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Management Question

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‫المملكة العربية السعودية‬
‫وزارة التعليم‬
‫الجامعة السعودية اإللكترونية‬

Kingdom of Saudi Arabia
Ministry of Education
Saudi Electronic University

College of Administrative and Financial Sciences

Assignment 1
Project Management (MGT 323)
Due Date: 01/03/2025 @ 23:59
Course Name: Project Management

Student’s Name:

Course Code: MGT323

Student’s ID Number:

Semester: Second Semester

CRN:25374
Academic Year:2024-25-2nd

For Instructor’s Use only
Instructor’s Name: Dr Mohammed Mallick
Students’ Grade: /10

Level of Marks: High/Middle/Low

General Instructions – PLEASE READ THEM CAREFULLY
•
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•
•
•
•
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•

The Assignment must be submitted on Blackboard (WORD format only) via the
allocated folder.
Assignments submitted through email will not be accepted.
Students are advised to make their work clear and well presented, marks may be reduced
for poor presentation. This includes filling in your information on the cover page.
Students must mention the question number clearly in their answers.
Late submissions will NOT be accepted. Peer-reviewed journals are required as
references.
Avoid plagiarism, the work should be in your own words, copying from students or other
resources without proper referencing will result in ZERO marks. No exceptions.
All answers must be typed using Times New Roman (size 12, double-spaced) font. No
pictures containing text will be accepted and will be considered plagiarism).
Submissions without this cover page will NOT be accepted.

• Do not make any changes to the cover page.

Assignment Workload:
• This Assignment comprise of a Case Study and Discussion Questions.
• Assignment is to be submitted by each student individually.
Assignment Purposes/Learning Outcomes:
After completion of Assignment-1 students will able to understand the
1. Defining the concepts, theories and approaches of project management. (L.O-1.1)
2. Estimate the project budget and cost control. (L.O-2.2)
3. Analyze to work effectively and efficiently as a team member for project related
cases. (L.O-3.1)

Assignment-1
Assignment Case Study Question:

( Marks 6)

Please read the Case-1.2 “The Hokies Lunch Group.” from Chapter 1 “Modern Project
Management” given in your textbook – Project Management: The Managerial Process
8th edition by Larson and Gray. Refer to specific concepts you have learned from the
chapter to support your answers. Answer the following questions for Part-A, Part-B,
Part-C of the case study.

1. For each part (A,B,C) Identify which phase of the project life cycle is each project in ?
Explain why you think it’s in that phase. (1 Mark for each part (A,B,C),Total of 3
Marks).
2. From each part of the case (A,B &C), What are the two most important things you
learned about working on projects? Why are these things important? Explain your answer
for each part (A,B,C).
(1 Mark for each part (A,B,C),Total of 3 Marks).

Discussion Question:

(4 Marks)

1. What impact will artificial intelligence (AI) have on the field of project management?
(2 Marks) Refer Chapter-2
2. How are projects linked to the strategic plan? (2 Marks) Refer Chapter-2

Answers:

Because learning changes everything.®

Chapter One
Modern Project
Management

© 2021 McGraw-Hill Education. All rights reserved. Authorized only for instructor use in the classroom.
No reproduction or further distribution permitted without the prior written consent of McGraw-Hill Education.

An Overview of Project Management 8th Ed

Learning Objectives
1-1

Understand why project management (PM) is crucial in
today’s world

1-2

Distinguish a project from routine operations

1-3

Identify the different stages of a project life cycle

1-4

Describe how Agile PM is different from traditional PM

1-5

Understand that managing projects involves balancing the
technical and sociocultural dimensions of the project

Chapter Outline
1.1

What Is a Project?

1.2

Current Drivers of Project Management

1.3

Agile Project Management

1.4

Project Management Today: A Socio-Technical Approach

Examples of Projects Given to Recent College Graduates
•

Business information: install new data security system

•

Physical education: develop a new fitness program for senior citizens

•

Marketing: execute a sales program for a new home air purifier

•

Industrial engineering: create a value chain report for every aspect of a key product
from design to customer delivery

•

Chemistry: develop a quality control program for an organization’s drug production
facilities

•

Management: implement a new store layout design

•

Pre-med neurology student: join a project team linking mind mapping to an imbedded
prosthetic that will allow blind people to function normally

•

Sport communication: create a promotion plan for a women’s basketball project

•

Systems engineers: develop data mining software of medical papers and studies
related to drug efficacy

•

Accounting: work on an audit of a major client

•

Public health: design a medical marijuana educational program

•

English: create a web-based user manual for a new electronics product

1.1 What Is a Project?
Project Defined (according to PMI)
• A temporary endeavor undertaken to create a unique product, service,

or result
Major Characteristics of a Project
• Has an established objective

• Has a defined life span with a beginning and an end
• Involves several departments and professionals
• Involves doing something never been done before
• Has specific time, cost, and performance requirements

Program versus Project
Program Defined
• A group of related projects designed to accomplish a common goal

over an extended period of time
Program Management Defined
• A process of managing a group of ongoing, interdependent, related

projects in a coordinated way to achieve strategic objectives
Examples:
• Project: completion of a required course in project management

• Program: completion of all courses required for a business major

Comparison of Routine Work with Projects
Routine, Repetitive Work

Projects

Taking class notes

Writing a term paper

Daily entering sales receipts into the
accounting ledger

Setting up a sales kiosk for a
professional accounting meeting

Responding to a supply-chain
request

Developing a supply-chain
information system

Practicing scales on the piano

Writing a new piano piece

Routine manufacture of an Apple
iPod

Designing an iPod that is
approximately 2 X 4 inches,
interfaces with PC, and
stores 10,000 songs

Attaching tags on a manufactured
product

Wire-tag projects for GE and
Wal-Mart

TABLE 1.1

Project Life Cycle

FIGURE 1.1

The Challenge of Project Management
The Project Manager
• Manages temporary, non-repetitive activities and frequently acts

independently of the formal organization.
• Marshals resources for the project.
• Is the direct link to the customer.
• Works with a diverse troupe of characters.
• Provides direction, coordination, and integration to the project team.
• Is responsible for performance and success of the project.
• Must induce the right people at the right time to address the right

issues and make the right decisions.

1.2 Current Drivers of Project Management
Factors leading to the increased use of project management:
• Compression of the product life cycle

• Knowledge explosion
• Triple bottom line (planet, people, profit)
• Increased customer focus
• Small projects represent big problems

1.3 Agile Project Management
Agile Project Management (Agile PM)
• Is a methodology emerged out of frustration with using traditional
project management processes to develop software.

• Is now being used across industries to manage projects with high
levels of uncertainty.
• Employs an incremental, iterative process sometimes referred to as a
‘rolling wave’ approach to complete projects.

• Focuses on active collaboration between the project and customer
representatives, breaking projects into small functional pieces, and
adapting to changing requirements.
• Is often used up front in the defining phase to establish specifications
and requirements, and then traditional methods are used to plan,
execute, and close the project.
• Works best in small teams of four to eight members.
© McGraw-Hill Education

Rolling Wave Development

• Iterations typically last from one to four weeks.
• The goal of each iteration is to make tangible progress such as define
a key requirement, solve a technical problem, or create desired

features to demonstrate to the customer.
• At the end of each iteration, progress is reviewed, adjustments are
made, and a different iterative cycle begins.

• Each new iteration subsumes the work of the previous iterations until
the project is completed and the customer is satisfied.

FIGURE 1.3

1.4 Project Management Today: A Socio-Technical Approach
The Technical Dimension (The “Science”)
• Consists of the formal, disciplined, purely logical parts of the process.

• Includes planning, scheduling, and controlling projects.
The Sociocultural Dimension (The “Art”)
• Involves the contradictory and paradoxical world of implementation.

• Centers on creating a temporary social system within a larger
organizational environment that combines the talents of a divergent
set of professionals working to complete the project.

A Socio-Technical Approach to Project Management

FIGURE 1.4

Text Overview
• Chapter 2 focuses on how organizations go about evaluating and
selecting projects.

• Chapter 3 discusses matrix management and other organization
forms and also discusses the significant role that culture of an
organization plays in the implementation of projects.
• Chapter 4 deals with defining the scope of the project and developing

a work breakdown structure (WBS).
• Chapter 5 explores the challenge of formulating cost and time
estimates.
• Chapter 6 focuses on utilizing the information from the WBS to create
a project plan in the form of a timed and sequenced network of
activities.
© McGraw-Hill Education

Text Overview (Continued)
•

Chapter 7 examines how organizations and managers identify and
manage risks associated with project work.

•

Chapter 8 explores resource allocation and how resource limitations
impact the project schedule.

•

Chapter 9 examines strategies for reducing project time either prior to the
initiation of the project or in response to problems or new demands placed
on the project.

•

Chapter 10 focuses on the role of the project manager as a leader and
stresses the importance of managing project stakeholders within the
organization.

•

Chapter 11 focuses on the core project team and combines the latest
information on team dynamics with leadership skills/techniques of
developing a high-performance project team.

Text Overview (Continued)
• Chapter 12 discusses how to outsource project work and negotiates
with contractors, customers, and suppliers.

• Chapter 13 focuses on the kinds of information managers use to
monitor project progress and discusses the key concept of earned
value
• Chapter 14 covers closing out a project and the important assessment
of performance and lessons learned.
• Chapter 15 discusses agile project management, a much more
flexible approach to managing projects with high degree of uncertainty.

• Chapter 16 focuses on working on projects across cultures.

Key Terms
Agile project management (Agile PM)
Program
Project
Project life cycle
Project Management Professional (PMP)

Because learning changes everything.

www.mheducation.com

Because learning changes everything.®

Chapter Two
Organization Strategy
and Project Selection

Where We Are Now

Learning Objectives
02-01
02-02
02-03
02-04
02-05

02-06
02-07
02-08
02-09

Explain why it is important for project managers to understand
their organization’s strategy
Identify the significant role projects contribute to the strategic
direction of the organization
Understand the need for a project priority system
Distinguish among three kinds of projects
Describe how the phase gate model applies to project
management
Apply financial and nonfinancial criteria to assess the value of
projects
Understand how multi-criteria models can be used to select
projects
Apply an objective priority system to project selection
Understand the need to manage the project portfolio

Chapter Outline
2.1

Why Project Managers Need to Understand Strategy

2.2

The Strategic Management Process: An Overview

2.3

The Need for a Project Priority System

2.4

Project Classification

2.5

Phase Gate Model

2.6

Selection Criteria

2.7

Applying a Selection Model

2.8

Managing the Portfolio System

2.1 Why Project Managers Need to Understand Strategy
Two main reasons project managers need to understand their
organization’s mission and strategy:
1.

So they can make appropriate decisions and adjustments.
• How a project manager would respond to a suggestion to modify the
design of a product or to delays may vary depending upon strategic
concerns.

So they can be effective project advocates. They have to be able to:
• demonstrate to senior management how their project contributes to
the firm’s mission in order to garner their continued support.
• explain to stakeholders why certain project objectives and priorities are
critical in order to secure buy-in on contentious trade-off decisions.
• explain why the project is important to motivate and empower the
project team (Brown, Hyer and Ettenson, 2013).

2.2 The Strategic Management Process: An Overview
Strategic Management Defined
• Is the process of assessing “what we are” and deciding and
implementing “what we intend to be and how we are going to get
there.”
• Is a continuous, iterative process aimed at developing an integrated
and coordinated long-term plan of action.
• Requires strong links among mission, goals, objectives, strategy, and
implementation.
Two Major Dimensions of Strategic Management:
1. Responds to changes in the external environment and allocates the
firm’s scare resources to improve its competitive position.
2. Internal responses to new action programs aimed at enhancing the
competitive position of the firm.

Four Activities of the Strategic Management Process
The sequence of activities of the strategic management process is:
1.

Review and define the organizational mission
•

The mission identifies “what we want to become.” Mission statements identify
the scope of the organization in terms of its product and service.

Analyze and formulate strategies
•

Formulating strategy answers the question of what needs to be done to reach
objectives. Strategy formulation includes determining and evaluating
alternatives that support the organization’s objectives and selecting the best
alternative.

Set objectives to achieve strategies
•

Objectives translate the organization strategy into specific, concrete,
measureable terms. Objectives answer in detain where a firm is headed and
when it is going to get there.

Implement strategies through projects
•

Implementation answers the question of how strategies will be realized, given
available resources.

Strategic Management Process

FIGURE 2.1

Characteristics of Objectives

EXHIBIT 2.1

2.3 The Need for a Project Priority System
Implementation of projects without a strong priority system linked to strategy
create problems.
Problem 1: The Implementation Gap
•

The implementation gap is the lack of understanding and consensus of
organization strategy among top and middle-level managers.

Problem 2: Organization Politics
•

Project selection may be based not so much on facts and sound reasoning as on
the persuasiveness and power of people advocating projects.

•

The term sacred cow is often used to denote a project that a powerful, highranking official is advocating.

Problem 3: Resource Conflicts and Multitasking
•

A multi-project environment creates the problems of project interdependency and
the need to share resources. Resource sharing leads to multitasking—involves
starting and stopping work on one task to go and work on another project, then
returning to the work on the original task.

Benefits of Project Portfolio Management

EXHIBIT 2.2

2.4 Project Classification

FIGURE 2.2

2.5 Phase Gate Model
Phase Gate Model
• Is a series of gates that a project must pass through in order to be

completed.
• Its purpose is to ensure that the organization is investing time and
resources on worthwhile projects that contribute to its mission and
strategy.
• Each gate is associated with a project phase and represents a
decision point.
• A gate can lead to three possible outcomes: go (proceed), kill (cancel),

or recycle (revise and resubmit).

Phase Gate Process Diagram

FIGURE 2.3

2.6 Selection Criteria
• Financial Criteria
• Payback

• Net present value (NPV)
• Nonfinancial Criteria
• Projects of strategic importance to the firm
• Two Multi-Criteria Selection Models
• Checklist Models
• Multi-Weighted Scoring Models

Financial Criteria: The Payback Model
The Payback Model
•

Measures the time the project will take to recover the project investment.

•

Desires shorter paybacks.

•

Is the simplest and most widely used model.

•

Emphasizes cash flows, a key factor in business.

Limitations of the Payback Method
•

Ignores the time value of money.

•

Assumes cash inflows for the investment period (and not beyond).

•

Does not consider profitability.

The Payback formula is

𝑃𝑎𝑦𝑏𝑎𝑐𝑘 𝑝𝑒𝑟𝑖𝑜𝑑 𝑦𝑟𝑠 =

𝐸𝑠𝑡𝑖𝑚𝑎𝑡𝑒𝑑 𝑝𝑟𝑜𝑗𝑒𝑐𝑡 𝑐𝑜𝑠𝑡
𝐴𝑛𝑛𝑢𝑎𝑙 𝑆𝑎𝑣𝑖𝑛𝑔𝑠

Example Comparing Two Projects Using Payback Method

EXHIBIT 2.3A

Financial Criteria: Net Present Value (NPV)
Net Present Value (NPV)
•
•
•
•

Uses management’s minimum desired rate of return (discount rate) to
compute the present value of all net cash inflows.
Prefers positive NPV to negative NPV.
Desires higher positive NPVs.
Is more realistic because it considers the time value of money, cash flows,
and profitability.

The NPV formula using Microsoft Excel is
𝑛

𝑃𝑟𝑜𝑗𝑒𝑐𝑡 𝑁𝑃𝑉 = 𝐼0 + ෍
𝑡=1

𝐹𝑡
(1 + 𝑘)𝑡

where
I0 = Initial investment (since it is an outflow, the number will be negative)
Ft = Net cash inflow for period t
k = Required rate of return
n = Number of years
© McGraw-Hill Education

Example Comparing Two Projects Using Net Present Value Method

EXHIBIT 2.3B

Nonfinancial Criteria
Examples of strategic objectives are:
• To capture larger market share.

• To make it difficult for competitors to enter the market.
• To develop an enabler product, which by its introduction will increase
sales in more profitable products.

• To develop core technology that will be used in next-generation
products.
• To reduce dependency on unreliable suppliers.

• To prevent government intervention and regulation.

Two Multi-Criteria Selection Models
Checklist Models
•

Use a list of questions to review potential projects and to determine their
acceptance or rejection.

•

Allow greater flexibility in selecting among many different types of projects
and are easily used across different divisions and locations.

•

Fail to answer the relative importance or value of a potential project to the
organization and does not allow for comparison with other potential
projects.

Multi-Weighted Scoring Models
•

Use several weighted selection criteria to evaluate project proposals.

•

Include qualitative and/or quantitative criteria.

•

Allow for comparison with other potential projects.

Checklist Models: Sample Selection Questions Used in Practice

EXHIBIT 2.4

Multi-Weighted Scoring Models: Project Screening Matrix

FIGURE 2.4

2.7 Applying a Selection Model
Project Classification
• Deciding whether the project fits with the organization strategy.

• Selecting a Model
• Weighted scoring criteria seem the best alternative because:
• They reduce the number of wasteful projects using resources.
• They help to identify project goals that can be communicated using the

selection criteria as corroboration.
• They help project managers understand how their project was selected,
how their project contributes to organization goals, and how it compares
with other projects.

Applying a Selection Model (Continued)
Sources and Solicitation of Project Proposals
• Within the organization

• Request for Proposal (RFP) from external sources
(contractors/vendors)
Ranking Proposal and Selection of Projects
• Evaluating each proposal in terms of feasibility, potential contribution
to strategic objectives, and fit within a portfolio of current projects.
• Rejecting or accepting the projects based on given selection criteria
and current portfolio.

• Prioritizing projects by senior management.

A Proposal Form for an Automatic Vehicular Tracking (AVL)
Public Transportation Project

FIGURE 2.5A

Risk Analysis for a 500-Acre Wind Farm

FIGURE 2.5B

Project Screening Process

FIGURE 2.6

Priority Screening Analysis

FIGURE 2.7

2.8 Managing the Portfolio System
Senior Management Input
• Provides guidance in establishing selection criteria that strongly align

with the current organization strategies.
• Annually decides how to balance the available organizational
resources (people and capital) among the different types of projects.
Governance Team Responsibilities

• Publish the priority of every project.
• Ensure the selection process is open and free of power politics.
• Evaluate the progress of current projects.
• Constantly scan the external environment to determine if organization
focus and/or selection criteria need to be changed.

Balancing the Portfolio for Risks and Types of Projects
David and Jim Matheson studied R&D organizations and developed a
classification scheme that could be used for assessing a project portfolio.
They separated projects in terms of degrees of difficulty and commercial
value. The four basic types of projects are:
•

Bread-and-butter projects involve evolutionary improvements to current
products and services.

•

Pearls represent revolutionary commercial advances using proven
technology.

•

Oysters involve technological breakthroughs with tremendous
commercial potential.

•

White elephants showed promise at one time but are no longer viable.

Key Terms
Implementation gap
Net present value (NPV)

Organization politics
Payback
Phase gate model
Priority system

Priority team
Project portfolio
Project sponsor
Sacred cow
Strategic management

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