PM 360 Week 4 Planning and Tracking Artifacts Example

Nine Documents and a Whiteboard: The Planning and Tracking Artifacts That Carried a Food Bank Through Its Move

[Student Name]

University of Phoenix

PM/360: Models, Methods, and Artifacts

Week 4 Assignment

[Instructor Name]

[Date]

Valley Harvest Food Bank and every artifact described are composites written for a model paper.

In the eight weeks covered by this course's case, Valley Harvest, a made-up food bank in California's Central Valley, shifted its warehouse into a refrigerated distribution center and replaced paper pick lists with a scanner-based system. The project manager, Inés Carrillo, ran the move with a small set of documents and one whiteboard. This paper describes those planning and tracking artifacts, shows an excerpt of each and explains how they were kept current.

A Rule for Choosing Artifacts

The current standard defines an artifact as a template, document, output or project deliverable, and it groups artifacts into categories such as strategy artifacts, logs and registers, plans, hierarchy charts, baselines, visual data and reports (Project Management Institute [PMI], 2021). It also stresses tailoring: teams should use the artifacts that add value. Besner and Hobbs (2008) surveyed project practitioners and found that the use of tools and techniques varied considerably with project context, such as project type and size, supporting the view that tool sets should be fitted to the project. Carrillo's rule was simple: every artifact needed a named reader and a decision it helped that reader make.

Planning Artifacts

The charter, two pages signed by the executive director, set the objective (all operations in the new building within eight weeks, with no missed pantry deliveries), constraints (cold-chain rules, a $380,000 move budget, volunteer capacity) and the project manager's authority to approve changes under $10,000.

The breakdown of the work had five top-level elements: building readiness, system configuration, stock transfer, people and training and closeout. Under stock transfer, for example, sat dry goods, cold stock, frozen stock and returns from pantries.

The schedule showed 14 milestones, including refrigeration commissioning complete, temperature mapping passed, cold stock transferred and paper pick lists retired, with the cold-room chain marked as critical.

The responsibility chart covered the cold-chain transfer, the riskiest step. For loading refrigerated trucks, the cold-room lead was responsible, the operations director accountable, the food safety coordinator consulted and pantry relations informed. For the temperature check on arrival, the food safety coordinator was responsible and accountable, and the operations director informed. Writing the chart exposed a gap: no one had been named to decide whether a pallet that arrived warm should be discarded. The food safety coordinator was given that decision.

Tracking Artifacts

The risk register held 18 risks, each with an owner, probability, impact, response and trigger. Three examples: racking fails seismic inspection (owner, facilities manager; response, pre-inspection walk-through; trigger, inspector's preliminary comments); volunteer shortfall in week 5 (owner, volunteer coordinator; response, move training earlier, recruit from partner churches; trigger, fewer than 80 shifts booked by week 3); freezer scanners fail to read (owner, inventory manager; response, test scanners in the freezer before go-live; trigger, any read failure in testing). Raz and Michael (2001) surveyed project managers on risk management tools and found that practices such as risk registers and periodic risk reviews were associated with better project management performance, supporting the weekly review Carrillo held.

The issue log captured problems that had already happened. The freezer scanner risk became an issue on day 2 of go-live: issue 7, scanners failing to read labels coated with frost in the freezer; owner, inventory manager; action, printed pick list for freezer orders and a vendor request for cold-rated scanners; status, resolved in 12 days.

The change log recorded 11 change requests. Change 4 asked to replace fixed dock appointments with 30-minute windows and two open doors, the agreement reached with drivers in Week 1; it was approved by Carrillo within her authority, with no cost.

A risk that turns into an issue and then into a change request is three artifacts telling one story.

The Configuration Board

System configuration was managed differently. A whiteboard in the warehouse office held three columns, to do, in progress and done, with a card for each of 26 configuration items and a limit of four cards in progress at once. A simple burnup line drawn weekly showed points completed against the 94 total. The board suited work whose content changed as the team learned and kept the vendor's consultant and warehouse leads looking at the same picture every morning.

The Weekly Status Report

Each Friday, Carrillo sent a one-page report to the executive director and board chair: which milestones landed and which slipped, dollars used compared with the plan, the three risks or issues most likely to hurt the move, any decision the director had to make and a single sentence on what next week should bring. In week 6 the report asked the director to approve $6,200 for cold-rated scanners, which was approved the same day.

Lessons Learned Register

One more tracking artifact proved its worth after the move. Carrillo kept a lessons register from week 1, a running list in which anyone could add what worked, what did not and what the food bank should do next time. By closeout it held 31 entries, among them testing scanners in the freezer before go-live, writing the responsibility chart before any cold stock moves and booking volunteer shifts three weeks ahead. Each entry named an owner who would carry it into the procedures for the food bank's planned second site in Visalia, so the register would be read again rather than filed.

Keeping Artifacts Current

Each artifact had an owner and an update cycle: the schedule and risk register on Mondays, the issue log daily during go-live, the change log as requests arrived, the board every morning and the status report on Fridays. Planning artifacts changed only through the change log; tracking artifacts changed whenever reality did.

Two Artifacts the Team Skipped

The team chose not to write a separate communications management plan, because the project's audiences were few and the status report and a pantry newsletter covered them. It also skipped a formal quality management plan, since food safety rules and the temperature mapping protocol already set the standards. Both decisions were recorded in the charter's tailoring note.

Conclusion

The food bank's move ran on a charter, a breakdown of the work, a schedule, a responsibility chart, a risk register, issue and change logs, a configuration board and a weekly status report. Each had a reader, a purpose, an owner and a rhythm of updates. Choosing a small set and keeping it current did more for the move than a complete set of templates would have.

References

Besner, C., & Hobbs, B. (2008). Project management practice, generic or contextual: A reality check. Project Management Journal, 39(1), 16-33. https://doi.org/10.1002/pmj.20033

Project Management Institute. (2021). A guide to the project management body of knowledge (PMBOK guide) (7th ed.). Project Management Institute.

Raz, T., & Michael, E. (2001). Use and benefits of tools for project risk management. International Journal of Project Management, 19(1), 9-17. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0263-7863(99)00036-8