NR631 Nurse Executive Concluding Graduate Experience I Week 6 Assignment

NR631 Nurse Executive Concluding Graduate Experience I Week 6 Assignment

Week 6 Assignment  

Work Breakdown Structure (WBS)

Purpose

The process of project management has five phases: (1) design and initiation, which you just completed; (2) finalizing your plan before implementation, which you will do now; (3) implementation; (4) monitor and control; and finally, (5) evaluation and lessons learned, as well as knowledge transfer.

During Phase 2 (finalizing the project plan), you will continue to create the tools and documents you will need when you implement your project as the project manager in Phase 3.

Week 4: Communications Plan

Week 5: Deliverables and Critical Success Factors (CSFs)

Week 6: Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) and Gantt Chart

Week 7: Risk Management and Human Resource Management Plans

In this assignment, you will define and document the project’s tasks and project’s deliverables and their relationships to each. You will develop the WBS and project timelines using a Gantt chart.

The WBS identifies the project’s tasks that need to be completed by priority, and it flows into and facilitates project scheduling. This breakdown helps the project team identify all tasks needed to get the work done and the resources necessary to complete it. This framework allows you to assign tasks to individual team members, making them accountable for those tasks in the process. It is important that all tasks be identified and broken down, because project delays or even failure frequently result from forgotten or overlooked tasks rather than imprecise guesstimates.

The Gantt chart, named after Henry Gantt, clearly shows the start and completion dates for all major project activities and subtasks. The Gantt chart is straightforward, easy to understand, and simple to change. It provides a snapshot of the project, and one can immediately identify task durations and distinguish tasks dependent upon other tasks to be completed before they are started. Understanding of all dependencies is critical for the project manager, who is ultimately responsible for time, budgets, and resource allocation.

To assist you, there is a PowerPoint file demonstrating a two possible WBS formats and a WBS checklist, above. A click-by-click tutorial for developing the Gantt chart using Excel can be found in the week 6 lesson content.

Course Outcomes

This assignment enables the student to meet the following Course Outcomes (COs):

CO 1: Apply evidence-based leadership skills and concepts in the planning of an executive-level practice change project. (PO 4,5)

CO 2: Develop an evidence-based foundation to lead organizational change using current knowledge, standards of practice, and research from current literature. (PO 4,5)

Requirements

Complete the WBS and Gantt chart documents. Attach documents as appendices to a professionally written paper explaining what you are doing.

Grammar, spelling, punctuation, references, and citations must be consistent with formal academic writing and APA format as expressed in the current edition of the APA manual.

Preparing the paper

All project tasks must be identified and broken down in your WBS. Attach documents as appendices to a professionally written paper explaining what you are doing.

The Gantt chart must provide timelines for all major project tasks and subtasks following the Excel sample. Attach documents as appendices to a professionally written paper explaining what you are doing.

Ideas and information from professional sources must be cited correctly using the current edition of the APA manual.

Grammar, spelling, punctuation, references, and citations must be consistent with formal academic writing.

 

Building a Project Schedule

Effective and successful management of a project requires the use of relevant tools to enhance the whole process. Visualization tools have widely been used in the past and at present to help provide a better view of the project. One such tool is the Gantt chart, which has been used for years to show end-to-end relationships between the completion of a task and the start of another task, making it simpler to understand (Shirley, 2020). As such, it is important to come up with important dates, such as various start and end dates, to act as a guide for the project before formulating a Gantt chart. As such, the purpose of this assignment is to formulate a Gantt chart, discuss the value of the work breakdown structure, and explain why it is important to monitor the critical factors of success.

The Gantt Chart

 

The Value of a Work Breakdown Structure

Work breakdown structure is important in project management and implementation. It entails a hierarchical outline of the tasks which need to be completed as part of the project. The implication is that it helps in breaking down the project tasks into smaller and manageable deliverables. One of the values of work breakdown structure is that it enables the project team to define and organize the tasks to be completed. Indeed, there is a need to define the project clearly so that individuals have adequate information that they can use to achieve the targeted goals (Cerezo-Narváez et al.,2020). This tool is also important since it supports the quicker development of schedules through role allocations.

The other value of work breakdown emanates from the fact that it helps break down tasks into independent and measurable tasks. As such, the organization and the project team can transform tasks from complicated to easily understood and manageable. Besides, through such a process, the project manager has an easier job when it comes to managing and overseeing the tasks. The work breakdown structure also helps in cost estimation and budgeting; indeed, when it is detailed enough, it can help in the accurate estimation of costs (Pinto, 2020). The implication is that the project team will be in a better place to formulate a realistic budget and allocate costs based on particular tasks.

Why It Is Important to Monitor Critical Success Factors

The critical success factors are the elements in a project that are central to the project’s success and achievement of goals and objectives. As such, it is important to clearly define the critical success factors. One of the key reasons for monitoring the factors is that the process can be used by the project team to find out if the project is within the timelines and is on course to achieve the formulated goals. The implication is that they can easily identify hitches, which then triggers an action to correct them in time and ensure that the project is on the right and required path (Kerzner, 2020). The process also limits wastage by ensuring that resources are not wasted on unnecessary or less important areas. It has also been shown to enhance the maintenance of the existing benchmarks or operations within organizations.

Conclusion

This write-up has explored the development of a Gantt chart showing the project phases that need to be accomplished. It has also explored the value of using a work breakdown structure, which is important to ensure that everyone understands their roles and that tasks are divided into small and manageable parts. In addition, this assignment has also explored the importance of monitoring critical success factors.

References

Cerezo-Narváez, A., Pastor-Fernández, A., Otero-Mateo, M., & Ballesteros-Pérez, P. (2020). Integration of cost and work breakdown structures in the management of construction projects. Applied Sciences, 10(4), 1386. https://doi.org/10.3390/app10041386

Kerzner, H. (2022). Project management case studies. John Wiley & Sons.

Pinto, J. K. (2020). Project management: achieving competitive advantage. Pearson.

Shirley, D. (2020). Project management for healthcare. CRC Press.