Restoration Project Office Renovation Project Main Descriptions,

Restoration Project

Office Renovation Project

Main Descriptions, Analysis and Evaluation of the Project

Activities Discussion

Project Activity Schedule

Risk Planning

Scope Creep

This project involves the renovation of a new office headquarters for Acme Project Consultants. The company has grown fast due to their expertise in project management consulting. The company has various divisions which handle various types of projects, such as IT projects and construction projects, and a growing staff of professionals who can manage a wide array of various requirements. The company has decided to purchase an older building in a great location and renovate the existing building to suit their growing needs. It was found that this renovation project should be scheduled for 347 working days. The project will begin on the last day of March, 2012 and its expected completion date is 7/30/2013. Thus the project is expected to take roughly sixteen months from beginning to end. Recommendations for the company include developing a comprehensive change management plan that can work to help reduce scope creep and mitigate any obstacles that occur during the renovation. Given the circumstance, this was identified as the critical success factor for the entire project.

Introduction

This project involves the renovation of a new office headquarters for Acme Project Consultants. The company has grown fast due to their expertise in project management consulting. The company has various divisions which handle various types of projects, such as IT projects and construction projects, and a growing staff of professionals who can manage a wide array of various requirements. The company has decided to purchase an older building in a great location and renovate the existing building to suit their growing needs.

The company will remain in its present location until the renovation project is complete and then the relocation of the office headquarters will be a separate project headed by a different project manager internally or the decision could also be made to sub-contract the relocation to a professional moving company. All of the employees are excited and anxious to move to the new location and there will be a lot of attention given to the status of the project by the internal project management staff. Thus there will be a lot of pressure for the project manager to ensure that the scope, schedule, and budget all fall within their estimates.

The building was originally constructed in the early twentieth century in a downtown location in the company's hometown. The building has many unique design features and Acme Project Consulting management has requested that as much of the original building is preserved as possible for both historic and aesthetic reasons. However, many of the support systems within the building, such as air condition, heating, electrical systems, and plumbing will require a complete overhaul. Furthermore, such a historical preservation project, falls outside of the realm of the internal expertise and hence management is well aware that outside specialist will have to be brought in.

Given the technical challenges involved with renovating an older building, the official budget will be prepared much later in the planning phase than would be the case with a more traditional project. This is due to the fact that several experts will have to be consulted at different stages of the project. For example, bids for much of the electrical work will have to come after some of the demolition is complete so the contractors can visually inspect the existing system. The company purchased the building for half a million and the original renovation was based on an estimate of square footage and historical data from similar renovations. Based on the data collected about similar projects, the company estimated that the renovation would require roughly a million to finish the project. However this figure is expected to be revised during the planning phase of the project.

Main Descriptions, Analysis and Evaluation of the Project

Activities Discussion

The planning phase of the project will involve a lot of analysis and collaboration among various historic building specialists. There will be a site survey that will create a comprehensive overview of the site including all of the existing materials and dimensions. It is estimated that this activity will last ten business days. Following the site survey, there will be a structure analysis (15 days), architecture analysis (30 days), and systems analysis (15 days) that will further breakdown the individual requirements for these various components of the building and its structure. Following the analyses, there will have to be collaboration among the different specialist to help the architect compile all of the specific requirements into an overall draft design (15 days) that can be submitted to the project owners for approval.

Once the design is approved, all of the details about the work breakdown structure (15 days), the cost plan (10 days), the contractor selection (10 days), and the contract approval (20 days) must be laid out before the actual construction can begin. The individual contractors will be expected to help with the technical aspects of the project which relate to their individual work. For example, in the request for proposal (RFP) from the electrical contractors, they will be required to develop a detail strategy of how they plan to tackle the electrical system in the building. Once their proposal is submitted it will also be shared with consultants who can approve their proposal or suggest alterations. This strategy will mitigate a lot of risk because the contractors' plans will be reviewed by technical experts to verify that they are up to par.

Once the construction phase begins, the demolition of the existing parts of the building that need to be removed will begin. Though initial inspections have not found the presence of hazardous materials in the building, this phase could be delayed if any are found during the demolition. Examples of this would include building materials such as asbestos. Once the demolition is completed then the site will have to be prepared for the following contractors to begin their work (10 days). Once the site is prepared many of the contractors activities can run in parallel. This includes the electrical systems (30 days), mechanical systems (30 days), the structural work (30 days), as well as the electronic systems (30 days). Once all of the buildings primary systems have been renovated, the interior work can begin.

Finishing the interior is expected to last roughly thirty days and once this activity is complete then the decorations (40 days) and the fixtures (5 days) can be performed. There is also opportunity for overlap with the interior decorations and the interior finishing. For example, if the project is behind schedule the project manager should be able to arrange for the interior decorate to follow the interior finishing crew room by room as they are finished. This could crash the project by roughly 20 days however the project schedule made no provisions for this fact so that it could act as a buffer in the schedule later on if need be. Once the building is completed it will be presented to a building inspector for approval and once approval is gained the project can close and the following project documentation can be completed.

Project Activity Schedule

Task Name

Duration

Start

Finish

Predecessors

Building Restoration and Renovation

347 days

Sat 3/31/12

7/30/13

Site Survey

10 days

Sat 3/31/12

Thu 4/12/12

Structure Analysis

15 days

Fri 4/13/12

Thu 5/3/12

2

Architecture Analysis

30 days

Fri 4/13/12

Thu 5/24/12

2

Systems Analysis

15 days

Fri 4/13/12

Thu 5/3/12

2

Planning

Fri 5/25/12

Historical Building Consultants

30 days

Fri 5/25/12

Thu 7/5/12

4

Design Collaboration

10 days

Fri 7/6/12

Thu 7/19/12

7

Technical Requirements Collaboration

15 days

Fri 7/20/12

Thu 8/9/12

8

Request for Proposals

20 days

Fri 7/20/12

Thu 8/16/12

8

Architectural Drafts

30 days

Fri 8/17/12

Thu 9/27/12

10

Overall Design Draft

15 days

Fri 9/28/12

Thu 10/18/12

11

Design Approval

10 days

Fri 10/19/12

Thu 11/1/12

12

Work Breakdown Structure Preparation

15 days

Fri 11/2/12

Thu 11/22/12

13

Cost Plan

10 days

Fri 11/2/12

Thu 11/15/12

13

Cost Approval

5 days

Fri 11/16/12

Thu 11/22/12

15

Contractor Selection

10 days

Fri 11/23/12

Thu 12/6/12

16

Contract Approval

20 days

Fri 12/7/12

Thu 1/3/13

17

Demolition

30 days

Fri 1/4/13

Thu 2/14/13

18

Site Preparation

10 days

Fri 2/15/13

Thu 2/28/13

19

Electrical Systems

30 days

Fri 3/1/13

Thu 4/11/13

20

Mechanical Systems

30 days

Fri 3/1/13

Thu 4/11/13

20

Structural Work

30 days

Fri 3/1/13

Thu 4/11/13

20

Electronic Systems (Internet, Servers)

30 days

Fri 3/1/13

Thu 4/11/13

20

Interior Finishes

30 days

Fri 4/12/13

Thu 5/23/13

24

Interior Decorating

40 days

Fri 5/24/13

Thu 7/18/13

25

Interior Fixtures

5 days

Fri 4/12/13

Thu 4/18/13

24

Landscaping

15 days

Fri 1/4/13

Thu 1/24/13

18

Building Code Inspection

5 days

Fri 5/24/13

Thu 5/30/13

25

Project Closure

3 days

Fri 7/19/13

Tue 7/23/13

26

Best Practices Documentation

5 days

Wed 7/24/13

Tue 7/30/13

30

Lessons Learned

5 days

Wed 7/24/13

Tue 7/30/13

30

Figure 2 -- Project Activities

Figure 1 - Gantt chart

Figure 3 - Network Diagram and Critical Path

Risk Planning

Risk has been defined as some event that has a probability of occurring and could have either a positive or negative impact on a project should that risk occur (Northrop Grumman Corporation, 2007). Furthermore, recent studies have indicated the of the PMBOK Guide's nine Knowledge Areas that risk planning is among the top that have the greatest impact upon effective project management (Zwikael, 2009). Since this project is technically challenging and there are potentially many obstacles that the construction crews could encounter, it is reasonable to suspect that a detailed risk management plan may be of vital importance to the project.

In order to prepare a comprehensive risk management plan the literature was surveyed for information about best practices. For complex construction projects such as this, it is critical that the project manager prepare a detailed risk management plan that depicts all of the various risks identified by the relevant project stakeholders. Some of the top rated project risks that were identified in the literature are as follows (Tesch, Kloppenborg, Frolick, & Mark, 2007):

Table 1 - Risks Overview (Tesch, Kloppenborg, Frolick, & Mark, 2007)

Literally every risk that appears on this top rated risk table can be easily identified as potential problems that could affect the scope, schedule, and budget of the office building renovation.

Scope Creep

Scope creep was another issue that was identified that could cause serious havoc to this project. Since the firm specializes in project management, it is likely that many people will have input into the project's scope. Scope creep is often thought of as tiny little changes that a customer wants a contractor to make in a construction project that affects the scope and requirements of a contract (Unland, 2006). It is possible that the company's employees will want to make numerous changes to the scope to suit their own requirements for their office space. It has been argued that some amount of scope creep is inevitable; however there some changes that adds significant value while others aren't worth the time nor investment (Upchurch & Mclendon, 2003).

If scope creep is an inevitable fact of project management, then the scope can be thought of as a dynamic process that must be controlled and monitored thoroughly through thorough change management practices. One study found that that a high level of control over activities during the projects development was found to be a significant facilitator of the project's flexibility, which in turn was correlated with the project's success (Wang, Ju, Jiang, & Klein, 2008). In this project it is likely that change management practices will be one of the project's critical success factors.

Conclusions and Summary

It was found that this renovation project should be scheduled for 347 working days. The project will begin on the last day of March, 2012 and its expected completion date is 7/30/2013. Thus the project is expected to take roughly sixteen months from beginning to end. Recommendations for the company include developing a comprehensive change management plan that can work to help reduce scope creep and mitigate any obstacles that occur during the renovation. Given the circumstance, this was identified as the critical success factor for the entire project. Much was learned during the preparation of this project plan such as how to work with activities in Microsoft Project, designing the work flow, and the importance of change management in complex projects.

Works Cited

Northrop Grumman Corporation. (2007, November 29). Risk Management Plan. Retrieved March 30, 2012, from The 3rd Project Management Conference 2011: http://www.saudipmc.com/eng/veikko-pdf/RMPlan.pdf

Tesch, D., Kloppenborg, T., Frolick, & Mark. (2007). IT Project Management Risk Factors: The Project Management Professionals Perspective. Journal of Computer Information Systems, 61-69.

Unland, J. (2006). Implementatoin Creep. Contract Management, 46(11), 44.

Upchurch, J., & Mclendon, M. (2003). Pumped up prices? Advice on controlling scope creep in health care construction projects. Health Facilities Management, 16(3), 26-31.

Wang, E., Ju, P., Jiang, J., & Klein, G. (2008). The effects of change control and management review on software flexibility and project performance. Information & Management, 45(7), 438-443.

Zwikael, O. (2009). The relative importance of the PMBOK® Guide's nine Knowledge Areas during project planning. Project Management Journal, 40(4), 94-103.