INTRODUCTION 

This assignment report will discuss a reflection I have as a member of a project team that
managed the the Sodor Oil terminal project through a business game from design, planning up to
construction and project close out.  Business games have been adopted to mimic real projects
where learners can acquire skills faster and closer to the real world without taking on large
projects and business risks. (Caruso, 2019). The Sodor business game presented the team with an
opportunity to experience and learn project management skills through the different roles rotated
amongst the group. This therefore enabled each member of the team to lead a role in the Sodor
project circle thereby exploring the team,s diverse capabilities. The report further discusses how
my team used different project management techniques to manage the Sodor oil terminal project,
from planning , controlling upto closeout of the project.  
 
A CRITICAL REVIEW OF HOW OUR GROUP ORGANISED THE PROJECT
MANAGEMENT OF THE SODOR OIL TERMINAL PROJECT 

Team Formation
 
Our group started off the project with a project kick off meeting where we studied the Sodor oil
terminal case study together to understand the project scope and identify important stakeholders
to consider.  According to Sampietro (2016), the first kick off meeting in real projects is one of
the most important project management tools where stakeholders get to meet project teams, and
roles are clarified. Identifying stakeholders early on is crucial for project success as their
expectations and requirements are known and well managed by the project team (Sampietro,
2016). Furthermore it is at this meeting that our group developed a project team and different
roles were assigned each member. The diversity in our team brought in an element of creativity,
a project manager who could lead the first  phase of the project was assigned together with the
secretary who was recording meeting proceeding as well as action items. In addition, other team
members were assigned to work on the project plan and the work breakdown structure (WBS) as
well as the   initial cost model so as to estimate the total cost of the project. Another important
role was that of a meeting convener, who was responsible for planning meetings and lastly one
member was assigned to do monitoring and evaluation of the project.  1As a group we committed
to working as a team towards a common goal of completing the Sodor Oil terminal project on
time and with the required quality. Accordingly (Iqbal, et al., 2017) submitted that project
teamwork has a positive and significant impact towards success of any project. However, the
most important of factors of team work that we considered important in our team were team
communication, cohesiveness and collaboration among team members as well as technical
competence(Iqbal, et al., 2017).

Communication in the team

Effective communication is important for project teams to ensure successful completion of

projects, in view of this point our team devised numerous communication channels. This was
important because most our meetings were convened after our block release classes and this was
when we were all at our places of residence. Communication is the key to keeping team
members, managers, and stakeholders informed and on track to pursue the project objectives, as
well as to identifying issues, risks, misunderstandings, and all other challenges to project
completion. According to Muszynska (2015) effective communication and team effectiveness
are positively correlated both in traditional and virtual teams. Consequently, lack of adequate
communication management in project teams may put project outcomes at risk. Initially we
created a communication platform on Whatsaap, where we communicated on how and when to
convene meetings. Even though the platform is regarded as informal it was good and serving the
intended purpose at that time because everyone had access to a smartphone. We then went on to
agree to use the Microsoft Teams virtual platform for our meetings after adjourning of day
classes. The platform was convenient because we could meet virtually with everyone at their
residence, this was working for us because most of our meetings were in the evenings after our
class and we could also record meeting proceedings. In support of communication in virtual
teams …… stated that ,virtual teams increasingly rely on computer-mediated communication for
interaction when collaborating and completing their tasks

Dividing the group according to distinct roles for the entire 6 sessions of the project, for each
session one of us took the project manager role, one took the role for a secretary, the other for
scope managing and WBS (Work Breakdown Structure), the fourth role was for the cost model
and final role for monitoring and evaluation. This division, according to roles, was done so that
each member of the group could have the feeling and experience of managing a certain
component of the project. We then created a collaborative platform on Microsoft Planner where
we shared all the documents we were working on. An advantage of this platform was that it
enabled us all to work on a document and made all documents accessible for everyone in the
group. The challenge we had with all these platforms was that internet connectivity was not
consistent for all of us and we could lose other members during a meeting because of loss or lack
of connectivity. 

A guideline on how meetings were going to be conducted was drafted and agreed upon by all
members. The guidelines contained among others that the project manager for each session had
to lead meetings, the secretary on the other hand should take minutes and share them on
Microsoft Planner. A standard minute taking template was drafted for making this task simple. It
was also agreed that at the beginning of every session, a recap of the previous meeting be done,
and all shortcomings of previous sessions be documented in the minutes.  

This we demonstrated through clearly communicating the project’s objectives, each members
role, clear tasks and when each tasks was expected or due. For example, those working on the
work breakdown structure understood that the (WBS) was a predecessor task to some project
tasks like producing an initial project plan and cost estimates, therefore the WBS was completed
timeously to allow the start of other tasks. Moreover, our team collaborated well in executing
tasks towards completing the project, this was evidenced by the rotation of roles among the
group so as to make each member experience different responsibilities at different stages of the
project cycle. This collaboration was enabled by the trust that was cultivated in the team, which
is believed to be positively correlated to project success (Bond-Barnard, et al., 2017) . That
notwithstanding our group like any other team experienced some team formation challenges. For
example, at the beginning members were withholding their true emotions as they just met and
therefore insecure (Stanislava Stoyanova, 2015). However the project manager stepped in to
create an atmosphere of confidence and comfort emphasizing the importance of each team
member at in executing the project.   
 
The end of the kickoff meeting and project team formations ushered in the first key deliverable
which is the development of the Work Breakdown structure (WBS). The WBS is referred to as
the hierarchical decomposition of project tasks and work packages so that projects are easier to
manage. define and organise the work required and have a sharper project scope definition. We
further identified task dependencies, that is what tasks needed to be done before or after,and
attached resources to activities to for the initial cost model . This enabled us to come up with a
simple baseline plan as evident in Appendix A.  
 
 
 
Example - We initially had a poorly constructed wbs which resulted in adverse project outcomes 
ie – some projects taskes were not limked properly to their predecesors , this then resulted in
having a wrong critical path  ----- 
 
Why was it important for the team to uphold its unity  
 
How project meetings were convened .
 
A CRITICAL APPRAISAL OF MY TEAMS SODOR OIL PROJECT FROM START TO
PROJECT CLOSE OUT 

This section of the report provides a critical appraisal and discussion of my team's Sodor oil
terminal project from start to project close out and how the team worked out and used various
project management techniques. The critical evaluation of the project will focus on the project
planning, monitoring and control phases of the project cycle. According to Agyei (2015) proper
planning and scheduling are critical in predicting time and costs aspects of a project while
monitoring and controlling relate to observation, regular measurement of performance,
identifying variances to the initial plan and taking corrective / preventive actions (Montes-
Guerra, et al., 2018)

Planning of the Sodor Oil Terminal Project

Time spent on planning activities will reduce risk and increase project success, as evidence in
literature has shown that inadequate planning has led to a failed projects (Serrador, 2013). Our
project team started planning the project by studying the case study provided with a view to
identifying project objectives, major stakeholders and their requirements on the project and
ensuring that all members are clear on what is expected of the team. This information enabled us
to start off with arranging activities given in their order of precedence, that is establishing
dependencies between activities and determining which activities needed to be done first.
However we realized that some activities needed to be done in parallel thus saving some time for
the project. It was important to make sure that only activities needed for the Sodor project were
included in the scope for the project to guard against scope creep. According to Baig &
Kureshi(2018), scope definition and scope control are crucial factors influencing project success,
thus unclear scope definition and lack of proper control for projects can be detrimental to project
implementation. This was clearly demonstrated in their study conducted on the Causes of Scope
Creep in Pakistan's Hydropower Projects where inadequate scope definition and major scope
omissions were one of the factors evidently leading to scope creep (Baig & Kureshi, 2018).

Out of these activities our group managed to come up with a Work Breakdown Structure, which
is the breaking down of daunting full -fledged chunks of activities into efficient workable tasks .
In agreement (Cerezo-Narváez, et al., 2020) stated that the WBS does not only help with
breakdown activities’ into manageable tasks, but also facilitate resource allocation, schedule
planning, initial budgets and controlling of the project during implementation. However, still
with the existence of these techniques like the WBS, ill-defined scopes, overshooting project
schedules and spending beyond initial budgets are still the most recurring reasons for project
failure. We experienced these problems with our project, more especially going beyond the
project schedule. I realised that by applying overtime to activities more especially to those on
the critical path we were exercising some project controls on the project schedule. According to
Chitogo & Pretorius, (2018) an engineering consultant or construction contractor can apply
control measures during project implementation to ensure that a project is delivered within the
planned time schedule, for example a project manager can add more manpower to the project
work force or make the project workforce work overtime, however the client schedule controls
are not usually considered. This is one area that needs to be looked into in order to satisfy the
client as well. We, however, observed that with more overtime added, the cost of the project
increased. This was an occurrence we had expected because with more overtime added, it meant
more hours were worked hence weekend and holiday work attracted more costs in line with
proper labour regulations.

The Microsoft Projects application software came in handy for us as we used it to schedule our
project activities from start to finish. The application was also helpful in generating a Gantt chart
to calculate the project estimated completion time. Microsoft project is one of the most popular
software application for project planning, reporting, and progress updating and tracking, as
shown in the Project management Zone 2017 official website where it was ranked 3 rd among the
other project management software tools like Primavera (Wali & Othman, 2019) . Furthermore,
(Wali & Othman, 2019) identified one major limitation of using the software applications as the
lack of experience and poor training program that lead to most project managers preferring to use
traditional methods rather than using Microsoft project and Primavera programs. Our group
could relate with this challenge as most of us have never had to use the Microsoft Project
application before , hence the challenges we encountered in coming up with the initial plan.

With the information given, we were able to prepare an initial cost model too. We compiled the
figures given on a Microsoft excel spread sheet. At the initial session one, the figures given were
just estimates that gave an idea of what the project will cost. We have just completed our Cost
Breakdown Structure (CBS), and this was the task that was given specifically to me to lead.
After completing the initial cost model, I then uploaded it to Microsoft planner. This is in line
with Project Cost planning, in which according to (Foroutan, Pitera, Deck & Welde, 2022),
inaccurate cost estimates may lead to the wrong project being chosen or implementing the
project may prove to be difficult leading to cost overruns. This therefore means that to obtain a
better understanding of a project’s cost performance, early planning phases must be taken into
consideration. According to the study that was conducted by (Barbu and Sandu, 2020) on The
Importance and Necessity of Cost Management of Construction Projects; Cost estimation was
outlined as primary component of construction projects and one of the objectives of cost control
is to build at the cheapest possible costs, in line with the objectives of the project. Therefore,
optimal decisions can be taken when the actual cost is known, and this will make project
execution less costly. The team later updated the initial cost model as more information was
provided with actual costs from material companies and contractors, that is estimated activity
costs were replaced by actual cost from material companies or contractors allocated to the
respective activities.  

Session 3 information required us to correct the project plan and make it a Baseline Plan. With
the information given we managed to reduce excessive overtime and our project timeline was
reduced to 97.8 weeks as indicated in the baseline plan in the appendix. Examples of activities
that helped in that regard were; mechanical installation was carried out by mechanical engineers
in house, so the activity took fewer weeks (20 weeks), instrumentation installation was done as
part of the electrical installation work, electrical and painting mobilisation was also reduced to
30 weeks each activity. In the structure of a project plan a baseline is important because it is used
later during execution to monitor activities if their actual progress is going according to plan. By
Comparing the Close out report to the Baseline report a project manager can tell if the project
was completed according to planned schedule and budget. Our Baseline Plan was used to track
some activities that were dependent on the materials supplied by subcontractors which had their
delivery timelines attracting some slippages based on their ratings. Nonetheless with regard to
materials, we had selected companies with the highest ratings at 4 (the ratings were between 1
and 4), therefore we did not need to take any action to curb anticipated slippage that came with
lower ratings.
 
We updated the project plan and the cost model using information given at sessions 5 and 6.
These updates helped to reduce the project timeline further to 92 weeks at a cost of
£5,626,873.38. This was in week 45 and the project has come to a closeout with all the activities
having been completed. A comparison of the closeout status as mentioned before and the
Baseline status at 97.8 weeks at a cost of £11,449,963.00 clearly shows that with proper project
monitoring and controls, projects can be influenced to complete at desired cost and planned
schedules. Accordingly, (Baban, Nielson & Seneviratne, 2020) in their study pointed out that
monitoring project activities using a good project control system is essential to determine if
project work is proceeding as planned and the results of good project control practices are
improved costs and schedule outcomes. However, despite such improvements, the authors
further explained that projects managers or organisations do not adequately utilise project
controls.  
To overcome this problem, it is recommended to enhance the training program for construction
engineers as well as to improve the teaching syllabus in College of Engineering towards deployment the

Critical path to – keep track of project activities throughout the implementation of the
project.
Monitoring and Controlling the Sodor Oil Project

Applying overtime to the painting cobtractor verify with info given – to reduce

Choosing vendors and suppliers

Risk Management
 
 
 
 
References
Agyei, W., 2015. Project Planning And Scheduling Using PERT and CPM Techniques with linear
programming: Case Study. International Journal of Scientific and Technology Research , 4(8), pp. 222-
227.

Baig, K. F. & Kureshi, N., 2018. Organisational causes and control of project scope creep in Pakistan's
Hydropower projects. Journal of Strategy and performance Management, 6(4).

Baig, K. F. & Kureshi, N., 2018. Orginisational causes and control of project scope creep in Pakistan's
Hydropower projects. Journal of Strategy and performance management , 6(4).

Bond-Barnard, T. J., Fletcher, L. & Steyn, H., 2017. Linking trust and collaboration in project teams to
project to project management success. International Journal of Managing projects in Business, 11(2),
pp. 432-457.

Caruso, J. V., 2019. Using Business Simulations to Prepare Students to Think Critically, Make Better
Decisions, and Solve Business Problems. Developments in Business Simulation and Experiential Learning,
Volume 46, pp. 283-295.

Cerezo-Narváez, A., Pastor-Fernández, A., Otero-Mateo, M. & Ballesteros-Pérez, P., 2020. Integration of
Cost and Work Breakdown Structures in the Management of Construction Projects. Applied Sciences ,
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Cerezo-Narváez, A., Pastor-Fernández, A., Otero-Mateo, M. & Ballesteros-Pérez, P., 2020. Integration of
Cost and Work Breakdown Structures in the Management of Construction Projects. Applied Sciences ,
10(4).

Iqbal, S. M. J., Nawaz, M. S., Bahoo, S. & Bukhari, S. L. A. B. S., 2017. Impact of Project Teamwork on
Project Success in Pakistan. South Asian Journal of Management Sciences, 11(1), pp. 1-13.

Montes-Guerra, M. I., Gimena, F. N., Pérez-Ezcurdia, M. A. & Díez-Silva, H. M., 2018. The influence of
monitoring and control on project management success. International Journal of construction project
management, 6(2), pp. 136-184.

Sampietro, M., 2016. Project Team Members and Project Meetings. PM World Journal, v(v), pp. 1-7.

Serrador, P., 2013. The Impact of planning on Project Success-Literature Review. The Journal of Modern
Project Management, 1(2), pp. 29-39.
Stanislava Stoyanova, 2015. KEY ASPECTS OF BUILDING MANAGEMENT TEAMS FOR PROJECT ACTIVITIES.
Economic Archive, Issue 2, pp. 57-70.

Appendix A

FINAL PROJECT CLOSEOUT

 
Appendix B

BASELINE PLAN