PJM 5900 Week 5 Lab
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Overview
In this lab, you will create a Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) to document the work elements needed to describe a hypothetical training project.
Case Study – AAA Training Services LLC (“ATS”)
AAA Training Services LLC (known as “ATS”) is a training services provider. ATS has been discussing a contract arrangement with Potter Enterprises, and expects to be awarded a contract. The scope of the expected effort includes executing a project to plan and deliver a series of training courses to Potter Enterprises employees. As the star project manager for ATS, you have been selected by ATS management as the project manager for the prospective engagement. The Potter Enterprises VP of Corporate Training, Kathy Jones, will be the project sponsor. Ms. Jones described the scope of the planned project as follows: “Our company has expanded our operations and will be undertaking a major hiring initiative. To support this corporate goal, we need to create a training program that we will deliver to all new employees that come on board in the next 3 months. We want ATS’ help in delivering this training program.
Note that, at Potter Enterprises, we use a standard project life cycle for all of our projects. This particular onboard training project must comply with our corporate standard and, therefore, must contain the following high level project phases: Initiate Project Plan Training Create and Deliver Training Close Project Let’s now discuss the project we are discussing with you. As part of project initiation, before we begin detailed planning activities, we need to make sure we have identified all project stakeholders. Be sure to reflect this activity as a line item in your WBS. Also make sure you create a document that outlines the overall scope and objectives of the project. For the Plan Training phase, to ensure we have planned carefully, we need you to create separate planning documents which contain a description of how each of the 10 PMBOK knowledge areas will be addressed as part of the project. We will want to review and approve each of these plans before we will start to create the training products. Training topics to be created and developed include: 1. Supplier management 2. Negotiating skills 3. Project management fundamentals
PJM 5900 Week 5 Lab
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4. Software training for the MS Project application For topics 2 – 4 (negotiating, project management, and software training), we have the required materials in-house. We will provide the materials at a later time. So you should include these items in your planning but we don’t need you to spend much time planning details for these areas. However the supplier management training reflects a new initiative for us. Therefore, to develop these courses we need you to perform some additional activities. Specifically, you should define the specific needs for supplier management training, research related training available from other companies, and deliver a pilot supplier management training course. Once you have completed the pilot course, we will approve it and then be ready to develop the final version of all courses. We will not deliver any courses until all course materials have been prepared; then you need to deliver the associated training to our staff. We also want provide a course evaluation after all the training is complete. Throughout the period of time you are creating and delivering training, you need to maintain a communication program with all project stakeholders. Before the project is complete, we want you to facilitate a lessons-learned activity which we will use to identify improvements to our internal methodology.”
Prior to awarding a contract to ATS, Ms. Jones has asked you to translate their scope description into a WBS for the entire project. Ms. Jones plans to review your WBS to confirm you understand their requirement, that you have structured the WBS in a logical manner, and that you have included all required activities.
Assignment - Creating the WBS
Starting with a blank project in MS Project, use the information provided in the above case study to create a WBS for this project. Be sure to: 1. Include all Potter Enterprises high level project phases as summary level WBS elements. 2. Translate the case study narrative into lower level deliverables in each phase. If information is not explicitly provided in the case study you can make assumptions for items that may be appropriate but not called out explicitly in the statement. 3. Include 1 milestone task that marks the end of each project life cycle phase. Assign a duration of “0” for each milestone task. 4. Save your file using your Last Name as the first part of the filename. Submit this as your assignment. Make sure you save a copy for yourself as well – you will be using this file for next week’s assignment also.
Use these guidelines in completing the WBS:
PJM 5900 Week 5 Lab
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For this assignment the entire WBS should be limited to approximately 30 – 35 line items. You will be graded on the completeness of your plan based on your ability to capture all activities described in the case study. It is acceptable, but not necessary, to include additional tasks that you think could be helpful but are not specifically referenced. Outline your WBS at the correct indent levels using the MS Project indent feature to show subsidiary items. Use the MS Project WBS column to number the tasks in your WBS. Include a hierarchical numbering sequence for each task (see examples from this week’s lecture and from Larson and Gray). If you are not familiar with MS Project, use the online help or access training videos that are available free from a number of sources in advance of completing this lab. Don’t wait until the last minute. The focus of this assignment is on the WBS itself - don’t worry about schedule or resources - we’ll discuss these elements in the future. Right now, we’re just concentrating on WHAT needs to be done, not WHEN.