Assume that you are the project manager for the construction of 10 conference facilities in your organization’s building in Florida. A statement of work has been given to you, and contracts have already been awarded. The project will require you to do the following for one of the conference facilities:
Install new electrical outlets and light fixtures: ABC Electrical Company (fixed price contract $20,500, week 1). Install multimedia capability: Sound Masters, Inc. (fixed price contract $40,000, week 1 and $23,300, week 4). Finish walls and apply custom paint color—Ocean Blue #4495: K&G Painters (cost reimbursable contract $24,990, week 2). Install carpeting (color # 9984) and window shades (color # 5574): Best Flooring and Windows (fixed price contract $46,340, half in week 2 and half in week 3). Install new furniture to match wall color (#4495), including 20 custom-made tables and 80 extra plush ergonomic chairs with wheels: Custom Furniture Experts, LLC (cost reimbursable contract $87,300, one quarter in week 1 and balance in week 4). Artwork showing the best features of your organization’s products. This artwork and framing has not been purchased yet. Complete inspection and acceptance within one month.
After you finished building your baseline budget for the conference facility project, you need to plan how you want to manage your budget. That includes writing a cost management plan, which provides the report formats, variance reporting thresholds, and other pertinent information to your project team. This plan will help you maintain a firm control of the project costs and provide valuable communication to your team regarding your plans to manage costs. In conjunction with the cost management plan, you need a plan to manage changes to the project. Think about how you will control changes in terms of cost, schedule, scope, and quality as various changes come up throughout the lifecycle of your project. Changes can come in any form: management redirection, resolving problems, or changing the scope of the project. Consider the following additional information for your project: Your vendor contracts require weekly and monthly reporting of actual costs. Your management would like you to measure your project performance using earned value management. You will need to report your financial status to your boss each week. (hint: cost management plan item) You know from past experience that Custom Furniture Experts will have to redo part of their work. Since their contract is cost reimbursable, you are at risk of being charged for this additional labor. (hint: cost management plan item) History tells you that your management may make changes to the statement of work after you have begun the project. You want to make sure that you control all changes to the statement of work for all of the vendors. (hint: configuration control item) Create a cost management and a change or configuration management plan for your project.
Answer the following questions after you have completed developing the two project plans:
1. How did you account for the project risks in the cost management plan?
2. Did you include a requirement for EVM for your contractors? Why or why not?