# 1 Narrative Charter Statement

Description and Directions

Develop a narrative charter that includes the following sections:

a. Project purpose or justification – A good project purpose or justification statement explains why this project is important and why resources should be spent on this project. What critical problem will this project solve or what will be different when this project is completed and why is that important?

b. Measurable project objectives and related success criteria – What will the project accomplish. Be as clear as possible and include qualitative and quantitative information. List the objectives (have a minimum of three) and how that objective will be measured. For example: 

c. High-level requirements – This describes in broad terms what you want the project to do or to provide. You need to provide at least three of these. For example, the marketing campaign will remind existing customers as to why they should remain loyal to our brand and entice new customers to experience our brand.

d. Assumptions and constraints – At the start of most projects there are already some assumptions and expectations. For example the campaign must launch on August 15, 2015 and the campaign will cost no more than $50k. In order to accomplish this, certain assumptions may have been made, for example all marketing materials will be produced in-house in order to keep costs down.

e. High-level risks – Identify at least three risks or opportunities that are known from the onset of the project.

f. Summary milestone schedule – Provide at least four project milestones that will be used to mark project progress.

g. Summary budget – Provide known budget amounts. This may change later when estimating occurs, but at the project begins, what are the expectations.

If you are uncertain as to how to complete any of the above sections of the charter, either review your optional textbooks, Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge, The Fast Forward MBA in Project Management, your previous course materials and feel free to reach out to your classmates using one of the discussion forums created just for this purpose.

# 2 Work Breakdown Structure

Description and Directions

Create a work breakdown structure that includes all of your project scope. You may use either the graphical depiction or the indented list approach.

The top level or level one is your completed project, the second level is your deliverable, and after that you will break down the work to the appropriate level. If you prefer to create a phase based work breakdown structure that is acceptable. You will want to ensure that each phase depicts the work that must be completed in order for that phase to be declared finished. It would be unusual for your work breakdown structure to have sufficient detail if it has less than 3 deliverables or phases.

Your work breakdown structure does not need to be symmetrical. What does that mean? It means that each deliverable might be broken down into different numbers of levels. Perhaps a deliverable that is fairly straightforward can be handled in three or four levels. A deliverable that is more complex may take ten levels. Remember you are seeking to break the work down into manageable pieces or work packages. You want each work package to represent work that can be clearly assigned and estimated. 

If you are uncertain as to how to complete the Work Breakdown Structure, either review your optional textbooks, Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge, The Fast Forward MBA in Project Management, your previous course materials and feel free to reach out to your classmates using one of the discussion forums created just for this purpose.

# 3 Sequence Project Activities

Description and Directions

Take at least 10 activities from your work breakdown structure and determine their sequence. What happens first, what happens next? You can accomplish this by creating a network diagram if you like. That diagram does not have to show any time estimates YET; you will do that when you create your schedule. If you are ready to included estimates that is absolutely acceptable. If you opt to create a diagram, your diagram will show the WBS ID, The name of the activity and will be a flowchart of the work.

You may opt to create a list to reflect the sequence of your activities.

If you create a list, your list must contain at least this information:

Again, estimates are not required at this point, but you may certain add them if you are ready to do so.

If you are uncertain as to how to complete sequence project activities, either review your optional textbook, Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge, The Fast Forward MBA in Project Management, your previous course materials and feel free to reach out to your classmates using one of the discussion forums created just for this purpose.

# 4 Build a Project Schedule

Description and Directions

If you have access to scheduling software, then of course use scheduling software. If you do not, it is OK. This is not a class on scheduling software. You can use excel or some other means to depict your project schedule. Here is what you must include:

1. Your schedule must show the project start and end dates.

2. Your schedule must show all of the high level deliverables from your WBS.

For the work packages that you included in your WBS you must show:

• Task Name

• Predecessor (when applicable)

• Duration

• Start

• Finish

• Resources

If you are uncertain as to how to complete a project schedule, either review your optional textbook, Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge, The Fast Forward MBA in Project Management, your previous course materials and feel free to reach out to your classmates using one of the discussion forums created just for this purpose.

# 5 Create a Project Budget

Description and Directions

Create a project budget which shows how much will be spent by time period and by category. Examples of categories include: labor, materials, travel, training, overhead. Use the categories that make sense for your specific project. If you are using a project from your work and certain categories are typically used within your organization or your industry, use those categories. Be sure to include totals by time period and for the entire project. This may best be displayed in a table of spreadsheet. Also include some brief discussion about your budget. How did you arrive at your numbers, what type of estimating did you use, if you were presenting this budget to your executive management, what would you want to tell them about your budget?

If you are uncertain as to how to complete a project budget, either review your optional textbook, Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge, The Fast Forward MBA in Project Management, your previous course materials and feel free to reach out to your classmates using one of the discussion forums created just for this purpose.

# 6 Create a RAM

Description and Directions

Identify the responsible person and organization for at least six work packages or activities from your project and create a responsibility assignment matrix (RAM). You do not have to provide the actual names of some of your coworkers if this is a work related project. Nor do you have to provide the actual names of family or friends if this is a personal project. You may use the RACI format per the Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK® Guide) and discussed throughout the specialization or design your own designations. If you come up with your own designation then include a legend that describes what each letter used represents.

If you are uncertain as to how to complete a responsibility assignment matrix, either review your optional text, Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge, The Fast Forward MBA in Project Management, your previous course materials and feel free to reach out to your classmates using one of the discussion forums created just for this purpose.

# 7 Identify Project Risks

Identify Project Risks with Responses to those Risks

Descriptions and Directions

For a minimum of 7 project risks:

• Describe the risk using if this, then that language. For example: If it rains for more than 5% of the days designated as days when the construction crew will work outdoors, then construction activities will fall behind schedule at a rate of one day for every day of rain.

• Describe the mitigation, what will you do to make the risk less likely and less impactful.

• Describe the contingency, what will you do if the risk occurs?

• Select and use a method to rate whether or not a risk has a low, medium or high impact.

• Select and use a method to rate whether or not a risk has a low, medium or high possibility of occurring.

• Select and use a method to rate the overall priority of the risk. 

Remember that a risk can either be a threat or an opportunity.

If you are uncertain as to how to complete a identify risks and analyze them for responses, either review your optional textbooks, Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge, The Fast Forward MBA in Project Management, your previous course materials and feel free to reach out to your classmates using one of the discussion forums created just for this purpose.