Term Project: Creating a Pet Business

Introduction

The present project is creating a pet business offering walking, sitting, training, and grooming services. The idea appeared due to the tendency of a growing number of households to have pets, including dogs, cats, hamsters, rabbits, and so further. In addition to the mentioned services, there will be customer education where people can learn how to care for their furry friends. Therefore, one should critically review the project requirements and develop a plan containing the necessary activities to launch the project successfully.

Discussion

The scope statement allows for reviewing of required measures to implement the project. Here, it is necessary to focus on business requirements as they are long-term-oriented and foundational (Scavetta, 2022). Thus, the scope encompasses looking for suitable premises, obtaining licenses and permissions, premise arrangement, if needed, hiring campaign, onboarding training for employees, and the start of business activities. The user acceptance criteria are characterized by the customer evaluation of services with three to five points. All the activities should be performed within one year, which refers to project boundaries.

The required characteristics of the project include the preparation of premises sufficient for doing all the business activities and providing services. Then, the hiring campaign will focus on seeking pet care experts and groomers, preferably with veterinary, dog training, or other relevant education. The onboarding training comprises sessions teaching the rules of conduct with customers and their pets, introduction to the pet services, conflict handling, and emergency guide. In addition, the specific training regarding each of the services should be conducted separately for walking, sitting, grooming, and training staff. The features that are not required for this project include creating additional facilities for sitting services and product-related activities.

Now, there is the need to identify interim and final deliverables to understand whether all required activities are enlaced. According to Schwalbe (2017), there can be project-management-related deliverables and product-related ones. Since the present pet business does not envisage selling any products, the deliverables will also be service-related. To do this, one should apply a Work Breakdown Structure (WBS), so the list of deliverables will look as follows:

1. Initiating

   1. Seeking premises
   2. Seeking suppliers of pet care equipment and products
   3. Obtaining licenses and permissions
2. Planning

   1. Creating a project short-term and long-term management plan
3. Executing

   1. Re-arrangement of premises, if necessary
   2. Installation of necessary equipment
   3. Hiring campaign

      1. Preparation of onboarding training
      2. Preparation of service-related training
      3. Placing job offer on social media
4. Monitoring and control

   1. Employee performance monitoring
   2. Customer satisfaction monitoring
   3. Introducing changes to approach to activities when needed

Closing

Start of business activities

As one can see, all deliverables in the list can be considered interim activities besides beginning the business activities.

The most critical paths in the project are the initiating stage and the hiring campaign as a part of the executing phase. The challenges that can delay the completion of steps include seeking sufficient-area premises, obtaining licenses, creating training courses, and employee search. There can be no suitable premises in a given area, so seeking them may take a long time. Moreover, obtaining permissions can also be highly time-consuming, as the authorities may review the application for a considerable period, especially when additional documentation is needed.

Conclusion

Finally, the more one develops a project, the more details appear to be addressed. The most interesting part of the present activities is the recognition of the need to broaden activities within one domain. For instance, when premises are available, it does not mean it is possible to initiate business activities at once because specific arrangements are required. The most challenging part concerned the need to make separate training sets for the onboarding process and according to the staff category. The vital recommendation here is employing the ability to assume different roles to oneself to gain a better understanding of needs.

References

Scavetta, A. (2022). Project requirements management: A quick guide. ProjectManager. Web.

Schwalbe, K. (2017). An introduction to project management, sixth edition. With a brief guide to Microsoft Project Professional 2016. Schwalbe Publishing.