Cost Scheduling in a County Funded Hospital
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You are a project manager in the marketing department for a county funded hospital. The hospital is launching an extensive public service program for cardiac health. The program will involve print ads in local newspapers, television spots, posters at local eateries and health clubs, and sponsorship of events at the county fair. You have been discussing the project with your boss, the director of marketing, Walter Jones, and you are discussing options for a local celebrity to be a key spokesperson. You are hoping to have one of the local professional basketball players because they are typically available during the summer county fair season. The goal is that the first splash of public service announcements and ads takes place in the next 90 days, in conjunction with "Heart Healthy Month."
This is a critical project for the hospital, and you are honored (and a little nervous) to be the project manager. This project is part of a larger strategic initiative to develop community awareness of the hospital's expertise in cardiac care and increase the hospital's revenues over a 3-year period. The budget for the project is clearly defined and seems to be adequate. The various departments of the hospital are supportive of the project, and there is clarity and consensus around the scope and objectives of the campaign.
Unfortunately, the hospital's project budgets are under fire for experiencing significant budget overruns within the last year on a number of projects. The hospital's CFO has made it clear to your director that the project will need to be diligent in managing this project so that schedule and cost overruns do not occur.
You will need to build the project schedule that meets the required dates for the upcoming "Heart Healthy Month," plus the schedule for the remaining deliverables. Good luck!
Question 1:
You are about to kick off the project, so you are meeting with Georgia and the other team leads to review how you will monitor and track status. Your team is not familiar with the earned value method, so you will need to give them some specific guidance. You anticipate a number of questions and are preparing your notes to hand out for the meeting. Be sure to address the following:
What is earned value management?
Why is "percent complete" not enough?
How will we determine the different values?
What information do we need to capture from our team members?
Explore the use of earned value management systems to link cost and schedule performance.
Question 2:
Library research project
Georgia turned in her status report for the county fair preparation activities. She feels that her pieces are on track, with nothing for you to worry about. She reports the following information for the critical path tasks:
see chart that is attached
You look at her status report and determine that Georgia does not have a solid grasp of her status. Using earned value measurements along with the other information and metrics available, determine the true status of Georgia's project. Prepare an updated status report for Georgia, sharing the measurements, explaining the benefits of using EVM and rationale in your determination of the status for the project. Be sure to document some instructions for Georgia for determining the project status for her next project update to you.
Use the Library to get more information on earned value analysis and earned value management.
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Solution Summary
This solution talks about the project management in context of county funded hospital . It then uses the earned value management method and percent complete method.
Solution Preview
What is earned value management?
? The earned value management is used in project management measure the progress of the project. Using earned value management one can combine measures of technical performance, schedule performance and cost performance in one composite measure. The main use of earned value management is that it provides caution and warnings if problems are likely to occur in the project.
Why is "percent complete" not enough?
Percent complete is not enough because it does not capture the technical level to which the work is actually done, nor does it capture the cost at which the 'percentage' of work is complete nor does it indicate the extent to which the work is on schedule.
How will we determine the different values?
1. First the work needs to be defined and listed in a work breakdown structure.
2. Next a value called the planned value must be assigned to each element. Usually it is the allocation of the budget to the activity. Sometimes a weight may be assigned instead of a budget value.
3. Finally an earning rule is applied to the list of tasks. Usually, a 0/100 earning rule is applied where the credit is ...
Education
- BSc , University of Calcutta
- MBA, Eastern Institute for Integrated Learning in Management
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