Final_Team_Project_Simulation_Paper.docx.pdf

Running head: TEAM 3 FINAL PROJECT PAPER 1
Sim4Project Simulation
Auto Supply, Inc. (ASI) – A Complete Redesigned Information System
Connie R. Himebaugh, Ashley Jackson & Justin Hughes
Davenport University
August 15th
, 2019
Author Note
GPMT287 Principles of Project Management

TEAM 3 FINAL PROJECT PAPER 2
Abstract
The duration of this Sim4Project simulation, demonstrates how a fictitious company, the case of
Auto Supply, Inc. (ASI), redesigned their IT Information Technology System to a better, more
functional system for them and for their customers. This company is a regional automotive part
supplier whose business has been steadily growing over the past decade, with annual sales of $80
million, ASI discovered that their information system was badly outdated. Team 3 stepped in and
in 8 periods, developed a project plan to resolve the issues and set a new IT information in place.

Table of Contents
Abstract............................................................................................................................................2
Auto Supply, Inc. – Project Management Concepts........................................................................5
Project Life Cycle............................................................................................................................5
Initiating.......................................................................................................................................5
Planning/Scheduling....................................................................................................................5
Executing.....................................................................................................................................6
Schedule Management.............................................................................................................6
Triple Constraint......................................................................................................................7
Monitoring and Controlling.........................................................................................................7
Decision-Making.........................................................................................................................8
Conflict Resolution......................................................................................................................9
Cost Variance...............................................................................................................................9
Analysis.....................................................................................................................................10
Team Dynamics.....................................................................................................................10
Functionality..................................................................................................................................11
Organization...............................................................................................................................11
Resource Allocation.......................................................................................................................12
Time Management Skills...........................................................................................................12

Effective Time Management......................................................................................................12
Stakeholder Satisfaction................................................................................................................12
Period One Results....................................................................................................................14
Worst Period Results..................................................................................................................14
Best Period Results....................................................................................................................14
Last Period Results....................................................................................................................14
Conclusion.....................................................................................................................................15
References......................................................................................................................................15
Appendix........................................................................................................................................18
Tables.........................................................................................................................................19
Graphs........................................................................................................................................19

Auto Supply, Inc. – Project Management Concepts
The GPMT287 Project Management students from Team 3, organized and produced a
project plan life cycle which provided selecting and initiating resources for work in the
simulation. Planned each period, selected workers to the appropriate tasks, submitted in Sims for
status results compared to 5 other teams, constructed charts, graphs, and reports, then finalized
the project with statistical recognition and observation, and closed the IT project at completion.
Project Life Cycle
Initiating
Team 3 sat down and discussed the problems that Auto Supply Inc. lacked in the IT
Information System that was not satisfactorily producing adequate results. The customers were
complaining that their order were getting mixed up from paper copies, and that they never
received a revised fax if the order changed. To construct a more efficient system, a computer
information system that allowed invoicing at the time of call in intake, packaging, organizing and
storing, down to the loading the trucks and deliveries. Quality assurance and a more efficient
way of processing these orders in a timely fashion was desperately needed. Therefore, Team 3
agreed and signed a contract including these measures and it was signed. Selecting and initiating
begins when the idea for a project first develops and the project is selected and planned with the
team committed to the project and its stages (Kloppenborg, Anantatmuia, & Wells, 2019, p. 7).
Planning/Scheduling
Scheduling is the process of managing the time constraints of the project from beginning
to end. It takes teamwork, identification of the problem, then defining the problem and selecting
a project manager to get the scope in perspective. It is planning and processing that a whole team

gets involved with. Therefore, the project manager hires a team of professionals to do their part
in the overall steps that it takes to get the job done. Planning begins right after the initial
obligation by the members and includes the detail plans, and ends when all the members have
accepted the entire detailed plan as discussed in the meetings (Kloppenborg, Anantatmuia, &
Wells, 2019, p. 8). Team three did a Sim4Project pre-play and this allowed our team to get
familiar with the Sims simulation and how it works.
Executing
After thoughtful considerations, our team 3 worked together and hired simulated workers
throughout our simulation that consisted of these 9 resource categories: Hardware Analyst, Jr.
Systems Analyst, MIS Manager, Network Design Consultant, Office Engineer, Programmer,
Project Manager, Sr. Systems Analyst, and Systems Software Engineer. To execute the plan after
acceptance, the plan includes authorizing, executing, monitoring, and controlling work until the
customers or the project purpose has been accepted and is approved to move forward with the
budget in mind (Kloppenborg, Anantatmuia, & Wells, 2019, p. 8). Each period 1-8, an updated
project plan was posted to gain knowledge of what the current stats were and how to proceed
choosing the tasks for the next period and for which workers. A timeline shows which worker
had what job to do, how long the job is to take, and an expected finish date.
Schedule Management
Our class participation as a team, consisting of two girls and one boy, worked to achieve
making Sim4Project selections by reading each task for that period and hiring one of the workers
from the project to complete that task within a specified time frame, not to go over budget. Some
workers had to be fired due to too many hired for the same purpose and title, and for cost
reasons. Did not need them for that amount of money. We started out with a beginning balance of

$270,000 in pre-play and within each end period results, we could see the report results and what
place we came in comparted to that of the other 5 teams.
Triple Constraint
It is the combination of the three most significant restrictions in this project that includes
scope, schedule, and cost – such a addressing the “triple constraint” and why this concept
imposes a higher level of accountability than most jobs (Kloppenborg, Anantatmuia, & Wells,
2019, p. 14). Therefore, as what team three did, to review all aspects of project of Auto Supply,
Inc. (ASI), as a project manager, it is imperative to understand the performance levels of these
constraints including quality, time, and budget to take precedence and to make a strong
commitment to (Kloppenborg, Anantatmuia, & Wells, 2019, p. 15). Team three review the
instructions, downloaded the appetitive software needed, reviewed requirements, instructions,
and started team building skills right away. Sim4Project simulation is a competitive software that
enables a group to compete with other teams. From there, we signed a team contract committed
to the project, appendix¹.
Monitoring and Controlling
This step aligns the activities in a project in a series to help track, review, and document
the continued progress and making sure it meets performance objectives as outlined in the plan
(Kloppenborg, Anantatmuia, & Wells, 2019, p. 460). When we think of monitoring, this refers to
review the progress and capture project performance data along with referencing the project plan
(Kloppenborg, Anantatmuia, & Wells, 2019, p. 460). The objective is to see how the
development and performance measures and that of good communication during that time, to
have control assessing the actual performance (Kloppenborg, Anantatmuia, & Wells, 2019, p.
460). A project manager keeps the project under control with an action and keeping that revised

at each meeting, that way those meeting minutes and posted revisions can be viewed by each
member at any given time between meetings.
Closing
Closing a project is the very last step in the project and is a very important one. It is the
final phase, or the administration phase, and cannot be completed until everything else in the
project tasks has taken place (Kloppenborg, Anantatmuia, & Wells, 2019, p. 515). To do so,
gathering and storing lessons learned, writing reports, and updating project documents, even
though it is a possibility that a conclusion has been reached or not (Kloppenborg, Anantatmuia,
& Wells, 2019, p. 515). The project manager is usually the one to close the project with said date
and time.
Project Budget
Decision-Making
What went well was decision making for the tasks. What didn’t work well was not
everyone in the team participated at all times and the important decisions were not made by all
involved that hurt the team. It is important that all team members work equally and not rely on
other team members to do all the work while they sit back and do absolutely nothing. Managerial
Actions were taken throughout the simulation, and these affected the project in significant ways
and those that were associated to them as team three went along during the project. The
beginning budget was $270,000 to start knowing that we had to stretch that over 8 period worth
of planning and executing. The decisions were amongst three team members deciding which
worker to be appointed to which task for that period. We conversed through our team discussion
board, or by email, phone, or cell texting for an adequate decision before that particular period

tasks were selected and then submitted. For each period, a team leader, which Connie took
charge of and made sure that all decisions were in, and that the Sims and Stats were submitted on
time. Connie planned meetings in the beginning of the project to make sure everyone was on
board and that we understood what was to be expected of each of us. Making task decisions in
Sims was probably the most difficult because it determined how it would affect the progress of
the team company and making sure that all the workers’ jobs were done in a timely fashion. Our
budget report indicated our period report for each period, Appendix².
Conflict Resolution
Once a project manager sees that there is a conflict within the project, he or she might try
and find a better solution before it escalates into a bigger problem (Kloppenborg, Anantatmuia,
& Wells, 2019, p. 163). One of the situations within this team is not seeing that all members of
the team were on board initially and that caused stress and uncertainties to the members that
were a tentative. The project coordinator, Connie sent out emails to the other member asking if
they have received any emails from the group and to check and make sure that in fact they were
viewing the correct email inbox and included the instructor on the email. That did help getting
the non-participant’s attention and their participation began shortly thereafter.
Cost Variance
As stated above the beginning budget for this project was $270,000 by the end of period
8, we had exceeded that budget by $34,406. A few things contributed to this. In period 1 we
mistakenly spent $55,616 on training and $290 on managerial actions, this brought our total cost
to $85,603, that was 31% of our budget gone. We learned from that and didn’t spend money on
training or managerial actions for the remaining periods. From there our money problems went
towards unallocated cost and work overage. Because our actual work hours were so much more

than the estimated work, we ended up spending even more money. Cost variance is the difference
between earned value and actual cost, which reflects performance (Kloppenborg, Anantatmuia,
& Wells, 2019, p. 478). Based on our cost variance, we did poorly in this regard. We tried to
lower the cost by having our resources work only half the time. However, this proved to be
fruitless as we still did not make up the budget. That being said, even with the cost variance
being so high we would have remained in budget if did not spend the $55, 616 on training,
actually leaving us with $21, 500 in the budget, graph¹.
Analysis
Reporting is essential within this project as each period contains analysis with live data
pertaining to the team as a result of the end of a period simulation. The stats report indicates how
we did each period in comparison to the other teams, appendix³.
Team Dynamics
The virtual team in Sims allowed us to really experience what it is like to do a project as
a team. It allowed us to use managerial skills, perception skills, team building skills, ethical
behaviors utilized, and analytical thinking. It takes a lot of organizational skills to keep everyone
on track to get the project done and to stay focused. Six reasons why team participation is so
important is: Your opinion is important, More perspectives, New information, Community
benefit/ownership, It feels good, and A Numbers game, meaning the total number of members in
the project (Connell, 2017). Definitely time management skills were needed and affective to keep
up with the simulation and what workers to hire, who to fire, who to do what job and for how
long, sometimes a worker was given half, 50% the allotted time to complete the job, splitting that
very same job with another worker so that they can also work as a team. Striving for more

efficiency was the goal in that and to meet our milestones and deadlines at the same time. Both
keeping cost down and meeting our milestones was our main focus in this project.
Functionality
Functionality organization in an organization and in a project structure is which a staff is
grouped by areas of specialization, the project manager has limited authority to assign work and
apply resources (Kloppenborg, Anantatmuia, & Wells, 2019, p. 103). The function manager
controls the project budget, makes most of the decisions, and is primarily the one coordinating
project communication amongst the other team members (Kloppenborg, Anantatmuia, & Wells,
2019, p. 103).
The functionality in project management is whether or not the team is achieving its
attended purpose. To figure this out you take the estimated time and divided it by the actual time.
The higher the percentage the better the chance of the project doing what it is intended. By the
end of period 8 our teams’ functionality was at 35%, this means our project has a low chance of
completing its task. Our best performance was in period 5 where the functionality was at 82%.
The difference in these two performances has to do with the work variance. For period 8 we
went over our estimated hours of work by 72 hours, in period 5 we went over by 66 hours.
Organization
Unity comes to mind when thinking of organization. Team three has unity when all team
members show equal interest and participates in an equal manner of all work involved. In the
Sims project, allocating other virtual team members allowed us to gain more people within our
team, even though they could not communicate with us, it was realistic enough to assume they
were present and getting their work done accordingly. The organizational needs assessment table
shows the system breakdown, table¹.

Resource Allocation
Resource allocation is defined in MS Project that allows us to understand of who and
what resources are being used that includes five steps: Defining resources, Setting up a resource
calendar, Assigning resources, Identifying over allocated resources, Dealing with over
allocations (Kloppenborg, Anantatmuia, & Wells, 2019, p. 311).
Time Management Skills
The importance of time management is the capability to organize and plan the amount of
time to spend in an activity or activities in one given day. The result of that is good time
management. It could increase effectiveness and the overall productivity, and by planning ahead
and setting goals your overall performance will be more rewarding. Prioritizing is best in this
situation.
Effective Time Management
To work more efficiently that if at all, utilize work that can be done in less time without
stress of the project. Some suggestions are: Avoid distractions, Make a task list of priorities,
Estimate and track time accordingly, and create and follow a schedule (Tran, 2015).
Stakeholder Satisfaction
Stakeholders are groups or people that have a certain level of investment in a project.
These can include people who work on the project, people who provide the resources, customers
and even local, state or federal governments who may be affected. “To ensure the success of their
projects, project managers should initially identify all the people or groups that have the potential

to affect the work in progress, either positively or negatively” [ CITATION Dug19 l 1033 ]One
of the best ways to identify stakeholders is to ask the simple questions, “who will use, will be
affected by, or could impact this project. For this simulation team 3 had to oversee the project for
Auto Supply, Inc in redesigning their information technology system to better communicate. In
this case the stakeholders would be the owners, managers, the employees, the vendors, software
and hardware engineers, IT specialist, and the customers. Team 3 started period 1 with a
stakeholder satisfaction of 59%. This score depends on several things, the time, cost and
functionality scores as well the skills and management style of the team and whether the
milestones were met. At the end of period 8 the score had dropped to 34%.
Table 1
Period 1 Statistics
Name Time Cost Functionality Stakeholder Overall Rank
Team
3
81 0 46 59 5 5
Table 2
Period 8 Statistics
Name Time Cost Functionality Stakeholder Overall Rank
Team
3
56 17 35 34 16 4
Looking at these two tables you can see how the time and functionality scores affected
the stakeholders. Because we weren’t keeping good time and functioning less as a team the
satisfaction of the stakeholders decreased. Having more than one stakeholder means that there
are many voices that are involved in a project. This can become complicated. Project managers

need to establish which stakeholders’ interest are the most important. Categories such as power,
influence, impact and urgency are weighted among the stakeholders to see who carries more
weight. This helps the project team to prioritize and establish a clear direction as well as
relationships.
Period One Results
For period one results we sent our team to training resulting in us going over budget so
our score in cost was 0%. Our score for time was good at 81% however our functionality was
only at 46%. We did not meet the milestone this period.
Worst Period Results
This can be a tossup between period 1 and period 8. The milestones were not met for
either period. Although we rank 4th
in period 8 our team score was 56% and functionality was
34%. In period 1 we ranked 5th
but our cost was 0% and functionality was at 46% but time was
better at 81%.
Best Period Results
Period 5 was our best period. The milestone was achieved this period. It was our best
performance in time at 74%, functionality at 82%, stakeholders at 32%, and our best overall
score.
Last Period Results
For the last period we did not meet our milestone. Our functionality and time scores
were low. We consistently did not complete task in the estimated time frame and went over.
Although not our best performance we did managed to move up to rank 4 and we received our
best percentage in cost at 17%

Conclusion
There is a lot that goes into project management. Throughout the process we have learned
various things about the planning process and hiring resources as well as what it takes to work as
a team. When closing a project, the team captures the lessons learned. “Lessons learned can be
considered as a useful knowledge gained by project team members as they perform a project and
then reflect on both the process of doing the work and the results that transpired.”[ CITATION
Ana192 l 1033 ]. The biggest learned lesson was the ways to manage the budget. When deciding
the resources, we focused a lot on the skill, experience and education. The rate at which they
would cost and how it might affect the budget was not discussed so much. Had we taking that
into more consideration, we may have done better on the budget. Another lesson learned was in
spending the part of the budget taking managerial actions and on training. Although a mistake,
we underestimated the effect that it would have the budget and ultimately it did not need to be
done. The unallocated resources were another thing that ate away at our budget. We hired
everybody we thought we needed for the project in the beginning instead of hiring them and
letting them as we needed them. This simulation was something knew that neither of us has
done. At our first meeting we were unsure of how to even do it. We all had our strengths and
weaknesses, but we asked questions and relied on one another to see this through. The biggest
lesson learned was gathering an appreciation of the value of teamwork.
References
Anantatmula, V., Kloppenborg, T. J., & Wells, K. N. (2019). Contemporary Project
Management. Boston: Cengage Learning.
Connell, C. (2017). 6 reasons why participation is important [Benefits of
community engagement]. Retrieved July 26, 2019, from social pinpoint

website: https://www.socialpinpoint.com/blog/
6-reasons-to-participate-community-engagement/
Duggan, T. (n.d.). What Are the Methods of Measuring Stakeholder Satisfaction. Retrieved
August 15, 2019, from Bright Hub Project Management:
https://www.brighthubpm.com/project-planning/93575-methods-of-measuring-
stakeholder-satisfaction/
Jacoby, J. (2011). How to prioritize stakeholders to ensure a successful change
program. EJ Emergent Journal. Retrieved from
http://blog.emergentconsultants.com/2011/04/18/
how-to-prioritize-stakeholders-to-ensure-a-successful-change-program/
Kloppenborg, T. J., Anantatmuia, V., & Wells, K. N. (2019). Contemporary project
management (4th ed.). Boston, MA: Cengage Learning.
Lucidchart Content Team. (2017, August 28). The 4 phases of the project
management life cycle [Blog post]. Retrieved from Lucidchart website:
https://www.lucidchart.com/blog/
the-4-phases-of-the-project-management-life-cycle

Plan risk responses. (2019). Retrieved August 1, 2019, from Project Management
Professional (PMP) website: https://www.greycampus.com/opencampus/
project-management-professional/plan-risk-responses
Tran, L. (2015, April 10). The importance of time management (Aspects of time
management part 1) [Blog post]. Retrieved from InLoox website:
https://www.inloox.com/company/blog/articles/
the-importance-of-time-management-aspects-of-project-management-part-1/

Appendix
1. Team 3 Contract
2. Project Schedule – all project activities with all matching WBS numbers
3. Budget Report – with all matching WBS numbers
4. Team Stats Report – Periods 1-8
5. Simulation Report
6. First Period Report
7. Last Period Report
8. Best Period Report
9. Worst Period Report
10. Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) Report – all project activities with WBS numbers
11. Resource Assignment Report
12. Five Clip Art Pieces

Tables
Table 1
Organizational Needs
Assessment
$0.00 $20,337.00 $0.00 $20,337.00 $10,540.00 $9,797.00
Identify Consultants $0.00 $14,880.00 $0.00 $14,880.00 $7,040.00 $7,840.00
Hire Consultants $0.00 $14,884.00 $0.00 $14,884.00 $10,800.00 $4,084.00
System Planning $0.00 $3,256.00 $0.00 $3,256.00 $3,120.00 $136.00
Design / Configure
System
$0.00 $18,000.00 $0.00 $18,000.00 $12,720.00 $5,280.00
Implementation $0.00 $60,802.00 $0.00 $60,802.00 $73,520.00 ($12,718.00)
Post Evaluation $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $4,800.00 ($4,800.00)
Project Management $0.00 $68,760.00 $0.00 $68,760.00 $112,000.00 ($43,240.00)
Milestones $0.00 $103,487.00 $0.00 $103,487.00 $25,000.00 $78,487.00
Graphs
Graph 1

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