To: Jeni DiSalvo From: Tyler Anderson, Katy Johnson, Lanae Broesder Subject: Project Management Plan Date: June 24, 2011 This memo will discuss a comprehensive plan for our culture report. Scope Our report will cover information gathered solely for the use of our colleagues in order to gain an understanding about the culture of China, Germany, and England. We will be covering the topics of daily customs, current religious practices, appropriate business attire, appropriate dining etiquette, unique social practices, and appropriate body language. We are providing this information because the report will be very critical to ensure that we do not offend our counterparts or embarrass ourselves while we are trying to establish a working relationship with the people in these areas of the world. In our report, we will not be covering the history of any of the cultures or any statistics related to the state of the economy for each culture. Each person will take a different amount of time to complete his or her portion of the report. Each person will spend an adequate amount of time on their part to produce a successful report that meets the goals defined below. A person should spend at least four to eight hours on their portion. If one person is spending more than 12 hours, or so, on their part then they are probably going above and beyond what is expected. Once we each have our own portions done, Tyler will have one entire day to compile it and check it for consistency. Katy will then have one entire day to check for grammatical errors. We plan to have it all compiled, edited, and coil bound within the next two and a half weeks. A successful culture report will provide factual information to our colleagues about the cultures of China, Germany, and England. It will give our colleagues tools to act appropriately around our counterparts in the cultures I mentioned previously in order to convince them that we are trustworthy people and that they should do business with us. Our report will be in correct report format including a cover page, a table of contents, headings to direct our audience, and an appendix. We will do our own research and write our own work. We will not use other people’s work without giving them credit. By the time we complete this project, we hope to have created a professional document that a company planning on meeting with people of the Chinese, German, or British culture could actually use and have success by using the information we provide. Our final product will be cohesive to the point that no one can tell that it started as three different papers. It will also contain little to no grammatical errors and be coil bound with a cover page. Established Goals Personal Group Goals: To work together as a group to make sure everyone pulls their weight and meets the deadlines set up in our project charter. To collect the appropriate information for each of our cultures to ensure a cohesive final report. To inform the other group members when there is a problem or when new information is collected. Group Goals: To compose a cohesive, comprehensive report on the proper business interactions for the cultures of Germany, England, and China. To ensure our report covers the necessary topics for each culture including: proper body language, business attire, dining etiquette, social interactions, important daily rituals/customs, and religious practices. To make sure our final report only covers what is necessary to teach our colleagues what to do and how to act appropriately amongst Chinese, British, and German business partners. To look at ways to improve the business interactions between each culture so as not to embarrass our business or offend our counterparts when meeting with them. Resources We will collect information that will be useful in preparing this report in a variety of ways using different resources. Those resources include labor, equipment materials, research materials, and visual resources. Below describes what is included with each category of resources. Labor o o o o o o Researching each culture and compiling useful information for this report. Combining each individual’s research into one, useful and accessible report. Editing the combined report so that it can be useful for the user. Making sure the report is presented in a uniform manner. Creating a table of contents for the report. Binding the finished report. The persons undertaking these roles and the deadlines for each action are discussed in the project charter, which can be found later in this memo. The remaining resources are listed below. Equipment o Computers o Printers Materials o Paper o Ink o Binding Research Resources o Online Articles o Magazines o Books o Personal Interviews Visual Resources o GANTT chart o Images Finances o Printing the formal report o Binding the report All of these resources will be vital in completing the culture report to adequately provide information to management so they can successfully conduct business with our foreign counterparts. Project Charter We will each post our rough draft for our individual cultures on our own websites by 10 pm on July 12, 2011. We will also email a copy of our report to fellow team members to ensure that everyone in the group has a copy of each persons report. Duties that each member is responsible for will be listed below: Lanae o o o o Katy o o o Tyler o o Research the German culture and provide factual information. Responsible for binding the finished report. The report will be bound no later than July 15, 2011. Responsible for creating a table of contents no later than July 12, 2011. Research the British culture and provide factual information. Responsible for editing the finished report The report will be edited no later than July 14, 2011. Research the Chinese culture and provide factual information. Responsible for making sure the finished report is organized and uniform throughout the report. o The report will be organized and checked for consistency and uniformity no later than July 13, 2011. In addition to our individual responsibilities, we will all be responsible for proof reading the finished draft in order to agree that we have a good finished product. We also agree to provide our own research throughout the report and will not plagiarize any of our information included in the report. We all agree to check and respond to emails in a timely manner. If an email isn’t answered within 24 hours, we will send a text message to the person not responding to the email. The rules set for the team are to work together cooperatively so the project is completed in adequate time. Each individual is responsible for staying caught up with their individual work and meeting the deadlines discussed in the sections above. Work Breakdown Structure Below you can find the GANTT chart we have created for the report. Culture Report Project Management Plan Due Online 7/1 Individual Reports Posted on Websites 7/12 Table of Contents- Lanae 7/12 Organized/Consistent-Tyler Editing- Katy 7/13 7/14 Bound- Lanae 7/15 Individual Reports Due Online 7/15 Final Group Report Due Online 7/22