Project Management Plan: Document Analysis

Introduction

About this Document

The provided Project Management Plan is based on the private initiative following the affordable housing construction opportunities in KSA. The document encompasses the initial objectives, estimations, and project’s scope needed to design, plan, and construct the villa. The utilisation of PMBOK guidelines and methodologies will assist in the development and execution of the ongoing project.

The following stages will be followed to ensure the quality outcomes and accuracy during the project’s execution stage:

This document provides a plan for the management of the Villa Construction project. It contains:

• Description of how the project management process will applied to this project
• Project management plans

The Project Management Plan is the operational document for the project. It is owned, maintained and utilised by the Project Manager and Project Team to support the delivery of the project deliverable. The Project Management Plan expands on the Project Charter and details how’ the Project Team will carry out their responsibilities to ensure that the objectives in the Charter will occur.

Background – Problem/Opportunity Statement

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) is a country with tremendous growth due to population growth, economic growth, and upgrading. Referring to the KSU 2030 vision, one of its goals is to increase the Saudi family’s ownership of homes. On the other hand, this improvement developed more requirements for the Saudi family. Fulfilling these modern requirements need a sufficient house. Like my family, the requirements increased because there is an increase in family members, and we now live in a rented apartment, and it does not meet all the demands and does not provide the required stability for the family. Therefore, build a new home is needed.

The tremendous amount of contemporary construction in Saudi Arabia for residential villas is a common phenomenon as it is the preferred style for Saudi families. Therefore, building a one-family Villa is an essential step in my family life.

Despite its time-consuming and financial approach and the effort to complete it, it is an important milestone. Therefore, this project implies designing and constructing a new home (Villa) for my family in Riyadh. The land area is 1,020 m2, and the built area is 479 m2. The villa contains seven bedrooms, three living areas, two kitchens, two dining areas, six toilets, garage for three cars, and a garden. The estimated budget and duration to complete this villa construction is SAR 1,392,137 (AUD 570,000) with the designing, materials, labour, engineering, and contractor payments. The project duration is 14-16 weeks period for the design and construction processes.

Business Rationale

When deciding to get a rural property, the question arises whether it is cheaper to buy or build a house. Building a home with the help of a construction firm will be much less expensive than buying a finished one. First, there is an estimate at each stage, and manager can control expenses. Second, the materials are purchased independently, so there is no mark-up since the contractor only earns on the works. In doing so, materials may be of higher quality and more durable warranty assurance. All calculations are made in dollars, and prices are fixed when using imported materials.

One of the benefits of building a house from scratch is quality control. It allows owners to create the desired or dreamed house, of course, as far as architectural and financial possibilities allow. The independent and private house construction project has several advantages: control over the right materials’ purchase, making a unique project, and realizing specific ideas or demands. There is an opinion that self-construction is cheaper. There are a lot of risks and nuances involved, and sometimes due to incompetence in construction matters, it results into additional financial costs, which requires the intervention of construction companies.

When the finished home is purchased, the disadvantages of construction can likely be manifested in the subsequent operation and eliminating them will have to incur unanticipated costs. However, a constructed home removes the risks of building. When a house is built from scratch, the owner can create a house that can become a family mansion, transitioning from generation to generation.

Project Benefits & KPIs

Table 1. Benefits Table.

Strategic Alignment

According to the Ministry of Housing at KSA vision, to organise and facilitate a balanced and sustainable housing environment. In line with KSA 2030 vision to enable citizens to own housing with a variety of options that are suitable for all categories of society. This project will fulfil this role and help in owning a house for my family, which will contribute to their stability and will achieve these esteemed strategic goals.

The ownership of private property delivers opportunities and freedom of choice to construct a home for several generations. The strategic aim for the project is to create a villa, which corresponds to the latest trends and demands on the real estate market so that Saudi families obtain affordable and modern housing. The integration of advanced construction materials, utilities, and appliances should enhance and sustain the project. The accurate and concise construction planning should lay down the guideline for future projects, where villas for Saudi families become a solution to the pending housing problem.

In this instance, the development of the villa project plan aims to analyse and incorporate all advanced methodologies from construction project management. These techniques will be transformed into objectives and estimations, which can be used as a unified standard for the ongoing projects. In return, the provided evaluations and deadlines can be reviewed as the specific ones for this project; however, the selected periods correspond to the industry standards and real estate market demands.

Project Scope

The presented project deliverables highlight and undertake critical and supplemental outcomes, which should be presented at the end of the construction period. The list of deliverables shows categories which are essential for the construction site and process for quality outcomes and sustainability. The following deliverables must be achieved by the end of the construction of the villa project in KSA:

Deliverables

Project Management Deliverables

• Proposals
• Design documents such as (drawings, specifications, bill of quantities)
• Project management plan such as (WBS, schedule, milestones, budget, responsibility chart)
• Design reviews
• Tender document
• Key Performance Indicator (KPI) dashboard
• Site investigation report
• Progress report
• Consultant administration
• Risk Register

Product Deliverables

Engineering Deliverables

• Engineering reports
• Engineering calculations
• Technical interpretation
• Project equipment list
• Instrumentation and control

Quality Deliverables

• Product quality enhancement
• Completed product
• Quality management system and control
• Quality defect analysis
• Completed product (building, garden)

Requirements

The housing requirements in KSA indicates that the villa project should encompass proposals and guidelines depicted in the Vision 2030 document. The construction project should meet two critical criteria: price affordability and the presence of modern accommodations. These two standards are grounded in the Vision 2030, where affordable housing programs aim to construct, maintain, and invest funds into houses and residential areas for their improvement or renovation. As a result, the presented project should incorporate the national trends and requirements discussed in the Vision 2030 document.

The project must meet the following list of requirements to achieve the desired outcome:

• The project is designing and constructing a family house (Villa) at Riyadh in KSA
• The project structure type is reinforcement concrete and two-story Villa
• The project design and construction need to meet the local regulations and codes
• Build a sustainable house with high-efficiency materials that will reduce the energy consumption
• The villa must contain at minimum seven bedrooms, three living areas, two kitchens (one in each floor), two dining areas, six toilets, garage for three cars, and a garden
• All rooms and spaces should be spacious enough
• The total site area is 1,020m2, and the built area need to be less than 500m2
• The garden must be environmentally friendly with local features
• All materials and systems installation to be completed by professional and certified suppliers
• Materials are arranged to the manufacturers’ directions for the security reasons
• The finished object is protected from the climate conditions.

Work Breakdown Structure

Table 2. WBS table.

Out of Scope

The project opportunity and financial risk management are out of the scope in this project plan. The assessment of opportunity costs and financial fluctuations within the real estate is not a part of the construction project. In this case, the project deliverables and outcomes can be further utilized for the economic perspective, as the review of finite projects and its value for KSA households and authorities as a part of the affordable housing program in the country.

Project Constraints

The current project constraints are based on the financial estimations for one villa for one family. The limitations are due to the projections of one house per unique project. In this case, the evaluations of all opportunities and alternatives are put aside to ease the implementation and execution of the project. Moreover, the project is limited by economic, social, and legal peculiarities of KSA and its macro and micro-environments for construction projects and housing initiatives.

Project Assumptions

Project assumptions are the following:

1. The construction company has the field experience for more than ten years;
2. Engineers and architects have experience with identical projects and have developed case studies relevant to the field of real estate industry;
3. The project should be done within the deadline, where workers and involved specialists work shifts without leaves.
4. No roadblocks and pitfalls are expected during the project execution stage.

Project Time Management

The duration of work is the main parameter of planning. It depends on the total labour involved in the implementation of the elements of the work and the number of employees who can perform it. Naturally, the duration of action depends on the amount to be completed and the intensity of the work. In assessing the actual term, it is necessary to take into account various factors, namely: lost time for non-project work (holidays, weekends, hospitals), part-time work, obstacles (PMBOK 2017). The duration of some works may depend on the timely delivery of materials. Besides, resource constraints must be considered when setting baseline or current planning dates.

Project Time Management – Approach

Tasks planning usually has two types of formulation:

1. Accounting for the needs of individual types of resources and their smoothing. This task is to construct histograms of the total resource requirement for a given schedule option. The bar graphs show the distribution of resource requirements over time, comparison of this need to the timely provision of resources for the project, and serve to evaluate the quality and reality of the calendar plan option.
2. Resource allocation. Depending on the accepted criterion of optimality and the nature of the constraints, the tasks of resource allocation are divided into problems of optimizing deviations from the set terms. It also includes the minimizing of the timing of target events occurrence while observing the constraints on the resources. The task of optimizing some indicators is the quality of use of support at the given time frame of the complex.

When analysing the results of calculations and factors of project implementation, it is necessary to identify opportunities and predict the effect of destabilizing factors, to develop measures that will contribute to the implementation of the project. If necessary, proposals for reducing the duration of work should be prepared. It is essential to analyse the project implementation capability, which is carried out in two stages. On the first – the availability of resources for all works is analysed. On the second – the resources are smoothed. Some resources may need to be purchased, leased, and some actions may need to be contracted. A cost estimate is known for each operation, so a cost-effectiveness analysis requires a set of values depending on the duration of each process. The economic feasibility of implementation is necessary to determine the period of the project, which corresponds to the minimum cost.

The project feasibility analysis is conducted based on the input information, considering the technical project of the calendar plan, cost estimation by additional criteria as follows:

• An integral assessment of the project’s reliability is carried out, namely:
  • the resources of implementation (whether there are enough resources and whether the resources required can be obtained to perform the work);
  • economic opportunities for implementation (minimum costs for this option);
  • financial possibilities for application (whether the plan will be provided with financial resources);
• Based on the assessment, adjustments are made, project optimisation (whether the program meets the plan criteria), and the working proposal of the calendar plan are accepted.

The documentation for the project plan package includes:

1. comprehensive (consolidated) calendar plan;
2. detailed schedules for performers;
3. detailed programs for work packages;
4. information on resource requirements;
5. contracting plan;
6. organisational and technological measures for the implementation of the project;
7. plan for monitoring the progress of work.

Schedule

The ongoing project will require 14 weeks starting from devising a plan, designing, the building process, and to the closing, and the family moving in. The below schedule represents all processes and planned activities for the designed project period:

Project Cost Management

Cost estimation involves the development of an approximate cost estimate of the resources required to complete the project. Estimating the cost of a project is essentially an estimation of all the costs needed to successfully and fully implement the plan. Project cost planning should be done to:

• determining the economic efficiency of the project by comparing project costs and revenues;
• project financing;
• allocation of project resources according to the scope and content of the works;
• estimation of the duration of the work, since the determination of costs, is necessary for the estimate of time, and on the contrary – the evaluation of time makes it possible to calculate the costs;
• ensuring project control (comparing planned expenses with actual costs, determining deviations and taking appropriate corrective actions);
• preparation of company participation in tenders (firms participating in tenders for project implementation must calculate expenses to define the price of their proposal and forecast their profits from project implementation).

If the project is contracted, consideration should be given to the distinction between costing and pricing. Costing involves estimating the likely quantitative results – how much will it cost to the project organisation, development of a construction part or service. Pricing is a commercial decision about how much money a project organisation can pay to produce a new product or service; it is used here as one of many factors and cost estimates.

Project Cost Management – Approach

The Villa Construction Project budget is based on the private capital used to contract the construction company to execute the project. Materials are purchased from private funds, while the contracted company provides the equipment and supplemental tools. In this instance, the initial expenses are work expenses, materials expenses, design and architecture planning, consultancy services expenses, and external audit costs for quality control.

Moreover, the budget incorporates costs for interior and exterior design (PMBOK 2017). The required materials and appliances for them are included in the villa costs. Further, the project budget suggests that the villa’s final price should also incorporate prices for utilities and accommodations so that the final product represents the fully accommodated villa, ready for exploitation and use.

Budget

Considering the per square meter cost in Saudi Arabia, the approximate cost is $556 764, which includes design, construction, and supplemental costs.

Table 5: Project Budget.

Project Human Resource Management

An effective organisational system, structured planning and control, and good team relationships are essential for the success of the project. Effective HR management is the basis for project management. Usually, investors consider the staff and management team as the main factor in the success of the project. The main objective of project personnel management is to ensure:

• proper behaviour of each member of the project team, which is necessary to achieve the organisational goals, including the successful implementation of the project as a whole;
• creating a project team capable of delivering the project fulfilment as best as possible (in quality, time, and cost).

Project Human Resource Management – Approach

The main areas of personnel management in projects are:

1. the leadership of the project manager;
2. team development and group work;
3. the motivation of individuals and group;
4. conflict management.

The environment in which projects are carried out can be complicated and often uncertain. Difficulties that necessarily take place in project management are compounded by the fact that people usually take on project management responsibilities without having a specific professional education in the field, and therefore often consider that project management is a profession casual. There are two significant issues that a project manager faces. The first is how to identify and avoid some typical or dangerous “pitfalls.” The second is how to organize and execute a project with a view to success and how to minimize the risks and the likelihood of project failure.

Project Team Members

The project team is:

1. Villa owner
2. Consultant/Project Manager
3. Construction Team Leader
4. Auditor
5. Quality Assurance Agent

Responsibility Assignment Matrix

Table 6: Responsibilities Matrix.

Project Communications Management

Communications are processes associated with ensuring the timely and appropriate generation, collection, dissemination, storage, and final disposition of project information. Because projects are executed by people who perform various functions, often at a considerable distance from each other, issues of information sharing and coordination are fundamental (Project Management Institute 2017). During the communication, the goals and people’s actions are coordinated, problems are identified and solved, expectations of project participants are regulated.

Communication requirements mean the general (cumulative) needs of project participants in the information. The project team members have four main types of conditions. First, there is a need for information on the distribution of responsibilities. Each team member has to know precisely what part of the project they are responsible for, what their duties and responsibilities are (Larsen et al. 2015). The basis for this information is the organisational structure of the project. Second, there is a need for coordination. Team members depend on each other for the project. Coordinating information ensures that team members work together effectively. The coordinating information category includes information about any changes made to the project.

The third condition is the necessary information on the progress of the project progress. Team members should be aware of the current status of the project so that problems can be identified, and action is taken promptly. This type of information includes reports on time spent, adherence to a calendar, and project schedule. Information about the current status of risks and emerging issues is also essential (Indelicato 2015). Team members need information about the decisions made. They need to be aware of decisions made by management, project sponsors, and clients if those decisions are relevant to the project itself or its economic environment. An example of such information is the project status, the content of the work, the schedule of work, and the project budget.

The communication planning process identifies the information and interactions required by project participants. For example, what kind of information people need, when they need it, who and how should provide it. Although there is a need for project information in all projects, information needs, and methods of dissemination can vary greatly. An essential factor in achieving the success of the project is identifying the information needs of the project participants and identifying appropriate means to meet those needs (Rogers 2019). In most projects, the bulk of communications planning is done at the earliest stages. However, the results of this planning process are reviewed regularly throughout the project and, if necessary, modified to keep them current.

Project Communication Management – Approach

The communication management approach is a part of the project management plan or is included in the project management plan. The communication management plan contains:

• Communication requirements from project participants;
• Information on the information transmitted, including format, content, and the level of detail;
• Name of the officer responsible for transferring data;
• Name of the employee or group – recipients of this information;
• Methods or technologies used to convey the information (business note, e-mail, and press releases);
• Frequency of communication;
• Instance transfer scheme, defining the timing and order of transmission to higher levels (chain) of problems that cannot be solved by personnel at the lower level;
• Method of updating and refining the communication management plan as the project progresses and develops.

The communications management plan may also include the principles of meetings for the current status of the project, meetings of the project team, e-meetings, and e-mails. The interaction management plan can be formal or informal, detailed, or generalized, depending on the needs of the project. The communications management plan is part of or is included in the overall project management plan as an ancillary plan.

Communication Plan

Table 7: Communication Plan.

Stakeholder Management

Depending on the type and the specifics of its implementation, the project can have from several tens to hundreds of stakeholders. Each stakeholder has their own specific functions, degree of participation in the project and a measure of responsibility for its fate.

Stakeholder Management Plan

The initiator is the party who is the author of the main idea of the project, its preliminary justification, and proposals for the implementation of the project. The initiator can be practically any of the future participants of the project, and, ultimately, the business initiative for the implementation of the project must come from the customer’s plan (Rogers 2019). The customer is the leading party interested in implementing the project and achieving its results.

The client defines the essential requirements and scope of the project, provides project financing at the expense of its funds or funds of the attracted investors, concludes contracts with the main contractors of the project, is responsible for these contracts, manages the process of interaction between all project participants. It is responsible for the project as a whole before society and the law.

An investor is a party who invests in a project, for example, through loans. The investor chain is to maximize the return on investment from the project. If the investor and the customer are not the same people – banks, investment funds, and other organisations usually act as investors. Investors enter contractual relations with the customer, monitor the execution of contracts, and settle with other parties as the project progresses. The investors are the full partners of the project and the owners of all the property acquired through their investments until they are paid all the funds under the contract with the customer or the loan agreement.

The project manager is a legal entity to which the client and the investor delegate authority to manage the project implementation work: planning, control, and coordination of the actions of all project participants. The structure and functions of the project manager are determined by the contract with the customer (Indelicato 2015). However, the project manager and their team are usually tasked with the overall management and coordination of PA work throughout the project lifecycle to achieve the goals and results defined in the project while meeting deadlines, budget, and quality.

The project team is a specific organisational structure, headed by a project manager and created for the project implementation period. The task of the project team is to carry out the project management functions to effectively achieve the project goals. The composition and features of the project team depend on the scale, complexity, and other characteristics of the project. Still, in all cases, the structure of the team must ensure a high professional level of all its responsibilities (Project Management Institute 2017). The project team is formed depending on the needs of the project, considering the experience and qualifications of the staff, as well as depending on the conditions and organisation of the project implementation. The leading members of the project team are usually:

• Project Manager – provides overall project management;
• Project Engineer – is responsible for directing and coordinating work on all technical engineering aspects of the project throughout its life cycle;
• Administrative Contract Manager – is responsible for the preparation of contracts, negotiations, conclusion, and control of the execution of contracts and subcontracts with project participants;
• Project Controller – the Project Control Officer is responsible for the planning and control of all project work;
• Project Accountant – is responsible for accounting and reporting on project spending and assisting the Project Manager with financing and accounting;
• Logistics manager – is responsible for all types of procurement and deliveries made within the project;
• Design Manager – is responsible for engineering design work within the project;
• Construction Manager – is responsible for all types of construction work carried out as part of the project;
• Coordinator of operations (or industrial production) – is responsible for all aspects of the planning, implementation of control and coordination of work on the development and production of products and services, which is the ultimate goal of the project;
• Administrative Assistant – is responsible for supporting work and ensuring the production needs and functioning of the project team.

Project Risk Management

The planning and implementation of projects take place in a context of uncertainty, which is caused by changes in the internal and external environment. Contingency means the lack of complete and reliable information about the conditions of project implementation. Each project involves the application of any new activity in the new environment, using new resources, and to create a new result. Modern complex projects are increasingly uncertain in the first stages of their development. The novelty, or innovation, of the project leads to risks in the broad sense. Risks can be defined as uncertainties related to the occurrence of situations during the project that has an impact on the cost, duration, or quality of the project.

The project may have conditions that lead to favourable unplanned results, such as obtaining new properties of the project product being created that were not planned, acquisition of experience, its application in project management, and, accordingly, unplanned acceleration of the project (which happens quite rarely). The uncertainties that lead to a positive impact on a project are called opportunities – such as the ability to increase the value of project results, master the project approach, accelerate the project.

Opportunities are strategic (having strategic implications related to the further development of a project product, team, experience) and tactical (relevant to a project or its executors). Among the first – the possibility of entering a new market, creating a new product variety, developing a new approach, revealed a new positioning of the executing company (Larsen et al. 2015). Examples of the latter could be the actual reduction of time, unexpected decrease of losses or improvement of processes, possibility of exclusion of some works from the project.

Opportunity management is necessary, and in theory, it comes down to a relatively prominent chain of actions: identification of opportunities; determination of conditions and circumstances of occurrence; exploring ways to enhance the impact of opportunity; fixing both in project documents for implemented and future projects; further registration in project reports and archives, periodic return to this information in the future. The primary strategy here is a strategy for maximizing the benefits of an opportunity-related project. In practice, opportunity management is given undeservedly little attention, although it can probably lead to an improvement of the current project and the creation of stock for the future.

Project Risk Management – Approach

The primary risk management strategy is to minimise them. Risk management involves risk planning, implementation of response, control, dealing with new risks, or remaining risks. The project risk management process includes the following main steps:

Risk management planning – the process of selecting approaches to plan and managing risk for this project. It includes decisions on organisation and staffing of project risk management procedures, financial support; Risk Response Restriction, Data Source Selection, and Risk Identification Interviews (Indelicato 2015). In fact, at this stage, it is not about the risks themselves, but the system for managing them in this project is being discussed and built. Risk management should be adequately planned for both the level and type of risks and the importance of the project to the organisation.

At this stage, risk management approaches, procedures, and documents have been developed that define the following:

• Who performs risk management responsibilities and how they are allocated. This is usually done by a project manager or a specially assigned risk manager who is responsible for implementing the risk management plan, controls, reporting activities.
• What control points can be identified to evaluate project implementation.
• In what way the information is collected and the risks are classified.
• What documentation is being prepared and used. Documentation includes: risk card, graphic risk card, risk management plan, response matrix, company project risk register, risk grading, and other documents.
• Who is accumulating and tracking them. Who and how completes the reports when formulating risk management procedures. This can be done by project team members, but the primary responsibility lies with the risk manager.
• Who makes the decision.
• How risk management is financed and whether this is included in the project budget. Is a provision for unknown risks identified? Risk management activities should be paid in the same way as other activities in the company; costs of response methods should be included in the estimate.

Identification of project risks – identification of risks that can influence the project and documentation of their characteristics: description and nature of risk, category, conditions of occurrence, methods of response. The process should involve as many participants as possible: the project manager, customers, users, independent experts using the brainstorming method (PMBOK 2017). Risk identification should be carried out regularly throughout the project life cycle.

Qualitative and quantitative assessment of risks and conditions of their occurrence to assess the likelihood of their existence and impact on the development of the project. At this stage, the degree of importance of risk is determined qualitatively and quantitatively. Priorities are set for different categories of risk. Risk assessment allows the PM to decide:

• the likelihood of achieving the project’s ultimate goal, exceeding actual costs, increasing the estimated timeframe;
• the degree of risk impact on the project and the number of unanticipated expenses and materials that may be required;
• risks that require rapid response and more considerable attention, and the result of their effects on the project.

Throughout the project life cycle, risk reassessment must be ongoing.

Planning to respond to identified significant risks – defining procedures and methods for mitigating the negative impact of risk events. The response plan strategy should be appropriate for the types of threats and time parameters. Often, several approaches are needed.

Risk monitoring and control – keeping track of current, identifying existing and emerging risks, executing a project risk management plan, and evaluating the effectiveness of actions to manage them. Risk monitoring involves risk control throughout the project life cycle. Qualitative monitoring of project implementation provides information to make effective decisions to prevent risks further. This requires interaction between all key project participants.

Risk Register

Like any project, some risks might occur that affect the project work. Herewith some risk events that will influence the project work if it happens:

• Change the contractor due to his critical situation (technically or economically) that affects the project outcomes.
• Increase the cost due to the deficiency of identifying the scope of work (WBS).
• Insufficient project monitoring that affects the project schedule.
• Unexpected soil issues that will influence back the project work. Riyadh has unpredictable climate changes that might delay the schedule or cause accidents

Project Quality Management

The project is considered successful if it is completed in due time, meets the established requirements for volumes and quality, and its cost does not exceed what is planned in the budget. Quality is one of the most critical parameters of a project, along with time, cost, and resources. To determine the duration and budget of the project, the project owner must specify the required number of days and specify the amount of expenses. The word “quality” is often used to mean elitism, high cost, compliance with the most demanding wishes of consumers. The international standard ISO 8402 defines quality as a set of properties and characteristics of an object, which guarantee its ability to meet the explicit and implicit needs of consumers.

The quality of the project product is in line with the market needs and expectations of consumers. This aspect of quality is achieved by accurately and effectively defining the needs and expectations of customers to satisfy them. This aspect of quality is achieved through detailed and careful development of the project and its product.

The quality of the work on the project following the planning documentation. is ensured by compliance with the project implementation of its plan, as well as ensuring the developed product characteristics of the project and the project itself. Quality of the resources involved in the project implementation is achieved through quality logistical support of the project throughout its life cycle.

In any case, the rules must be followed when drawing up specifications: where the management methods and project results can be represented, more rigid forms of the specification are required. This provision must be observed in most projects. Where processes and results are not sufficiently clear, a more flexible specification, open to close client-contractor interaction, should be used throughout the project implementation period. The leading quality of the project is the quality of the product (service), which is the result of the project. The quality of the project product means compliance with the requirements of the consumer (customer’s goals). To ensure product quality, these aspects must be present:

• have a precise specification;
• use appropriate standards and regulations;
• to attract the human resources of the necessary qualifications;
• conduct product and project quality audit in general;
• carry out flexible quality control;
• have some experience in project management.

Without a clear idea of what has to be achieved, the project team is disoriented. The specification is a document that records all the technical parameters and consumer requirements for the quality of the project product. PM can specify the final and intermediate products. The lower the level at which a product is determined, the easier it is to exercise control. The more experience the company has gained, the more relevant the standards and specifications of the project. The American Institute for Project Management (RMI) has developed standards for plans and work packages that have been tested in practice and are known for their ability to deliver consistent output as required by the specification.

If the people working on the project have the appropriate experience and skills, only then can they meet the requirements of the specification by established standards. This applies to both the central staff involved in the project implementation and the service personnel. It should be standard practice to strictly select project team members (Project Management Institute 2017). The use of audits can assure that a product or service designed to meet the requirements of consumers. It can have the opposite effect if the number of inspections and auditors is too large.

Project Quality Management – Approach

The supplier must develop and maintain documented inspection and testing procedures to verify compliance with the established product requirements. Control and testing, to put it, testing a software product can be performed at several levels, from individual elements to the complete system. There are several approaches to testing that are not discussed in the standard. The choice of method depends on the provider. The vendor must define, document, and periodically analyse the testing plan for modules, integration processes, the system, and testing for final acceptance.

The quality control program should include the following measures:

1. control of project documentation development;
2. control of the supply of equipment, structures, and materials;
3. priority inspection;
4. test readiness;
5. metrological control, an inspection of control and measuring equipment;
6. storage and storage inspection;
7. control of procedures of carrying out inspections, tests;
8. identification of unsuitable equipment, structures, and materials;
9. impact adjustments;
10. registration of quality assurance measures;
11. carrying out audits (preferably by outsiders).

The project manager must continuously check the status of implementation of the program and the accuracy of its compliance. Methods and means are used to control the quality of the project, such as technical inspection, control charts or control schedules (used to track output variables, to monitor cost and planned deviations, errors in project documentation or other project processes), statistical methods (statistical sampling, time series analysis, the creation of mathematical models to test and reduce costs and time for quality control), and flow charts as a tool for analysing emerging issues. , Pareto chart (chart illustrating the emergence of different reasons discrepancies, ordered by rank emergence reasons) and trend analysis (involves the use of mathematical methods for predicting future results and technical performance indicators).

Technical inspection is the main component of quality control of the project. It is implemented at all enterprises involved in project management. For this purpose, enterprises draw up a plan of technical inspection, which specifies in detail the types and means of all examinations and tests. The functional inspection plan identifies critical processes (ordering of the leading technological equipment), defines the conditions of service and use of non-standard materials, the required level of control by suppliers, and other aspects. When designing an inspection plan, they determine the scope of inspections, tooling, frequency, and detail.

Project Procurement Management

Procurement management in the project involves the purchase of goods and services outside the executive organisation. The implementation of any project requires a large volume of investments, which in the project refers to the full range of acquisitions, including machinery and equipment, materials, licenses and know-how, construction and installation work, consulting services.The lion’s share of the project budget consists of acquisitions. Therefore, the proper organisation of this process is a decisive factor in managing project costs.

Procurement justification in the implementation of a business idea goes through several stages. At the stage of business plan development, the general calculations of supplies and determination of the total amount of expenses are made. The purpose of this phase is to clarify the feasibility of implementing the project in terms of its costs and expected results. Of course, this stage of justification does not require specific procurement contracts. It is based on the price lists of suppliers or service providers or intent agreements.

During the project planning phase, the necessary procurement information is specified. This is done when decomposing the plan and determining the content of the project. Here, the procurement gets more specification; the groups of suppliers are defined; the analysis is made based on the type of contracts is determined. Directly at the stage of procurement management negotiations with suppliers are conducted, tenders are organized, contracts are managed, and closed.

Most often, procurement is managed by an individual team member (s) under the guidance of a project manager. This is because supply requires some knowledge and experience in the field. Therefore, a procurement specialist is assigned to a procurement specialist, knowledgeable in logistics, procurement management, and financial justification for procurement contracts.

Procurement management involves the use of well-known methods of marketing and financial management methods but considering the specifics of project implementation. The main specific feature in project procurement management is the superiority of the principle of reliability over cost-effectiveness during the justification. This is determined by the limited duration of the project. As we found out earlier, time is more expensive than money in a project.

Therefore, when choosing the most economical procurement option, there may be a situation where the project is delayed due to failures at the acquisition stage. It is no secret that the cheapening of sales by a supplier can be determined by insufficient quality of the product, lack of completeness, lack of goods in the warehouse of the supplier, as well as other reasons that can lead to delays in deliveries. When it comes to current activities, these factors are not critical due to the development of alternative supply channels, inventory availability, and more. In the implementation of the project, there are no such spare ways, which makes the first of all ensure the security of supply, even at the expense of additional costs.

Procurement planning is the process of specifying project needs that can best be met through the acquisition of goods and services outside the executive organisation. It includes determining who and what to buy and on what terms. With the results of developing a business plan for the procurement nomenclature, responsible members are looking for measures that can make them as cheap as possible, while ensuring their reliability.

Project Procurement Management – Approach

The villa owner and consultancy agency will conduct the following procurement actions to secure project’s consistency and enhancement:

1. Review of local construction companies with certifications and KSA licences;
2. Selection of architects for interior and exterior design;
3. Select materials for construction and design;
4. Research utilities, accommodations, and equipment for construction process;
5. Hire external audit expert

Project Control

The project implementation control system is a logical structure of formal and informal procedures for analysing and evaluating the progress of the project implementation, the efficiency of resource management, costs, obligations throughout the entire period of its application. Control is the process of checking the implementation of a plan and taking steps to eliminate deviations. Types of control are divided into primary and auxiliary. The main features of project control include:

• the previous one;
• current;
• final.

The auxiliary types of control include:

• overall change control – coordination of project changes as a whole;
• project reporting – collection and provision of reporting information on the progress of the project, taking into account the forecast of the consequences of deviations;
• schedule control – control of changes in the project schedule;
• cost control – tracking deviations from planned resource costs and project budget execution;
• quality control – monitoring of specific results of design works to determine their compliance with the established quality standards;
• risk control – response to changes in the level of risk during the project implementation.

Progress Reporting

Reporting in the control system can take different forms from direct personal and telephone conversations, operational reporting, and presentation of cost indicators in the form of graphs, tables. The report should include five main sections:

• estimated cost;
• actual results;
• forecast results;
• deviation;
• reasons for rejection.

The primary purpose of monitoring the progress of the project is the exchange of information on the development of the project with all stakeholders. This type of work may be informal and may not even be included in the project plan, which does not eliminate the need for its implementation. Discussion results are records of the agreements reached during the discussion.

This is a formal procedure that is performed when a particular milestone is reached. All aspects of the project implementation are discussed, and a careful study of the current situation is being carried out. Milestone trend analysis is a simple method for analysing actual dates in a project compared to planned data. The results of the checkpoint analysis are documented.

Project monitoring also monitors stakeholder engagement and other project data. Stakeholders (parties) of the project – participants who are directly or indirectly involved in its implementation or are potential users of the project product:

• manager and team members;
• sponsor and project owner;
• investors (if the project is funded from several sources);
• financial managers;
• consultants of the project owner;
• major developers;
• contractors;
• material suppliers;
• service companies;
• staffing agencies;
• insurance companies;
• other stakeholders.

The ongoing evaluation of the project plan, which is stored as a baseline, is accompanied by a series of reports and timetables. The project management adopts the basic plan for implementation, during which the percentage of completed work is determined compared to the planned ones, as well as the deviations of the actual state of the project are analysed. Earned Value Management is very popular in project management to track project progress. In the literature, it is called “the volume method,” “the value method,” “the present value method,” the “value method” and is denoted by the abbreviation EV.

Earned Value Management (EVM) is a system that combines project goals, schedules, and costs. This technique is for objective measurement, which allows PM to answer the question: “What did we get for the money we spent?”. Properly applied, Earned Value provides early warning of project execution issues. Besides, this approach improves the scope of the project, prevents it from “slipping in,” informs stakeholders about project progress, and directs the project team to make progress.

The Earned Value method relies on the following data:

1. WBS project plan is structured;
2. estimated cost (PV);
3. the actual cost of Actual Cost (AC);
4. volume of development (EV) – completed amount of work specified in the budget.

Change Management

At this stage, control over the implementation of the planned changes, analysis of the results, and, if necessary, the introduction of regular corrective actions. As a result, a post-mortem report (from the Latin, review or discussion of the event after it ends) is provided, stating what needs to be learned and what lessons learned should be taken into account in future work.

Action to correct the plan:

• revising the current scenario and making changes to it;
• completion of mitigation of the risks that have occurred;
• termination of the project implementation and setting new goals, taking on new commitments.

In the parent organisation where the project is implemented, the process of monitoring the progress of its implementation consists of several stages. Key process performance metrics, such as the number of reviews completed, the number of corrective actions taken, the number of reports issued, and must be identified. The resultant documents of this stage will be lists of inconsistencies of the process of the company established policy of its implementation, actions aimed at elimination of shortcomings, and the results of these actions.

Project Completion Review

The project completion undertakes the complete evaluation of the villa construction site, completion of the building, quality and design of interior and exterior, and review of project milestones and objectives accomplishment. The villa’s owner signs and approves the project except any issues or concerns are provided.

Appendices

Appendix A: Villa Project Resources Planning

Appendix B: Villa Project WBS and Task Sheet

Appendix C: Villa Project Gantt Chart

Appendix D: Responsibility Assignment Matrix

Appendix E: Stakeholder Management Plan

Appendix F: Risk Register

Appendix G: Quality Register

References

Indelicato, Greg. 2015. “Procurement Project Management Success: Achieving a Higher Level of Effectiveness.” Project Management Journal 46 (4): e3–e3. Web.

Larsen, Jesper Kranker, Lene Faber Ussing, Thomas Ditlev Brunoe, and Søren Munch Lindhard. 2015. “The Project Management Process of Planning and Budgeting in Public Construction Projects.” International Journal of Information Technology Project Management 6 (4): 20–33. Web.

PMBOK. 2017. Project Management Body of Knowledge. Atlanta: Project Management Institute.

Project Management Institute. 2017. Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK® Guide) 6th ed. Project Management Institute: Newtown Square, Pa.

Rogers, Thomas M. 2019. “Project Success and Project Team Individuals.” European Project Management Journal 9 (1): 27–33. Web.