Question

Project:

Assume you are a senior Engineer in a Ghanaian private multi-disciplinary construction company which have intended to expand its business operation to Cameroun and Democratic Republic of Congo. Design and build staff bungalows for an expatriate firm. The company has acquired a plot of land to be developed for the senior staff of ten in each country.

QUESTION:

Planning stage: Provide analysis on how you would go about networking in these countries before establishing or settling.

NB: I want answer only for the question on planning stage

Answer 1

Planning stage

The project planning is considered heart of the project life cycle and tells everyone involved where you’re going and how you’re going to get there.

The planning phase is when the project plans are documented, the project deliverables and requirements are defined and the project schedule is created.

It involves creating a set of plans in order to help your team through the implementation and closure phases of the project.

The plans created during this phase helps us to manage time, cost, quality, changes, risk and related issues.

It will also help you control staff and external suppliers to ensure that you deliver the project on time, within budget and within schedule.

Project planning phase is often the most challenging phase for a project manager, as you need to make an educated guess about the staff, resources, and equipment needed to complete your project.

The purpose of the project planning phase is to-

(i) Establish business requirements
(ii) Establish cost, schedule, list of deliverables and delivery dates
(iii) Establish resources plans
(iv) Obtain management approval and proceed to the next phase

The basic processes of project planning are-

1. Scope planning – specifying the in-scope requirements for the project to facilitate creating the work breakdown structure.

2. Preparation of the work breakdown structure – spelling out the breakdown of the project into tasks and sub-tasks.

3.Project schedule development – listing the entire schedule of the activities and detailing their sequence of implementation.

4.Resource planning – indicating who will do what work, at which time, and if any special skills are needed to accomplish the project tasks.

5.Budget planning – specifying the budgeted cost to be incurred at the completion of the project.

6.Procurement planning – focusing on vendors outside your company and subcontracting

7.Risk management – planning for possible risks and considering optional contingency plans and mitigation strategies

8.Quality planning – assessing quality criteria to be used for the project

9.Communication planning – designing the communication strategy with all project stakeholders

The planning phase refines the project objectives, which were gathered during the initiation phase.

It includes planning the steps necessary to meet those objectives by further identifying the specific activities and resources required to com­plete the project.

Now these objectives have been recognized, they must be clearly articulated, detailing an in-depth scrutiny of each recognized objective.

With such scrutiny, our understanding of the objective may change. Often the very act of trying to describe something precisely gives us a better understanding of what we are looking at.

The articulation serves as the basis for the development of requirements. What this means is that after an objective has been clearly articulated, we can describe it in concrete measurable terms and identify what we have to do to achieve it.