?Critique 3 ideas, concepts, or topics from this course, and reflect on how they relate to the course objectives and your career aspirations.
Be substantive and clear, and use examples to reinforce your ideas

#2 Assignment Objectives
Managing a Project Schedule
Describe project management principles as they are currently applied to both governmental and non-governmental acquisition projects.
Use effective communication techniques. Word document with 10 total pages, including empty sections
700 words

Assignment
Your first task in this process will be to select a project to use as the basis of your Key Assignment. You will also create the shell document for the final project Key Assignment document deliverable that you will be working on throughout the course. As you proceed through each project phase, you will add content to each section of the final document to progressively complete the final project delivery, which is the Acquisition Project Scheduling and Cost Management Plan.

The project deliverables are the following:
?Submit your project proposal to your instructor for approval.
?Acquisition Project Scheduling and Cost Management Plan document shell ?Use Word
?Title page ?Course number and name
?Project name
?Your name
?Date

?Table of Contents (TOC) ?Use an autogenerated TOC.
?This should be on a separate page.
?This should be a maximum of 3 levels deep.
?Be sure to update the fields of the TOC so that it is up-to-date before submitting your project.

?Section headings (create each heading on a new page with “TBD” as the content, except for sections listed under “New Content” below) ?Project Outline
?Cost, Schedule, and Technical Performance Management
?Management of Small Projects
?Acquisition Project Guidelines
?Costing Methods and Tools
?Earned Value Management System
?Overall Cost and Schedule Performance

?New content to be inserted in document shell ?Project Outline ?Give a brief description of the project.
?Discuss the overall project deliverable.
?The material can be taken from approved proposal submitted to instructor, and this will serve as the draft for the proposal.
?Be sure this project is approved by the instructor.

?Cost, Schedule, and Technical Performance ?Discuss cost techniques both in determining initial estimates and in monitoring and controlling them throughout the life of the project.
?Determine the project schedule for the acquisition component of the overall project and include a copy of it.
?Develop the program evaluation and review technique (PERT) and critical path method (CPM) for this Key Assignment acquisition project, and include copies of those charts in this section.
?Describe all of the key schedule influencers that can impact a schedule positively or negatively and how you would handle them.

#3 Assignment Objectives
Management of Small Projects
Describe project management principles as they are currently applied to both governmental and non-governmental acquisition projects.
Identify the fundamentals of cost, schedule, and technical performance management of major projects and relate these to the management of small projects.
Investigate current costing methods and tools available to assist the project manager.
Use effective communication techniques.
Use team and problem-solving skills to collaborate on a project.
500 words

Be substantive and clear, and use examples to reinforce your ideas.
It has been argued that without project management for very large projects, they are most certainly doomed to fail. Can the same be said for small projects? In this Discussion Board, you will explore this question and take it further by describing what tools and techniques you would still utilize to manage a small project.
The following Discussion Board research will assist you in determining each of these dimensions. Research at least 2 resources (which may include your textbook) to support your response.
?What tools, techniques, and methods that you would traditionally use in a larger project would you still incorporate in managing a small project?
?What do you envision the roles and responsibilities to be for smaller projects?
?Describe the schedule change management process that you would implement for smaller projects and how this differs from what you might use for larger projects.

Include an introduction and conclusion to this topic. Be sure to include your references and citations, and format your submission in APA format.

# 4 Assignment Objectives
Management of Small Projects
Word document, 900 words of new content
Identify the fundamentals of cost, schedule, and technical performance management of major projects and relate these to the management of small projects.
Use effective communication techniques.
Assignment

In the Discussion Board, you already analyzed how you would manage a smaller project compared to a larger project. You will now synthesize what you have learned during the discussions on this topic. For this assignment, you are determining all of the processes, activities, and tasks you will need to incorporate in your acquisition project, which will be small in nature compared to a larger-sized project. You will also describe the overall processes such as project communication processes, integrated change control processes, and project monitoring and controlling processes.

Deliverables

The following are the overall project deliverables:
?Update the Key Assignment document title page with a new date and project name.
?Update the previously completed sections based on the instructor’s feedback.
?Create the following new section: ?Management of Small Projects ?Develop your small acquisition project schedule using MS Project (tasks, predecessors, duration, and resources assigned).
?Copy a screen print of the schedule and Gantt chart into this shell.
?Copy a screen print of the critical path network diagram, or of the Gantt screen of the Tracking Gantt view showing the critical path into this shell.
?Describe the specific processes that you will use within each of the 5 Project Management Institute (PMI?) process groups: initiating, planning, executing, monitoring, and controlling and closing.

#5 Assignment Objectives
Describe project management principles as they are currently applied to both governmental and non-governmental acquisition projects.
Identify the fundamentals of cost, schedule, and technical performance management of major projects and relate these to the management of small projects.
Discuss and apply system acquisition principles.
Use effective communication techniques.
Use team and problem-solving skills to collaborate on a project.
500 words

Whether a project is being developed from scratch or is acquired, project management is still necessary through the final delivery. In this Discussion Board, you will consider what the differences are by applying system acquisition processes and principles.

The following Discussion Board research will assist you in determining what each of these dimensions means. Research at least 2 sources (which may include your textbook) to support your response.
?Explain how you will refine your system acquisition project schedule of activities and deliverables that will also be incorporated in your Key Assignment project plan. (In reviewing your initial project schedule, what additional activities or deliverables did you discover that might also need to be included?)
?What evaluation techniques will you use to determine which seller has the best system that you are hoping to purchase? What information will you ask for in the request for proposal (RFP)?
?What information will you require from the selected vendor in terms of project status and budget?

Include an introduction and conclusion to this topic. Be sure to include your references and citations, and format your submission in APA format.

#6 Assignment Objectives
Describe project management principles as they are currently applied to both governmental and non-governmental acquisition projects.
Discuss and apply system acquisition principles.
Use team and problem-solving skills to collaborate on a project.
System Acquisition Principles
Word document, 900 words of new content

Assignment

In the Discussion Board, you looked at the tasks that should be included in the project plan, so you will go back and update your project plan to include these tasks. You will also develop your request for proposal (RFP) based on Discussion Board. Prepare a table of the evaluation criteria that you will use to select your top vendor. Finally, you will present a status update process diagram and describe the process for the vendor to communicate status.

Deliverables

The following are the overall project deliverables:
?Update the Key Assignment document title page with a new date and project name.
?Update the previously completed sections based on the instructor’s feedback.
?Create the following new section: ?Acquisition Project Guidelines ?Update the project plan and Gantt Chart with acquisition project activities with MS Project, and copy it into this section.
?Develop a request for proposal (RFP) template for the acquisition project with the elements discussed in the Discussion Board for this week.
?Develop a table with the vendor evaluation criteria.
?Diagram and describe the vendor status update process.

#8 Assignment Objectives
Identify the fundamentals of cost, schedule, and technical performance management of major projects and relate these to the management of small projects.
Use effective communication techniques.
Investigate current costing methods and tools available to assist the project manager.
Use team and problem-solving skills to collaborate on a project.
Cost Methods & Tools
1,500 words with new content 10 total pages, including 2 empty sections
NOTE this is a table for this assignment (#8) that I attached also
Assignment
You are now ready to apply costing methods, tools, and techniques to your project. There are many of these available to assist you in determining your overall budget, as well as to estimate the durations for individual tasks. These methods could include the following:
?Expert judgment
?Analogous estimating
?Parametric estimating
?Bottom-up estimating
?Three-point estimating
?Reserve analysis
?Cost of quality
?Project management estimating software
?Vendor bid analysis

You will be responsible for using your plan that you developed in Weeks 2 and 3 to estimate your budget for your key assignment project. You should apply 2 of the above methods to determine a worst-case scenario budget. Please put your calculations in a spreadsheet similar to the following:

Deliverables

The following are the overall project deliverables:
?Update the Key Assignment document title page with a new date and project name.
?Update the previously completed sections based on the instructor’s feedback.
?Create the following new section: ?Costing Methods and Tools ?Select 2 of the costing methods, and discuss why they will support developing a realistic budget.
?Provide an example of computations for a few of the activities for the 2 selected methods.
?Fill in a table similar to the example table so that your 2 different total project budgets are based on the 2 selected methods.
?Discuss what type of contingency budget you will put in place based on the 2 budgets to mitigate an underestimation.