Project Management Essay Example for Free

Project Management Essay 1. Executive Summary This business plan for R.E.A.L. Girlz Clothing Store has been created by an ESN to secure additional funding for growth and to inform retailers and consumers of the current status and direction. R.E.A.L. Girlz Clothing Store is a new company that is launching in Houston, Texas. The company anticipates great demand for its product, and research shows that the target market of families and plus size girls would like to buy the product line that R. E.A.L. Girlz Clothing Store offers. R.E.A.L. Girlz Clothing Store is also interested in extending their product line with new creative additions and plans to explore opportunities for online selling. The marketing environment has been very receptive to the company’s high quality products. In the future, R.E.A.L. Girlz Clothing Store looks to increase its distribution, offer new products, and win new customers. Goals Definition Statement Goal Definition This proposal design project will be the first major strategic design that we will apply to our original concept and designs. The design will consist of girls plus size designs, accessories of all colors and patterns to match clothing. Our goal is to create trendy designs of clothing and accessories that will consist of tops, pants, outerwear, active wear, shoes, under garments, purses, and accessories. R.E.A.L. Girlz Clothing Store fashions will provide a high quality product where the image is recognizable among the young fashion conscience consumers. It will create a sense of community among plus size girls and their families who purchase the product. Goals that address our mission: The major focus of this project is to seek to be the leading brand of quality clothing for plus size girls by offering clothing designed with them in mind. * Provide plus size girls with the most dynamic clothing line where styles are contemporary, trendy and just as fashionable as their counterparts. * Clothing creating a boost of self-esteem and an opportunity to show how proud they are to be plus size girls. Goals that address self-sustainment: With this project in place we expect to: * To gain maximum market share over the first five years * To track cost and find ways of lowering them to make our product more competitive in the market place * To analyze the advertising dollars spent * Develop a successful Internet site, while maintaining strong relationships with retailers * Introduce two new product lines—customized logo clothing and accessories Objective Definition * Performance: Looking forward at our five year plan, we expect this new design to provide revenue. The expected amount of revenue the company wishes to make annually is $80,000. A market survey will be conducted so that we will see how our product will place values with our consumers. * Cost Estimate: Designing plans include, materials, manufacturers, distribution, which expected estimate could be $120,000 on an annual basis. * Total Project Cost: $400,000.00 * Schedule: Project duration expected to be five years PROJECT OBJECTIVES * To have a plus size girls clothing store, within 9 months and at a start up cost not to exceed $400,000.00. DELIVERABLES Plus size girls clothing pattern accessories that will be available at the R.E.A.L. Girlz Stores and through the company website are expected to include: * Purses * Cell Phone Covers * Tablet Covers Scope Statement Project Name:R.E.A.L. Girlz Clothing Store Project Manager:Ella Curl Project Objective: To have a plus size girls clothing store, within 9 months and at a start up cost not to exceed $400,000.00. Deliverables:The store will have: * Inventory * POS system * Fixtures * Security cameras * Mannequins * Package that will provide backup process for POS Systems * Package that will provide backup process for IT TECHNICAL REQUIREMENTS POS systems will have the capabilities to ring up sales even before adding inventory, barcode scanning, customer reward options, and customer mass email options. It will also allow for employees to sign in and show inventory management, purchasing/receiving and reports. LIMITS AND EXCLUSIONS Manufacturers reserve the right to contract the R.E.A.L. Girlz Store and are responsible for work done by sub contractors. Distributors reserve the right and are responsible for all shipments of product through third party shipping companies. R.E.A.L. Girlz Store website is accessible from Sunday through Saturday 7:00 a.m. EST to 10:00 p.m. EST. The POS systems will have access to QuickBooks Accounting but not QuickBooks Pro. GiftLogic software is sold separately. Work Breakdown Structure The following Work Breakdown Structure or WBS Gantt Chart provides a snapshot of the project and indicates that the project objectives will be performed by both internal and external project team members. It is important that it is understood and agreed upon by all stakeholders that this is considered a time-constrained project. The risks that could affect this time-constrained structure will be discussed in the following section. Net Diagram The following chart is the Net Diagram of the project task. This diagram shows all the relationship between the tasks, and the critical path. It shows any changes of the tasks and the outcome of the project. Risk Management Plan The following are a list of risks that might cause the project delays or failures with their respective outcomes (see numerical list below). The four risks that are in orange bold are key risks that appear in the Risk Assessment Table. 1) Getting approved business loan: This could cause a delay if the owner is unable to get an approved loan to establish the business. 2) Meeting criteria to get business license: This could delay the project if the owner doesn’t have the proper documents to get license for the business. 3) Lack of Infrastructure Availability: This is the lack of having a designated building within the city’s own infrastructure, whereas, the product will have to be produced in a different area leaving the risk of increase in the cost and project completion time. 4) Natural Disaster: This risk could cause the project to be hault due to any unexpected weather conditions such as hurricane, tornado, etc. that may occur. 5) Incorrect Product Design: This could delay the product if the product is not designed according to the requested specifications of the customers. 6) Website Crash: In dealing with internet based customers if the website were to have technical difficulties, this risk could delay the product from customers who shop solely by website ordering. 7) Manufacturers Delay: This risk includes the possibility of the manufacturer being able to produce the product on time, which could delay the production time by way of any issues incurring at the manufacturer center. Such as lack of employees to help get the product produce. 8) Distributers untimely shipment: The risk here is found if the distribution center is unable to or there is a delay in shipment arrival by required date, due to time disruption of some sort by way of backorder, etc. 9) Project Manager has personal matter: This could delay the project if the manager has a personal matter such as death of an immediate family member. 10) Product misplacement: This risk can occur due to shipping agency shipping the product to the wrong address, or address information is miscommunicated. Risk Assessment The following is an assessment of these risks in terms of the probability of project occurrence and the negative cost impact of project outcomes. Risk analysis attempts to quantify the severity of the impact of an identified risk event. The probability is subject to change. Risk Response For each risk, we have determined the action that will be taken in an event this risk should occur. The following will take place, either accept, reduce or transfer the risk. The Risk Response Table identifies a brief contingency plan for the risks that have been identified.

Puerto Rico :: essays research papers

Identity Crisis The effect of colonialism on a colonized people can often result in a situation better known to us today as an â€Å"identity crisis.† Studying the history of Puerto Rico under Spanish rule helps us to identify the problems found within modern notions of Puerto Rican identity. Such notions of national identity stem from the belief that Puerto Rico is a "self-defined community of people who share a sense of solidarity based on a belief in a common heritage and who claim political rights that may include self-determination" (Morris 12). However, such modern notions of solidarity contradict the fact that by 1898 Puerto Rican society was characterized by great racial and class differences. As claimed by Josà © Luis Gonzà ¡lez in his Puerto Rico: The Four Storeyed Country, these differences made "Puerto Rico [†¦] a country so divided racially, socially, economically and culturally that it should be described as two countries rather than one" (Gonzalez14). The rise and fall of the international sugar market, and the subsequent ascendancy of the coffee market in the Puerto Rican economy, helped to create the "foreign elements" within Puerto Rico that make modern views of Puerto Rican identity extremely problematic. The study and use of history has played an important role in helping to construct the concept of Puerto Rican national heritage. Francisco Scarano, in his Sugar and Slavery in Puerto Rico, 1815-1949: An Overview, asserts that notions of Puerto Rican national heritage have been portrayed as being an "anomalous case" within the Americas. He writes that many historians have claimed that Puerto Rico had an "economy and society which developed an advanced sugar industry during times of fairly open Atlantic slave trade, yet did not rely to any significant degree on the labor of African slaves" (Scarano 25). This suggests that the racial "heritage" of Puerto Ricans is not predominately black, and therefore, other races must have attributed to this hybridity, as well. Moreover, it also suggests that because forced slavery was not widely practiced on the island, a notion of solidarity could have existed amongst the Puerto Rican people during the 19th Century. How ever, could this example also serve as a precedent for modern uses of history to reinforce perceptions of national identity? Unfortunately, the details surrounding the island’s social and economic structure at that particular time prevent its history from serving as a model for national unity. In the 1840s, sugar became very important in the international market. Puerto Rico :: essays research papers Identity Crisis The effect of colonialism on a colonized people can often result in a situation better known to us today as an â€Å"identity crisis.† Studying the history of Puerto Rico under Spanish rule helps us to identify the problems found within modern notions of Puerto Rican identity. Such notions of national identity stem from the belief that Puerto Rico is a "self-defined community of people who share a sense of solidarity based on a belief in a common heritage and who claim political rights that may include self-determination" (Morris 12). However, such modern notions of solidarity contradict the fact that by 1898 Puerto Rican society was characterized by great racial and class differences. As claimed by Josà © Luis Gonzà ¡lez in his Puerto Rico: The Four Storeyed Country, these differences made "Puerto Rico [†¦] a country so divided racially, socially, economically and culturally that it should be described as two countries rather than one" (Gonzalez14). The rise and fall of the international sugar market, and the subsequent ascendancy of the coffee market in the Puerto Rican economy, helped to create the "foreign elements" within Puerto Rico that make modern views of Puerto Rican identity extremely problematic. The study and use of history has played an important role in helping to construct the concept of Puerto Rican national heritage. Francisco Scarano, in his Sugar and Slavery in Puerto Rico, 1815-1949: An Overview, asserts that notions of Puerto Rican national heritage have been portrayed as being an "anomalous case" within the Americas. He writes that many historians have claimed that Puerto Rico had an "economy and society which developed an advanced sugar industry during times of fairly open Atlantic slave trade, yet did not rely to any significant degree on the labor of African slaves" (Scarano 25). This suggests that the racial "heritage" of Puerto Ricans is not predominately black, and therefore, other races must have attributed to this hybridity, as well. Moreover, it also suggests that because forced slavery was not widely practiced on the island, a notion of solidarity could have existed amongst the Puerto Rican people during the 19th Century. How ever, could this example also serve as a precedent for modern uses of history to reinforce perceptions of national identity? Unfortunately, the details surrounding the island’s social and economic structure at that particular time prevent its history from serving as a model for national unity. In the 1840s, sugar became very important in the international market.

East of Eden: The Discovery of Innocence

The Discovery of Innocence on the Western Frontier What happens in the West? What kind of change takes place when an individual crosses over the boundary separating what has been settled from what has yet to be † the frontier. Over the last few weeks I have continued to probe the idea of the West as a place that has yet to be defined. Many times, authors and people are not even sure where it starts as it is an invisible border that exists only in the minds of those who seek to cross it.Once across this ambiguous frontier, the traveler ncounters a place in which time seems to be suspended. As in the story of the Garden of Eden, paradise (or the West) represents a sphere in which God has held the hands of time, and the people and creatures live in a state of eternal sameness. The idea of ghost towns in the West embodies the notion of a place somehow being removed from the influence of time. Ghost towns exist as settlements that people forgot. However, unlike settlements in the Ea st where space is at a premium and any unused building would quickly be removed and replaced by something else, in theWest these places remain, like footprints on the moon where no erosion of time can disturb them. The same principle applies to people. The West has the effect of amnesia upon the minds of those who partake of it. In many ways, it resembles the lotus flowers from The Odyssey. In the epic, any persons who tasted of the lotus flowers immediately forgot about home and opted to stay where they could partake of the flowers. A similar effect can be found among the mountain men and explorers of the Rocky Mountains.Often times these men would become so intoxicated by the rugged eauty and isolation they found in the West that they would spend years in the mountains instead of the months they had planned on. These men became real life Rip Van Winkles, being suspended from time for so long they were not aware of major events such as presidential elections, new territories, or wa rs. Not only is the West edenic in the way that time operates, it is also closely tied

Mezhirich - Paleolithic Ukraine Mammoth Bone Settlement

The archaeological site of Mezhirich (sometimes spelled Mezhyrich) is an Upper Paleolithic (Epigravettian) site located in the Middle Dnepr (or Dneiper) Valley region of Ukraine near Kiev, and it is one of the best-preserved sites of its type excavated to date. Mezhirich is a large open-air site where several mammoth bone huts with hearths and pit features were used between about 14,000-15,000 years ago. Mezhirich is located approximately 15 kilometers (10 miles) west of the Dnieper river in central Ukraine, located on top of a promontory overlooking the confluence of the Ros and Rosava Rivers, 98 meters (321 feet) above sea level. Buried beneath about 2.7-3.4 m (8.8-11.2 ft) of calcareous loess were the remains of four oval to circular huts, with surface areas of between 12 to 24 square meters (120-240 square feet) each. The dwellings are separated from one another between 10-24 m (40-80 ft), and they are arranged in a V-shaped pattern on the promontory top. Mammoth Bones as Structural Material The main structural elements of the walls of these buildings are stacked mammoth bone, including skulls, long bones (mostly humeri and femora), innominates, and scapulae. At least three of the huts were occupied at approximately the same time. About 149 individual mammoths are believed to be represented at the site, either as building material (for the structures) or as food (from refuse found in nearby pits) or as fuel (as burned bone in nearby hearths). Features at Mezhirich About 10 large pits, with diameters between 2-3 m (6.5-10 ft) and depths between .7-1.1 m (2.3-3.6 ft) were found surrounding the mammoth-bone structures at Mezhirich, filled with bone and ash, and are believed to have been used as either meat storage facilities, refuse pits or both. Internal and external hearths surround the dwellings, and these are filled with burnt mammoth bone. Tool workshop areas were identified at the site. Stone tools are dominated by microliths, while bone and ivory tools include needles, awls, ​perforators, and polishers. Items of personal ornamentation include shell and amber beads, and ivory pins. Several examples of mobiliary or portable art recovered from the site of Mezhirich include stylized anthropomorphic figurines and ivory engravings. The majority of animal bone found at the site are mammoth and hare  but smaller elements of wooly rhinoceros, horse, reindeer, bison, brown bear, cave lion, wolverine, wolf, and fox are also represented  and were probably butchered and consumed on site. Radiocarbon Dates Mezhirich has been the focus of a suite of radiocarbon dates, primarily because while there are numerous hearths at the site and an abundance of bone charcoal, there is almost no wood charcoal. Recent archaeobotanical studies suggest that taphonomic processes which selectively removed wood charcoal may be the reason for the lack of wood, rather than reflecting deliberate bone selection by the occupants. Like other Dnepr River basin mammoth bone settlements, Mezhirich was first thought to have been occupied between 18,000 and 12,000 years ago, based on early radiocarbon dates. More recent ​​Accelerator Mass Spectrometry (AMS) radiocarbon dates suggest a shorter chronology for all mammoth bone settlements, between 15,000 and 14,000 years ago. Six AMS radiocarbon dates from Mezhirich returned calibrated dates between 14,850 and 14,315 BCE. Excavation History Mezhirich was discovered in 1965 by a local farmer, and excavated between 1966 and 1989 by a series of archaeologists from the Ukraine and Russia. Joint international excavations were conducted by scholars from Ukraine, Russia, the UK, and the US well into the 1990s. Sources Cunliffe B. Upper Paleolithic economy and society. In Prehistoric Europe: An Illustrated History. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1998. Marquer L, Lebreton V, Otto T, Valladas H, Haesaerts P, Messager E, Nuzhnyi D, and Pà ©an S. Charcoal scarcity in Epigravettian settlements with mammoth bone dwellings: the taphonomic evidence from Mezhyrich (Ukraine). Journal of Archaeological Science, 2012, 39(1):109-120. Soffer O, Adovasio JM, Kornietz NL, Velichko AA, Gribchenko YN, Lenz BR, and Suntsov VY. Cultural stratigraphy at Mezhirich, an Upper Palaeolithic site in Ukraine with multiple occupations. Antiquity , 1997, 71:48-62. Svoboda J, Pà ©an S, and Wojtal P. Mammoth bone deposits and subsistence practices during Mid-Upper Palaeolithic in Central Europe: three cases from Moravia and Poland. Quaternary International, 2005, 126–128:209-221. Alternate Spellings: Mejiriche, Mezhyrich