QSO 340 Module 3 Project One Project Plan example

Project One: Project Plan for a Warehouse Management System at a Composite Regional Food Bank

[Student Name]

Southern New Hampshire University

QSO 340: Project Management

Module Three Project One

[Instructor Name]

[Date]

The organization, setting and figures below are a composite written as a model document. No real employer, client, colleague or patient is described.

Project One: Project Plan for a Warehouse Management System at a Composite Regional Food Bank

Project Charter

Project title: Warehouse Management System Implementation. Sponsor: executive director, Tri-River Regional Food Bank, a composite nonprofit. Project manager: director of operations.

Business case: The food bank tracks roughly 14 million pounds of donated and purchased food annually on paper forms and spreadsheets. Staff cannot see expiration dates by pallet, so perishable food spoils before it is shipped, and 60 partner pantries order by phone and email, which produces errors. A warehouse management system with barcode scanning and an online ordering portal is expected to cut spoilage by about 180,000 pounds a year, save about 2,600 staff hours and allow the food bank to serve more pantries with the same staff. A foundation will fund 480,000 dollars of the 640,000 dollar budget if the project starts this year.

Objectives: go live in both warehouses by November 15, before the holiday season peak; reach 98 percent inventory accuracy within 60 days of go-live; have at least 50 of 60 pantries ordering online by January 31; stay within the 640,000 dollar budget, including a 60,000 dollar contingency reserve.

Key requirements: barcode tracking of every pallet with expiration dates; first-expired, first-out picking prompts; an online ordering portal for pantries; reports that meet the funder's quarterly requirements; operation on handheld scanners that work in the freezer; and data migration from existing spreadsheets.

Dates: start March 1; go-live November 15; project closure December 15. Out of scope: replacing the food bank's accounting system and building a mobile app for pantry clients.

Assumptions and Constraints

The plan rests on stated assumptions. The foundation grant will be confirmed by February 15. The selected vendor's standard product meets the food bank's requirements with configuration rather than custom programming. Warehouse staff can give an average of four hours a week to testing and training between May and October without reducing weekly deliveries. The wireless network in the main warehouse can be extended into the freezer. The constraints are firmer: the budget cannot exceed 640,000 dollars without board approval, go-live cannot occur between November 20 and January 5 because of holiday volume, and all pantries must be able to keep ordering by phone until they are trained. If any assumption proves false, the project manager will raise it through change control rather than absorbing it quietly.

Stakeholder Register

Table 1 identifies the main stakeholders, their interests and how they will be engaged (Project Management Institute [PMI], 2021).

Table 1

Stakeholder Register

Note. Composite organization.

Risk Register

Table 2 lists the risks judged most important, with probability and impact rated on a simple high, medium and low scale.

Table 2

Risk Register

Note. Composite ratings for illustration.

Work Breakdown Structure

Table 3 decomposes the project into deliverables and work packages, following the principle that a work breakdown structure should contain all of the project's work (PMI, 2019). Every piece of work needed to reach go-live appears once, and nothing outside the charter's scope appears at all.

Table 3

Work Breakdown Structure, Level 2

Note. Each deliverable is further decomposed into work packages of roughly 80 hours or less in the detailed plan.

Responsibility Assignment Matrix

Table 4 assigns responsibility for each major deliverable. R means responsible, A accountable, C consulted and I informed. Each deliverable has exactly one accountable person, so ownership is never shared or unclear (Kerzner, 2022).

Table 4

RACI Matrix

Note. Composite roles.

How the Plan Fits Together

The elements of the plan depend on one another. The charter's November 15 date drives the largest risk in the register, and the response to that risk shapes the testing and go-live packages in the work breakdown structure. The stakeholder register explains why the pantry pilot exists: pantries are run largely by volunteers and will adopt the portal only if it is simple. The responsibility matrix makes the warehouse supervisor responsible for hardware and testing because warehouse staff, the users most anxious about change, trust their supervisor. The next step is to estimate durations and dependencies for each work package and build the project schedule, which will show whether the November date is realistic.

Communication and Change Control

Communication follows the stakeholder register. The project manager will send a one-page status report every two weeks to the sponsor, covering progress against milestones, budget spent against plan, the top three risks and any decisions needed. The board receives a monthly summary and the funder a quarterly report. Warehouse staff will hear about the project at their regular Monday meetings, and pantries through a monthly email and a short webinar before the pilot. Changes to scope, schedule or budget will be requested in writing, assessed by the project manager for their effect on the other two constraints and approved or rejected by the sponsor; changes above 20,000 dollars or affecting the go-live date will also go to the board's executive committee. The contingency reserve can be used only through this process, which keeps a record of every change and why it was made.

References

Kerzner, H. (2022). Project management: A systems approach to planning, scheduling, and controlling (13th ed.). Wiley.

Project Management Institute. (2019). Practice standard for work breakdown structures (3rd ed.). Project Management Institute.

Project Management Institute. (2021). A guide to the project management body of knowledge (PMBOK guide) (7th ed.). Project Management Institute.