Project Management
Explain how project management concepts can help an organization achieve its goals.
INTRODUCTION
Today’s business environment requires competency in project management. In this assessment, you will explain how project management concepts can help an organization achieve its goals. You will take on the role of a market owner who goes through all five phases of project management (i.e., initiation, planning, execution, control, and closure) to launch a new catering service. As you complete the assessment, think about past projects you have initiated, planned, executed, controlled, and closed. Your experience in planning past projects can help you recognize possible risks and functions that will need to be managed in this performance assessment.
SCENARIO
Imagine you are the owner of a local organic food market in an urban area at the crossroads of four farming communities that supply fresh, organic foods. As the owner of the market, you are interested in growing the business.
Customers in the area have been asking local vendors for more organic and locally sourced fresh food options. You decide to create a catering service for clients within 25 miles from the downtown location in celebration of the market’s 10-year anniversary. You plan to start this catering business in 30 days to address the increasing market need for organic, fresh catering. Catering orders will be prepared at the organic food market, packaged, and driven to the customer’s location. Lunch orders will be delivered within 60 minutes of receiving the order. Special event catering orders will require one week to fulfill the order. The catering company has one van that will be used exclusively for catering services.
You have identified the following goals for this catering business: • The catering business will need to be able to sell the same quality, organic foods that are sold in-store and supplied daily.
• The catering customers can be no farther than 25 miles from the store so that food can be delivered within an hour • The owner wants the catering business to be profitable within one year. • The owner needs to ensure that the cost of developing the catering business does not negatively impact the in-store retail operations budget, staffing, in-store events, and farmer partnerships.
11/3/2020
You plan to launch the catering business by providing a free catered lunch to the first 10 businesses that subscribe to the weekly lunch catering services. The catered lunch for each business will be for up to 30 people and will be held at a local conference center ballroom at 12:00 PM on a day of the customer’s choosing. The budget for this launch of 10 catered lunches is $7,000.
Two weeks before the launch, you are working with catering staff to calculate the costs of the launch to date, tasks that need to be completed, and the overall impact of catering on in-store retail operations. You learn that the costs associated with the launch of the free catered lunches have already exceeded $7,700. Additionally, a local farmer that provides the fresh lettuce for lunch salads notifies you that the lettuce will not be available in time for the catered lunch. No other local farmers have lettuce available for purchase, and the only option is to use non-organic lettuce in order to keep the menu as communicated to the 10 businesses subscribing to the weekly lunch catering services.
REQUIREMENTS
Your submission must be your original work. No more than a combined total of 30% of the submission and no more than a 10% match to any one individual source can be directly quoted or closely paraphrased from sources, even if cited correctly. The originality report that is provided when you submit your task can be used as a guide.
You must use the rubric to direct the creation of your submission because it provides detailed criteria that will be used to evaluate your work. Each requirement below may be evaluated by more than one rubric aspect. The rubric aspect titles may contain hyperlinks to relevant portions of the course.
A. Discuss how you would plan the catered lunch project by completing each of the following project management phases: 1. Project Initiation Phase a. Describe the project and the need for the project. b. Identify three stakeholders and discuss how the project impacts each stakeholder.
c. Discuss the project’s feasibility based on triple constraint.
2. Defining and Planning Phase
a. Describe a project plan that includes a timetable with three milestones.
b. Write a SMART goal for the project. c. Describe how two potential risks of the project could be managed.
3. Launch or Execution Phase
a. Discuss a way to manage being over budget by 10%.
b. Discuss a way to manage a scheduling conflict that could affect the timeline of the project.
4. Performance and Control Phase
a. Discuss how scheduling conflicts and budget constraints could affect the scope of the project.
5. Project Close Phase
a. Discuss two ways to change how the project was planned, considering the timeline and budget conflicts that were encountered.
B. Acknowledge sources, using in-text citations and references, for content that is quoted, paraphrased, or summarized.
C. Demonstrate professional communication in the content and presentation of your submission.
