Aston Martin relies on Microsoft Project to collaborate and deliver new vehicles from concept to production with greater efficiency and resourcing. Andrew Palmer: President and CEO of Aston Martin Lagonda: "Bringing concepts to market whilst the big giants are still pondering in their boardrooms whether it's a good idea or not, that's all about agility, that's about moving quickly, about taking risks, other companies wouldn't necessarily take. As we look forward we have to have cutting edge technology, cutting edge cars, cars that continue to define beautiful in the world. When we were a small company, we knew how many people were working here, we knew what they were working on, they were working on the one big programme. As we changed, we needed to be able to better deploy that resource to make sure we get the most efficient use out of those people. We're using Microsoft Project right now, to allow different people in the business to have their own isolated plan of activities about what they're doing with their department, but also we can roll that all up in the cloud, so that we can see an overview of all those activities going forward, that are going to create the car at the end of the day. And that's exactly what we need to be doing. Microsoft Project is the thing that glues everything together, it really allows us to describe the steps that need to happen to get to a car at the end. Having the dependencies within Microsoft Project, allows us to change one date and it spins all the way back, through the rest of the programme plan. So it's really quick then to say, OK if we want to change that, what's the scenario? How might that look in terms of our overall delivery? And share that with the project team and say do we want to make that change? Rather than being reactive to when a problem is already starting to go wrong, we can really see where it's going wrong before it happens, so we can catch it early. We'll be more efficient as a result, we'll use the same number of people but we'll use them more wisely, and we'll spend less money taking products through to production, so we'll be a more a profitable business. There's probably more data created every year here, than there has been in 103 years that preceded it But, in choosing Microsoft to help us with the cloud, what we're saying is that we think this is the best mechanism for protecting what we think is some of the most important intellectual property in the car industry. To make the best product in a hugely competitive marketplace, it is absolutely vital that we have some amazing people, and making sure all those people can collaborate really clearly. Microsoft Project is a key tool in enabling us to do that. What we like about working with Microsoft, the tools are world-class and that makes us move towards that world-class company that we aspire to be." Source: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/project/customer-stories Question 1 (30 Marks) "We're using Microsoft Project right now, to allow different people in the business to have their own isolated plan of activities about what they're doing with their department, but also we can roll that all up in the cloud, so that we can see an overview of all those activities going forward, that are going to create the car at the end of the day". Demonstrate how Aston Martin achieved the roll up of activities in order to create an overview of the entire project. Begin by defining the project scope and key objectives. Thereafter, identify project tasks from the different departments (must include tasks from at least 3 different departments) that will "roll up to the key objectives. Use the MS Project WBS to identify project tasks. The MS Project WBS and task sheet must be presented and discussed in an essay. 1.1 Define project scope and key objectives 1.2 Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) with shown cost table from MS Project (10) (20) Question 2 (70) "So it's really quick then to say, OK if we want to change that, what's the scenario? How might that look in terms of our overall delivery? Using the activities identified in Question 1, show how you believe Aston Martin would have managed changes on the project by completing the following actions: 2.1 Develop a realistic schedule on MS Project. Project schedule to be presented and discussed in an essay format. 2.2 Discuss the project dependencies and the tasks on the critical path. 2.3 Discuss the methods you would use to shorten the critical path. 2.4 List and discuss the milestones captured on MS Project. Be very specific about each milestone, including the project finish milestone. Milestone schedule to be presented and discussed in an essay format. (25) (20) (10) (15)