Reference no: EM132239926

Part 1

Assignment: PowerPoint/Oral Presentation: Learning From Experience

Learning from experience can be one of the best ways to learn. You can also study and review the experiences of others through constructive criticism. Although you might not have worked formally on an IT or IS project yet, you can certainly locate material online and read case studies about past projects. This Application will help you compare what you are learning this unit with the case studies commonly available online. Through this gross analysis, you should be able to easily recognize characteristics of both successful and unsuccessful projects.

Access the Internet and find websites, such as CIO, that contain case studies about project management. You can use the search bar at the end of the Application to look for references to assist you.

Then, complete the following:

1. Identify two IT projects that were successful and two that failed.

2. For each project, identify two or three reasons that made it either a success or a failure.

3. For the projects that failed, suggest actions that could have saved them. For the successful projects, list the potential pitfalls that the PM avoided.

Submit a PowerPoint Presentation that contains 6-10 slides with a narrative overlay. The overall slide show must be in the 6-10 minute range.

The presentation must be engaging, organized, easy to understand, and include the following:
- An introduction to the presentation.
- Two projects or case studies that failed and two that were successful.
- Two or three reasons that explain each project's success or failure.
- Potential changes in the actions that could have led to the failed project's success and potential pitfalls that the PM of the successful project avoided.
- A summary of the presentation.

To complete this application you must have Microsoft PowerPoint 2007 or newer loaded on your computer. In addition, you must have a microphone to record your oral narrative to accompany the presentation.

Once the PowerPoint slides are complete, you have created a written copy of the narrative, and you have tested the narrative to be sure it is the proper overall length (time), you will embed the oral narrative into the file. To embed the narrative, complete the following steps.

Beginning with the first slide:

1. Select the Slide Show Tab - Record Narration - Set microphone level

a. Talk into your microphone to make sure it is working properly.
Click OK - Begin your narrative for the first slide

Advance to the next slide (left click) - Be sure you are done speaking before you left click

Record the narrative for the second slide

Continue advancing through the slides and recording your narrative.

After the last slide you will be asked if you want to save the slide timings - select SAVE.

Now start your slide show, the show will progress at the pace you set while creating the narrative for each slide.

If you need to redo the recording, simply go back to the first slide, select the Slide Show Tab and re-record your narrative or you may choose to re-record just one slide at a time.

REPEAT steps 1-8 until you are satisfied with the presentation and your slide show is completed in 8-10 minutes.

Part 2

In a single-person endeavor, it is relatively easy to understand the duties and responsibilities of the person. However, when you work in groups, the work should be distributed as appropriately as possible among the team members. As a PM, you can create a diagram called the work breakdown structure (WBS), which specifies the activities that need to be carried out and the responsibilities of the individuals.

Complete the following tasks:

1. Write a set of tasks for the "Opening Case" below, Information Technology Project Management.

OPENING CASE

Kim Nguyen was leading a meeting to create the work breakdown structure (WIIS) for her company's IT upgrade project. This project was necessary because of several high-priority, Internet-based applications the company was developing, The IT upgrade project involved creating and implementing a plan to make all employees' IT assets meet new corporate standards within nine months. These standards specified the minimum requirements for each desktop or laptop computer, including the type of prose or, amount of memory, hard disk size, type of network connection, security features, and software. Kim knew that to perform the upgrades, the project team would first have to create a detailed inventory of all the current hardware, networks, and software in the entire company of 2,000 employees.

Kim had worked with other stakeholders to develop a project charter and initial scope statement. The project charter included rough cost and schedule estimates for the project and signatures of key stakeholders; the initial scope statement provided a start in defining the hardware, software, and network requirements as well as other information related to the project scope. Kim called a meeting with her project team and other stake- holders to further define the scope of the project. She wanted to get everyone's ideas on what the project involved, who would do what, and how they could avoid scope creep.

The company's new CEO, Walter Schmidt, was known for keeping a close eye on major projects. The company had started using a new project management information system that let everyone know the status of projects at a detailed and high level. Kim knew that a good WBS was the foundation for scope, time, and cast performance, but she had never led a team in creating one or allocating costs based on a WES. Where should she begin?

2. Create the WBS for this project.