Project Management

Project Management
Order Description
This project has to be completed by using assignment 1 which is listed below. The project was about, Strengthen the Education System in the United States (No Child Left Behind). Below is assignment 1 and below the line is assignment 2 which need to be completed. If you have any question please contact anytime with the given contact information.

Executive Summary
The motive of the architects of No Child Left Behind legislation signed into law by George W. Bush in 2001 never became reflected in the education system of the United States after the enactment of the law. An effort to transform education in the United States has not yet been vindicated in the implementation of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB). The project is focused on strengthening the education system in the United States by recommending a repeal of the NCLB Act. It will also describe ways of cleaning up the disastrous effects implementing the law. The project will have a statement of the vision and goals of the project based on S.M.A.R.T (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, and Timely), which will clearly reflect the expected outcome of an effective implementation of the NCLB Act. The discussion will also entail five deliverables (products) of the project. In order for the project to succeed, resources will be required hence this project will summarize the generic resources in a table. Costs incurred in obtaining or utilizing of the generic resources will be shown in as a table providing the total budget of the project including contingency as well as any other additional costs. Also, three key success criteria will be identified to determine the satisfaction level of the stakeholders.
Project Portfolio Management Method
Management of the project will employ scoring method to prioritize and provide support to the management of project portfolios. The method is effective in measuring the benefits that are aligned to the nation’s education strategic planning. Scoring method can deliver to the implementation of the project tasked to show changes that must be done in a new version of the NCLB Act, a process aligned to good practices in project management. The solutions to be presented in this project for the challenges facing the US education system are considered on an approach for benefit measurement using the Scoring method. The method is also convenient for delivering fairly relevant results for the project and eventually for the United States, mainly considering the value the stakeholders get from the American education system. The scoring method will comprise of identification of the problem, categorization, evaluation, selection, prioritization, portfolio balancing, and authorization (Kipper et al., 2013).
Through scoring method, there is an assurance of running the project in a cost effective manner since it is focused on arriving at precise investment needs as well as its flexibility to be easily aligned to numerous strategic planning. Additionally, less stress is involved on the financial measures involving the project when using the method. For the sake of this project management, the Simple Additive Weighting (SAW) Method is preferred, being the most widely employed portfolio management method. The technique uses regular arithmetic operations such as addition and multiplication, especially in the determination of the total budget for the project (Scoring Techniques, 2015).
Vision and Goals of the project
Vision
Establishing on a legacy of educational excellence, opportunity and equal access to students of all walks of life, the United States of America envisions itself as a nation which holds at its core teaching, research and aligned to its national and global economic development.
Goal of the Project (Based on S.M.AR.T)
1. Provide more opportunities for student access and success.
2. Ensure operational and academic quality and accountability in the national educational system.
3. Ensure proper implementation of the NCLB Act and repealing of redundant and ineffective parts of the law.
4. Establishing and maintaining uniqueness and competitive advantages in all educational levels and institutions.
5. Establish a curriculum that is anti-disciplinary and rooted in real-world problems, and a foundation for the transformation of the role of a teacher into a facilitator and not a “sage on the stage”.
Major Deliverables of the Project
The project to promote the education system of the United States is focused on creating a better learning system for both students and teachers, a globally competitive education based on dissemination & staff development activities w/timelines, hiring better teachers, better payment for them, enabling students of all income levels to attend college. The project is aimed at pushing for a review of the NCLB Act that provides the right guideline for the creation of an intellectually and economically school curriculum. The new plan will constitute guidelines on what primary school children should learn in the present contemporary America. For instance, the project is targeted on ensuring that a contemporary classroom student-cantered and not a recipient of knowledge to process and store.
The project looks forward to creating a more valuable student both as an individual as well as the society through adoption of research centred learning. According to Piaget (2004), the learners are able to take full control of their learning experiences and this system should be adapted right from the preschool age of a child to adolescence. The current American child should be guided to develop a sense of self-exploration that results to exploration of internal and external environment, leading to gaining ability to solve problems that can potentially hinder personal, social, national and global development. This tendency leads to emergency of a strong sense of self. The strong sense of self will enable the current American students to improve in creativity through discovering their talents as well as weaknesses that also becomes as a bridge to adulthood. It will also enable students to feel secure about their future when the goals of this project are achieved but if not, or when the sense is suppressed or discouraged, students will become insecure denying them the opportunity to benefit from benefiting from the education system that is existing. Failure of this project will lead to students developing anxiety and confusion leading to increased indiscipline in schools and in the society.
Timeframe for Delivering the Solution to the Project
The design of the project will require a timely implementation, evaluation and assessment. A task force established to implement the recommendations made in this proposal will work within a period of one to two years where the first year will be for planning and the second year for a full implementation. However urgent the plan may be, the project must allow enough time for consultation, evaluation and assessment since the deliverables will affect the education system for a long time. Therefore, control measures will be in place to ensure that the program is not rushed because doing so will cause more problems such as the ones facing the education sector at the moment.
Generic Resources for the Project
Generic resources are the placeholder resources required for this project that reflects on the diversity, rich experience and skills are which to be specifically identified. Of particular importance is the use of generic resources in the specification of the skills required for the accomplishment of a particular assignment by the use of these resources (Duncan, 2004). After the identification of the skills, project managers will now find out if the individual resources are available. Some of the generic resources identified are summarised in the table below.
Generic Costs
Generic Resource Working Hours in Billion U.S Dollars. Overload Hours (Added)
In Billion U.S Dollars. Overhead Hours (Subtracted)
In Billion U.S Dollars. Committed Hours (Subtracted)
in Million U.S Dollars. Regular Resource Availability
in Billion U.S Dollars.
People 25 5 3 1 26
Equipment 10 2 1 1 8
Materials 8 3 2 1 8

Contingency and Additional Costs
Contingency Cost/unit ($) Total ($)
Design cost 0.5 B
Design Definition 0.7 B
Design Growth 0.3 B
1.5 B
Additional costs
Intangible costs 4.5 B
Change in culture 6.5 B
11.0 B
(Rado, 2004)
Key Success Criteria for Your Project
The success criteria for this project about improvement education system in America is determined by several indicators that that are used as the criteria for determining success of the project. The indicators are tested during a pilot study before the changes are fully implemented. One of the criteria is hiring better teachers who will need to understand the content and the manner of the education given to the student. Good teaching is reflected in the ability of the students to learn by themselves and monitor their progress in the learning experience. The students, which are products of the better teachers too, are expected to show a high level of creativity, innovation, and better problem skills. The third criterion is testing the effect of the partial implementation on those affected by the change such as students, teachers, parents and other stakeholders including school owners. The three keys are assessed individually from a nonbiased perspective to determine if the implementation process should continue or be halted. The assessment should be done in a continuous cycle that constitutes of planning, doing, studying and acting.
Justify Your Stakeholders’ Satisfactory Level
Stakeholders’ satisfaction arises from a good rapport that exists between them and project implementers concerning the quality education of provided resulting from the changes made according to the new recommendation. They will be contented with the contented presented to students at different levels of learning and how teaching is carried out. For instance, children in primary school will have a self-driven and self-centered learning where the teacher is only a facilitator. The United States may be large, but stakeholders in the education sector are the same and expectations are also similar to other parts of the world. The most important product the stakeholders look forward to from a national education system, is an affordable quality education that was in the minds of the architects of NCLB Act in 2001 (Kennedy, 2005). Therefore, the stakeholders’ satisfaction may be justified through establishing an education system that has an outline of should be the basics in the curriculum of modern children (Petersen & Young, 2004).
The stakeholders will also be satisfied with the scope within which teaching, creativity and innovation are kept. Creativity springs from the environment where students have the free-will to exploit their potential hence learning to define their success through searching for information that best interests them. The project looks at the satisfaction students get in their learning experience as young as when they are at kindergarten until when they are adults. Stakeholders would be satisfied if the timelines of implementing these recommendations is done according to schedule so that the completion dates are observed for a better planning. They are satisfied with the ability of the teachers and school administration to implement the changes expected at their school at the right time. For instance, they should create an elaborate plan that can accommodate learners from all walks of life. Many project managers use the Gantt chart to counter check how the project implementation increases the opportunity of students and teachers to have an explicit and transparent learning. Overall, project managers should be able to identify significant students’ performance aspects used to assess other stakeholders with regards to meeting curriculum expectations focused on in this project.
Conclusion
Reforms are required in the education system of the United States, both the actual learning activities in class as well as the entire curriculum. The target of this project is to, first of all, push for the amendment of NCLB Act be more relevant to the educational needs of both Americans and other students and stakeholders in the world. Secondly, the proposal recommends that better teachers be employed and paid better salaries so that can deliver the quality education that the country is now yearning for. Third, the implementation leaders and other strategists must ensure that the new education system to be created through these recommendations can be accessed by and affordable to all people in the United States.
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Assignment 2: Project Charter

Due Week 7 and worth 250 points

Please use the project from Assignment 1 to complete this assignment, which requires that you provide the necessary scope for your project.
A project scope includes many variables. The Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) must be defined prior to the start of the project to ensure that all of the details are planned.

Write an eight to ten (8-10) page project charter in which you:

1.Define the project including the vision, objectives, and scope of the project.
2.Determine the customers who will use the deliverables produced from the project.
3.Specify the key stakeholders for this project.
4.Determine the role and responsibilities of each project team resource. Include the scheduling duration for each resource.
5.Graphically depict the project organizational structure. Note: Include a screenshot of the image file to show your work.
6.Create a WBS using principles of project scheduling and budgeting through the use of Excel spreadsheet, Word table, or other similar project-specific software. Next, develop the cost and time estimates and allocate resources where applicable.
7.Determine the major project milestones and the required delivery dates. Analyze why each milestone is solely critical to the project.
8.Document the main dependencies, risks, issues, and assumptions of the project. Select the top three (3) most important risks of the project planning and project management process. Suggest strategies to mitigate those risks.
9.Summarize the project budget approved by the project sponsor.
10.Use at least three (3) quality resources in this assignment. Note: Wikipedia and similar Websites do not qualify as quality resources.
Your assignment must follow these formatting requirements:

•Be typed, double spaced, using Times New Roman font (size 12), with one-inch margins on all sides; references must follow APA or school-specific format. Check with your professor for any additional instructions.
•Include a cover page containing the title of the assignment, the student’s name, the professor’s name, the course title, and the date. The cover page and the reference page are not included in the required page length.
The specific course learning outcomes associated with this assignment are:

•Develop a project plan including the critical elements of project scope, priorities, WBS, and communication plan.
•Formulate a WBS using principles of project scheduling and budgeting, and develop cost and time estimates and allocate resources.
•Apply the concepts of risk mitigation to the project planning and project management process.
•Use technology and information resources to research issues in project management.
•Write clearly and concisely about project management using proper writing mechanics

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