Provide a brief summary of your project.
This project is about starting a restaurant in my hometown to serve customers from various aspects including families and college students in the area. The project involves a combination of six partners who will see its accomplishment. Thus, the project plans to construct a restaurant where people working within the town as well as regular visitors can access various catering services. The restaurant is planned to provide home-like experiences by incorporating meals similar to those prepared in their homes. By doing so, the project will attract many students who feel alienated from their families.
Also, the project is concerned with encouraging multiculturalism by including dishes from various parts of the world. Therefore, visitors and customers from various ethnicities will feel appreciated by the management, thus increasing their satisfaction. As the restaurant is planned to run from 0600 to 0100 hrs, a variety of nutritious meals including breakfast, lunch and dinner will be offered. Before the initiation of the opening phase, the project will ensure that government rules and regulations have been followed. Thus, the restaurant will adhere to food and safety standards and pay taxes to the revenue authorities.
While the restaurant is planned to serve customers who visit the area, additional services will be offered on demand. In this case, the restaurant’s services outside the premises will be subject to additional charges. This arrangement will be beneficial to individuals who order meals to be delivered in their offices or at colleges. Before the final opening, the project will undergo a series of phases including the initiation of the construction process, the completion of the construction and the purchase and recruitment phase.
Despite having a good physical structure, the project will employ the right people to ensure its success. The complete project including the grand opening is planned to take an estimate of 4 weeks. The total cost of accomplishing the project will be $655,500 in total. After the completion of the project, competent candidates will be selected and taken through a training process to ensure their capabilities align with the goals and objectives of the initial plan.
Identify and discuss your project’s greatest challenges (at least three) and provide a recommendation for addressing each of the challenges.
Finding the right suppliers
Since the restaurant plans to offer multicultural dishes and meals that make the customers get a home-like dining experience, finding the right supplier to provide quality food items will be challenging. Also, the most challenging factor is that the project will be a new entrant in the business. Thus, the lack of experience in dealing with food item suppliers can pose a challenging in reaching the set goals and objectives. For instance, while the suppliers may be reliable, they make lack certain ingredients needed to make traditional meals.
Recommendation
Given the above challenge, I will engage in a proactive process of preventing the challenge from impacting the business. Thus, the most appropriate solution would be conducting research on the available suppliers and their supply chain. This will help in determining their reliability and flexibility. As a result, the approach will help in preventing delays in supplies that can, in turn, lead to delays in service delivery. Therefore, choosing a supplier will involve negotiating with various parties and determine the most appropriate candidates.
Effective inventory management
Since the restaurant will be in its initial phase in the market, it would be difficult to assess the right inventory for sustaining the business. Also, the inventory should find a balance to prevent losses due to spoiled food items.
Recommendation
In this case, I will conduct a survey during the first week to identify the patterns. However, given that the restaurant will grow in the next few weeks, it would be appropriate to adjust the inventory according to previous demands. This will offer a good experience on the changing patterns in demand for the services of the restaurant and the required food items for sustaining the continuity of the business.
Menu pricing
The restaurant is in the initial stages of development. Thus, getting new customers will be difficult especially in the first few weeks. Thus setting the right prices to ensure students and people working in my hometown can afford the meals will be challenging
Recommendation
In this case, menu pricing will be determined by the current market prices within the proximity of potential customers. While it would be impossible to set higher prices than the competitors, it is also essential to set reasonable prices for the meals. Thus, since the meals are intended for both students, visitors and people working in the area, it would be appropriate to give the customers a discounted price. By doing so, the restaurant will attract customers during the first few weeks. Therefore, the restaurant can adjust its prices to match the market after attaining customer trust and building a good reputation.
Hiring a seasonal and permanent staff
While starting a new project, getting the right workforce is the key to success. In this case, the challenge would be determining whether to employ permanent employees or hiring seasonal employees. The primary issue is that some employees may prove incompetent after being recruited in the workforce. Given that the project needs to abide by the law, it will be difficult to fire incompetent individuals from the team.
Recommendation
In this case, the restaurant will train employees on an ongoing basis. Thus, this will ensure that all workers gain additional experience as they increase the project’s productivity. While the restaurant may get the right employees, retaining them is an appropriate approach to ensure that the relationship between them and the customers is maintained. Also, this will ensure consistency in the provision of service in the restaurant.
Examine how you manage your project performance via earned value management (EVM).
Earned Value Management (EVM) assists projects managers in determining the performance of the project. In this case, EMV identifies variances by comparing the completed work and the work planned. The EVM will be used to identify variances in various phases of the project. The first step would be tracking the financial variance in the construction and the initial foundation. Therefore, if the phase records a higher expenditure than planned, this will signal a potential failure in the budget. On the other hand, if the project is on track or records a lower expenditure than planned, it will indicate that the project is destined to succeed. Thus, the EVM will be useful in adjusting the process and ensuring quality delivery. Also, the planned costs of training and recruiting employees will be compared with the actual cost (Keng & Shahdan, 2015).
Identify at least three key EVM metrics you will use for your project.
The key EVM metrics that will be used in this project include planned value, actual cost and earned value (Keng & Shahdan, 2015).
Discuss your plan to properly close your project when it is over.
The plan for closure will start by evaluating the project from the beginning. This will be done to ensure that all the deliverables have met the initial requirements. The closure process will include inviting the core team and getting their feedback about the completed project. The completion of paperwork will also be part of the closure process. In this case, I will ensure that the documents are signed and given approval by all the stakeholder. This procedures also includes clearing the outstanding payments and completing all contracts. Additionally, I will release the resources to initiate the beginning of the business.
This process will start by inviting the teams for the project and releasing them to assume their roles based on a mix of skills and experience. In the next process, I will archive the documents of the project for future references. This will help in keeping track of the restaurant’s progress over time. The last action will be celebrating success together with the team that led to the success of the project. The idea of pointing out the contribution of the team in the achievement is designed to increase morale within the working environment and promote a positive attitude towards the project.
Reference
Keng, T. C., & Shahdan, N. (2015). The application of earned value management (EVM) in construction project management. Journal of Technology Management and Business, 2(2).