Assignment 7: Project Cost, Quality and Risk Management

Assignment Introduction

For your last assignment before the final project you will determine the estimated costs, document how you plan to manage quality and potential risks.

Assignment Details

The work for this assignment will be captured across two documents, each described in the following sections.

Part 1

For Part 1, you will estimate how much your project would actually cost. If you are a startup that hired an agency or consultancy to complete some portion of your planned work, use the amounts that they quoted you. If you have not discussed price yet, get to it! For work done “in-house” you will use the most accurate rates you can find for the work being done (see below). If you are an agency or consultancy, your cost estimates should differentiate between what you are charging your clients and what you are paying your employees.

To get started, review your WBS and Gantt Chart to determine how long individual tasks will take. Use reasonable figures that align as closely as possible to the type of work carried out in your WBS. A quick search on the Internet should produce some averages for you to adopt. For example, searching: “what is the hour rate for a mid-level graphic designer” will likely return results that point to a number of websites that identify the going rate for a designer. The numbers you find will probably vary by region, so you simply assume that work will be carried out in Southern California.

In addition to wages, you will also need to identify the cost of business transactions (e.g., paying for a survey, software acquisition, fixed costs). Again, don’t simply guess. Identify the actual resources required by your project and look up how much they cost.

Build a spreadsheet using your Google workspace. The format of your spreadsheet is going to vary from project to project, but chapter 7 of Schwalbe provides a good description of what you should include. In particular, review Figure 7-2 and 7-3 for comparable examples.

As a group, create a new document in your group’s stage directory and name it TEAMNAME-assignment-7-cost_estimates.

Part 2

For Part 2, you will create a quality and risk management plan for your project. In one or two paragraphs, state how you plan on controlling for quality. Describe the measurements will you take in order to ensure that your project is of high quality. Next, list the risks involved in carrying out your project at each step. For every risk you identify, you must also include a statement about how you plan to mitigate that risk.

As a group, create a new document in your group’s stage directory and name it TEAMNAME-assignment-7-quality_risk.

Submitting

Once you have completed both parts 1 and 2, move both files into the final directory in your Google workspace and submit a link to your documents on the Assignment 7 page on Canvas.

Ensure that all course staff have been added as members of your group directory and have edit permissions on your documents.

Grading

This assignment is worth 6 pts or 6 percent of your total grade. You must complete all requirements for this assignment accurately and on time to receive credit. No partial credit will given. Credit will be assigned to you as a group but removed on an individual basis for team members who do not participate in the work.