W1-2-60-1-6

JOMO KENYATTA UNIVERSITY

OF
AGRICULTURE AND TECHNOLOGY
UNIVERSITY EXAMINATIONS 2016/2017

YEAR IV SEMESTER II EXAMINATION FOR THE DEGREE OF BACHELOR OF

COMMERCE
HBC 2404: PROJECT MANAGEMENT
DATE: JULY 2017 TIME: 2 HOURS
INSTRUCTIONS: ANSWER QUESTION ONE AND ANY OTHER TWO
QUESTIONS

QUESTION ONE
Read the following case study and answer the questions that follow (30 marks)

A multi-billion dollar strategy and technology consulting firm providing a broad range of
services in strategy, operations, organization and change, information technology, systems
engineering and program management.

The company’s internal IT organization realized that a plan needed to be put into place to
mature its project management practices order to improve efficiencies and complete process
improvement professional development, or technological initiatives, IT leadership made the
decision to use project management best practices to achieve their goal.

The detailed improvement plan revealed several areas for immediate focus including;
- Process
- IT PMO
- Training
- Portfolio management

Inorder to get unbiased evaluation of their business practices relative to project

management, the company engaged PM solutions to conduct a formal organizational
maturity assessment involving artifact reviews and in-person interviews with key personnel
to determine existing best practices and areas for improvement. The results of this
assessment served as the building blocks for the development of a detailed plan for
improvement illustrating quick hits as well as short and longer – term strategies. The
company wanted to treat project management maturity improvement as a project in itself to
show to the entire organization that the practices it would soon be promoting were the same
practices it was using to make the necessary improvements.

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With a strong senior management commitments for this initiative, members of the
organization’s IT team adopted the improvement plan recommendations and began
executing them with guidance and support provided by senior consultants from PM
solutions.

Three years following the initial assessment, PM solutions was invited back to re-assess the
overall project management maturity of the IT organization to demonstrate improvement
and set the course for the next several years. It was determined that the company had made
such significant strides in the areas of project portfolio management and project
management that their overall maturity rating had increased by 40% exceeding the desired
level detailed in the initial improvement plan of all areas assessed, the ones with most
notable improvements in process maturity over the initial assessment rankings were;
- Scope management – 90%
- Project management (PMO) – 80%
- Professional development – 73%
- Management oversight – 67%

By performing the re-assessment, the company was able to document their improvement
and justify the value project management has brought to their organization. For example,
now that its new project portfolio management process is in place, the internal IT project
management office is able to ensure that its limited IT resources are allocated to the highest
value projects, the ones that best align with the organization’s overall business objectives.

The company continues to invest in improvements and has now begun efforts to further
enhance its project management practices to allow for more angle practices when
appropriate. A move robust database housing project workbooks is underway with a focus
on periodic lessons learned workshops to proactively share knowledge.

(a) Basing on the case study above, discuss how the following have been done.
(i) Project planning [2 marks]

(ii) Change management [2 marks]

(iii) Project identification [2 marks]

(iv) Team involvement and management [4 marks]

(b) (i) Brainstorm the stakeholders of this project.

[2 marks]
(ii) Using power/interest grid, perform a stakeholder analysis.
[8 marks]
(c) Identify and discuss five critical success factors of the above project. [10 marks]

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QUESTION TWO
(a) Describe any FIVE importance of project planning.
[10 marks]
(b) Discuss the following in relation to project planning
(i) Risk management plan [5 marks]

(ii) Project scheduling [5 marks]

QUESTION THREE
(a) What is project scheduling? [2 marks]

(b) Discuss the following scheduling tools;

(i) Gantt Chart [5 marks]

(ii) Work breakdown structure [4 marks]

(iii) Critical path analysis [5 marks]

(iv) Milestone chart [4 marks]

QUESTION FOUR
Explain the important of doing SWOT analysis of an organization before project
implementation. [20 marks]

QUESTION FIVE
(a) Describe steps followed in project life cycle [15 marks]

(b) Explain importance of designing project life cycle as a project management tool.
[5 marks]