Project Management

and Project Action Plan

Hand-out – Module 1
Author: Xia Qin
Project Management and Project Action Plan
Hand-out Module 1

Table of Contents
1. Project and Project Management
- Definition of Project
- Definition of Project Management

2. Project Management Activities in the Project Cycle

- Project Initiation
- Project Planning
- Project Execution
- Project Closure
- The triangle in Project Management

3. The Project Action Plan

4. List of Literature
Project Management and Project Action Plan
This hand-out provides you with some fundamental inputs of project
management including its general rules of application. After a general
introduction, the focus will rely on how to write a project action plan.

1. Project and Project Management

A Project is “a temporary endeavour designed to produce a unique product,

service or result with a defined beginning and end, undertaken to meet
unique goals and objectives” (A Guide to Project Management Body of
Knowledge, 2000, 4). The essential features of a project are that it is
innovative, time-constrained and resource-constrained. Different from the
routine plans, the project tasks are often used as a preparation for future
routine activities.

A successful project must (Guidelines for Managing Projects, 2007, 3)

 deliver the outcomes and benefits required by the stakeholders

 create and implement deliverables that meet agreed requirements
 meet time targets
 stay within financial budgets
 involve all the right people
 make best use of resources in the organisation and elsewhere
 take account of changes in the way the organisation operates
 manage any risks that could jeopardise success
 take into account the needs of staff and other stakeholders who will be
impacted by the changes brought about by the project

Project management is “the application of knowledge, skills, tools and

techniques to project activities to meet project requirements”. (A Guild to
Project Management Body of Knowledge, 2000, 6) Its immediate goal is to
assure the successful completion of the project. In its practice, this
management process is frequently connected with risk management due to
its complexity and unpredictability of future happenings. In this regard, the
project manager, who serves as the intermediate between project board
(project sponsor) and project team, often manages the risks of the project. (De
Marco, 1997, 81) That means that the project manager should be able to
recognize potential risks or resistance in good times, to communicate them (it)
and to set up measures which will allow him to intervene when such risks or
resistance arise(s). In addition, project managers are more and more
challenged with a great deal of social competence.

Typical reasons for project failing are (Guidelines for Managing Projects, 2007,
3)

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 failure to take into account the needs and influences of stakeholder
 failure to communicate and keep the stakeholders informed of
developments
 lack of attention to the impact of project work on the normal business of
the organization
 producing expensive “Gold plated” solutions when simple workable
products would suffice
 failure to identify and deal with the many risks that can affect
achievement of project objectives
 insufficient attention to planning, monitoring and control of the work of
the project

2. Project Management Activities in the Project Cycle

The traditional project cycle includes project initiation, project planning, project
execution and project closure.

Figure 1 Project Cycle (Project Management Guidebook, 2003, 5)

1. Project Initiation is often regarded as the project start-up. It is the very

important preparation stage of project work. In this phase, the problems or

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case studies are defined and analysed. A project initiative is then put forward
for consideration. After a feasibility study, if the higher management or the
responsible party decides for setting up a project to tackle the problems or test
the solutions, project work will start. In this case, a project manager will be
officially appointed.

The project initiative is usually drafted by the party who raises or is familiar
with the field problems and challenges. This person is normally appointed as
the project manager or deeply involved in the project management. The
project initiative will usually be further revised and finalised as project outline
for documentation.

At the end of the first phase, the project outline will be agreed by all the parties
involved. The project manager begins to recruit his team. A detailed phase of
planning follows.

 reason for the project

 desired benefits
 objectives
 scope
The project outline usually includes  potential constraints
various checkpoints shown in the
 known risks if any
left column.
 stakeholders
 deliverables
 estimated time
 estimated resources

Table 1 Checkpoints for Project Outline (Guidelines for Managing Projects,

2007, 9)

Before the daily project work takes place, the project organisation needs to
be clarified. The responsibilities and accountabilities need to be documented.
The project manager is responsible for the management. However, the
questions such as to whom he should report to and if there is a need for a
project assurance body, need to be explicated as well. A common project
organization comprises project sponsor, project board, project manager and
project team. Subjected to the complexity of the project, the project assurance
body such as quality manager or quality auditor might also be added to the
project organization.

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Figure 2 Project Organization

Project Sponsor is the owner of a project. He is paying the project and can be
regarded as the customer. Some of its key roles are as follows (Guidelines for
Managing Projects, 2007, 19)

 “provide leadership and direction to other members of the Project

Board and to the Project Manager
 ensure …the necessary funds and other resources are made available
when required
 chair meetings of the Project Board”

Project Board should be composed of project sponsor, the senior user and
senior supplier of the project. (Guidelines for Managing Projects, 2007)

It roles include: (Guidelines for Managing Projects, 2007, 20)

 “set the direction for the project and approve key milestones
 take decisions as necessary throughout the life of the project
 give the Project Manager the authority to lead the project on a day to
day basis”

Project Assurance is necessary in order to “assess the status of the project

and hence gain assurance that it is properly organised, planned and
controlled.” (Guidelines for Managing Projects, 2007, 20)

2. Project Planning is the phase of detailed planning. The project manager

needs to fulfil the tasks of recruiting the right people, outline the activities and
timeframe. In addition, financial plan and resource distribution need to be
specified.

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  define accountabilities, roles and
responsibilities of each team member
 define deliverables, activities and
milestones
 resource plan in detail
Checkpoints for the project  time plan in detail
planning
 identify risks/ constraints
 monitoring and reporting plan
 communication plan
 documentation plan

Table 2 Checkpoints for Project Planning (Guidelines for Managing Projects,

2007, 28)

One tool that gives project planning a structure and helps you with it is the
Project Action Plan which will be further explained in the next chapter.

3. Project Execution is the third phase in the project lifecycle. The main goal
at this stage is to implement the planned activities in order to achieve the
deliverables within the given time and resource frame.

However, no matter how precisely the project has been planned, in practice, it
might take another route. This would not mean the failing of the project.
Control at this stage is the one of the most challenging tasks for the project
manager in order to manage changes and adjust the project plan accordingly.

4. Project Closure marks formally completion of a project. In this stage, the

deliverables will be presented to the stakeholders. A successful project will
meet the defined objectives. In general practice, besides the project report to
the stakeholders, a project review report will be drafted for the documentation
and evaluation of the project. A lessons-learnt workshop might be organised
so that the experiences of the project can be communicated among the
stakeholders.

During the project management process, the project manager is constantly

facing the challenges of balancing the scope1, cost and time, which is known
as project triangle (see figure 3). These are the three competing constraints
affecting the project performance: increased scope typically means increased
time and cost, a tight time constraint could mean increased costs and reduced
scope, and a tight budget could mean increased time and reduced scope. If

1
Chatfield and Johnson (2007) state that “Project scope describes the work required to
deliver a product or service with the intended product scope. Product scope describes the
intended quality, features and functions of the product.”

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the project must be done fast and good, then the cost will rise; vice versa, if
the project must be done low-cost and fast, the quality or scope will not be
satisfying. This principle is also known as “pick any two” in project
management.

Figure 3 The Project Triangle (Chatfield and Johnson, 2007)

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3. Project Action Plan

The Project Action Plan is a tool for planning projects. It lays out the steps for
implementing a project. It usually includes the planning of:

 Objectives
 Activities
 Resources
 Responsibilities
 Time schedules
 Outcomes

Before we start to plan the project in detail, the purpose and objectives must
be clear. Objectives of a project answer the question of what you are trying to
achieve with the project.

 Why do I start this project?

 What do I want to achieve?

Objectives:
 Collect representative data on university study, first
Example:
employment and career profile of the graduates
Tracer Study
 Analyse the influential factors of higher education to
employment

Once the objectives are clear and well defined you need to plan how to get to
the set objectives. The main questions you should answer for the planning
are:

 How do I reach the objectives? What are the milestones 2?

 What do I need to reach these milestones and objectives?
 How do I control the quality of the outcomes?

Also it is crucial to think about the stakeholders and how to involve them, what
motivations or resistance they could have towards the project and how to cope
with them:

 Who are the stakeholders?

 Who should be involved?
 How to involve them?
 What are the potential risks of each stakeholder?

2
Milestones mark the completion of important tasks in project, which are essential for the
success of a project.

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With these questions in mind, we will start the Project Action Plan step by step
which is based on a template matrix, which you will also find on the online
learning platform.

PAP Example: Tracer Study

Tracer studies are a useful instrument for quality management and allow
higher education institutions to peak into the black box of the whereabouts of
their graduates. It can also provide the HEI with information, which indicates
the outcome of its education and shows its strengths and weaknesses. Tracer
studies can, therefore, be used for evaluation purposes and as guidance for
future planning.

To implement an own tracer study, it is recommended to have a team, which

is experienced in questionnaire design, masters empirical research methods
and is knowledgeable in statistical analysis. In addition, you might also need
several (student) assistants for questionnaire dissemination and digitalization.
Besides preparing and launching the survey in the field, it is important to think
through the follow-up phase after the survey results are available: what is
being reported and how? How are the results spread into the faculties and
departments? How to encourage actions which are taken from the results?
Our following exemplary PAP concentrates only on the conception of the
survey leaving the other phases of a tracer study out.

The steps below are not necessarily needed to be followed chronologically,

nor are they to be seen the only way to proceed for a well-done tracer study or
PAP.

Step 1: Define the objectives.

Well-defined objectives are very helpful for the detailed project planning.
Generally, the objectives should be possibly “specific, measurable,
achievable, relevant and time-bound”. (Guidelines for Managing Projects,
2007, 15) When conducting a tracer study, you might have different
objectives:
 Get new information and monitoring– for example know the first
employment and career profile of the graduates, know their whereabouts with
the ends to use this information to find challenges and critical points and
benchmark. These findings could be then further analysed
 Use the data for evaluation purposes – for example evaluate your
study programmes with regard to specific topics such as satisfaction with the
study programme, achieved competences and their relevance in the job, etc.
 Analysis of specific topics and research purposes – for example
analyse the relationship between higher education and employment or do

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research on students and graduates on specific topics to gain knowledge on
how to enhance study programmes and teaching and learning. For example,
who are the successful students and why are they more successful than
others are?

When preparing your action plan you can include the definition of objectives in
the plan in order to discuss and identify them with relevant stakeholders.
Nevertheless, you should beforehand decide on your own overall objectives.
An objective for Tracer Study which is not achievable or measurable could be:

Example: Objective:
Tracer Study  Diagnose the competences of the graduates

Step 2: Analyse the stakeholders.

The stakeholders are the group of persons who have an interest in the project.
By analysing the stakeholders, two key questions should be asked:

 What are their interests in the project?

 How important are they to the project?

The stakeholders for tracer study could be

 University management. The result of the tracer study might provide

the higher management with the inputs for adjusting the strategy plan.
 Lecturers might be interested in the learning outcomes of the study
programmes.
 Employers might specify the lacking skills of the graduates.
 Graduates are the participants of this survey. They provide the source
information.
 Ministry of Education might be interested in the employment quote and
career profile of the graduates. This incentive might lead to policy changes in
higher education.

For your action plan, you also need to consider when to involve each
stakeholder and if you need them to cooperate and deliver certain outputs or
outcomes for the project.

The challenges in involving the stakeholders into the project could be:

 Some of the stakeholders are reluctant to the objectives of your

project. Therefore, they might only passively involve themselves in the project.

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 Some of the stakeholders might reject their involvement because of
time restrictions or their daily work-load.
 There might be conflicts among the stakeholders as some might have
opposite views and opinions over the others.

All this possible challenges and risks should be thought ahead; strategies
should be developed to avoid them in case such situations appear.

Step 3: Define the survey population.

Graduates are the target group of a tracer study in higher education. However,
you still need to determine who you will want to include to the “graduates
group” in order to gain answers to your questions and to reach your
objectives:

 Do I send the survey to the graduates cohort of last year or the last
three or … years? Here you will need to consider your objectives and decide
who will be able to answer your questions accordingly. Usually you will want to
know how the graduates managed their job search and what job they currently
are in etc., so it would not make sense to ask graduates directly after their
graduation but to select those who are out of your institution since minimum
half a year or more (depending on the job-market).
 Do I send the survey to all the graduates of the cohorts I have chosen
or will I only select a sample? To receive enough feedback and to be able to
have information on study programme level you would usually opt for a full
population survey, meaning to invite all the graduates of the chosen
graduation years. For budgetary reasons, or if this should not be necessary to
answer your question, you could also invite a specific sample only.

Step 4: Clarify the budget.

The budget for conducting a tracer study could be from external funding or
included in the university’s annual budget plan. The possible costs for the
project could be, in addition to the staff costs, software for design the survey
and analysing the data, material costs such as printing and mailing for paper-
based survey and the reporting.

Step 5: Set the timeframe.

Generally it takes 12 to 18 months for completing a tracer study if you include

the analysis and follow-up phase. But this can vary very much depending on
your objectives and resources available.

Step 6: Describe the milestones and tasks.

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There will be several key tasks in a project that will lead you to milestones.
Every milestone is supported by a set of tasks. Each task can be
accomplished by various activities. In the tracer study, for example:

 Key Task A: Conception of a survey

o Task 1: Conception
 Activities: Define the objectives and themes of the survey
 Activities: set the survey methods
 Activities…
o Task 2…
 Key Task B: Process of data collection
 …

For tracer study for instance, task A is conception of a survey. Under this task,
there is a series of subtasks. In order to complete task A, all the subtasks
should be accomplished successfully. When all the subtasks are done, we
could say, milestone A has been achieved. The first stage comes to an end.
We move further to task B, that is the process of data collection.

Step 7: Plan the output/outcomes.

The outputs or outcomes are the items of a project that must be delivered for
the successful completion. Think about what should be achieved after each
task or milestone so that you can then check if you actually reached it. It will
also help you to define the tasks in a more specific manner and to make the
tasks and expected output/outcomes transparent to the project team and
stakeholders.

Step 8: Identify the risks/constraints.

Generally you should consider if there could be any stakeholders who have no
interest in the project or even who are against it. Further, explore any potential
risks of your project (for example from literature) and decide on measures you
can take against it.

Potential risks for tracer study could be:

 Can I receive the contact information of the graduates and how? How
up-to-date is this information?
 Are there any data-protection challenges?
 How can I motivate the graduates to attend the survey?
 What should I do if the response rate is very low?
 How to design the survey in order to make it easy to understand for the
participants and to minimise their workload for completing the survey?

Step 9: Project Summary and Outline

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Before you start the detailed action plan, it is recommended to lay down a
project outline and summary. If not already available, the outline can partially
be the written documentation of the steps we just went through. The summary
should contain all basic information on the project. You can see an example
summary for a tracer study on page 12.

Step 10: Write the PAP

Once you have finished defining the basic outline and your summary, you can
start writing your Project Action Plan. Preparing the PAP will help you to think
through the steps you need to accomplish for your successful project. With
every task you add in the PAP you might find a task, stakeholder or resources
etc. you might not have thought of before and which could mean a change to
your outline. This is normal and actually one of the reasons why to write such
a PAP.

By completing the PAP template that you will find on the online learning
platform you will notice that you might not have an answer to all the questions
or that sometimes one of the columns does not make sense to fill it out. In that
case you should try to find the answer or if necessary leave it blank. As a
general rule you should not be afraid of revising and discussing the PAP with
colleagues and team-members who might have additional information and
know what to consider for a certain task etc.

Once you are done with writing the PAP you can concentrate on the
implementation of the PAP. The PAP is not a fix plan you need to stick to
word-by-word, new circumstances can always require a change, be it the
extension of the timeframe, a new task or leaving out a task. Hence, it is
normal that you revise your PAP continuously during the implementation
process. It is important though that any changes are transparently
communicated in case others are involved and that there are enough reasons
and arguments to do such changes.

The following is an example of how a PAP of a tracer study could look like. As
you see in the summary, we only included the first milestone. Further
milestones could be added for your project as needed.

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Project Action Plan (Example) 3

My Name, Position, University, and Country

Title of my Project Tracer Study

 Collect representative data on university study, first employment and career profile of the graduates
Objectives
 Analyse the influential factors of higher education to employment

Time 14 Months

Central Responsible
Centre for Quality Development and Assurance
Body

Project-Team XXX (statistician), XXX (evaluation expert),..

Divided in active (who need to deliver outputs/outcomes in order for the project to succeed) and passive (who are
Stakeholders:
interested in the output/outcome of the project).

Budget University budget plan

 Conception
Milestones  Data collection
 Data analysis and report
 low response rate to tracer study by graduates
Potential Risks  Invalid contact information
 Underestimating the workload

3
There are various PAP templates. What we have chosen here is only one kind of them. In practice, you could choose the template which better suits for your project.

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Task A: What are
How long How to measure
Conception of What are the key Who is the What are the What is my
will it the output/
a Survey for activities? involved? resources outputs/outcomes? role?
take? outcomes?
Tracer Study needed?

Define the objectives Vice Rector Minutes Clear objectives Project

and themes of the for Academic which are in line with Manager:
Task 1: survey Affairs 2 Months - stakeholders
Conception Moderate the
Set the survey methods Project team Definition of survey discussion and
(online survey or paper- topics and questions objective finding
based survey) Stakeholders that it should answer process

Define the target Make proposals

graduates for objectives
and
methodologies

Analyse relevant Project team Result Report of Methodologically Project

literature and research literature review proof survey draft Manager:
(incl. decision if to use Stakeholders 4 Months Survey according to
certain existing models software objectives and Distribute tasks
Task 2: Technical
and/or questions or needs and help with
support for Survey draft literature
Design the questionnaires where software and Accepted survey research.
survey including applicable)
hardware draft by all relevant
layout and
contents Clarify software and stakeholders, ready
hardware requirements to dispatch.
(which software shall
we use to design the
survey; how shall we

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 analyse the survey
result later)

Design the survey

(questions and layout)

Discuss draft with

relevant stakeholders

Review the survey Project team Finalized survey Tested survey Project
Manager:
Task 3: Test the survey (incl. A group of 1 Month
pre-test) graduates Find graduates
Test the survey who are group.
invited for the
pre- test

Check and clarify Project team Budget for Mailing list Contact addresses Project
private data protection printing of target graduates Manager:
rules University 3 Months surveys Paper-based with name and
administration (parallel to and survey gender Obtain
Acquire the addresses other mailing addresses and
Task 4: (mailing address or Local tasks) prepare
residents’ materials
email address) (envelop, invitation letter
Prepare for registry office
etc.) to be signed by
dispatch Check and update the (for postal VP.
addresses addresses)

Prepare invitation letter Student

assistants
Prepare for sending out

Milestone A: Completion of survey design and test; ready for dissemination

…next task/milestone…

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4. List of Literature

Chartfield, C. & Johnson, T. (2007). A short course in project management.

Retrieved from http://www.support.office.com.

De Marco, T. (1997). The deadline: a novel about project management. New

York, NY: Dorset House.

Department for Business Enterprise & Regulatory Reform (2007). Guidelines

for Managing Projects. Retrieved from http://www.berr.gov.uk.

METHOD (2003). Project management guidebook. Retrieved from

http://www.method123.com.

Project Management Institute (2000). A guide to project management body of

knowledge. Newtown Square: Pennsylvania.

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