Contents

1. Provide a critical assessment of the usefulness of project management tools and techniques.    3

2. Plan the implementation of a project within the workplace. Communicate the project plans with appropriate colleagues and stakeholders. Implement the project plan.    5

3. Critically evaluate your ability to manage a project, use feedback from others to evaluate your ability to plan and implement a project, identifying strengths and weaknesses. Create a self-development plan to improve your own performance in managing projects.  12

4. References 17

5. Gantt chart/Pert Chart critical pathway 19

Budget plan

Stakeholders

Risk assessment

Introduction

The European Management Journal, states, “Project Management has become a core business process for most organisations”. (Maylor, H., 2001). Project management begins with a definition of a project, in this assignment it is a new kids barbers opening. Project Management allows managers to quickly understand information such as, who is working on project tasks? When will the tasks be accomplished? and how the tasks relate to the overall project?  Throughout this assignment its will be looking at the different stages, responsibilities/ risks and budgets. The tools used to develop projects is the main key to success “Project management is the application of knowledge skills and tools.” (Wiley, J., 2017).  In the International Journal of Project Management, a survey shows the project’s success rates, a remarkably high proportion of 41% were reported to be completely successfully. White. D (2002). This is due to the right tools and techniques being used. International journals claim, “Tools and techniques are one of the key elements in project process, numerous tools are available to support the various phases of the project.” (Raz, T., 2001).

1. One project management tool is a Gantt Chart, they are simple and effective to use. Gantt Charts are horizontal bars charts that show the dependencies between the tasks and estimated time which the will be completed. It allows planning time and resource management and gives indication as to how long the project will take start to finish. Research shows “Gantt Charts are the favourite project plan representation because it’s really easy to view.” (Smith, T., 2016). There are mixed reviews on this statement as one Journal suggests Gantt Charts are losing their popularity, it argues that Gantt Charts pull a project manager’s focus away from the project and onto preceding pretty graphs that don’t really match reality. (Asoravala, 2006). Others claim that the charts are created only to please higher organisations and therefore a distraction to the actual project.

The Gantt Chart itself would not give detail costing or back up plans, and would then need to revisit and revised accordingly, the horizontal bars do not necessarily mean more resources required. For example, a bar may appear shorter in comparison to another task it may require more resources than the longer bar which may only require one person to carry out the task. (See appendix 1).

According to Project Management Journal Kumar stated, “Gantt Charts are a powerful and the most preferred visual tool”. (Kumar, 2005). It is one of the most preferred tools by most of the project managers, along with the Pert Chart with a critical pathway to back it up.

A critical path “effectively copes with a number of activities, data, and dependencies between activities involved.” (Milosevic, N. & Martinell, D., 2016). The Pert chart analysis averages three different timescales, the shortest, realistic, and worst case to predict due dates. The Pert chart is centred around important milestones, the most important milestone is the final due date. Not all tasks in a project are dependent and can run parallel, however, to determine the critical path of a project the dependencies need to be determined. (See appendix 2).

The Pert Chart is very popular for project managers, benefits of Pert Charts include making uncertain deadlines more predictable which shows a clear order to complete tasks. It improves communication during the project and allows the organisation to commit to the project that are relevant to its strategic positioning. However, there is one major downside, if the calculations are inaccurate any delay will create a bottleneck and affect the final delivery date. That is where a Gantt Chart may step in for simpler and visual manner.

After all there are only three variables in a project and juggling three things is relatively a simple task. These are time, cost and quality, their interrelationships are often illustrated as a triangle.

Another tool used is a budget plan, this shows each relevant item, its costs against the day week or month in which it is incurred. For many projects it may be necessary only to plan and account for external costs such as, goods and services purchased outside the project. “Many organisations are perfectly happy with this type of budget, where as some go a little further wanting to see the internal staff costs of project.” (Watson, M., 2002) See appendix 3.

The international Journal of Project Management argues the problem with a budget plan is the trade-off problem with the risks. If the risks are higher and occur more than predicted it may push the project budget towards a negative side. “Cost reduction efforts on the other hand are sometimes associated with high risks. Project managers face the problem to balance budgets and risks in the planning stage.” (Sato, T., 2013).

An alternative to a budget plan would be a cost benefit analysis (CBA). This analysis looks at both quantitative and qualitative factors to determine the financial viability of a project. “In cost benefit analysis the decision rule is in principle and straightforward.” (Gray, A., 2000). According to research “cost benefit can be applied in two ways, the human capital approach, the principles contributions is linked to what they are paid or the approach on individuals.” (Robinson, R., 1993). Each method has its disadvantage’s, the most successful that has been found so far is the willingness to pay approach. There are still problems with the cost benefit analysis application and is not universally suited to all projects and should be used where appropriate. For this project a budget plan will be provided instead.

2. A project management life cycle is the management process and projects that can be broken up into well-defined phases to form a life cycle. Artlo the author states “the reported life cycle is typically illustrated by project processes that range from project initiation to project closure.”  (Karlos, A., 1999).

   

   Henry Fayol, ‘The Five Functions of Management’ (1916)

According to management theorist Henry Fayol (1841-1925) the main responsibilities of management is; planning, organising, command, co-ordination and control. These responsibilities will be used throughout this project plan. First there is the initiation phase.

Initiation Phase

The Project initiation phase is the first phase in the Project Management life cycle, as it involves starting up a project. This is where Project Manager can start defining the project objectives, scope, and purpose. The project sponsor is the L’Oréal team.

All children despise having their hair cut, we have all experienced children screaming, kicking and crying refusing to let the stylist/barber near them. There are plenty of salons and barbers around us catering for females and males but not for children. This opportunity has arisen to re-open a barber as a successful ‘STRESS FREE KIDZ CUTZ’ (sic) barbers. This will be kid themed featuring a child friendly environment being provided by specially trained employees, a babysitter to entertain the children, brightly coloured furniture, child attracting fittings, play place, special scissors and equipment. The styling chairs will feature cartoons, pirates and princess patterns. The mirrors in front of the chairs will have tablets fitted so that the kids can be occupied whilst having their haircut. The waiting area is called the play place, a fully qualified professional babysitter with a complete DBS check will be in charge who will provide great entrainment and lots of fun. For the older kids they will have the option to have their nails painted to stop them getting bored.

‘Stress free kidz cutz’ (sic) will be a limited company, it will have a receptionist, a manager, four barbers, part time nail technician and IT person, babysitter, receptionist and a junior cleaner, they will be payed a basic wage with targets to hit to gain commission and boost their pay. All liability and profit will fall back on the owner, ‘Stress free Kidz Cutz’ (sic) will be located at 19 Bridge Street, Cardiff, SA18 RFT. It is a very busy part of the city with lots of attractions around such as museums and fast food restaurants which are popular with families, e.g. McDonalds, and more. The premises is a rented property of 500 ft squared with the monthly rent costing £500. A small business loan of £10,000 has been granted by the bank to get this business up and running, along with personal savings of £5,000.

The strategic financial partner is the accountant whose purpose is to monitor the flow of business money and come up with new solutions to increase the amount available to the business. Strategic marketing will help the business grow at a low cost and strategic supplier who will supply everything the business needs. There is no direct competition for ‘Stress Free Kidz Cutz’ (sic) as there is a large gap in the market for this kind of business in the area, on the flipside of this there are little barbers opening new shops up down the smaller streets however there is no reason why this business shouldn’t be successful.

The target market will include the parents living in the area and on the outskirts of the location, with kids age from 2 months to 13 years old girls and boys. The total for this project is £15,000, and a timescale of 7 months to be up and running. The closing of this project will be done when the first day of ‘Stress Free Kidz Cutz’ (sic) will start giving their services to the customers the children.

Planning phase

To show what the project aims to achieve, a project initiation document is shown below to outline and plan the project, along with a cost budget plan to show the cost effectiveness of the project.