Assignment: Resource Scenarios
Objective- To apply the learning from the unit on the resources project managers use in planning projects and demonstrate your competence in how to lead teams through resource challenges.
Directions- For this assignment you are going to use a scenario (shown below) that describes some of the experiences leaders face in planning for and utilizing resources in projects. You should put yourself in the shoes of a project leader (the organization doesn't have the resources to hire a consultant to manage the process) and for each scenario you will be asked to connect to the lecture and reading for the unit. Do not rely solely on your experience or gut instincts, you must attach to methods or theory that show you understand and can apply the information from the unit.
This does NOT have to be an APA formatted paper, it should however be double-spaced, have your name on it, the name of the assignment, and include a reference list that is APA format. NO in-text citations are required for this one.
Use these steps to help you navigate the assignment.
1. Read through question and develop an answer using complete sentences (don't do bulleted lists).
2. For each answer, provide at least one citation to support your decisions. These can be included on the reference list and it is possible that you will use the same reference (e.g., the unit 5 lecture) for multiple questions. You do not have to have a different reference for each question. The objective is to make sure that as you answer each question, you are making the connection to the course and its content.
3. Once completed, save the document (use your name in the file name) as either a Word Document or PDF.
4. Do a spell check using Grammarly.com or MS Word's editor function and review any grammar errors and make the changes prior to submission.
5. Take the rubric quiz to self-evaluate your submission. Make any changes needed and then upload the corrected document in the assignment drop box in the online course.
Scenario - Website Redesign Contract
You are the communications director for the City of Wellspring and the City Council has approved a project charter to revamp the City's website for tourism and economic development purposes. The staff in various departments (economic development, building planning and inspection, tourism office, and the electric and water utilities) have their own objectives for their pages on the website. None of you are experts in web design or setting up websites so you plan to hire a website design consultant to do each of the 4 sections of the new website.
When you presented the project charter you used Analogous estimating and projected a cost of $45k and a timeline of one year based on information from other cities and their website redesign contracts where you consistently saw that the projects took three or four more months to complete than the city staff had estimated.
Now, you are ready to further develop the project design with better estimates and because of City policies you must put the contract out to bid with a fair and transparent process since it is public money. It is your responsibility to develop the RFP and once the proposals are submitted to review each and identify three candidates for an in-person meeting and then you will bring the final recommendation to the City Administrator for final signature. If only life was as simple as is laid out in a project charter.
Questions:
1. When you did your project charter estimates, the subject matter experts (SME's) each told you that their projects were not completed on time. From the description of your project, what you know or have researched about City/government websites, what might you be looking for in your contract language or in how you manage the project to prevent this from happening? Think about how you will estimate the length of project, the expectations of the stakeholders/City staff, and the language in the RFP. Need Assignment Help?
2. You need to rethink the contingency plan that you presented in the project charter. For estimating purposes, you simply added in a 10% contingency. Now you are thinking it would be better to go into more detail and project a realistic amount rather than a percentage. Explain how you would go about estimating a revised contingency plan and what elements you would put in there (there's room in this answer for creative license but explain the context).
3. You have prepared the final cost baseline and now you are meeting with the City Administrator to discuss the cost budget. He says I'm no expert in this project management stuff, can you help me understand why you want to put in a managerial reserve and what kind of expenses might these be? How would you answer this question?
4. You only got two proposals from your RFP which isn't optimal, but you decide to review the proposals and still award the contract if the right consultant can be found. The two proposals are very different. The higher of the two is $65,000. The consultant has a lot of experience working with government agencies but is located in another state, so they have put in travel expenses for 4 trips to Wellspring to meet with the stakeholders. They did propose to get the project done in 7 months instead of 12. The second proposal is from a local company who is relatively new to the consulting business. Their bid was $44,000 and the only caveat is that they cannot start the project for 4 months so it would end up with the project taking 14 months instead of 12. Which proposal would you recommend and what could you do to make a less than perfect proposal work for your project design? (Note: because the contract amount is less than $100k, there is no requirement for sealed bids or accepting proposals without amendments.) Fully describe the proposal you selected, why you selected it, and any amendments or negotiation you will seek and how would it impact the cost of the project and the timeline.