PJM 7210 Module 4 Final Project Plan and Status Report Example

From Charter to Closeout: An Integrated Plan for a Four-Year Lead Line Program, With the First Phase's Earned Value at Week Eight

Student Name

Master of Business Administration, Thomas Edison State University

PJM-7210: Project Management

Mentor Name

Month Day, Year

From Charter to Closeout: An Integrated Plan for a Four-Year Lead Line Program, With the First Phase's Earned Value at Week Eight

Project Charter

This final project, prepared by a four-person team, plans the lead service line replacement program of Ramapo Valley Water Authority, a composite water utility serving part of Bergen County, New Jersey. The program's purpose is to remove every known lead service line from the system, about 1,200 lines, by replacing each in full from the water main to the customer's meter within four years and a budget of $14.4 million, financed largely through the state's revolving fund for drinking water. The sponsor is the authority's executive director; the project manager is the engineering division's deputy director; and the steering committee includes finance, customer service and the borough engineers of the two towns served. Success will be measured by lines replaced, post-replacement water tests below the federal action level, schedule and budget performance, and customer satisfaction with notification and restoration.

Scope and Work Breakdown Structure

The deliverable-based WBS has five branches: 1.0 service line inventory and verification; 2.0 customer engagement, consent and communication; 3.0 construction, divided into eight neighborhood phases of about 150 lines each; 4.0 restoration and testing; and 5.0 project management. Each neighborhood phase is a control account with its own crew assignments, budget and schedule. Exclusions are stated in the charter: household plumbing inside the home and replacement of water mains are out of scope, apart from any main excavated to get at a service line. Larson and Gray (2018) emphasize that a clear scope and WBS are the basis for every later plan, and the control accounts here make later earned value reporting possible.

Schedule, Resources and Budget

Each neighborhood phase follows the six-activity network developed in Module 3: mobilization, public-side and private-side replacement, street and lawn restoration, and testing. With three in-house crews, each phase takes about 17 weeks, and phases overlap so that a new phase mobilizes as the previous one moves into restoration, giving roughly two phases a year plus winter work on inventory and outreach. The schedule avoids starting phases after mid-September to keep paving out of the winter shutdown.

The budget allocates about $1.8 million to each of the eight phases, with additional amounts for inventory, outreach and project management held within the $14.4 million total, and a contingency reserve held by the steering committee rather than spread across phases. Because federal funds flow through the state revolving fund, iron and steel products and construction materials must meet Buy America requirements, so the procurement plan verifies domestic sourcing for pipe, fittings and meter boxes before contracts are awarded.

Risk Management

The risk register carries the risks identified in the midterm, with owners and triggers: homeowner refusal of access, surprises in the ground, for instance service lines running beneath a foundation, contractor and paving capacity, cost inflation, and supply delays for compliant materials. The highest-rated risk is homeowner refusal, since partial replacement would leave lead in place and can temporarily raise lead levels (Trueman et al., 2016); the response is intensive outreach, door-to-door scheduling and help with consent forms, with refusals escalated to customer service after three attempts.

Monitoring: Earned Value Eight Weeks Into Phase 1

Larson and Gray (2018) recommend earned value as the integrated measure of schedule and cost performance, and Anbari (2003) shows how its indexes support forecasts that managers can act on. At the end of week 8 of the first phase, with a budget at completion of $1.8 million, the planned value was $820,000, the earned value of completed work was $760,000 and actual costs were $805,000.

The phase was 7 percent behind schedule and 6 percent over cost. At the current schedule performance, the 17-week phase would take about 18.3 weeks. The team traced most of the variance to private-side work: lines under driveways required more saw cutting and restoration than estimated, and eleven homeowners delayed access. To finish within the original budget, the remaining work must be done 5 percent more efficiently than budgeted, which is unrealistic, so the team recommended releasing about $107,000 from contingency, the gap between the estimate at completion and the phase budget, adjusting the private-side estimate for later phases using the actual driveway rate, and adding a Saturday crew for three weeks to recover the schedule before paving season ends.

Procurement and Contract Control

Most field work is delivered by contractors, so contract terms are part of the control system. Line replacement is bought under unit-price contracts, which pay a set amount for each completed and inspected service line, so payment tracks earned value directly. The authority withholds 5 percent retainage on each invoice until restoration in the phase is accepted, which keeps contractors attentive to the final, least glamorous work. Change orders above $25,000 require steering committee approval, and smaller ones are logged against the phase contingency. Materials are checked at delivery for the domestic sourcing documentation the federal loan requires, since a missing certificate can delay reimbursement for an entire phase. The program manager reviews contractor performance each quarter on schedule, quality and community complaints, and the results inform awards for later phases.

Teams and Communication

The textbook's chapter on teams stresses shared goals, clear roles and routines that keep a team aligned. The program team meets weekly, publishes a two-page status report to the steering committee every two weeks with earned value, risks and decisions needed, and holds a monthly public update with the boroughs. Field crews receive a one-page phase plan with the week's addresses, and customer service receives the same plan so that calls are answered with current information.

Closure Plan

Each phase closes formally, and the program closes after the last phase. Closure includes verifying that every line in the phase is recorded as replaced in the inventory, that water tests are complete and filed, that restoration punch lists are cleared and that contractor accounts are settled. Larson and Gray (2018) recommend a post-project review to capture lessons; the program will hold a short review after each phase, so that lessons such as the driveway rate improve the next phase rather than only the final report.

Conclusion

The integrated plan connects a clear charter and deliverable-based WBS to a phased schedule, budgets by control account, a risk register and a monitoring system based on earned value. The first phase's week-8 report shows the plan working as intended: modest variances were detected early, traced to causes and corrected with specific actions, and the lessons were fed into estimates for later phases.

References

Anbari, F. T. (2003). Earned value project management method and extensions. Project Management Journal, 34(4), 12-23. https://doi.org/10.1177/875697280303400403

Larson, E. W., & Gray, C. F. (2018). Project management: The managerial process (7th ed.). McGraw-Hill Education.

Trueman, B. F., Camara, E., & Gagnon, G. A. (2016). Evaluating the effects of full and partial lead service line replacement on lead levels in drinking water. Environmental Science & Technology, 50(14), 7389-7396. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.est.6b01912