Assessment task 2
Outcomes covered 3 and 4
Assessment task instructions
You should refer back to the Mercury Logistics case study provided.
John Smith would like you to plan and schedule the marketing survey project for Mercury Logistics, using project management software. You will follow the following assessment tasks in sequence. The assessment task instructions have been written for Microsoft Project.
1 Setting the save options and auto saving
(a) Open Microsoft project and save the file in an appropriate place.
(b) Set the autosave option to save your work to this chosen area every 15 minutes, to protect against power failure, etc.
2 Starting a new project
Enter the project start date.
3 Adding additional project properties information
Enter an appropriate project title, ‘Marketing Survey’ as the subject, your name as the author, ‘John Smith’ as the manager, and ‘Mercury Logistics’ as the company.
4 Creating a new base calendar for the project
(a) Using the standard calendar as a copy template, create a new calendar for the marketing survey project giving it a suitable name. Enter all common holidays and ensure the working times are correct for the project.
(b) Apply the project calendar to the project in general. (Project Information)
(c) Apply the project calendar to the Gantt chart area.
(d) Apply the project calendar in the task information dialogue box for all tasks. (Task Information)
5 Creating a resource pool
(a) Create a resource sheet showing all of the project resources and associated costs. Do not enter a cost for the project expenses as these will be entered as a fixed cost a little later in the project. The presentation equipment should be added as a ‘work’ resource with the appropriate cost per day rather than a cost per hour.
(b) Apply the project calendar to all of the resources.
(c) Enter a note in the resource information for David Beckham that he will take a business trip to Paris for an international logistics conference which will take five days starting on the first Monday in April.
6 Individual resource calendar
(a) Create a calendar for David Beckham based upon the project calendar. You should add the five-day business trip to David Beckham’s calendar.
(b) Apply David Beckham’s Calendar to him on the resource sheet.
7 Entering project key stages, sub tasks and details
(a) Enter all of the key stages, sub tasks and milestones. Ensure the subtasks and milestones are indented under the appropriate key stages tasks.
(b) Enter the durations against the tasks.
(c) Using task information (for all tasks) ensure the following details are shown:
Deadline: NA
Constraint type: As soon as possible
Constraint date: NA
Task type: Fixed Units
Calendar: None
Select OK
(d) Establish the relationships (dependencies) between the tasks.
(e) Enter a description of the deliverable for each milestone in the task information note against each milestone.
(f) Select a suitable calendar scale for the Gantt chart so most of the chart can be viewed in a single pane.
8 Assigning resources to tasks and fixed costs
(a) Assign resources to each sub task as suggested in the emails.
(b) Insert a fixed cost column in Table: Entry in the Gantt chart view and enter the budget for expenses against the end of project milestone.
Additional information
The project completion date may fail to meet the time constraint set for the project. John Smith has asked you to reduce the length of the project by 10 days or more and ensure that the completion date of the project should beat the ‘end of June’ deadline.
John Smith has decided to have some other project staff to take over some of David’s ‘analysis of survey results’ tasks to reduce his workload. Then the analysis tasks undertaken by different project members can take place at the same time, so the length of the project can be reduced as well. Additional copies of the software package should be required and hired for these changes of work allocation.
John has also decided to speed up the production of the presentation in the final ‘presentation of survey’ stage by adding two more project team staff resulting in halving the six-day completion time.
9 Shortening the project and resolving resource problems
(a) Alter your project so that two of David Beckham’s analysis tasks are replaced by Kate Beckinsale and Michael Owen. Additional copies of the software package (e.g. ‘software 2’ and ‘software 3’ which are at the same hire rate as the first copy of the software package) should be added as resources for Kate and Michael’s ‘new’ analysis tasks. These adjustments will not change the originally allocated durations of the analysis tasks involved.
(b) Alter your project so the analysis tasks undertaken by different team members can take place at the same time. Ensure that dependencies between the related tasks should be adjusted accordingly. The subsequent task of comparing survey results should be undertaken when all the analysis tasks have been completed.
(c) Add two other members of the project team to help Emma Watson and Harry Kane in producing the final presentation. The extra help should cut down the duration from six days to three.
10 Critical Path
Either show the critical path on the Gantt chart view, or in Table: Entry insert a column to show the critical path.
11 Analyse charts and reports
You have been asked to create a short summary update of the project costs and resource usage for the Board of Directors. This may take the form of a presentation or suitable alternative format.
(a) Open a blank PowerPoint (or alternative application) and Name it Project Summary Update followed by your name. Insert these details into the presentation.
(b) In Microsoft Project, take a screenshot of the Gantt chart (more than one may be required) and place this into your presentation.
(c) Provide an explanation of the information that the chart displays.
(d) In Microsoft Project in Reports create a Resource Overview Report* and take a screenshot and place this into your presentation.
(e) Provide a brief explanation of the resource usage shown in the Resource Overview Report.
(f) In Microsoft Project in Reports (in dashboards) create a Cost Overview Report* and take a screenshot and place this into your presentation.
(g) Provide a brief explanation of the costs shown in the Cost Overview Report.
* The two reports specified are not available in versions of pre 2013 Microsoft Project. Alternative reports include ‘Resource Remaining Work Report’ or ‘Resource Work Summary Report’ for resource overview and ‘Baseline Cost Report’ for cost overview, to allow each learner to meet the evidence requirement ‘generate meaningful annotated reports and charts with appropriate scales’.
Having saved you completed project and the presentation, send your tutor an electronic copy of the completed project and presentation ensuring each has your name in each file name.
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