Reference no: EM13907633 , Length: 4000 Words

Read the Case study below and answer the questions that follow:

WESTERN OCEANOGRAPHIC INSTITUTE(WOI)

Western Oceanography Institute was independently funded research facility aligned with Western State University. Approximately 60 full and part time staff worked at the Institute. They worked on research grants funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the United Nations (UN) as well as research financed by private industry.

Astrid Young, was a 27 year-old graduate of Western State University (WSU) with a Bachelor of Science degree in management information systems. After graduation Astrid worked for five years at Evergreen Systems in Seattle, Washington. While at Evergreen Astrid worked on Y2000 projects and installed NT servers and was very confident that she had the requisite technical expertise to excel at her new job at Western Oceanographic Institute (W01).

Young worked at the WOI for four months prior to initiating the NT conversion project. She made a point of introducing herself to the various groups of people upon her arrival at the institute. Still, her contact with staff had been limited. Astrid spent most of her time becoming familiar with WOI's information system, training her staff, responding to unexpected problems and planning the conversion project. The current WOI information system had been corrupted by viruses introduced over the internet and she devoted an entire weekend restoring the system. In addition to the virus attack, a recurring problem was one of the servers code named "Poncho" that would occasionally shut down for no apparent reason.

Her work was frequently interrupted by frantic calls from staff researchers who needed immediate help on a variety of computer related problems. She was equally shocked at how computer illiterate some of the researchers were and how she had to guide them through some of the basics of e-mail management and database configuration.

The Microsoft NT Conversion Project

Young laid the groundwork for the NT conversion project in her recruitment interview with the director by arguing that conversion was a critical skill she would bring to the position. Once hired, she was able to sell the director and his immediate staff on the project, but not without some resistance. Some associate directors questioned whether it was necessary to go through another conversion so soon after Windows 95 conversion 16 months ago. Against a backdrop of resistance, the director signed off the project after Young assured him that the conversion would be relatively painless and the Institute would then have a state-of-the art information system.

The conversion was scheduled to take eight weeks to complete and consisted of the major four phases: server setup, network installation, data migration and workstation conversion. The project would be completed during summer so that the student assistants could work full time on the project. Young and her student team would first need to purchase and set up seven new NT servers, thus creating a local area network (LAN). Next, they would migrate data to the new Oracle NT database; finally they would convert the existing 65 client computers into NT workstations capable of functioning on the new system. Young had been actively involved in four similar conversions whilst working for Evergreen Systems and was confident that she and her team would complete the project with minimum technical problems. She also believed that this conversion would not be traumatic to the staff at the Institute because NT interface was very similar to the Windows 95 interface.

Young knew that in order for the project to be successful, disruptions had to be minimised, hence she held a staff briefing meeting to outline the scope of the project and the impact it would have on the Institute's operations. She was disappointed by the 'light attendance' at the meeting. Several of the researchers were right owls who preferred to work late into the night. Other staff travelled frequently; thereby she ended up holding two briefing meetings including one in the evening. Still the attendance was less than desired.
The staff's major concerns were the amount of downtime that would occur and whether the software and catabases there were currently using would work on the new system. Young assured them that most of the downtime would occur on the weekends and would be posted well in advance. The only disruption would be tvo hours necessary to convert their existing computer into a workstation. Astrid invested extra energy in researching the compatibility issue and sent an email to everyone listing the software that was known not to work in the NT system. The only software problems involved specially written DOS v 2.1 or older programs that would not function in the new NT environment.

The first 6 weeks of the project went relatively smoothly. The NT servers arrived and were configured on time. However data migration took a little longer than planned. The project was in its final phase- conversion of client computers into NT workstations when the project began to experience nagging problems. Astrid staff had to delete old operating systems and install new operating software on each computer at the Institute. Some of the staff forgot when they were scheduled to be converted. The project team had to wait for them to abandon whatever they were doing so they could convert the computer. Second, the drivers on some of the computers were not compatible and again the team had to devote extra time downloading new drivers off the internet. Third, a few of the staff failed to create adequate hard drive space to accommodate the new NT system. In most cases, the team worked with staff members to delete or compress unnecessary files. To compound matters, midway through the third day, one of the student assistants, Steve Stills, was diagnosed v:ith a moderate case of carpal tunnel syndrome and was told to take two weeks off from the computer work.

The call

After three days, only 22 computers had been converted to NT stations. Young and her staff were working digently on converting computers into NT workstations when she received an urgent call from the director's secretary requesting her to drop everything and come downstairs to the staff meeting. The secretary's voice appeared tense, and Young wondered what was up. As she gathered her things, the student assistant, Eggerts, c.eared her throat and confided that there may be problems with the some of the Institute's websites. She discovered yesterday that some of the links in the Web pages created using Netscape were not working in the Microsoft environment. Young demanded to know why she wasn't told about this sooner. Eggerts confessed that she thought she had fixed the problem last night. Young told her that they would talk about it when she got back.

Young entered the meeting room and immediately recognised that there were more than the usual faces in attendance. The directors welcomed her by saying, "We are glad you could find time to visit with us. My staff meeting has just erupted into a series of complaints about your NT conversion project. As it turns, Dr. Phillips crer there, cannot access his documents because his Word Perfect file mysteriously disappeared. Dr. Simon's geothermal assessment program, which he has used for the past 7 years, doesn't seem to work anymore. Now it appears that the website we use to coordinate our research with the Oslo Institute is a mess. Everyone is complaining about how the revised installation schedule is going to disrupt work. I want to know why I wasn't informed about these problems. These guys want to lynch me for approving your project!"

Question 1-

1.1 "The project communications management plan is a guiding document, which provides communication channels, what to communicate, with whom and how is it going to be communicated among other things" Describe the contents of the Microsoft NT Conversion project communications management plan.

1.2 "Differentiate between scope verification and scope control of the Microsoft NT conversion project". Justify the importance of scope verification and scope control for the success of the project.

1.3 Describe a typical project life cycle for Astrid Young's project.

1.4 Compile a detailed draft business plan that Astrid Young (from the case study) could have presented to the director and his team prior to commencing with her project. Note: You may make REASONABLE assumptions of details not provided in the case study. (18)

Question 2- Discuss the decision making process for developing relevant quality standards for the satisfaction of project stakeholders. Use the WOI case study.

Question 3 - The setup of a computer laboratory entails the following list of activities that must be completed before the laboratory can be used. The activities, immediate predecessors and durations appear in the table below:

Activity	Duration in days	Immediate predecessor
A	5	-
B	2	A
C	4	A
D	5	B
E	5	B
F	5
G	2	E, F
H	3	D
I	5	G, H

3.1.1 Draw the AON network diagram for this project.

3.1.2 What is the critical path of the project?

3.2 Explain what a project kick-off meeting is and its purpose. Also provide an outline of a typical agenda for a project kick-off meeting, using an example.

3.3 Outline what a project procurement plan should contain.

Question 4

Activity	Optimistic time (a)	Most likely time (m)	Pessimistic time (b)	Expected time (t)	Immediate predecessor
A	1	2	9		-
C	2	4	6		-
E	1	2	3		-
T	1	5	9		E
G	1	2	3		C, T
P	2	3	4		A, G
K	4	6	14		A, G
F	1	3	5		P
M	4	5	6		K
B	7	9	11		F, M

4.1 Using expected times (t) and assuming a start date of 3 May 2012, draw the Gantt chart for the project. (8) 4.2 Draw an AON network diagram for the above project.