Academic Writing (Project Budgeting and Resourcing)

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Project Baseline Report

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Table of Contents Executive Summary ................................................................................................................................. 2

Project Baseline Plan ............................................................................................................................... 3

Baseline Project Schedule ................................................................................................................... 3

Baseline Project Budget ...................................................................................................................... 3

Appendix 1 .......................................................................................................................................... 6

Project Summary Report ................................................................................................................. 7

Task Sheet ........................................................................................ Error! Bookmark not defined.

Gantt Chart....................................................................................... Error! Bookmark not defined.

Network Diagram ............................................................................. Error! Bookmark not defined.

Resource Usage Report .................................................................... Error! Bookmark not defined.

Cash Flow Report ............................................................................. Error! Bookmark not defined.

Issue Management .................................................................................................................................. 0

Resource levelling ............................................................................................................................... 2

Recommendations .............................................................................................................................. 3

Sponsor Acceptance ................................................................................................................................ 4

References .............................................................................................................................................. 5


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Executive Summary

This report presents you the baseline plan of an aerospace project. The projects Work Breakdown

Structure (WBS) was already provided with the details of each work package. The baseline plan is

developed by using MS Project through given information.

The baseline plan provides us the picture of how project should look like, its a bench mark for the

project. By using baseline, plan we can judge our actual standings and can calculate the variance of

the actual cost and schedule to the baseline cost and schedule, which determines the level of

success of the project.

The project will start on August 28, 2012 and December 20, 2012 is the project baseline finish date.

The Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) has 13 work packages planned to finish in 83 days. The critical

path of the project includes 6 of 13 work packages, which are highlighted in Gantt chart and

Network diagram. The planned project budget is 959,040. That includes fixed cost of the activities

and cost of human resources (i.e. engineers and technicians).

The project required two resources to be completed (i.e. engineers and technicians). There were

initially seven engineers allocated to the project, but latter two engineers were allocated to some

other project. The number of technicians allocated was eleven.

The report also discusses the over allocation of resources issue, which took place due to the shift of

two engineers to other project. As, initially the project was allocated sufficient amount of resources,

but the latter some resources were shifted, and that resulted in over allocation of resources. The

issue could have been solved easily, but the time constraint with the project made the situation

complex.

There was a constraint on the project that if the project failed to be completed by 20th December

2012, a penalty will be charged by the client. Because of this constraint doing resource leveling has

become a challenge.

The technician, we leveled by slight changes in the schedule, but as project cant be delayed,

therefore while doing resource leveling, it came that the task facing the issue of engineers over

allocation cannot be delayed, as this will result in project delay. Therefore, the whole situation was

analyzed, and recommendations are made accordingly.

The MS Project generated Project Summary Report, Task Sheet, Gantt Chart, Network diagram, Cash

Flow Report, and Resource Usage Report are also included in the report to provide the reader with

fact and figures about the project.


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Project Baseline Plan This baseline plan sets baseline framework for the project. The plan defines and identifies

benchmark for the schedule and cost of the project.

Baseline Project Schedule The baseline start date of the project is August 28, 2012 and baseline finish date is December 20,

2012. The project is scheduled to finish in 83 days, where the project work hours are 5,736 hrs.

The critical path for a project is a series of activities that determine the earliest time by which the

project can be completed. The critical path is the longest path on the network diagram. The tasks on

the critical path have zero slack thus cant be delayed as the delay in the critical path activities would

result in the delay in project (Kathy Schwalbe, 2006). The critical path and the tasks on the critical

path of the project are:

Setup Project.

Procure Components of Control and 004Eavigational System.

Assemble Control and Navigational System.

Preliminary Test of Control and Navigational System.

Install Control and Navigational System into Module.

Final Test and Debugging.

Critical Path: 2-5-7-11-12-13 Length = 18+20+15+5+10+15 = 83 days.

The critical path is also shown in red colour in Network diagram and Gantt chart (appendix 1).

Baseline Project Budget The baseline cost of the project is 959,040. This includes the fixed cost of 340,000 and variable

cost of 619,040. There are two resources being used on the project (i.e. engineers and

technicians); the cost of engineers is 343,200 and the cost of technicians is 275,840.


Page 4 of 26

The following graph shows the cash flows of the project.

The project comprise on two quarters of 2012, which are third and fourth quarter. The cost is

highest in the fifth week of the project, when it was still in the third quarter.

The cost is low at the start of the project, but as the project enters in its execution phase the cost

start to increase. As, the fixed cost of the project is to be kept prorated across the project thus it also

is a reason for the shape of the curve. It is the normal curve when you have your cost prorated.

The other way around is that you change the cost accrual at the start; then the cost flow graph will

be different where cost accrual will be on start of each task, and therefore in the following graph you

can see that the curve pattern has been changed. The cost is highest in the fourth week because the

task is being started in that week.


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The third way is that we change the cost accrual at the end, so the cost will be charged at the end of

the tasks. Now in the following graph cost accrual is at the end, you can see the changed pattern of

the graph. In first two weeks, there is no cost being charged because there is no task finishing in

those weeks. The cost is highest in the third week of the fourth quarter as the tasks ending in this

quarter have high cost.

The detailed cash flow report is attached in appendix 1.

The project has allocated five engineers and eleven technicians a detailed resource usage report is

attached in appendix 1, which will guide through the work usage of these resources. The report will

also highlight an over allocation issue with the resources, which is discussed in the second section of

this report.


Page 6 of 26

Appendix 1 In the appendix 1, following reports are attached.

Project Summary Report.

Task Sheet.

Gantt chart.

Network diagram.

Resource Usage Report.

Cash Flow Report.


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Project Summary Report

Replace this page with Project Summary Report.


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Issue Management The resource leveling is always a challenging job while planning the project. As, the issues of

resource over allocation arise in most of the projects. Such an issue is in sticking with the baseline

plan.

The project was actually allocated 7 engineers, but before the start of project 2 of them were shifted

full time to another project. The engineers are over allocated form September 21st, 2012 to October

10th, 2012.

There is one engineer over allocated from September 21st till October 2nd, 2012. And from October

3rd till October 10th, 2012 two engineers are over allocated.

In the following graph, red part shows the over allocated resources. As, the project is allocated 5

engineers and you can see from the following graph that in the September 21st till October 2nd, 2012

timeframe we need 6 engineers as shown by 600%. And in October 3rd till October 10th, 2012

timeframe 7 engineers are required which is shown in the graph by 700% requirement.


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The second resource of the project was technicians, which 11 allocated to this project. Between

November 1st and November 7th, 2012 the technicians were over allocated.

Its only one technician that is over allocated.


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From the above graph, we can see that the red zone of the graph showing that one additional

resource needed, that is 12,000% resources (12 technicians) are required to complete the task,

where actually 1100% resources (11 technicians) are allocated.

Resource levelling

The project is paired with strict deadline; such kind of projects requires good scheduling and efficient

and effective utilization of resources. In this situation resource, levelling provides scheduling

decisions that are brought about by resource management concerns (PMI Standards Committee,

1996). The availability of right resource on the right time is very important for project manager.

Sometime multiple tasks are assigned to the same resource on the same time, so resource levelling

helps us out in such a situation. Resource levelling creates a smother distribution of resource usage

and resolves resource conflict by delaying the task (Harold Kerzner, 2009).

A smooth resource scheduling is very critical task for a project manager, especially in big projects

where there are many activities and their relations, which create a problem for leveling. The two

most widely used heuristics method for resource levelling are serial and parallel.

A proper sequenced activity list is developed in the serial heuristic. After that resources are assigned

to these activities one at a time. On the other hand, in parallel heuristic, the resources are allocated

timely basis. When the preceding activity is completed, then resources are assigned. When two or

more activities are parallel and at the same time than a certain priority is developed.

In addition to these heuristic methods, there are some other good methods to level resources. One

of the methods is splitting the task. Splitting task is the process to break the task into two parts, and

resource is shifted to work on other important activity. Splitting task is not always the best solution;

delay in a task is also a very good strategy where there is no strict time deadline is to follow.


Page 3 of 26

Recommendations

In our case, we have two scenarios, one over allocation of technicians, other over allocation of

engineers splitting and delaying task is not an equal option with both the case as we are to follow a

strict time deadline. As the parallel task dont give us the leverage to do so.

In the above figure, you can see that the technicians are over allocated between November 1st and

November 7th, 2012. During these dates activities are 1.8 and 1.9. Now we delay the activity 1.8 as

there is slack of 16 days available.

The activity 1.9, which was starting on 1st November, is delayed and its now starting on starting on

19th November, and this delay neither cased our project to delay from deadline nor cause additional

over allocation for other resources, rather it solved our problem of technician over allocation.

But the case is not same with over allocation of engineers, which is during September 21st till

October 10th, 2012. The tasks during these dates are 1.2, 1.3 and 1.4. We can use the same tool with

this problem if we could get enough slack time, but we dont have it as in parallel task one task is

critical, and if we delay the tasks with slack, the only thing we get is that we shift the over allocation

to other tasks. Therefore if, the task during these dates are either split or delayed; they will result in

the delay of the project, which we cant afford.

Thus, the only solution to this problem lies in the allocation of two additional engineers. As during

September 21st and October 2nd we need 6 engineers and during October 3rd and October 10th 7

engineers are required. Thus by bringing in these 2 engineers who were actually moved from the

project this issue can be resolved.


Page 4 of 26

Sponsor Acceptance

Approved by the Project Sponsor:

____________________________________________ Date: _____________________


Page 5 of 26

References

Kathy Schwalbe. (2006). Information Technology Project Management (4th ed.). Canada:

Thomson Course Technology.

Harold Kerzner. (2009). A Systems Approach to Planning, Scheduling, and Controlling (10th

ed.). New Jersey, USA: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

PMI Standereds Commity. (1996). A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge.

North Carolina, USA: PMI Publishing Division.

Academic Writing (Project Budgeting and Resourcing)

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