OPER 576: Project Management group project involved learning how to use Microsoft Projects to organize and implement the remodeling of the office space at the Real Change Homeless Empowerment Project.

1. Project Manager: Jennifer Walker
Team Members:Jeremy Whitt
Kendall Selle
Angela Bui
Mimi Halliwell
Ali Chaudhry
S

2. Project Recap
The Challenge:
• Real Change moved to its new location in
Pioneer Square in May 2010.
• More space for vendors, the office
space, furniture arrangement and storage is
limited.
• Re-organize space to improve foot
traffic, store needed supplies and give each
staff person room to work with as little
distraction as possible.
• Advice on keeping the walls ink-free, as
newspaper print has turned the walls black
in a matter of months.

3. Project Highlights
S Accomplishments
S Painted back wall blue to cover newspaper ink
S New standup desk
S New office chairs

4. Project Highlights
S Areas of Improvement
S New shelves to store papers
S New storage cubbies for volunteers
S Added new wall paint and decorations
S Reorganized desks for optimal working space
S Fixed ceiling tile

5. Before & After

6. Before & After

7. Before & After

8. Before & After

9. Project Performance – Scope
S Avoided any significant scope creep
S Additional activities done during slack time
S Additional wall painted
S Existing pictures framed and hung
S Basement reorganized
S Additional cleaning

10. Project Performance – Schedule
S Initial schedule allowed for some
slack time in every activity
S Most activities in WBS did not
have predecessors so we could
crash activities
S Team finished project 4 hours
early as a result of allocating
more resources thus taking less
time than scheduled

11. Project Performance - Budget
S Originally scoped project budget with
$300 buffer slotted for donation or
incidentals
S Stand up desk ended up costing $60
more
S Were able to repurpose items to save
money
S Desk
S Bulletin & white board
S Reuse Real Change’s painting
supplies

12. Project Performance -
Deliverables
S Most Challenging
S Assembling Standup Desk
S Assembling Cubbies
S Hanging the coat rack & using stud finder
S Moving old desk to basement

13. Project Performance -
Deliverables
S Easiest
S Assembling shelves
S Assembling chairs
S Hanging pictures, bulletin boards & mirror

14. Risk Review
S Planned risks
S Standup desk did not ship on time due to back order
S Found a place in Seattle to deliver by project day
S Unplanned Risks
S Desk didn’t fit down the stairs & into storage room
S Found an elevator to take us down
S Cubby material did not match desk color scheme
S Cleared the color of the cubby with the supervisor
S Broken glass in picture frame
S Picture frame mats arrived after project weekend
S Lessons
S Make sure furniture can fit through the door of where it needs to
be stored
S Before assembling double check the color of the materials
S Make sure you can find a product locally as backup plan

15. Quality Assurance
S Clients signed off on design layout &
provided ongoing input throughout the
project
S Able to meet our expectations
S We defined quality as installing shelving
that could store and support all of the
papers & remedying the issue with ink
on the walls
S Having client buy in & sign off for
project layout & materials is key to their
satisfaction at the end of the project

16. Recognition
• Donation recognition from SU website.
• Personal e-card thank you to donors.
• In-kind donors are team members.
• Recognize team members at class
celebration.

17. Best Practices & Lessons
Learned
S What Worked Well S Lessons
S Technical S It is important to consider all
S Thorough project planning activities to be performed in a
S Each team member had unique skill project
set
S Investing in in-depth project
S Managerial planning streamlines the
S Held team meeting to revisit tasks execution come project day
for the day
S Team members were willing to help S Despite your best planning
other tasks not assigned to them efforts there will always be
S PM provided guidance on next steps unplanned risk
& ensured no resources were idle
S Recommendations: Invest in
S Project could have been a 1 day planning, stay flexible in planning,
project given deliverables of the & don’t be afraid to ask for help
project when needed

18. Client Comments
S "The project at Real Change has
been getting positive remarks
ever since we opened back up
for business yesterday. Vendors
have been coming in and telling
us that the changes makes the
space look better than it ever
has before, and staff have been
coming downstairs to gawk. The
group I worked with were very
responsive to all of our
requests, even though the
requests changed often."
- Jenn Pearson- Volunteer
Coordinator, Real Change