Network Project Management for Rapid Prototyping-myassignmenthelp

Question: Discuss about theNetwork Project Management for Rapid Prototyping. Answer: Introduction Rapid prototyping is a continuously growing field since when it has started in 1990. The reason behind becoming such popular technology[1] is that by using RP any equipment can be presented in three dimensional mini models be it is to be made of metal, plastic, wood and it can be further used to understand the performance curves of the actual equipment. The background of case is, Frank Billings was a having childhood dream of working on RP and since engineering days he was looking for thee opportunity. After around 3 years of waiting he got break from Cocable to make four such equipment prototype as per the specification. Assessment of Project Management issues and their causes Unclear Scope: the scope was only known that four RP models need to be built for specified specifications, so no detailed method to cross check or no technical discussion not done may be the reason for the issue. Communication gap: all the parties were only interested for the work to be delivered at the earliest than building the communication planning, as this becomes the backbone of the all other requirement and expectations. Verification not conducted: again the cause of the issue seems to be the hurry. All were in hurry to deliver the project even before the verification of the scope of work. Missing project management methodologies: none of the methodologies were used to execute the project, may be because all were in urgency to deliver the prototypes than checking the scope of work or developing the methodologies. No change control system present[2]: as no project management processes were developed, so the absence of change controls system. If the system would have been in place; the system could be used in this situation. No intermediate check-point was there[3]: none of the pre start working checks was followed and the result is in front. There should have been some intermediate check point while doing the job. No ownership: since no stakeholder assessment was done in the beginning of the project, so none were nominated as the owner of their respective field and the mess happened. Schedule Cost overrun: since scope was not clear and the job was the first assignment for Frank, so he also could not negotiate and just grabbed the job without going into depth of it. Moreover due to change in scope at the last point of the scope has happened, so the project is bound to have schedule and cost overrun. Haphazard working: because of the absence of any project management methodology and document, there was no pre planning for the stages of completing the activity and the job was done as per the firefighting mode, so whatever came in front Frank had to face it, rather than timing them as schedule. Unacceptable result: the outcome is not acceptable by GE, as the specification of requirement of GE could not be met by Cocable Frank because of unclear scope of work. No MIS reporting culture: since neither GE, nor Cocable has agreed for sending any progress reports by Frank, so none of the mistakes could be seen before the last moment arrived. Zero planning before start of work: it is obvious that the planning was not done before the start of work otherwise the same would not happen. Project management neglected, only concentrated on RP: since there was very tight schedule to handover the job, no time was invested towards planning and project management activities. Recommendations After going through the all sorts of project management issues which have happened in the project, it can be recommended that the scope verification process present in the project management book of knowledge is the key of this project. Because the step was not followed the whole energy invested towards developing the prototype has gone to waste. Over and above the absence of scope verification procedure, many such project management steps were also neglected. Always the first step of any project is the stakeholder identification, and this was not done in this case, otherwise the expectations of GE could have got clear at the very first step of the project management. One common lesson learnt is the scope verification, which must be done well before the start of any activity, but also there should always be awareness from the clients to check the intermediate steps too, let the product not be worth [4] to check but still an extra checking could have prevented this miserable situation that all are facing now. Conclusion In this whole report, we have observed the negative impact of starting any work without developing the necessary project management documents and the consequences of not following the proper steps if any of the project management methodology. We got to feel the importance of scope finalization at the beginning of the project and also the verification by all the parties. Now the critical condition that who is responsible for the cost overrun, it should be Cocable first, then Frank and then GE. Because GE is claiming that they have already provided the technical specs, but it was mainly Cocable and Frank who did not cross checked it. References [1] Roland DGA Corporation. (2017) Rapid Prototyping with Milling and 3D Printer Technology. [Online]. https://www.rolanddga.com/applications/rapid-prototyping [2] Bass Jossey. (1994) RAPID PROTOTYPING AND CONFIGURATION MANAGEMENT. [Online]. https://people.tamu.edu/~v-buenger/658/rapid_prototyping.pdf [3] Jamie Clouting. (2013, march) Bringing Projects to Life Through Rapid Prototyping. [Online]. https://www.slideshare.net/wearesigma/bringing-projects-to-life-through-rapid-prototyping [4] Mike Bracken. (2017) How to run a rapid prototyping project. [Online]. https://www.thedigitalprojectmanager.com/how-to-run-a-rapid-prototyping-project/