Managing Marketing Function

Managing the Marketing Function Project Management Course

Coursework description: Read the following questions and make sure you answer all parts listed for each question. You must email your coursework as one document in MS Word format to m. mahdeih@mdx. ac. The UK by the deadline of 12 noon on Friday the 20 January 2012. You must also submit an identical hardcopy of your coursework to the Student Office at William building by the same deadline. Late submissions or submission through other methods will not be accepted. This coursework is worth 25% of your overall mark. Make sure that you clearly show your name and student number of all the group’s members and module code on the cover sheet of your Report use cover sheet template in the appendix. Keep the submission receipt and a copy of your assignment in a safe place.

Questions:

1. You are conducting a market research project for FUN Inc. Given the project information that follows, draw the AON project network and complete the forward and backward pass. Compute ES, EF, LS, LF, and slack time for each activity. Identify the project completion time and the critical path.

Also, use the information to create a Gantt chart for the project. Be sure to show slack for noncritical activities.

• Predecessor A
• Contract signed 3
• None B
• A survey designed 2 A-C
• Target market identified  4 B D|
• Data collection 7 B, C E
• Develop presentation 3 BF
• Analyze result 2 D G
• Demographics 5 C H
• Presentation  2 E, F, G

Note: To draw project network, Gantt chart and timing use the project templates from Appendix

1. 2. You are in charge of organizing a dinner-dance concert for a local charity.

You have reserved a hall that will seat 30 couples and have hired a jazz combo.

• A. Develop a scope statement for this project that contains examples of all the elements. Assume that the event will occur in 4 weeks and provide your best guess estimate of the dates for milestones.
• B. What would the priorities likely be for this project? (Draw project priority matrix)

Note: Use Appendix 2 for the project priority matrix and scope statement.

3. Nicolette Larson was loading the dishwasher with her husband, Kevin, and telling him about the first meeting of the Manchester United Tournament Organizing Committee. Nicolette, a self-confessed “soccer mom,” had been elected tournament director and was responsible for organizing the club’s first summer tournament. Manchester United Soccer Club (MUSC) located in Manchester, New Hampshire was formed in 1992 as a way of bringing recreational players to a higher level of competition and preparing them for the State Olympic Development Program and/or high school teams. The club currently has 24 boys and aids (ranging in age from under 9 to 16) on teams affiliated with the Hampshire Soccer Association and the Granite State Girls Soccer League.

The club’s board of directors decided in the fall to sponsor a summer invitational soccer tournament to generate revenue. Given the boom in youth soccer, hosting summer tournaments have become a popular method for raising funds. MUSC teams regularly compete in three to four tournaments each summer at different locales in New England. These tournaments have been reported to generate between $50,000 and S70,000 for the host club. MUSC needs additional revenue to refurbish and expand the number of soccer fields at the Rock Rimmon soccer complex. Funds would also be used to augment the club’s scholarship program, which provides financial aid to players who cannot afford the $450 annual club dues. Nicolette gave her husband a blow-by-blow account of what transpired during the first tournament committee meeting that night. She started the meeting by having everyone introduce themselves and by proclaiming how excited she was that the club was going to sponsor its own tournament. She then suggested that the committee brainstorms what needed to be done to pull off the event; she would record their ideas on a flipchart. What emerged was a free-for-all of ideas and suggestions. One member immediately stressed the importance of having qualified referees and spent several minutes describing in detail how his son’s team was robbed in a poorly officiated championship game. This was followed by other stories of injustice on the soccer field. Another member suggested that they needed to quickly contact the local colleges to see if they could use their Fields. The committee spent more than 30 minutes talking about how they should screen teams and how much they should charge as an entry fee. An argument broke out over whether they should reward the winning teams in each age bracket with medals or trophies. Many members felt that medals were too cheap, while others thought the trophies would be too expensive. Someone suggested that they seek local corporate sponsors to help fund the tournament. The proposed sale or tournament T-shirts and sweatshirts were followed by a general critique of the different shirts parents had acquired at different tournaments. One member advocated that they recruit an artist he knew to develop a unique silk-screen design for the tournament.

The meeting adjourned 30 minutes late with only half of the members remaining until the end. Nicolette drove home with seven sheets of ideas and a headache. As Kevin poured a glass of water for the two aspirin Nicolette was about to take, he tried to comfort her by saying that organizing this tournament would be a big project not unlike the projects he works on at his engineering and design firm. He offered to sit down with her the next night and help her plan the project. He suggested that the first thing they needed to do was to develop a WBS for the project.

• A. Make a list of the major deliverables for the project and use them to develop a draft of the work breakdown structure for the tournament that contains at least three levels of detail. What are the major deliverables associated with hosting an event such as a soccer tournament?
• B. How would developing a WBS alleviate some of the problems that occurred during the first meeting and help Nicolette organize and plan the project?
• C. Where can Nicolette find additional information to help her develop a WBS for the tournament?

Appendix 1: Project network template: ES LS LF EF A 3.