Table of Contents

Task 1..............................................................................................................................................
I.

Draw the network diagram...................................................................................................

II. Determining the timing of activities and the total float........................................................

III. Determining the project duration and the critical path.........................................................
IV. The earliest date the project can be completed on................................................................
V. The effect of the duration of activity changes on the whole project.....................................
VI. The limitations of network diagram.....................................................................................
Task 2..............................................................................................................................................
Introduction................................................................................................................................
Main body....................................................................................................................................
I.

Projetc Defining................................................................................................................

II. Project Planning................................................................................................................

III. Project Organising.............................................................................................................
IV. Project Executing............................................................................................................
V. Project Closing................................................................................................................
Conclusion.................................................................................................................................
Appendix.......................................................................................................................................
References.....................................................................................................................................

Task 1
I. Draw the network diagram
For more details of Fencefall Ltds project network diagram, see in Appendix 1
II. Determining the timing of activities and the total float
1. The timing of activities
Similarly to Rory Burke (2003), Field and Keller in 2007 pointed out
that the timing of activities in project network diagram can be determined
by a forward pass and a backward pass, in which the starting or finishing
day of each activity can be identified.
a. Forward pass
A forward pass includes earliest start time (EST) and earliest finish
time (EFT) (Field & Keller, 2007). Earliest start time (EST) is defined as
the earliest date the activity can begin and earliest finish time (EFT) is
the earliest date the activity can end (Rickman, 2011, p.88). (See more
about explanation in Appendix 2a)
b. Backward pass
By doing backward pass through the network, it allows to determine
the latest start time (LST) and latest finish time (LFT) (Field & Keller,
2007).
Latest start time (LST) can be understood as the latest date the
activity can begin that still allow the project to be completed on time,
while latest finish time (LFT) is the latest date the activity can end that
still allow the project to be completed on time (Rickman, 2011, p.88).
(See more about explanation in Appendix 2b)
2. The total float
In 2003, Rory Burke gave the definition: Float is the measure of an
activitys flexibility, quantifying how many working days the activity can
be delays before it will extend the completion date of the project, or any
target finish dates.
However, it can be simplified as the difference between the latest
finish and the earliest finish (or latest start and earliest start) (Lester,
2013, p.144). The total float is determined by the formula:
Total float = latest start time (LST) earliest start time (EST)
Or Total float = latest finish time (LFT) earliest finish time (EFT)

To illustrate, the total float of activity M is 4, which is the result of

subtracting its EFT from its LFT (53 49 = 4).
III.Determining the project duration and the critical path
The critical path is defined by Richard, L. (2002) as the path through
the network that takes the longest total time. So that, the critical path in
Fencefalls project is the path A-B-C-D-E-H-I-K-L-N-O-R.
The project duration is a period of time from the start of a project until
its final task is closed. Moreover, the project duration also equals to total
duration of activities belonging to the critical path, which is 76 days.
IV. The earliest date that the project can be completed on
If the project starts on the 1st August 2014 (assuming that it is 5 day
working week and there is no holiday), by using Gantt chart (see more in
the Appendix 3), the date it can be completed is determined on 14th
November 2014.
V. The effect of the duration of activity changes on the whole project
1. A 1 day delay during activity P
Although in the critical path, activity P can float 2 days maximum without
having any effect on the project. So that, a 1 day delay in activity P will not
make any change in the project.
2. Activity Q is delayed 1 day
Activity Q does not belong to critical path and has a float of 4 days, so
it will not affect the project if it is delayed 1 day.
3. A 4 day delay during activity N
Activity N is in the critical path, which directly affects the project
duration and also has no float, so being delayed 4 days will make the
whole project 4 days late.
VI. The limitations of network diagram
There is a consideration that Network diagram are the preferred
technique for showing activity sequencing (Schwalbe, 2013, p.233).
However, to take full advantages of this technique, a project manager also
needs to know the limitations of network diagram in order to avoid or
handle them.

Too many interconnected activities may cause confusion.

Time of tasks is only as good as provided estimations, which probably does not fit
the real situation.
Significant node changes may cause critical path no longer valid.
It will become complicated if the project has more than one critical path.
Critical path and floats change, leading to the change in scheduling of personnel.
Focusing too much on network diagram may cause the project manager distracted
from other issues.
(For more explanation about network diagrams limitations, see more in
Appendix 4)
Words count: 628

Task 2
Introduction
Tennisright Limited is a SME company specialising in the supplying
groundwork equipment and materials for the construction of tennis courts.
At present, the company already has a storage facility and an office in
London, and is about on a project building another warehouse in
Sunderland. It is expected that the new storage facility, will get higher
revenue for the company and will create a new market. Being appointed
to the project manager, my responsibility is to prepare a report including
different aspects of the project, in order to follow up and to ensure the
project will be performed in the best possible manner with the least waste
of time and effort.

Main body
This report will be presented in the form of a basic project life cycle,
which was shown up by Weiss & Wysocki in 1994, and then updated by
Field & Keller in 2005 (see the model in Appendix 5). By applying to this
model, the project will be divided into 5 stages in order to identify and to
analyse relevant elements belonging to a project, such as processes or
administration.

I.

Project Defining
1. Project problem and opportunity

As the expectation of Tennisright Ltd, building a new storage facility

(warehouse) in Sunderland is for holding the tennis court materials and
groundwork equipment to be packed and shipped to the different venues.
Moreover, it is also a strategy that may give the company an opportunity to
increase their turnover and to expand their market.
2. Project objective
It is clear that the project aims to successfully manage the initiative,
ensuring that the new warehouse is completed on time and within the budget.
3. Feasibility study
Feasibility study is a research to determine the feasibility of a project,
considering many dimensions (Andre, 2014). In the project building new
warehouse in Sunder land of Tennisright Ltd, it is necessary to review if some
of these factors are feasible:

Technical: It can be seen clearly that there will be no serious problem in terms of
technology, resources or infrastructure needed to build a new storage facility in

Sunderland.
Legal: Building a new warehouse for the purposes storing holding the tennis court
materials and groundwork equipment is legal in Sunderland, and it must have

been allowed in Tennisrights business license.

Financial: This aspect of the project depends on the benefits and functionalities

which the new warehouse delivers to Tennisright after being finished.

Cultural: There will probably no difference between London and Sunderland in
building a warehouse.

4. Stakeholders analysis

In order to ensure the project engaged to the interests of stakeholders, it is

necessary to prioritise their importance and power levels, which are presented in
Mendelow (1991) Power/Interest Grid for Stakeholder Prioritisation.

After determined the area that types of stakeholders belong to, a project
manager needs to adjust the interaction with each of them. In details:

Low power, low interest: These stakeholders could be Sunderland natives. Project
team needs to ensure that the activities of project have no negative impact on the
daily life of the natives and the local environment, so the team can ignore and

minimize their effect on the project.

Low interest, high power: The local government is most important stakeholder
having this impact on Tennisrights project. However, there will be no difficulty
from this type of stakeholders if Tennisright have legal license of building
warehouse in local land. So that, as long as the team follow the regulations and
keep them happy, it is possible to call the local government for help when the

team need.
High interest, low power: They may be the team members at lower line or the
workforce. Normally, they directly do the activities and care about work
effectiveness, because of performance-related pay system. However, they all
follow the decisions made by the line of manager and have low power to the
7

whole project plan. So, to increase the effectiveness of project performance,

motivation techniques can be used in order to encourage them to put more efforts

and to be more engaged to the project.

High interest, high power: These key players who are the General Manager and
Business Development Managers have huge impact on the project, so it is
important to keep them happy with the project progress. The Project Manager
should:

II.

Constant progress update (but not overwhelmed)

Providing deliverable as needed for testing
Continual clarification of requirement

Continual checking for change of requirement

Project Planning
After the project is defined, the next phase is to give out a plan for
Tennisright Ltd in terms of project activities and estimated schedule, as
well as a resources and budget plan. Additionally, to make the plan of
resources and schedule easier to be estimated, the new warehouse of
Tennesright Ltd is assumed to be 200 meters square large.

1. Work breakdown structure (WBS)

As Rodney Turners (1993) definition, work breakdown structure is a
process that the work of a project is divided and sub-divided for
management and control purposes. To make it more simple, work
breakdown structure is to break the project down to specific detailed
activities. Tennisrights warehouse project is also represented by a WBS,
which is shown in Appendix 6.
2. Project schedule plan

A network diagram refers to a schematic display of the logical

relationships among project activities and their sequencing (Schwalbe,
2013, p.233). The project schedule plan is represented by a list of
activities needed to be done during the whole project, and then, a network
diagram is drawn up to illustrate the estimated timing of these activities.
(See Tennisrights list of activities, project diagram in Appendix 7, 8).
3. Project Human Resources plan
This new warehouse project of Tennisright Ltd reallocates the
resource of labour following the table, which includes the jobs with their
responsibilities and quantity for each position. By this Human Resource
plan, it will be easier for a project manager to identify the need of workforce required to complete the project.
No.

Types of labour

Quantit
y

1
2

Project Manager
Administrator/Supervisor

Project team
Project team

1
5

3
4
5
6
7
8

s
Assistant
Architect
Technical engineer
Electrician
Security staff
Building worker

Project team
Outsource
Outsource
Outsource
Outsource
Outsource

3
1
3
2
3
15

4. Project budget plan

Project budget plan is created to estimate the total cost that
Tennisright will pay for all activities of project. The costs of labour,
materials and equipment are all included in the budget plan, which is
attached to Appendix 9.
9

5. Risk Management
Risk management is defined by Burke (2003) as the systematic
processes of identifying, analysing and responding to project risk trough
out the project life cycle.
There are many uncertainties that may be faced during progress of any
project, so a project manager needs to be well-prepared to be able to
identify and to deal with the risks. To manage the risk effectively, a
project manager of Tennisright Ltd can use the Tactical risk assessment
and management of Field and Keller:

This tactical includes stages as follow:

-

Identifying Risks: Identify where the uncertainties come from, and the impact

they cause to the project, which may be prevented from achieving the goal.
Assessing Risks: Each risk is evaluated the probability of its happening and the

degree of its impact.

Rank risks: Risks are prioritised based on their probability and level of impact.
Risk log: Ranked risks are listed into a log and coming with how the project
team will respond to identified risks.
(Risk log of Tennisrights project is included in Appendix 10)

III.

Project Organising
10

After setting up a plan for the project, in order to organise the project
well and ensure tasks are fulfilled fluently, suitable leadership and
motivations need to be practiced effectively be the project manager.
Burke (2003) noted that: Leadership is about setting goals and
objectives and generating enthusiasm and motivation amongst the project
team, and stakeholders, to work towards those objectives. In the
situation of Tennisrights project, due to the fact that most of the
workforce are hired from outside the organisation for implementing a
project plan already set up by the project manager, so Consultative
Autocratic (discuss with individuals) seems to be the most appropriate
style. It means that the project manager discuss the problems in specific
jobs with the people executive in that jobs, then make the decision by his
own. It is a way to collect the useful ideas for references and make
employees feel more engaged to project and put more effort on
performance.
Besides leadership style, motivating people is also important when
project manager wants to push the team to work more effectively.
Building a new warehouse is a technical work, which is suitable to the
monetary reward. In 2009, Dan Pink dis a research in MIT University
about performance-related pay, and it gave the result that money is an
effective motivator for technical work, however it caused to the negative
effect to the work requiring cognitive skills. So that, incentive may be a
good motivator to encourage the labour perform better.
IV.

Project Execution
11

This phase is to implement the project plan created above. During the
progress of the project, team members need to keep information informed
to the project manager, so he can be able to follow up and to take control
over the project direction, ensuring it to follow the plan.
-

Time management: Each member should record the timing of each activity in a

timesheet, allowing the project manager to manage the time for completing each task.
Cost management: Refers to the process of identifying the expenses and costs of

project that approved by project manager or recorded for financial audit.

Quality management: The performance of each activity is evaluated by the project

manager based on project quality plan.

Changes management: During progress, the project can change in scope/quality,
schedule/time and cost/resources, so the project manager needs to record the changes

and have appropriate adjustment in project to avoid or adapt the changes.

Risk management: In planning phase, risks are identified and assessed how to respond
by the manager.

V.

Project closing
Project closing can be considered as the confirmation that Tennisright
project has been completed with all activities fulfilled. The project
manager will hand over the project report to the business and
acknowledge the experiences can be learnt for the next project.

Conclusion
The project building a new warehouse in Sunderland of Tennisright Limited was
reported in form of a basic Product Life Cycle model, in which there are phases including
specific plan with activities and estimated schedule. Moreover, some techniques such as work
breakdown structure, project network diagram are used to emphasize the content and
12

importance of the plan. Also, leaderships and management techniques are practiced to lead
the team to effective performance and to control the uncertainties of the project.
Words count:1804

Appendix
Task 1: Fencefalls Project network diagram
1. The Network Diagram

13

Critical path
Non-critical path

14

2. Timing of activities and the total float

a. Forward pass
Assuming that Fencefall Ltd.s project begins at day 0, the earliest
start time (EST) of activity A is 0, and the earliest finish time (EFT) is
calculated by adding the duration of A to its EST, which will be 1 day.
After the first activity, the EST of the following activity is determined
by its predecessors EFT. In detail, activity B would not be carried out
unless A was completed, so the EFT of A is the EST of B (which is day 1).
Then, the EFT of B is calculated by adding the duration to its EST, which
will be presented as: EFT = EST (day 1) + 1 day = day 2. So that, a
formula can be pointed out to determine the EST and EFT of following
activities:
EFT = EST + Duration
However, when an activity will be launch depending of more than one
predecessor, its EST will be determined by the activity having the highest
EFT. To illustrate, activity H will be launch after finishing three activities
E, F, G which have EFT in turn of 19 (E), 17 (F), 15 (G). So, the EST of
H is when activity E finished which is day 19. Then, EFT of activity H is
calculated similarly based on the formula above.
b. Backward pass
In Fencefall Ltds project, R is the final task, so its LFT equals to not only the
project duration, but also its EFT, which is day 76. To find LST of activity R, a
calculation needs to be done, which is:
LST = LFT Duration
So, LST of activity R is day 75. Moreover, the LST of one task equals to the
LFT its predecessor, so LFT of O, P and Q equal to LST of R, which is day 75.
However, when an activity is the predecessor of more than one node, its LFT is
determined by the node having the lowest LST. In details, N is the predecessor of
O, P and Q, which have LST are in turn of 63, 65 and 67, so LFT of N equals to
LST of O (day 67).

15

3. The Gantt chart showing earliest date that the project can be
completed on

16

4. The limitations of network diagram

Firstly, if the project is so big that its network diagram possesses too many
interconnected activities, it may leave an inexperienced person at a loss
(Milosevic, 2003, p.200), so taking a lot of time for the team to catch up with the
process.
Moreover, the timing of tasks in network diagram is only as good as the provided
estimations (Springer, 2005). It means that any uncertainty happening during the
process, which may cause negative effect on project schedule, probably delays the
project. So, it can work precisely only when the project team is able to handle all the
uncertainties and to ensure following up the diagram.
In many cases of the project progresses, there are significant node changes making
the critical path no longer valid (Stelth, 2009), so an alternative path needs to be
identified. It also means project manager and members have to review the network
diagram and identify the changes of critical path over times.
Another issue related to the critical path is when the project has more than one
critical path. It means there may be two paths might be paralleled and meet in
common nodes, so the tasks would become very complicated.
Additionally, when the critical path and floats change, personnel scheduling also
needs to be adjusted. It means that when the path changes, workforce reallocation
may be affected negatively. For example, if the change happens when an individual is
working on more than one task, the distribution of labor time may become
overloading, therefore putting the worker under huge pressure.
Finally, focusing too much on network diagram makes the project manager more
likely distracted from other issues, which may be the cause of problems happening
17

during the process (Springer, 2005). Therefore, to use this technique effectively, it is
necessary to not only consider the characteristics of the project, but also balance
between different aspects having impact on the process.

Task 2: New warehouse project of Tennisright Ltd.

5. Field & Kellers basic Project Life Cycle Model

18

6.

Work breakdown Structure

19

7. Tennisrights project activities

20

21

8. Tennisrights project network diagram

Critical path
Non-critical path

22

9. Project budget plan

a. Labour cost
No
.
1

Project manager

Unit cost
( per day)
145

Administrator/Supervisor

85

51

21,675

3
4
5
6
7
8

Assistant
Architect
Technical engineer
Electrician
Security staff
Building worker
Total ()

3
1
3
2
3
15

70
110
60
70
60
55

51
5
28
7
51
51

10,710
550
5,040
980
9,180
42,075
97,605

Quantity

Time
(days)
51

Total ()
7,395

b. Materials and equipment cost

Quantit
y

No.
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9

Construction
materials
Ventilation system
Wiring
Lights
Fire alarm
Shelves
Security system
Computer
Telephones
Total ()

Unit cost ()

1,000,000
10
650m
50
10 set
35
3
5
5

350
5
10
200
120
250
500
100

c.

Total project budget

Labour cost:
Materials and equipment cost:
Total:

Total ()

97,605
1,017,200
1,114,805

23

3,500
3,250
500
2,000
4,200
750
2,500
500
1,017,200

10. Risk log

No.

Risk

Chance

Impact

Weight

Response
category

Priority

Late design

10%

Avoid

Spoiled material

30%

Reduce

Raining all day

50%

Accept

Late transportation

40%

Transfer

Negative argument

40%

3.5

Reduce

Work accident

30%

Reduce

Materials stolen

30%

Reduce

24

Status
Review &
manage
Review &
manage
Not
managed
Review &
manage
Review &
manage
Review &
manage
Review &
manage

References
1. Burke, R. (2003) Project Mnagement, Planning and Control Techniques. John Wiley
and Sons.
2. Field, M., Keller, L. (2007) Project Management. Open University.
3. Lester, A. (2013) Project Management, Planning and Control. Butterworth
Heinemann.
4. Milosevic, D. (2003) Project Management Toolbox: Tools and Techniques for the
Practicing Project Manager. John Wiley and Sons.
5. Richard, L. (2002) Project Management Step-by-Step. AMACOM.
6. Richman, L. (2002) Project Management Step-by-Step. AMACOM.
7. Schwalbe, K. (2013) Information Technology Project Management. Cengage
Learning.
8. Springer, M. (2005) Project Management. Purdue University Press
9. Stelth, P. (2009) Projects Analysis through CPM (Critical Path Method). Isles
Internationale Universit (European Union)
10. Turner, R. (1993) Handbook of Project-Based Management. McGraw Hill.

25