National Project Management Symposium The Staff Orientation Project
Planning and implementing a national symposium for a society that will draw about 1150 attendees is a major project. As the event is not for profit, the registration fee is $1,250 per attendee for a 3-day symposium with free access to all arranged workshops. The tasks involved in hosting such an event are considerable and involve selecting a program committee, choosing a theme, contacting exhibitors, making local arrangements, planning the program, and on and on. Adelaide is selected as host city/chapter for the 2022 Annual December Symposium.
The Australian officers have most of the primary responsibilities, with members from five other business partners assisting in other duties. As a result, the project team needs to organise this event using a functional approach. To deliver the project successfully, the project team is required to attend a staff orientation that will prepare them for the national symposium and their involvement in it. The Staff Orientation Project has been initiated to develop and facilitate the orientation sessions and you have been appointed the project manager.
Your tasks:
This case study provides you with an opportunity of drawing on your acquired project planning, scheduling and budgeting skills to apply to this given case study.
Assessment 1-Part B
1. Scope Management Planning & Scope Statement
- Describe the entire scope of the work including project background, a list of specific project goals, deliverables, exclusions, constraints, assumptions, and milestones.
- Design activities to be implemented for Task 1, 2, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10 and 11 (between 2-4 activities per task). See Tasks 3.1-3.3 and 4.1-4.3 in Table 1 as examples.
- Create a Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) for the Activity list generated in 1.2.
2. Time Management Planning & Project Schedule
- Assign activity dependencies to the new activities in 1.2 (show at least 2 types of activity dependencies) without changing the total duration of the task. Additional milestones should be incorporated where appropriate. The newly assigned activities, activity dependencies and milestones must be clearly presented in your project schedules (both Scenario 1 and 2).
- Construct and present an original schedule (Scenario 1) for the project using project activities given in Table 1 and further evolved in 1.2. and 2.1
- Conduct a critical path analysis and carefully apply the 3-point estimate technique on identified critical activities to develop an estimated project schedule. It is assumed that all activities will be 35% shorter than the presented schedule if we fast track the orientation through crashing. On the other hand, without appropriate risk management planning, the durations of critical activities extend by 55%. Present a changed schedule (Scenario 2) incorporating a 3-point analysis on critical activities with these new timings.
- Perform a final, technical schedule analysis using the results obtained from project scheduling conducted in the previous stages. A comparative analysis of the two developed scenarios (i.e. comparison of Scenario 1 and Scenario 2) must be clearly demonstrated.
Table 1 – The Staff Orientation Project Activities
| Task | Duration | Predecessor | Resources |
| 1. Orientation task force launched | 2 weeks | – | Education Manager, Education Staff (5), Department Managers (2), Staff Representatives (5), Facilitator, Project Manager |
| 2. Compile orientation evaluations for areas of improvement | 4 weeks | – | HR Staff (5) |
| 3. Evaluate the Prepared Proposal | 5 weeks | ||
| 3.1 Draft recommended changes | 2 weeks | 1, 2 | Orientation Task Force |
| 3.2 Recommendation presented to executive team | 1 week | 3.1 | Education Manager, Project Manager |
| 3.3 Review and finalise orientation enhancements | 2 weeks | 3.2 | Orientation Task Force |
| 4. Orientation Presentations Enhancement | 10 weeks | ||
| 4.1 Work with speakers to review presentations | 4 weeks | 3.3 | Speakers (7), Education Staff (5) |
| 4.2 Facilitate preparation of PowerPoint presentations | 6 weeks | 4.1 | IS Trainer (3), Education Staff (5), Speakers (7) |
| 4.3 Facilitate acquisition of videos on subjects | 6 weeks | 4.1 | Education Staff (5), Speakers (7) |
| 5. Review evaluation tool to measure outcomes | 2 weeks | 3 | Education Manager, Project Manager, Education Staff (5) |
| 6. Facilitate physical changes necessary to orientation room | 4 weeks | 4 | Education Staff (5), AV Staff (3), Facilities Staff (2) |
| 7. Implement revised orientation program | 1 week | 5, 6 | Education Staff (5), Speakers (7), HR Staff (5) |
| 8. Evaluate feedback from the first orientation session | 2 months | 7 | Education Staff (5) |
| 9. Present findings to executive team | 1 week | 8 | Project Manager |
| 10. Evaluate feedback from the initial six orientation sessions | 6 months | 7 | Education Manager |
| 11. Develop continuous process improvement process for feedback results | 4 weeks | 7 | Education Staff (5) |
* Note: This project allocates 8-hour days, 5 working days = 1 week, 4 weeks = 1 month
Assessment 2-Part B
3. Cost Management Planning & Project Budget
- Select, justify and explain a cost estimating tool that is appropriate for the cost of project activities.
- Develop and aggregate the cost of resources needed to complete each activity and determine the detailed budget baseline of the project. Your cost estimate must incorporate the resources required (from Table 2) for each task. Both cost estimates and a budget baseline must be produced in alignment with the estimated project schedule. You project budget must include a contingency. The cost allowance of resources is shown below:
Table 2 – Project Resources
| Resource | Hourly Rate ($) |
| Facilitator | 45 |
| Speakers | 70 |
| Education Manager & Department Managers | 65 |
| Education Staff & HR Staff | 40 |
| AV Staff | 38 |
| Facilities Staff | 35 |
| Staff representatives | 30 |
| Orientation Task Force | 90 |
| IS Trainer | 42 |
| Project Manager | 60 |
- Apply the 3-point estimate technique to demonstrate and discuss changes in the project budget according to the given scenario in 2.3 (i.e. Scenario 2)
- Explain how Earn Value Analysis (EVA) as a compulsory cost control tool can be utilised in this project. A worked example of the EVA application must be clearly demonstrated.
4. Quality Management Planning
- In your Quality Management Plan, outline at least two quality metrics that can be used to measure quality in this project.
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