Iron Triangle Project Management

The iron triangle is typically constrained by three primary components that can be expressed in a number of ways. The three key constraint, which is also referred to as the iron triangle when it comes to project management describes how the project should be developed.

Time: A project activity can take a short period or a long period to be attained. In order to realize the project product is delivered with a specified period of time, a number of aspects have to be factored in such as the size of workforce working on the project, their experience as well as skills. Indeed, time is vital necessity that is not controllable, but failure to realize the project’s set dates it can result in adverse impacts. Subsequently, the key reason for the project not to be able to accomplish delivering of the product in time is due to lack of resources.

Budget: The budget is imperious both on the side of the project manager and the business to have a charge estimate when performing a project task. The most important aspect in project development is resources since it ensures that the project under development attains the originally desired cost. Nonetheless, in some instances, project may be unable to meet the anticipated project due to inadequate resources. The reason for such inconveniences is as a result of introducing of changes in between the project course by the project supervisors and the customer. Therefore, this makes it hard for the project manager to deliver the initially agreed upon product with the earlier stated resources. Consequently, the project managers gets forced to allocate additional resources in order to be able to attain delivering the project product. However, this process is accompanied with some consequences for the inopportuneness of the extra charges.

Scope: The scope is primarily about the final product results of the project undertaking. The scope consists of a list of deliverables that must be factored in by the project leader and their teams.

Quality: In spite quality not being among the iron triangle project management components, it is the ultimate objective of every deliverable. As a result, this is the main case for the project management iron triangle representation strive for quality product delivery.

Stages of Project Management

For the successful delivery of a project product the project undergoes a number of phases. By sub diving a project in small phases is to make it possible to lead it in the required direction. The project is organized into phases as a way to make it easier to monitor the project development progress as described below.

Initiation Phase: It is the initial stage of the project, during this stage, the idea of the project is explored and elaborated. The objectivity of this goal is to examine the project feasibility. Additionally, it is at this point that decisions are made regarding the person that should lead the project, the parties that will be included and to find out if the project has a strong base among those involved. The project managers writes the project prospective proposal which comprise a description of all the above listed issues like costs, scope of the project and time.

Definition Phase: Once the project plan that was developed during the initiation stage is approved, the project moves to the next phase, the definition phase. In the definition stage, the requirements connected with the project outcome are specified in the clearest way. It entails the identification of all parties involved with respect to the project outcome. The identification of project requirements acts a directive and saves the project leaders as it acts as a memory aid for the project preconditions, functional requirements, operational requirements as well as the design constraints.

Design/Planning Phase: The list of requirements accepted in the definition stage can be utilized to making the design options. During the design phase several designs are developed, through which the project outcome can deceptively be realized. According to the project, the design phase products consists of flow charts, prototypes, sketches, dioramas, site trees, UML schemas, HTLM screen designs and photo impressions. The Project manager makes use of these designs to decide on the descriptive design which has to be employed to deliver the project product.

Development phase: during the development stage all the requirements for implementation of the project are organized. Probable constrictors as well as subcontractors are brought on board, ordering of materials and tools, project scheduling and giving of instruction to the project personnel (Ponsteen, and Kusters, 2015, p. 167). The development level is accomplished once the implementation is ready to commence.

Implementation phase: It is at this phase that the project takes shape. It entails the construction of the real-time results. During this phase the different project divisions involve in different activities. For instance, programmers will be preoccupied encoding, contractors with building and the physical organization of what should take place, and designers with developing graphic material. The project becomes visible at this stage.

Follow up phase: It is at this phase where all the project activities are arranged so as to make sure that the project becomes a success. Some of the practices at this stage comprise giving instructions for use, setting up help desk, evaluation of the project, writing handbooks, and maintaining project results.

Project crashing to meet a Project Deadline

Delay in projects is a feature that faces almost all projects. Project delay occur due to poor planning, insufficient communication and changes in the scope of the project as well as exhaustion of resources. Additionally, a project delay can be as a result of a project team lack of morale. Therefore, to avoid issues of project delay, the project manager has to put into practise the concept of project crashing to make it possible the delivery of the final project product under the agreed time, scope and resources (Abuwarda, and Hegazy, 2016). Project crashing work to see to it that project is completed within the set out time, budget and meets the anticipated user requirements.

Steps Involved in Project Crashing

Project crashing demands that the project manager knows the critical path of the project by calculating the expected period required to realize the project as anticipated. Therefore, to achieve project crashing it takes the following steps:

Identifying the critical activities that takes the least cost by calculating the crash expense for all the practices with the help of the following formula.

Crash Cost per unit = (Crash Cost) – (Normal Cost) / (Normal Time – Crash Time)

After calculating the project crash, the project leader picks in the events on the critical path with the least cost slope among all the activities until the desired crime crash is realized.

To arrive at the least project crash there has to be reduction of the activity time till the crash time is attained.

Ways to mitigate the problem of Project Delay

It is important that the project manager (PM) work hard to overcome the all challenges that are linked to project delay. In order to reduce the delay the PM can take the following steps.

• Conducting meetings with the project teams. Regular carrying out of meetings with project members aids the PM to receive responses of the delay (Salama, and Haniff, 2016). Therefore keeping close contact with the team enhances a constructive relation in the affected parts of the project.
• Reassessing the current condition of the project by evaluating other likely delays. Delays act as indicators for future problems, thus it is significant for the PM to reassess the current position of the project to avoid further delays.
• Reviewing the entry of data in risk assessment. In some cases the delay cane be due to the project management delay team’s delay and the supervisor to realize impractical set out project completion dates (Agyei, 2015, p. 222). Thus, undertaking additional risk evaluation management aids to define the reason why and how the problem can happen.
• Diverting resources to no-delayed practices and tasks. At this point the delay concentrates on specific practices (Bhatia, A., Haciane, Cheng, Sathappan, and Deshpande,  2017). Therefore the PM should make a decision of shifting certain teams by assigning them to non-affected activities.
• Carrying out quality inspection for the incomplete and complete job progress. The PM should perform constant regular checks and reviews to determine if there are any errors.

1. Reasons for Reconfiguring John’s Work Plan

As a PM I could have reconfigured John’s work plan since it is likely to result on a project delivery delay. By John working for only four hours a day, it means that there some part of the project which are likely to be forgone because he spends less time as initially projected by the PM (Abuwarda, and Hegazy, 2016). That is to mean that the project is likely to be delayed. Therefore to avoid incidents of project delay I will have to reconfigure his work plan and work according to the PM initial work plan of eight hours a day to see to it that it is completed in the specified time, under budget and meet the user requirements. On the same note, time management is a crucial necessity, thus, without a well-planned time management will lead to project delays which places the project at a mess (Tiwari, and Johari, 2015). Therefore, it is important to manage well time for the project to be accomplished in time, within budget and meet the under needs and wants.

Reconfiguration of John’s Project Management Work Plan

1. Project Implementation with a Delay

Delay on Project Implementation

Instead of the project taking ten week as it was initially planned which equivalent is 70 days the delay in the project extends by ten more days as indicated in the table such that instead of the project coming to completion 6^th August 2018. The ten days delay makes it end on 20^th August, 2018 due to the additional ten days of delay in the implementation phase of the project. 

Delay on Project Implementation

The same project delay applies on the above project development course such that the delay impact the implementation phase taking eleven days as initially planned the delay extends the project implementation by ten extra days which involves the system technician and casual workers. That means that the project manager has to incur extra costs of increasing the number of the work forces which forces he/she to have two teams of system technician and casual workers working at the implementation phase. 

References

Abuwarda, Z. and Hegazy, T., 2016. Work-Package Planning and Schedule Optimization for Projects with Evolving Constraints. Journal of Computing in Civil Engineering, 30(6), p.04016022.

Agyei, W., 2015. Project planning and scheduling using PERT and CPM techniques with linear programming: case study. International Journal of Scientific & Technology Research, 4(8), pp.222-227.

Badewi, A., 2016. The impact of project management (PM) and benefits management (BM) practices on project success: Towards developing a project benefits governance framework. International Journal of Project Management, 34(4), pp.761-778.

Bhatia, A., Haciane, G., Cheng, J., Sathappan, S. and Deshpande, T., 2017. Optimization Model For Multiple Project Management.

Bronte-Stewart, M., 2015. Beyond the iron triangle: Evaluating aspects of success and failure using a project status model. Computing & Information Systems, 19(2), pp.21-37.

Gemünden, H.G., 2015. Success factors of global new product development programs, the definition of project success, knowledge sharing, and special issues of project management journal®. Project Management Journal, 46(1), pp.2-11.

Ponsteen, A. and Kusters, R.J., 2015. Classification of human-and automated resource allocation approaches in multi-project management. Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences, 194, pp.165-173.

Salama, M. and Haniff, A., 2016. 9 Project Scheduling. Project Management.

Tiwari, S. and Johari, S., 2015. Project scheduling by integration of time cost trade-off and constrained resource scheduling. Journal of The Institution of Engineers (India): Series A, 96(1), pp.37-46.