RUNNING HEAD: PROJECT SIMULATION
Analysis of Project Simulation Exercise
Name
Class
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Project Overview and Objectives
Alliance Prototype project is the prototype of Alliance project that is a strategic effort of
Uniworld to enhance their sales and marketing capabilities using an e-commerce web site. The
company has decided to first launch a prototype of the website to selected customers of the
company. The objectives of the Alliance Prototype project are:

To test the feasibility of an e-commerce web site for Uniworld

To augment the sales and marketing efforts of Uniworld

To increase the availability of Uniworld to its customers across the globe
The budget of Alliance Prototype project is $50,000 and the duration is 11 months. The
required performance of the project is completion of customer acceptance test with maximum 12
known defects. Other defects that pose the risk of dysfunctional website and system failure are
unacceptable and the customer would reject the project, if in the case that such quality defects
are present in the final deliverable. Moreover, the web site has to be capable of handling peak
load of 2,000 hits per hour. The web site should handle the load without any major degradation
in response of system.
The deliverables of the Alliance Prototype project are:

Software and hardware to establish e-commerce web site

Fully functional e-commerce demonstration web site

Site documentation

Recommended product architecture.
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Research Process
The research process for the project initiated with acquiring a thorough understanding of
the project objectives, deliverables and required performance parameters. Sim project’s
orientation to the overall project documents and other functionalities marked the start of the
research process. Primarily, the research process was segregated in four stages; understanding
the project requirements, reviewing and selecting the resources for project, researching &
deciding risk/reserves, recognition plan and training for team members, and finally, project
budgeting. To understand the project, reference documents such as project charter, Gantt chart,
network diagram, task descriptions and work breakdown structure.
After gathering relevant information on the project, the information on five major areas
of the project; resources, risk/reserves, recognition plan, stakeholder plan and training was sorted
and applied. Budget was a necessary consideration while researching the information on the
project tasks. In order to research the resources for project, the profiles of individual resources
available to the project were researched in reference documents. Based on the individual task and
skill level required, resources were shortlisted for the project. A similar process was deployed to
gather information on the stakeholders of the project, the level of recognition that would be
necessary to keep team members motivated and risk/reserves that would be required for project.
Despite utmost care of referring to referencing documents, some oversight was made in
researching that reflected in planning stage. The major oversight was related to missing out on
network plan on the uPhone that was later searched and found. Overall, the research process was
performed with relative efficiency that led to easier transition to the planning process.
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Planning Process
With the help of orientation, help videos and research process, the planning process
appeared to be a hassle-free task. However, it required deeper thinking and consideration of the
various aspects such as selecting best-suitable resource from the pool of shortlisted resources,
deciding on probable risks, associated and mitigation plans and aligning the available training
program with the training requirements of the hired resources. The detailed planning process for
resources, risk/reserve, stakeholders, recognition and training strategies are discussed in detail in
subsequent section. The planning process terminated in the execution process.
Resource Planning
Under resource planning, the following resources were selected:
Resource
Title
Tasks
David Lewis
IT Specialist
1,2,3
Adam Herrez
Documentation Specialist
4,7
Chandra Lake
Test Engineer
6
Sally Nicolas
Network Specialist
2,5
Tea Dominique
Software Engineer
3,5
The above resources were selected based on their achievements and skills enlisted in their
resumes. David Lewis was already assigned to the task and as there was only one IT specialist
available in resource pool, he was the obvious choice. Adam Herrez was chosen over Jim
Thomas because Adam was reported to be excellent in quick documentation writing. However,
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selection of Adam Herrez turned out to be a bad decision because he delayed both task 4 and 7.
He was absent for some days and complained of overtime despite of delaying the project because
of his absenteeism and low productivity.
Chandra Lake was chosen over Omar Mosa for the project because of her ability to
deliver assignments on time. She proved to be a good choice as she performed her job and
completed the assigned task within specified timeframe. Sally Nicolas, the network specialist
was selected for the project because her resume stated her to be dedicated and capable worker.
However, her counterpart Lisa Derring was the better option because Sally’s productivity never
increased beyond 80%, despite of warnings, praises and recognition. She also complained of
overtime and didn’t complete assigned tasks on the specified timeframe. Tea Donique was a
good decision for the project as she was on time and had good productivity.
After the completion of the project, I realized that I should have chosen Jim Thomas and
Lisa Derring over Adam Herrez and Sally Nicolas respectively.
Other Plans
Other plans comprised of stakeholder plan, recognition plan, risk/reserves and training
plan. The stakeholder plan for the project comprised of meeting to customer and status reports to
all the stakeholders every month. This kept the stakeholders informed of the project progress.
Recognition plan budgeted $500 for employee recognition and was ample for the project
duration. The risk/reserves was decided to be $3,600 from budgeted $4,000 and proved to be
sufficient for the project. The training plan for employee comprised of Project Management
training for Adam Herriz. The stakeholder plan, recognition plan and risk/reserves worked fairly
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well throughout the duration of the project, however, the training program could have been
scheduled better. With the quality being an important performance parameter, training should
have been conducted to train employees on quality aspects. Lack of quality training was evident
on the performance of team members.
Budget Approval
Budgeting process, especially task-wise resource budgets required careful deliberation
and task assignment. Due to the efficient research process, budget was drafted and approved the
first time it was submitted. Budgeting is one of the most significant and time-consuming tasks in
project management. It is essential to accept variance in some tasks depending on the risk
associated with the tasks and reserve requirement.
Execution Process
Executing phase starts with the approval of budget and involves weekly staffing and
calendar decisions. With the help of Buki, the assistant I was on top of all the project activities
until week 3. However, with the absenteeism of David, task 2 delayed and it was difficult to
manage the tasks and staff for a period of 3-4 weeks. I realized the ripple effect of delay in one
task on the dependent tasks. The oversight during research process regarding network diagram
caused staffing problems. I did not gauge the dependent status of all the system-related tasks and
2-3 employees remained ideal for 4 weeks, depleting the project reserves. This is the most
important aspect of staffing that I learned from simulation. With the changes in tasks deadline,
the project manager has to alter the staffing plan. Staff has to be released and re-hired, based on
altering project situations.
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With the weeks running, there were several unplanned risks that came forward. The
management wanted to shut down the project because of financial crisis in the company. The
recommendation of staff to have more trainings and increased overtime was rejected by
management with instructions to terminate all planned trainings and increase staff overtime. This
led to staff complaining about overtime and burn-out, eventually with one staff resigning from
the project. Moreover, the delay of project and quality issues caused immense pressure on the
team that led to low employee morale and increased absenteeism. Handling these real-time issues
with team management proved to be crucial for project success.
The most important learning occurred during the completion of task 1. For the website
design show-off meeting, marketing head was not available and we went ahead with his
representative. Later, marketing head mandated some changes in design because of its
incompatibility to legacy systems that increased project duration by 1 week and project budget
by approximately $2,000. It is essential to wait for the right people to attend the meeting as this
could save a lot of time and money. Moreover, one should always be prepared for unforeseen
risks as they always occur in the project. They can always be handled well by taking team
recommendations and asking for alternative solutions.
There were several communications shared by executive management to enhance the
quality and project handling skills. All the communications made a positive difference to the
project. Communication during project is key to project success as it provides the opportunity to
be prepared for unforeseen risks and also to appropriately manage the project. The graphs and
reports were most informative during the project and I frequently used quality report, Gantt
chart, network diagram, and earned value report. Studying these reports assisted in making
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informed decisions regarding the project, these reports could be used to keep project on schedule
and under budget.
Closing/Ending
Several delays and staffing issues caused the project scheduled to finish in 11 weeks to
actually complete in 20 weeks. The project was over budget by $49,962 and delayed by 9 weeks.
I learned greatly from this simulation and decided to complete the simulation a second time.
During the second time around, I was more careful with the planning process and executing
process. The mistakes that were made in first execution in relation to staffing, staff absenteeism
and low morale were addressed in the second run and this made a huge difference to the overall
project performance. The project stayed right on schedule and under budget.
Learning is an important component of the simulation exercise and I learned how easy it
is to make an oversight and bear its consequences on project schedule and cost. Once the project
slips out of hand, it becomes almost impossible to bring it back on track, and soon the project
drives the project manager rather than manager driving the project. It’s also important to address
the staff issues early in the project. During first simulation, I didn’t pay much attention to Lewis
absenteeism and it led to huge delay in task 2. However, in second simulation, I raised concern
early and got him to work from home. This led to minimal delay in task 1.
Overall, the simulation exercise is a great learning experience that really made a
difference from the static project planning.