Chapter 9 Closing the Project

Closing project is the last and final step of the project life cycle. It occur when the customer accept the project deliverables and agreed on the final look of the project.

There is action engage with the closing process such as collecting and making final payments to the contractor.

Project manager after a successful project need to evaluate each and every member worked on the project for some kind of recognition and celebration for that success.

Post-project evaluation is a significant activity during the closing phase. Project manager should have an individual meeting with each of the team members because that would give that individual to speak up openly to express their opinion on the project process. Also these individual would give valuable feedback can be used for future projects. 

Group meeting is essential during the closing process because would let the project manager talk about what happened during the process and give recommendations for improvement.

There is learning lessons involved during the project. It is necessary to be documented and saved for future purposes or even current situation because this can help to improve performance.

During project closing each individual team member should ensure to keep copy of their work and if there is any suggestion improvement related to their part on the project because it can be retrieved for future use.

Chapter 8 Managing Risk

Risk always existent in every action we do or take in our live. Risk need to be accounted for when a project manager laydown the project plan. What is a risk, and how project manger can identify risks?

Risk is an uncertain event that if it occurs can jeopardize accomplishing the project objective.

The way risk can be identify in two different ways. First, customer need to identified any kind of risks they believe can jeopardize their project, and they need to document those risks in the project charter, by doing that would give the contractor a chance to evaluate the project appropriately so, would not be an surprise issue in the future. Second way is to identify the risks, contractor need to identify any risk they believe might occur in the proposal.

Project manager also should assign an expert team player that can be able to identifying potential risks could occur during the project that would negatively impact accomplishing the project objective.

Assessing risks it is highly important for a project manager because will let manager to prioritize which risks need to be worked on and how much of threat can happened from each of these risks based on the team member report, who been assigned to rate these risks.

Project manager need to be always aware of the risks would happened, and have to have a plan risk response to this risks because if he/she can prevent or reduce potential risk would avoid losing money or time can be used on different part of the project.

Chapter 5 Developing the Schedule

 Project manager will be the one responsible for the performing the activity to make the planning process work easier. Project manager need to developing a schedule, which is a timetable for the plan however, it cannot be established until the network based plan has been created. Project manager is responsibility to estimate the try and quantities of resources, which include people, materials, equipment, and facilities.

Project manger job to control the project and make sure that planning activity been performed according to the schedule. With first day on the project, it is critical for project manager to watch how the plan going according to the schedule. 

Project manager need to address any negative issue as soon as possible because that would minimize the negative impact on scope and budget. In a case of the project is falls too far behind the scheduling time.

Project manager need to concentrated with those individual who is responsible for that task to get it completed as soon as possible because it is normally would requires spending more money or reduce the scope or quality.  Manager needs to compare between the actual progress and planned progress because that would help to identified early issued so, can be fixed as soon as possible.

Chapter 4 Defining Scope, Quality, Responsibility, and activity sequence

One of the elements indicated in the RFP and Project Charter is Project Objective, which establishes what is to be accomplished. The objective is the tangible end product that the project team or contractor must produce and deliver in order for the sponsor or customer to achieve the expected benefits from implementing the project. Also is defined in terms of the end product, deliverable, schedule, and budget. It is critical to develop a planning process before starting to implement the project by taking the time to come up with ideas highly important to help and achieve of any project.

The project scope is valuable for the planning process because it guides the project manager to have full picture of what must need to be accomplished according to the project charter and RFP but in greater details. Quality is important factor in the planning process because it assures that the work is executing according to qualifications and appropriate standards and that deliverables meet the two party agreements.

Project manager need to assign work to his team players and let those individuals to participate, and by doing that will create commitment from those individuals to complete the assignment according to the plan. One other key factor to help the project manger to success is to create a network diagram to communicate between the project plan and the project team because it shows who is responsible for each activity and how each individual work fits into the overall project.

Chapter 3 Developing Project Proposal

Chapter 3 Developing Project Proposal

Normally customers prefer to work with people they know and trust. Successful contactors should maintain frequent contacts with past and current customers and initiate contacts with potential customers.

Contractors interested in submitting a proposal in response to an RFP must be realistic about the probability of being selected as the winning contract, therefor the contractors might consider few factors as following: competition, risk, mission, extension, reputation, customer funds, proposal resources, and project resources. Contractor’s proposal is a selling document and it is not a technical report. In the proposal the contractor must convince the customer that the contractor understanding what the customer is looking for and will provide the greatest value to the customer.

Proposal content from three major sectors: technical, management, and cost.

1-    Technical section is to convince the customer that contractor understands the need or problem, and can provide least risky and most beneficial solution. The technical section should contain the following features: understanding of the need, proposed approach or solution, description of how the contractor would collect, analyze, and evaluate data, provide alternative solution, and benefits to the customer.

2-    Management section is to convince customer the contractor can do proposed work, and should contain the following: description of major task, deliverables, project schedule, project organization, related experience and equipment and facilities.

3-    Cost section is to convince the customer proposal’s price is realistic and reasonable, and should contain the following: labor, materials, equipment, facilities, subcontractors, travel, documentation, overhead, escalation, reserve, and profit.

Submitting the proposal according to the customer’s due date. Contractors must continue to be proactive even after submitting the proposal by calling the customer to make sure the proposal has been received.

Once the customer has selected the winning contractor, the contractor is subject to successful negotiation of a contract. There are two kinds of contracts: fixed price and cost reimbursement.

There is some miscellaneous terms and conditions that may be included in project contracts: misrepresentation of cots, notice of cost overruns or corrective or schedule delays, approval of subcontractor, customer-furnished equipment or information, patents, disclosure of proprietary information, and bonus/penalty payments.