EPM5600 Minor case study Assignment

Project Progress & Plans for Katz Office Fitouts

JANUARY 29, 2020Victoria universitySydney Australia

Student Name Student Number

Word Count1951

excluding headings, references and executive summary

Executive Summary Katz Office is known for its excellent service provider for project management and development for office fit outs. They have undertaken a project to build a medium-risk IT office infrastructure for Walfisch Software. The problem arises in the completion of the project that when the former project manager Tony Faultier has left the company to join another company abroad leaving the overall project abandon and stranded. Being a consultancy expert in project management Adlers Services Australia to determine the status of the project and provide advice on project team and planning.

On the investigation of the former project manager, it was found that the he was more interested in the commission rather than the project itself that he let the work packages to start early which were not supposed to be commenced moreover, other team members have found him lazy and arrogant. His methodologies were harsh and mean and he would not listen to anyone when he makes plans or any amendments. Based on our analyzation from the organizational zoo model the animal category that fits him are insects and unicorns. These two are never great for leadership and project management teams.

The overall project carried out in poor quality and unplanned work. The work packages that were not supposed to be initiated are commenced earlier before the predecessors which have created leakages in the lower floors and upon initial risk analysis it was found to be unsafe and unreliable. The work done on the third floor has to be negated and must be redone in order to properly deliver the project. Based on the analysis of the cost spent and earned it was found that schedule variance is in negative as well as the cost variance meaning that the project is over budget and not on schedule. The plans are being amended and we advise to finish the lower floor work first and then re-evaluate the damages and work to be done on the 3rd floor.

Moreover, through this investigation we have found that there was low collaboration within the team as well as suggestions and hurdles of the teams were not considered by the project manager. We advise that the next project manager must possess qualities of the leader and must be wiser. That is, he must be an owl and gibbon. Also risk analysis with any amendment in the project plan is essential and must be integrated within the project management process and it should also be considered when the project is in planning phase.

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ContentsExecutive Summary...............................................................................................................................1

Introduction...........................................................................................................................................3

Purpose of this Report.......................................................................................................................3

Background Information........................................................................................................................3

Project Background...........................................................................................................................3

Project Progress.................................................................................................................................3

Project Team Behaviour Analysis (Organizational Zoo Model)..........................................................4

Project Performance..............................................................................................................................5

Conclusion.............................................................................................................................................7

Recommendations.................................................................................................................................7

Lessons Learned....................................................................................................................................7

References.............................................................................................................................................8

Appendix A: Project Plan.......................................................................................................................9

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Project Progress & Plans for Katz Office Fitouts

Introduction Adler Services Australia (ASA) is aimed to provide excellent quality of services in project management plans and schedule that helps the organization consulting the company to have the most efficient and effective guidelines to handle the project under minimum risk possible and cost as well as the planning that is ensured to deliver the project on schedule. This is done by managing the client’s resources and team through the company’s project manager and deliver the project using state of the art project management tools and skills. ASA has been engaged with Katz Office Fitouts to undertake the project management of a medium risk IT office building in a Sydney Suburb. The project has been formed with the team of Katz and its contractor which are led by the company’s project manager.

The project manager that was allocated to this project has left the company to join another company in abroad and has left the company and the project partially completed. In order to complete the project ASA has hired us to determine the project progress and future plans to complete the project on time.

Purpose of this ReportThis report is aimed to provide detail of the ongoing project with the brief analysis of current state of the project, the work that is done and the work that is required. The corrective majors and changes that are required to be adopted and the advice on improving the performance as well as the strategies to be implemented to complete the project on time.

Background Information Project BackgroundThe project is about building an office for Katz, the office will be comprising of four floors. The area of each floor is 500m2. The office will accommodate 200 people. Which includes office employers and the guests of the company. Katz Office Fitout is responsible to provide all the required resources that are: plumbing, furnishing, electrical and IT infrastructure for Walfisch Software (Katz client for which the office is being built).

Project ProgressBased on analysis of project requirements and the project progress the following information was collected:

The overall budget of the project is: $1.2 Millions The deadline of the project is: 30th June 2020 The overall expenditure of the project that has been done so far is $675,000 for the fitout.

As of current status, the work expected, and the work has been is done is shown and analysed in the table below:

Floor Current Work Done Work ExpectedGround Floor 75% is completed Must have been 100% completed1st Floor 25% Completed 50% completed

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2nd Floor 25% Completed 50% completed3rd Floor 50% completed Due to Commence

Table 1: Analysis of Work Expected and Work Completed

Based on the above analyzation, it is cleared that the project has not carried out as planned. However, the work packages that were not due to commence have been initiated, hence it is difficult to judge the project is on schedule or not at this stage. This will be further discussed in project performance.

Project Team Behaviour Analysis (Organizational Zoo Model)The organizational zoo model is based upon the individual project team or the organizational members’ behaviours and compared with an animal characteristic. For example, if a person is jolly, interesting and entertaining then he can be a Gibbon, if someone is wise, dedicated and intelligent then he is an owl and last but not the least if someone is aggressive and ego-driven he is a lion. The section performs analysis of Tony’s project management behaviour against Organizational Zoo Model:

From the observation of the project team members the previous project manager was found to be impatient and intolerant for others. One of the project management skill is to listen and continuously assess the risk occurrence and monitoring of the risk however, Tony was found to be autocratic and would not listen to anyone against his own self interest of the outcomes. Tony initiated the work on the top floor even when it was not due to commenced where the work on the lower floors were still pending. This created problems for the lowers floors as well as created disturbance in the project progress. Later team found out that the only reason that final floor was commenced early than timed is because he was being commissioned from former senior manager. Hence, he was more self-interested and did not consider any risk that may occur in the long run. Overall, the project manager was found to be bullying and was seen as a lazy manager. Based on the Zoo model profiling, Tony is always self-interested, two-faced, arrogant and aggressive and never sincere or trustworthy. The animal profiles tony had is of that of an insect and unicorn.

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Tony Faultier Organizational Zoo Profile.

Moreover, there were staffs that were not properly trained on the project and the tools and techniques that were planned to be utilized. This indicates that the project may have vulnerabilities and the quality of work is not ensured.

Project PerformanceBased on the given specification, the WBS was created on Microsoft Office with assumed resources as shown in Appendix A. The following Project Overrun was obtained.

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Project Overview

Hence this shows that, project is scheduled on time. But since the project went ahead of its time and 3rd floor was given priority without the proper risk analysis. There are various risks involved in building the upper floor and the construction of floors is always bottom to top. The following casualties can occur in the project.

Leakage: There can be leakage from the ceiling of the lower floor as the based is not properly build on the lower floor. There may contain holes which can result in the breakage of the water pipes causing the leaks.

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Power Electrical Wires: The electrical wires can become out of shape from the bypassing the floors and hence if there is any breakage in the wiring, it may require breaking the walls and then fix the wire.

Weak Foundation: The management of the building such as water and electricity along with all the connection will not be in high quality and cannot be reliable hence causing fire and other emergencies in future.

Based on the risks involved in early finishing the third floor, we have to negate the work done on 3 rd

floor and initiate a different strategy. Hence in cost variance analysis, it was found that instead of $675k spent on the project only $410k work was completed and the remaining will can be recovered after the completion of 1st and 2nd floor.

Conclusion Adler Services Australia excellence in providing project management consultancy to its clients. Katz Office fitouts hold their reputations in building and constructions projects as well as they provide and source the contractors and resources within their highest possible quality and standards. Recently, their project manager who was assigned to manage the IT office in Sydney suburb for Wallifch Software has left to join another company and Katz was left stranded in the middle of the project as well as to complete it under budget and scheduled delivery. As a project manager for ASA, Katz has assigned us to provide best strategies and plans to complete this project.

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In the analyzation of the project, the project went off the planned and the work packages that were not supposed to be commenced was scheduled to be finished ahead leaving the scheduled work packages unattended. This has created massive risks in the projects as well as making the overall office setup unsafe and unreliable. Moreover, the project manager who was assigned to this project was an arrogant and self-interested person who would not listen and take advice from other project member and regardless of the risk he would prefer to put his own self interest first rather than the project. Other team members have also found him to be unreliable and lazy as well as they were not satisfied with their decision. Many project members have complained about him for his bullying methodologies to complete the tasks however, the company failed to listen to the complains and resulted in the project abandonment.

The overall project is completed 52% based on the analysis from Microsoft Project 2019. However, since the project has an early completed work package. It must be revisited thus increasing the overall cost of the project.

RecommendationsBased on the analysis, it is recommended that the project must first complete the planned work packages first before starting any other work package as planned. Thus, the project must start from completing the ground floor to 100% and then 1st and 2nd floor to 50%. In order to save the cost of the work, instead of redoing the 3rd floor, we must inspect the electrical and plumbing work done and gather requirements of fixes that are to be done. This will create additional work packages however; the cost of the recovery will be minimum and effective.

Lessons LearnedBased on the investigation, the following keys lessons were learnt from the project:

The project work breakdown structure (WBS) must be planned and schedule in order to maintain the project progress as well as to ensure that the project is on time and schedule.

The project changes must be discussed with the project team to ensure that it can be done or not as well as any changes may not be creating any scope creep.

Risk analysis is an important process in project management, hence not only project managers must be reliable, leader to other project manager but also, he/she must consist of good risk analysing, monitoring and mitigation planning strategies.

Training staff is an important phase of the project, without adequate training the project may fail. In the assessment it was found that proper training is not ensured by the project manager and hence this could had resulted in low quality work done on the project work packages.

References [1] Shelley, A. and Shelley, A. (2020). The organizational Zoo. [online] The Organizational Zoo. Available at: https://www.organizationalzoo.com/ [Accessed 29 Jan. 2020].

[2] Sumner, M., 1999, April. Critical success factors in enterprise wide information management systems projects. In Proceedings of the 1999 ACM SIGCPR conference on Computer personnel research (pp. 297-303).

[3] Akintoye, A.S. and MacLeod, M.J., 1997. Risk analysis and management in construction. International journal of project management, 15(1), pp.31-38.

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Appendix A: Project PlanBased on the requirement given and the expectation of the outcomes of current state of the project of the project. The following Work Breakdown Structure is created.

Work Breakdown Structure of Project

For simplicity, Each four work divided into four work packets comprising of 25% of the project. On investigating the project progress, it was found that Grond Floor has still furnishing to be complated and 1st and 2nd floor has electricals to be completed whereas 3rd floor has completed the work of plumbing as well as electrical which should not have been done because now the main switch is bypassing the 1st and 2nd floor. This can contain high risk of over burdening the main switch and an unplanned electrical setup. Based on the situation as well as in order to complete meet the deadline, the following changes is requested to be approved in the project plan.

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Changes Requested for Completion of Project

The changes that are mentioned in the project ensures the completion of the project reliably. After the electricals that are done on the project. The final floor must be reviewed for the plumbing and electrical work. The fix must be done and applied within the scheduled plans. The project plan if followed as planned then this project should be completed within 30th June 2020.

Due to this, the new work overview of the project is:

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Appendix B: Student Reflection Reflection from Student Name and Student NumberThe overall learning experience was great, the team was collaborating, considering and lenient with the work and mistakes that I have done and corrected over the time and throughout the weeks. The team help me in learning the MS project and how to track the project using the software easily and successfully. The team were also very helpful in understanding the requirement and making the project plans. My experience with the team is that they were friendly and awesome.

Reflection from Student Name and Student NumberMy experience with the team and learning from this assignment was great and enjoyable. I have learnt a lot about teamwork and how to discuss and convey the message among team. Throughout the assignment the team were friendly and reliable as well as they helped in understanding how we can calculate the project progress using planned and earned values.

Reflection from Student Name and Student NumberThrough the constant meetings and the completion, although initially we had taken the assignment in wrong direction and taken time in understanding the MS Project, the assignment was an amazing experience for me. I have learnt a lot about organizational zoo model and how we can assess the project manager based on his personality with the animal behaviour so that we can better understand how he has taken the project and what quality of work has been done. It was an amazing experience and meeting the team with friendly and professional way have gain me experience with team work and how to improve ourselves over time.

Reflection from Student Name and Student NumberOne of the important lessons that was learnt in this assignment was the importance of project planning and risk assessments. The experience with the scenario have taught me how important risk analysis is and how it can affect the quality of the project. As well as I have learnt that it is important not only to track and maintain the project and the team with better project management and leadership skills but keeping the stakeholders of the project intact with what requirements will affect the project planning and whether we should consider the requirements or not regardless of the commission. Moreover, the team which I worked with was amazing and were very helpful in making me understand this and learnt even more about managing and analysing the project status.

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