1. (50%) – Project Management Plan and the Work Breakdown Structure Part a – PMP

Question

1. (50%) – Project Management Plan and the Work Breakdown Structure Part a – PMP Content Describe a hypothetical project scenario of your choice and then list and defend which management processes you would include in your PMP. Depending on the project, some processes may be more important than others. One project process is making structured decisions. This could be a technical trade study, selection of key supplier, an architectural trade-off, or any number of critical decisions that will impact the technical aspects of the project. Discuss one such decision on your project and the criteria that should be used to help make a selection decision.

Part b – WBS Develop an outline of the work breakdown structure (WBS) for the project described in Part a. This WBS need not be exhaustive in terms of work items or complete in terms of management details, such as timeframes and timelines. Focus on and identify only the key elements of the WBS. Defend your choice of WBS style (product centric, work centric, or hybrid/other). For parts 1a and 1b, try to limit your response to two pages or less.

2. (50%) – Technical Considerations Part a – Solution Architecture For the project identified in Part 1a, describe and/or diagram the high level solution architecture (components, behavior of the components, and how the components interact). If your project is a service rather than a product, describe the components of the service (i.e., Help Desk, software provisioning, etc.).

Part b – PMP Technical Considerations Assume that the technical aspects of your program (requirements, architecture, design, test cases, etc.) are captured separate from the PMP in either a modeling tool such as System Architect or in project deliverables such as design documents. Given the unique aspects of your solution, describe technical process considerations that you would include in your PMP and explain why they should be included. For example, you may have additional activities, forums, mechanisms, interactions, etc. that you would want to describe in your PMP. You need not provide details about those considerations, provide only a list along with your rationale for why they must be included and expanded upon in the PMP. For parts 2a and 2b, try to limit your response to two pages or less.

Explanation / Answer

Thinking about projects and project execution, the competition in this world has become so huge and intense that organizations hardly want to take any risks that might place their projects within the zone of penalty and negative implications during any phase of the project/program. Having said that, because of the accumulative bunch of free project tools and process knowledge available out there today, organizations also take the necessary corrective actions upfront to ensure that all of their programs/projects are fully compliant from a process, quality cost, time, scope and schedule perspective that are much compulsory to meet the delivery demands of the Client/Customer in this progressively challenging project galaxy across the globe. Of the factors mentioned above, let’s take “Scope”. Scope is the core need for all projects – this is the real thing that needs to be understood and implemented for the project. As we all know very well, there are several circumstances across the orb wherein projects have failed or have went into losses for the simple reason of the scope either not being correctly understood or not being correctly implemented on both. “Scope” is the connecting factor for the rest of the project parameters of cost, time, resources, etc. and hence getting to understand scope, breaking it into smaller pieces, creating simpler scope tasks, and confirming the associated project deliverables is the key for any project. This article describes one of the most important tools – the WBS (Work Breakdown Structure) for understanding and decomposing project scope and also the various advantages/successes that a project team could derive if a WBS is well-prepared and used through the duration of the project.

What is a work breakdown structure?

Simply put, a work breakdown structure is a hierarchical decomposition of the scope/work that needs to be estimated and executed during the course of the project in order to accomplish the project objectives and deliverables.

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