Overview

Organizations continue to struggle with successful project implementations that support business goals. Strides in project management have been achieved through a consistent approach to project management as defined by the Project Management Institute $($PMI$)$ A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge, $($PMBOK$$ Guide$),$ Fifth Edition, $2013.$ Specifically, the five phases of project management$$consisting of initiating, planning, executing, controlling, and closing$$provide a framework for achieving business goals through successful project implementations. At the completion of the course, you will understand the key deliverables and activities within each phase of this framework in order to achieve business goals.

Your final project will be a complete project management plan. The plan will be comprised of standard templates used by organizations across all industries. For milestones one and two, you will use two different case studies from your Mindedge resource. For your final project, you will be using a third case study from Mindedge, the HighTower Global Solutions case study, as the foundation for your plan. Each week you will move through the phases of the project management life cycle and develop components of the project management plan to address the organizational need within each of these different case studies. You will consider stakeholder perspectives and communication needs as well as typical project risks and issues. At the end of the course, you will have a complete project management plan that supports a typical project for an organization.

The project is divided into two milestones, which will be submitted at various points throughout the course to scaffold learning and ensure quality final submissions. Please note that you will use different case studies for each Milestone and for your final project in this course, all of which can be found in your Mindedge resource.

Milestone One utilizes the Fabricant Manufacturing Project case study and will be submitted in Module Three.

Milestone Two utilizes the ECO$-$Trans case study and will be submitted in Module Six.

The final project utilizes the HighTower Global Solutions case study and will be submitted in Module Nine.

In your final project, you will demonstrate your mastery of the following course outcomes:

Develop project charters that illustrate the high$-$level scope of the project as it aligns to organizational strategic needs

Analyze internal and external stakeholder needs for efficiently navigating organizational structures

Determine proper approaches to defining business requirements for aligning with business strategies

Utilize project management software for effectively developing project management plans

Develop key project management control documents for ensuring effective management plan scope descriptions

Evaluate agile and waterfall methods for successful project execution

Determine approaches for project closure that inform ongoing best practices in project management planning

Prompt

Throughout the course, you have been working through the phases of the project management life cycle to develop components for a project management plan that addresses the organizational needs of the organization highlighted in two case studies: the Fabricant Manufacturing Project $($Milestone One$)$ and the ECO$-$ Trans case study $($Milestone Two$).$ Your instructor and peers have provided feedback for you to consider along the way. Now, you have the background knowledge and the information necessary to complete your project management plan, which utilizes the HighTower Global Solutions case study, available in MindEdge.

Specifically, the following critical elements must be addressed:

Project Initiation

Identify the economic, technical, and organizational feasibility of the project. For instance, how is the project a viable fit within the organization?

Explain how the project aligns to the organization$$s strategic goals utilizing the traceability matrix $($in Mindedge$).$

Develop a project charter that includes a high$-$level scope of what is to be accomplished.

Create a high$-$level timeline and cost estimate to complete the project.

Identify the concerns of the internal and external key project stakeholders.

Compare the level of support from all key project stakeholders to inform the course of action resulting in success of the project.

Complete the stakeholder analysis template.

Project Planning

Determine the business requirements for the successful development of the project. Justify your choices.

Establish who will provide the business requirements. What approach will be used to solicit the requirements from the subject matter experts?

Categorize and organize the business requirements in a standard requirements template.

Explain why the format for capturing requirements is important to the overall success of the project. Why would we consider requirements$$ traceability?

Leveraging the business requirements,