Project Management Plan: Analysis Of Its Significance

Question

Task: Draft a report revealing the significance of project management plan.

Answer

Introduction
This report is being drafted to provide the reader with a piece of thorough knowledge regarding the Project Management Plan and a very detailed critical analysis regarding the same is conducted here. The major approach or methodology which is very crucial in appropriately managing the projects is being focused in this report on the project management plan. For the better elucidation of the project management plan, the instance of Conducting an Exhibition for a Company is taken into account in the present context. Before going on through the whole report, the reader should be informed that this report is mainly aimed to provide valid clarity regarding the processes of evaluation, planning, and analysis in a project. The methodology majorly comprises of the processes like the identification of the major stakeholders, the way and perspective by which each section of the stakeholders make use of the PMP, the aspect of the data presented before the stakeholders and how the same data is utilized by them to bring the project towards the course of success (Kerzner, 2013). A specific genre of individual theories mentioned down in Prince 2 and PMBOK are being taken into account in this report to evaluate the two different methodologies of the Project Management System. Various factors should be considered while shaping the project management plan and the way of drafting it would be different in the various context in which the project is planned undertaken. The factor includes elements like finance, communication, construction, data, technology, etc. The project in the present context of this report relates to the arrangement of an exhibition on behalf of the company, which is considered to be the essential step towards Business Management. Various conventions and theories should be taken into account by the management team while structuring and drafting the project management plan.

Subscribe our YouTube channel for more related videos

Background of the project
In this section, the background of the project is being discussed in a very detailed way. The project is the arrangement of a corporate exhibition for a company.

Project scope statement: The scope of the project would depend on the magnitude of the exhibition conducted by the organization, the major motive behind the exhibition, the intended outcomes, the mode of operation, and technology implied. The stakeholders who are linked with the project could influence the scope of the project (Schwalbe, 2015).

Project Description: As mentioned in the above section of this report on the project management plan, the organization has planned to conduct a corporate exhibition. The major targeted group of this exhibition is both the customer base and employees of the company. It could hence be ascertained that a coming exhibition is purely a corporate event. A systematic project schedule is mandatory in this context to effortlessly carry out the exhibition and thereby the tools of budget estimation, the implication of work breakdown structure, etc. would turn out very handy for the management team. These tools would help the company in planning the whole steps of the exhibition to be conducted on a timely basis in the estimated limit of budget (Verzuh, 2015). The project focus on the development of infrastructures and the cost incurred for the carrying out of the exhibition.

Project Objectives: The management of the company is planning to execute the exhibition to provide a better medium of communication through which the marketing process could be conducted in a well-planned manner and thus the employees would get an extraordinary opportunity to get in touch with potential and viable customers from foreign countries and thereby could find the unexplored markets on the global platform (Turner, 2014). Although apart from meeting the foreign potential customers, the employees of the company could also gain the opportunity to stage an organized platform with the foreign business partners along with other potential company members. The eventual expectation of conducting this project is to gather financial contribution and raise the total funding which could be utilized to expand the business of the company shortly.

Deliverables: In the below section of this report on the project management plan, the major deliverables of the project are listed down. Let’s have a detailed outlook on it.

• Deriving out appropriate approach and theme towards the planned event.
• Estimating a much proper occasion for the exhibition.
• Arriving at the final evolution of the product, which could only be attained by presenting the matured version of the working logo and the delivery of the exhibition draft catalog.
• Allocating the appropriate division of the human resources retained by the company for the specific set of audience. This a but the complex task though could be achieved effortlessly by arranging the exhibition.
• Reaching to the sponsors who are willing to provide funds for the company to pursue its further projects.
• Draft the press release which should be delivered by the media of television, social media, radio, print media, etc.
• Building up the infrastructures like lighting equipment, artifacts, and furniture.
• Outlining the Q & A sessions, graphic works, advertising plans, invitation drafts, newsletters, and effective presentations.
• Assemble the support from accessory and further service providers like security personnel, contractors, and official photographers.

Key Stakeholders Identification
In the below section of this report on the project management plan, we have listed down the key stakeholders who are essential in conducting the exhibition project on behalf of the company. Let us have a detailed outlook on the list of stakeholders.

• Security manager
• Marketing Director
• Infrastructure Manager
• CEO of the Company
• Sound and Lighting Production
• Finance and Operation Director
• Advertising and Publicity
• Event Manager
• Site Manager
• Project Manager
• Interest Groups and Associations
• Project Sponsor
• Participants like Clients, Speakers, and Performers.
• Audience
• Contractors and Suppliers

Information Categorization for Stakeholder Groups

The audience of the Project Management Plan
In the exhibition mentioned in this report on the project management plan, the focussed audience is being elucidated in the below section. Let us have a detailed outlook on it.

• Site Manager: Requirements for the technical requirement, financial statements or budget statements
• CEO of the Company: The magnitude of the audience focused upon, the actual number of audience which should be invited, analyze the estimated cost and budget required to conduct the whole exhibition.
• Participants who are Performers, Speakers, and Clients: Actual premise of the exhibition, its motive, and intended audience.
• Marketing Director: The methodology of marketing campaign applied against the intended audience, describing the scope of the exhibition to the interested people by relying on a specific section of the project management plan, consequential outcomes of the outcomes commenced under the exhibition.
• Contractors and Suppliers: Should acquire the detailed data regarding the resources, and the probability of the available services.
• Finance and Operation Director: Should supervise all the operations of financial characteristics, and conduct a timely estimation of the costs. It is the responsibility of the finance department to estimate the actual cost and financial plan of the project.
• Project and Sponsor: The whole summary of the actions taken under the project and the estimated cost of the financial plan.
• Event Manager: Should acquire al the crucial data regarding the event and is liable to the required bodies, should have the pre-set and streamlined set of goals, suffice all the technical requirements for the event, etc.
• Project Manager: He should have all the details regarding the Project Management Plan.

Structure of the Project Management Plan
As per the guidelines mentioned under the provisions of Project Management Body of Knowledge or PMBoK, the areas of project management plan amount to be the magnitude of twelve. If taken into account the context provided in this report on the project management plan which is the instance of organizing the exhibition for a company, the relevant areas of applicability in the project management are being discussed in the below section.

Project Integration Management: By the method of Project Integration Management, the activity of the integration management is commenced by the officials. The background of the execution plan and its implications demands the strategies for the effective change in policies (Bennett and Ho 2014). The approach of the project integration management highly relies on the evolution of the project plan and the process of strategic decision making.

Project Scope Management: The scope of the project is being given the highest prominence and thus the same is discussed mainly in the discussion of project scope management. All the processes which are crucial to conducting the whole project effortlessly and productively are discussed and covered under the section of the scope management process. The systematic coordination of the whole process to achieve the common goal in provided and planned budget in the decided time limit or the deadline, the scope management is very essential to be implied (Gido and Clements 2014).

Project Time Management: This tool is majorly being used by the officials to ensure that the whole project is being conducted on a timely basis and no breach of the decided deadline occurred in the context. The main motive of the project should be to complete all the actions as per the decided schedule. The whole process should be recognized by the officials so that they should be individually focussed upon for the timely completion (Pemsel and Wiewiora 2013). The whole processes consists of key elements to derive out the major outputs from the project as a whole.

Project Cost Management: The elements like effective management of the expenditure, resource planning, cost estimation, cost budgeting, etc. come under the area of the project cost management (Hill, 2013). The estimation of the cost baseline is being done by the officials in this tool of Project Cost Management. This would turn out very handy in the instance of implementing the cost budgeting techniques and tools.

Project Quality Management: The parameter of the quality could only be ascertained by the implementation of tools related to the project quality management and hence it should be entailed with the primary focus of the management team. If the approach of project quality management is kept unattended by the management team, the whole project would fail to deliver the expected result and customized objectives. To carry out the process of the project quality management, the managing team should have a futuristic plan so that the whole progress should be very systematic (Beringer, Jonas, and Kock 2013). The team should first ascertain the quality parameters for each deliverable variable so that the target for each department should be set. It is based on this parameter that the performance of each department is being evaluated and determined whether the project is on the path of success. If the output of each department is not to the mark of the decided parameter, the management team should interfere in the process and make adjustments to attain the quality. The process of quality management is a very complex task and only seasoned officials should be appointed to keep the parameter in check.

Project Human Resource Management: The officials and the employees of the company should be managed in an efficient way to secure the better commencement of the project; hence the significance of the project human resource management is very high in the context of a new assignment. The selection of the human resources should be done according to their abilities and the job should be allocated as per the consent of the worker. Each person should be aware of the responsibilities allocated to them if they are not properly conscious of it, it is the task of human resource management to spread the sentience regarding it (Mir and Pinnington 2014). It is the proper human resource management by the higher officials that would make the efficient allocation of the workers to different department possible. The process of staff acquisition, evaluation of the project process, implication of different human resources tools, and the most modern technologies into the system holds very great significance in the success of the project.

Project Communication Management: To commence all the processes in a project on a very timely basis, the factor of communication is very crucial. If the communication hampers in between the departments, the whole efficiency of the company would go down drastically as a unit. The implication of the project communication management is very important in sustaining the proper flow of information and in the absence of t, it is very hard to maintain the flow of relevant ideas, and ensure the quality in the desired outcomes from the carried out projects (Larson and Gray 2014). The implementation of valid communication tools should be done only after the calculated planning done by the management team.

Project Risk Management: For commencing this activity of management, you should have understood that successfully carrying out a project is not an easy piece of cake and numerous risks should be countered before reaching the desired outcome. If the potential risks would be kept unidentified by the company, it would turn out to be a major hindrance for the successful completion of the whole project, and chance would get even worse than the whole effort behind the exhibition would get sabotaged. Hence for the smooth and successful commencement of the whole project, the implementation of the project risk management is very important in the context of the project management plan. The risk management process should be done under the supervision of the officials allocated in the upper hierarchical position of the company (Kendrick 2013). The management needs to take into account various parameters and should analyze them on both qualitative and quantitative context. The same team should supervise the process of risk monitoring and control, and risk response planning, since they are closely related processes. If mentioned in a very simple manner, the process of project risk management should be made use of to encounter any form of risk about the environment or the processes of the project.

Project Procurement Management: If gone through the guidelines mentioned in the PMBoK regarding project management, it could be ascertained that in carrying out a specific project, the process of project procurement management bears a lot of significance (Rose 2013). The process which is considered under this division comes purely under the genre of contract administration, solicitation planning, and the closeout contracts.

The context discussed under this report on project management plan could be entailed under the genre of ‘Business Management’. The content discussed in the above section of this report on the project management plan would be very useful in the process of Business Management. The reader could refer to the above-provided context while executing an exhibition or any related projects. The members involved in the project execution team are being allocated by the human resource department of the company along with individual and exclusive roles and responsibilities (Marchewka 2014). The parameters of the quality management, deadline, cost, and expenditure/cost bear the maximum significance in the context of the project management plan. The plan could be conducted smoothly only if the potential risks in the related context are being identified, beforehand and it is only possible if the risk treatment strategies are devised out by the management team. As mentioned in the above section of this report on the project management plan, the process of procurement planning also bears a lot of significance and empowers the company to manage and organize the accessory agents like support service providers, contractors, equipment suppliers (infrastructures like artifacts, sound system, air conditioning, lighting, etc. )

Contents of the Project Management Plan Sections
The report majorly discusses how to successfully carry out the exhibition or the project by assimilating the approach of efficient management and the authentic management framework theories as mentioned in the guidelines of the Project management body of knowledge or PMBoK. The related sections are being listed in the below section of this report on the project management plan.

Scope Management

Initiation: In this section, the project is conducted under the action of authorization.

Scope Planning: In this stage of the development, the statement for scope is delivered by the management team. The statement would be beneficial for the company in its future strategic planning and further advancements.

Scope definition: The whole target of the project should be disintegrated into small sub-targets so that special focus could be envisaged on small steps. By this approach, the company could manage the individual effort being implied by each department in the process (Karaman and Kurt 2015).

Scope Verification: In this stage, the statement regarding the project scope is being acknowledged and approved officially by the management.

Scope Change Control: The management sometimes has to make amendments to the strategy and approaches of the project as per the change in the executing environment or the new emerging requirements. The change control techniques would aid the relevant personals to augment the scope of the project whenever the circumstances demand.

Time Management:
Below are mentioned the rudimentary aspects and factors regarding this context)

Activity definition: All the activities commenced by the human resources while commencing the project are being disintegrated and explained well by the methodology of Work Breakdown Structure. The evident use of the scope management by relying on the high-quality analysis and judgment along with prudent assumptions.

Activity Sequencing: All the significant advancements which are traced down in the tool of work breakdown structure are being analyzed by the management while pursuing the task of activity sequencing. By this process, the relevant links and relations are being recorded by relying on the method of precedence diagramming (Snyder 2013).

Activity duration estimation: The period required to commence or complete each task or sub-target by referring to the precise magnitude of the working period which would help each department envisaged in the project activities to complete the tasks in a timely basis (Chia 2013).

Schedule development: The series of activities or the advancements, the period required to complete the task, the requirement of the financial and intellectual resources, and the proper recording of all the variables in the project schedule.

Schedule Control: Only implied if a significant change is to be made in the series or chronology of the events to be decided in the schedule.

Cost Management
(In this section, the basic components of the cost management are being described)

Resource Planning:  Major elements in the progress of the project like various equipment, technical elements, involved people or stakeholders, various materials, and other basic infrastructures to carry out various tasks related to the project.

Cost Estimation: The overall expenditure required to meet the expected cost in the project is being estimated in this project.

Cost Budgeting: The company requires to allocate al the financial resources to various departments on a logical and systematic basis. The tool of the work breakdown structure could be used by the management for the effective cost budgeting purposes.

Cost Control: This section would pertain to the necessary alterations in the budget of the project.

Quality Management
(The basic elements of the quality management are described in the below section of the report)

Quality Planning: The basic parameters of the deliverables are being ascertained in this stage of the project.

Quality assurance: Conducting the regular inspection of the delivery of the projects at a regular interval of time. The task should be commenced specifically by the quality analysis wing of the company.

Quality Control: The quality analysis wing would continuously monitor the delivery of the project all around the commencement of the project.

Human Resource Management
(The basic elements of human resource management are being discussed in the below section of this report)

Organizational Planning: All the major duties, roles, and links regarding the project related to each section are being decided in this phase of the project. The department of human resource management possesses great significance in this phase.

Staff Acquisition: The staff is being allocated as per the individual skills by the department of human resources.

Team Development: The infrastructures and the environment required for each department is being constructed in this section of the project and the major activities include the infrastructure development, management of the site, etc. (the inclusion of the elements like furniture, lights, tools for sponsorship and marketing campaign comes under this division).

Communication Management
(The basic elements of the communication management are being mentioned in the below section of this report)

Communication Planning: The interested stakeholders should be provided with the relevant data regarding the project to meet all their requirements and efficient flow of the crucial data (Heldman 2013). The information should be sorted out according to the departments to which it is expected to share and thus the revelation of all the data indiscriminately to the stakeholders.

Information Distribution: The data regarding the project progress is being provided to the related stakeholders in a very timely and chronological manner.

Performance Reporting: In this stage, the data is retrieved from each department to ascertain the progress of the whole project. The report from each department should comprise the record of the performance measures taken by the officials, forecast of all the processes in the department, recording of the performance variables, and the current status report.

Administrative Closure: All the data to be distributed is generated in this phase, after analyzing the collected data. The collective procedure would lead to the formalizing phase of the project.

Risk Management
(The critical steps to be followed in the stage of risk management is mentioned in the below section)

Risk Management Plan:  This phase would deal with the type of techniques or approaches to be taken to implement the tools of risk management. It is based on the decisions taken in this phase that the future actions regarding risk management are taken (Heagney 2012).

Risk Identification: The factors which have the potential to be one of the harmful influences on the whole output of the project. All the potential risks regarding the project should be identified by the managerial body so that they should be focussed upon individually to increase the whole efficiency of the ongoing project.

Qualitative risk analysis: All the risks which were identified in the previous section should be characterized according to the magnitude of the impact. It should be based on the chronology and the magnitude of the risk that the managerial body should focus upon.

Quantitative risk analysis: In this case, also the magnitude of the impact by several factors are taken into account, though the whole process I quantitative. The overall objective of the project is considered in this case.

Risk response planning: The methodology to counter the emerging risk for the project is being decided. By the efficient approach towards the identified risks, the overall damage risk could be mitigated and thus could reap much of the profit from the hidden opportunities (Turner 2014).

Risk monitoring control: All the suspected factors which were identified in the initial stage of the risk analysis phase should be kept under the observation and should be ascertained whether it is hampering the expected output or the project process. The implication of the strategies planned for the contingencies should be implied in this stage to lessen this stage.

Conclusion
In this report on the project management plan, the instance of conducting an exhibition for a company is being analyzed to noted down a critical analysis regarding it. We have provided the readers with a thorough elucidation regarding the project by relying on the major outputs it is intending to deliver. The identification of the significant stakeholders for this project is listed down in the report so that the transfer of the data should be categorized according to the requirement and hence avoid the leakage of the sensitive information. An extra effort is being envisaged in the report to describe the practicability and importance of various methodologies and project management theories mentioned in the PMBoK and Prince2. Various business perspectives and domains are being considered under this category to efficiently describe Business management. If referred to the content provided in the above section of this project management plan report, the reader could acquire a thorough knowledge regarding the organization of an exhibition on behalf of a company.

It could be ascertained from this report that the organization should imply a proper project management plan to effectively conduct an exhibition or any similar project on behalf of the company by relying on the guidelines and regulations provided in the Project Management Body of Knowledge. The various aspects of the Project Management Body of Knowledge are being referred to in this report so that the thorough knowledge regarding the organization of the project could be provided to the reader. The context taken in this report on the project management plan requires the efficient implication of various concepts and theories provided in the Project Management Body of Knowledge. Various components that are crucial in the process of project management plans like quality management, time and cost management, and risk management are being discussed in the above section of this report. All the factors which are being discussed in this report are very crucial in the effective organization of an exhibition in the company.

Recommendations
To conduct the exhibition in the company in a very effective and successful way, we have provided some relevant recommendations by relying on the targets and qualitative parameters ascertained in the project management plan of the project. Only by following the decision process in the project management plan, the exhibition could be directed towards the intended path to gain the desired outcomes. The recommendations provided in the below section of this report could be assimilated into the project management plan to conduct the whole exhibition successfully.

• Supervision and monitoring of the schedule, work plan, and budget: While conducting the project, it is very crucial to go over the work plan continuously so that a clear picture should be created regarding the progress of the project according to the work plan along with measuring up with the deadline and cost estimated in the schedule estimates and budget (Phillips 2013). The management should take special care that the work plan should always be updated so that the higher officials could ascertain the current progress of the project. The real effort envisaged by the employees of the company estimated cost for the organization, period required, etc. could also be evaluated by the timely update of the work plan. For accurately estimate the overall cost of conducting the whole task, the regular analysis of the budget plan should be conducted by the financial department. This would provide the officials at a higher level of hierarchy to gain much clarity over the execution process of the project.
• Defense against the possible risk: It should be understood by the officials of the company that conducting an exhibition for the company retains a lot of risks and specific approaches should be taken by them to tackle them beforehand. As mentioned in the above section of this report, the whole list of the risks should be disintegrated and arranged according to the magnitude of impact on the primary expected outcome and the chronological period of occurrence. (Fitzsimmons and Fitzsimmons 2013). The whole procedure would be dependent on the calculated probability of the occurrence of the risk. The whole risk should be taken into account individually by the management team so that the overall negative impact over the project.
• Acquiring the acknowledgment of the change in the scope of the project by the sponsors: The factor of the managing scope should be taken into account seriously by the management team to ensure the successful implementation of the whole process in the project (Burke 2013). It is in this phase that the clarity over the major deliverables comes very handy for the management team. This parameter would give an immense amount of confidence over-investing in the subsequent projects in the future. It is only by taking appropriate action on the company in a systematic way that the business of a company could be conducted on a timely and punctual basis, though it should be noted that the actions should have proper consensus from the related stakeholders.

Reference List
Bennett, J.M., and Ho, D.S., 2014. Human resource management. In Project Management for Engineers

Beringer, C., Jonas, D. and Kock, A., 2013. Behavior of internal stakeholders in project portfolio management and its impact on success.International Journal of Project Management

Burke, R., 2013.Project management: planning and control techniques. New Jersey, USA

Chia, R., 2013. Paradigms and perspectives in organizational project management research: implications for knowledge creation. Novel Approaches to Organizational Project Management Research: Translational and Transformational. Copenhagen Business School Press, Copenhagen, pp.33-55

Fitzsimmons, J. and Fitzsimmons, M., 2013.Service management: Operations, strategy, information technology. McGraw-Hill Higher Education

Gido, J. and Clements, J., 2014.Successful project management. Nelson Education.

Heagney, J., 2012. ;Fundamentals of project management. AMACOM Div American Mgmt Assn

Heldman, K., 2013. ;PMP: project management professional exam study guide. John Wiley & Sons.

Hill, G.M., 2013. ;The complete project management office handbook. CRC Press

Karaman, E. and Kurt, M., 2015. Comparison of project management methodologies: prince 2 versus PMBOK for it projects.

Koong, R. (2000). ;ORGANISING AN EXHIBITION A Manual for Chambers & Trade Associations. 1st ed. [ebook] Singapore: Richard Koong. Available at: https://www.nucleus-international.net/Nuc_English/E10_Download/E04_Special_Activities/E04-01_Trade_Fair/ZdH_Exhibition_manual.pdf

Kendrick, T., 2013. ;The project management tool kit: 100 tips and techniques for getting the job done right. AMACOM Div American Mgmt Ass

Kerzner, H.R., 2013. ;Project management: a systems approach to planning, scheduling, and controlling. John Wile

Larson, E.W. and Gray, C.F., 2014. Project Management: The Managerial Process with MS Project

Marchewka, J.T., 2014. ;Information technology project management. John Wiley

Mir, F.A. and Pinnington, A.H., 2014. Exploring the value of project management: linking project management performance and project success.International Journal of Project Management

Pemsel, S. and Wiewiora, A., 2013. Project management office a knowledge broker in project-based organisations. ;International Journal of Project

Phillips, J., 2013. ;PMP, Project Management Professional (Certification Study Guides). McGraw-Hill Osborne Media.

Schwalbe, K., 2015. ;Information technology project management. Cengage Learning

Snyder, C.S., 2013. ;A User's Manual to the PMBOK Guide

Turner, J.R. ed., 2014. ;Gower handbook of project management. Gower Publishing

Turner, J.R., 2014. ;The handbook of project-based management ;(Vol. 92). McGraw-hill