Design and Construction Phases of a Project Life Cycle - Essay Example

Project Manager For A 3 Day Music Festival By Student’s name Code+ course name Professor’s name University name City, State Date Introduction A-Team is a group of 45 dancers who are supposed to attend a music festival that will be running for three consecutive days. The group is expected to perform at least two times before the end of the event. In the program guide that was given, A-Team is scheduled to perform on the morning of the second day and on the evening of the third day. Their main function is to entertain the guest who have attended the event and also showcase their skills to the rest of the world. This will also be used as a marketing strategy where interested investors can later contact them for finance and support (Turner, 2014). The performance of the team should attract more young people to join and be part of the team. Being the project manager of the team, my main function is to ensure optimum performance for the team. This will be done using five major phases. They will be; Initiation, planning, controls, execution, and closeout (Blengini, Garbarino, Šolar, Shields, Hámor, Vinai, and Agioutantis, 2012). Figure 1: showing project's lifecycle a) Initiation Initiation is the first phase in the project. The group is supposed to have set clear objectives that must be achieved by the end of the project. This stage also marks the beginning of the project and will be used as the background for the planning phase. The success of the initiation stage will make the planning stage to be much easier (Jiang, Lepak, Hu, and Baer, 2012). First as the project manager, I will have to ensure that each member in the team is aware of the event, and he or she is willing to participate. This makes the group be psychologically prepared even before the start of the event. The second thing should be to set the objective of the projects. These are some of the objective set by A-Team dancers that should be achieved by the end of the project. 1. Their presentation should accommodate more than 20 moves. This will be divided into two; in the first performance the group should present at least ten moves and in the second performance the group should also present more than ten moves. 2. The performance should be entertaining. Such that the music selected should be easily danceable and also popular among the audience. This will make it easier for the audience to relate with the dance moves. 3. The dancers should be able to use at least at three-quarters of the time allocated but should not exceed the time set. 4. The group should practice at least once, every morning to ensure smooth coordination during the performance. These objectives are achievable if there is proper coordination within the team, and proper planning is done before the project is executed. The objectives should serve as a guide for the A-Team dances to use as a guideline for their success during the three days event. However, these objectives should not limit better performance from the group. The second stage will be planning. b) Planning Planning is the most impontant stage in the execution of the project. Planning defines the limits and also the readiness of the team towards the implementation of the project. This phase deals with: identifying the resources available; the resources needed; the finances available and the budgeting. How well the phase executed, determines the general success of the project. The budgeting process should enhance the objectives set therefore making achievement of the objective easier (Brokaw, 2012). The first step is to list the requirement of the project to see if any of them should be purchased. In the invitational letter, it has stated that the dress code for the dancers should be black and white. However, it has not given the design on how the colors are supposed to be mixed up. The A-Team dancers do not have such an attire, and, therefore, they will have to purchase those clothes. The Team will be divided into two groups. Each group should have different designs of the uniform. However, the two groups will be training together to ensure uniformity in the performance. The main reason for dividing the group its because the performance stage is small and cannot accommodate the whole group. So that to ensure marketing of the team, the attire will have names of the members and team name. The transport should also be planned for prior the traveling day. The alternatives available are road transport and air transport (Hegazy, and Menesi, 2012). However, due to the high number of dancers and the limited resources, the best means to use will be the road transport. The road to the event is hilly, narrow and winding, which means that it is not reliable to travel on the day of the event. Therefore, A-Team will have to travel one day before the start of the event commence. The team their own means of transport. Therefore, it will have to outsource transport services from a third party firm. Accommodation is critical for the comfort of the team. The event will provide limited accommodation. It means that the manager should plan for the accommodation incase any of the member misses out. The type of accommodation should be chosen depending on the cost per room, availability, and distance to the event. The choices to be made will be either to hire single person’s room, or a shared one. The best alternative is for the rooms to be shared to save on the cost (Idoro, 2012). Having a timetable is necessary for the team. The following will be the timetable that will be used throughout the event: Day Daytime Evening Day 1 Arrival 7-8 pm: Supper Day 2 6-8: Morning practice 8-8.30: Breakfast 8.30-9 am: preparation 9.30: performance 7-8 pm: Supper Day 3 6-8: Morning practice 8-8.30: Breakfast 7-8 pm: Supper Day 4 6-8: Morning practice 8-8.30: Breakfast 3 pm: Performance 7-8 pm: Supper Day 5 Travel Table 1:showing the timetable for the team The timetable should give the team members a lot of free time so that they can learn from the rest of the people who have attended the occasion. It will also help to manage the time for each of the members to ensure that they are present. The planning stages contains most of the things the manager and the team can influence. However, the project manager should also plan for some unexpected outcomes that may arise. These are covered in the control phase. c) Control This is where the risk management plan is determined and the countermeasures are also defined (Son, Kim, and Kim, 2012). Some of the risks that might be expected are: i. Weather changes. ii. Lack of accommodation due to the high number of people in the place. iii. Injury of a team member. iv. Transport issues. Despite the assurance that the weather is normal and calm, the project manager should plan for any changes that may arise. This includes some warm clothes in case the temperature lows. Rain can also cause discomfort to the members. Therefore, as part of the attire, a raincoat may be included to ensure efficiency of the members in case of rains. Accommodation may be a problem. The event is offering accommodation but it is limited. Therefore, it will be given on the principle of first come first served. Therefore, the manager should include finances to cater for the extra accommodation that they might occur and it should be the cheapest possible yet comfortable for the team (Fernández-Muñiz, Montes-Peón, and Vázquez-Ordás, 2014). Injury to one of the team member can cause inefficiency to the whole team. That is the reason for dividing the group into two meaning each member can be substituted in case anything happens to them. The project manager should ensure that the team has a first aid kit for small injuries that might arise. On the other hand, the road transport might develop some problems such as traffic jam and poor road. This is a risk that can cause inconveniences with the arrival time. To counter this risk, the group is supposed to travel early enough. When these countermeasures are put in place, it will allow proper execution of the project (Meredith Belbin, 2011). d) Execution The team members should attend all the practices to ensure they have proper understanding of the performance. During performance, all the team members should have the right attire. This will be to ensure uniformity during the performance. The team is will be divided into two groups, and each group will have a leader. The leader should be positioned at the center to ensure there is proper coordination during the dances. There will be several dance deputy leaders in each group. These are the best dancers in each group and will be alternating after each change of a dance style. Having these leaders makes it easier to coordinate the whole group because they will just have to follow their leaders. The leaders are also supposed to manage the team. They will ensure each member gets the right attire for them. They will also need to distribute food and also to organize for the accommodation of each person. This will make it easier for the manager because instructions will be given to the two leaders, and then they will pass it to the rest of the people (Salagean, Ilies, Gherman, and Pampa, 2013). e) Closeout Closeout is the final stage of the project. If the risk is too much, the project manager may decide to close the project until all the necessary precautions are taken. In most cases, closeout is used as the last option for the project management (Son, Kim, and Kim, 2012). Conclusion The project manager is an important tool from the initiation stage until completion of the whole project. The cooperation from the members involved is important to ensure the project is successful. There are several challenges that can easily be identified. These challenges need to be addressed to avoid inconvincing the team members. The chosen approach and contrast with alternatives that you assessed as not being suitable for this type of project. During the undertaking of the project, the team had to make choices regarding: 1. Transport 2. Perfomance The team has to decided which mode of transport to use. They have to choose between road and air transport. Air transport is the most efficient transport since it was fast and reliable. However, it was very expensive for the team. They chose the road transport for their transport to the festive. On the other hand, the team is expected to give optimum entertainment. Therefore, the group have decided to perfom in two groups. This is because of the size of the performance stage and also to have a substitute incase of the injury. The chosen approaches are meant to enhance efficiency during the performance. Bibliography Blengini, G. A., Garbarino, E., Šolar, S., Shields, D. J., Hámor, T., Vinai, R., & Agioutantis, Z. (2012). 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