Reference no: EM131045287

Assessment item

The case study simulates a project management scenario where the student takes on the role of project manager. The case information is not complete so where necessary students will have to make assumptions and argue the pros and cons for any recommendations they make.Product Development Case Description

Background

CQ Learning Management (CQLM) develops educational IT software as a part of its project management portfolio. EduSyd, an education institution, has approached CQLM to discuss the development of a learning & management system to facilitate a secure online learning management environment for its students and academic staff.

You have been employed at CQLM for several years as a Project Manager. Your Program Manager, Mr. George Rafael has assigned you for the initial investigation and to liaise with the customer. Two other employees from CQLM will assist you in this initial phase.

After the preliminary meetings, you have the following information about your customer and its requirements.

1. EduSyd is a private education provider operating in a major Australian city.

2. EduSyd has approximately 1000 students (both male and female) enrolled in its school education program. These students are enrolled at both at primary and secondary (high school) levels.

3. There are over 40 teachers, and about 6 management and administrative staff members.

4. The Executive Management of EduSyd has identified the need to introduce an online learning and management system so that the teaching and learning process can be more effective.

5. EduSyd sees this project as an opportunity to adopt Web 2.0 technologies used by many of its competitors in both public and private education systems.

6. As a starting point, an online discussion forum (EduSydLMS) will be developed. It will be used by different classes/courses.

7. EduSydLMS will be deployed in a secure online environment (school students are considered as ‘children' in the Australian education system).

8. EduSyd would like to use this application in in its year 9 and 10 classes by the end of Term 1 in 2016.

9. If the initial experience (point 8 above) is successful, the EduSydLMS will be released to other classes/courses from mid-2016.

10. Points 8 and 9 above are not included in this project.

After the initial consultations and considerations, you have advised your Program Manager that it is feasible to develop an educational online discussion forum. This forum (EduSydLMS) will be used by teachers and students in various different classes and courses. Therefore, EduSydLMS should support various multi-media tools and other required functionality used for learning management processes. Basic requirements about the users and the tool have been identified. Further investigation will be required to identify specific requirements.

Mr. Lin and Ms. Fernandez have provided you with the basic information to develop a preliminary project plan. They include a work breakdown structure (WBS) covering the various activities and tasks, resource requirement estimations, and some dependencies (Table 1 below). An Activity-In-Box (AIB) network diagram covering the Online User Manual development process is in Figure 1.

Table 1: Work Breakdown Structure (WBS)

WBS #	Activity/task	Description	Duration	Predecessors/Relationships	Resources*	To be completed at Milestone
1	EduSyd LMS Business and Functional Requirements
1.1	Project kick-off meeting	Meeting with senior management at EduSyd and CQLM. Estimated date (start date for the project) is 12/10/2015	1 day		PM, BA, SA, EC
1.2	Requirements workshop planning	Planning of requirements workshop to gather specific details	3 days	1.1	BA, EC, PM, SA
1.3	Requirements workshop	Workshop with stakeholder groups of EduSyd	1 day	1.2	BA, EC, PM, SA
1.4	Requirements analysis and development
1.4.1	Business requirements (BR) development	Analyse data from requirements workshop to develop business requirements	5 days	1.3	BA, PM (50%), EC (50%)
1.4.2	Functional requirements (FR) development	Analyse data from requirements workshop to develop functional requirements	5 days	1.3	PM (50%), SA, EC (50%)
1.5	Business and functional requirements approval	Finalisation of requirements, and meetings with senior management of CQLM and EduSyd for approval	5 days	1.4.1, 1.4.2	BA, EC, PM, SA
1.6	Business and Functional Requirements approved	Management approval - no project resources required	0 days	1.5		M1
2	Technical Design of EduSydLMS
2.1	Technical design planning	Planning meeting to develop technical specifications and structure of EduSydLMS	2 days	M1	BA, PM, SD1, SA
2.2	Technical design development	development of the technical design	5 days	2.1	SD1, SA, BA
2.3	Technical design approval	Finalisation of design, and meetings with senior management of CQLM and EduSyd for approval	3 days	2.2	BA, PM, SA, SD1
2.4	Technical design approved	Management approval - no project resources required	0 days	2.3		M2
3	EduSydLMS Application Development and Testing
3.1	Application development planning	Project team and CQLM management briefing, and version 0.1 preparations	5 days	M2	BA, PM, SD1, SA, SD2, SD3
3.2	EduSydLMS version 0.1 - development process
3.2.1	Version 0.1 software development	Version 0.1 development by the application development team	70 days	3.1	BA (50%), SA (75%), SD1, SD2, SD3 (50%)
3.2.2	Version 0.1 completed	Cannot be completed before finishing M4 and M5.	0 days	3.2.1 and see Note		M3
3.3	Quality Assurance Testing (QAT)
3.3.1	QAT Plan development	High level plan for the Quality Assurance Testing process to test version 0.1.	10 days	3.1	PM, TA, SA (25%), BA (25%)
3.3.2	QAT Plan presentation	Meeting with ITDU management of CQLM for approval for the plan	5 days	3.3.1	PM, TA, SA (25%), BA (25%)
3.3.3	QAT Plan finalised	Management approval after considering the QAT plan for 2 days	2 days	3.3.2	PM, TA
3.3.4	Case study and script development	Develop the case scenarios and scripts to be used in QAT	10 days	3.3.3	BA (25%), EC, TA, TW
3.3.5	Application testing (QAT)	Ongoing testing concurrent with development of version 0.1.	15 days	3.3.4	TA, SD3 (50%), AT
3.3.6	Application testing (QAT) completed	EduSydLMS version 0.1 testing completed.	0 days	3.3.5		M4
3.4	Online User Manual (OUM)	See details in A-I-B (figure 1) to complete this part of the schedule. Check duration for tasks and also details below the network diagram to populate the WBS for this activity.
3.5	EduSydLMS application version 0.2 development
3.5.1	EduSydLMS version 0.2 - application development process	Remedial actions from QAT and testing of updated EduSydLMS after incorporating OUM	10 days	M3	SD1,SA,SD2,SD3, BA
3.5.2	EduSydLMS ver 0.2 completed	EduSydLMS version 0.2 completed and ready for task 4.0.	0 days	3.5.1		M6
4	User Acceptance Testing (UAT)
4.1	UAT planning	Develop high level plan and select test team members. Note: Task can begin after starting 3.5.1.	2 days	M6	BA,EC,PM,TA
4.2	UAT plan presented for approval	Meeting with senior management at EduSyd to seek approval for the user acceptance testing plan.	2 days	4.1	BA,EC,PM,TA
4.3	UAT plan approved by customer	User Acceptance Testing criteria and plan approved by the customer	0 days	4.2		M7
4.4	UAT case study development	Scenarios and scripts to be used in test developed and finalised.	3 days	M7	BA,EC,TW,TA
4.5	User testing team information session	Familiarisation session for user test team	1 day	4.4	BA,EC,PM,TA
4.6	User Acceptance Testing	Testing by key user groups to confirm the application meets their requirements	1 day	4.5	BA,EC
4.7	UAT report preparation	UAT results collated and analysed to prepare the final report for customer.	2 days	4.6	BA,PM,TA
4.8	UAT report presented to customer	Meeting with senior management of CQLM and EduSyd to present the final report for acceptance.	1 day	4.7	BA,EC,PM,TA
4.9	UAT report accepted by customer	UAT report accepted by customer as meeting their requirements.	0	4.8		M8
5	EduSydLMS version 1.0 completed and delivered to customer
5.1	EduSydLMS version 1.0 completion and delivery to customer	Finalisation of EduSydLMS for delivery	3 days	M8	PM
5.2	EduSydLMS version 1.0 delivered to customer	EduSyd management accepted delivery of completed EduSydLMS from CQLM	0 days	5.1		M9

Figure 1 - Activity-in-Box Network Diagram for Online User Manual (OUM) Development (activity 3.4)

Figure 1 shows the tasks to be completed for developing the Online User Manual (OUM). The completed OUM will be delivered to the Application Development Team to be added to EduSydLMS. The OUM development (task 3.4.4) cannot start at least until 5 days after the Quality Assurance Testing has started (task 3.3.5 in Table 1). But it cannot also be completed until after M4. This lag is to ensure the availability of functionality to develop and test the OUM. Milestone 5 (Table 2) is a part of this activity.

Table 2: Project Milestones

M1	Business and functional requirements approved
M2	EduSydLMS technical design approved
M3	EduSydLMS version 0.1 completed
M4	Quality Assurance Testing (QAT) completed
M5	Online User Manual completed
M6	EduSydLMS version 0.2 completed
M7	User Acceptance Testing (UAT) plan approved
M8	UAT report accepted by the customer
M9	EduSydLMS version 1.0 delivered to the customer

Table 3: Project resources and cost estimation

Resource	Number of resources required	Standard Cost per hour	Overtime Cost per hour
Project Manager (PM)	1	$100.00	$125.00
Business Analyst (BA)	1	$75.00	$85.00
Systems Analyst (SA)	1	$75.00	$85.00
Software Developer (SD)	3	$65.00	$75.00
Test Analyst (TA)	1	$75.00	$85.00
Application Tester (AT)	1	$65.00	$75.00
Technical Writer (TW)	1	$75.00	$85.00
Education Consultant (EC) - Subject Matter Expert and EduSyd Liaison.	1	Supplied by the customer at $0.00 cost to the project.

Standard working hours per week for each full time resource is 40 hours (8 hours x 5 days). The BA, SA, SDs, TA, AT and the TW will be assigned to the project from the IT Development Unit (ITDU) of CQLM on a cost recovery basis. The ITDU Manager (who will not be a part of the project team) has assured the availability of required resources, and the ability of staff selected to undertake the required tasks.

As per current planning, project will start on 12 October 2015 at CQLM's Project Office. There will be several public and company holidays in the schedule as follows:
24 December 2015 - 1 January 2016 (includes both days) - Christmas and New Year Holiday period;
26 January 2016 - Australia Day; 25 March 2016 - Good Friday; and 28 March 2016 - Easter Monday.

Approvals in the WBS above will be by senior management (of CQLM and/or EduSyd) who are not included as resources in the project. Their time is not included in the project costs.

You may need to make other assumptions to complete the estimated resource requirements, budget and the schedule. If so, list all assumptions at the beginning of your submission document (Word document).

Assessment Part A

For part A of the assessment you must complete the following tasks and questions. Read all the questions before you commence the tasks. The schedule is to be developed in an appropriately named Microsoft Project 2013 file (see below) and the questions are to be answered using Microsoft Word. As stated above, any assumptions must also be listed at the beginning of the Word document.

1. You have been asked by your Program Manager to use Microsoft Project 2013 to develop the project schedule.
Based on the information in the case study description above (consider all details provided), develop Part A of the schedule in Microsoft Project 2013. Ensure the following:

a) Add the project title (EduSyd Learning Management System - EduSydLMS) at the top of the task list as the Project Summary Task, and indent all other tasks and summary tasks according to the given WBS in Table 1.

b) Include resource allocation details (note the percentage allocations for some resources in Table 1). Also see Table 3 for resource details - use the full title for resources.

c) Note the holidays described in the "Project resources and cost estimation" section in page 6. Do not include them as working days in the schedule.

d) Include the milestones identified in Table 2 as you develop the schedule. Highlight the milestones in the task list in yellow using the "background colour" icon on the task ribbon.

e) Use Microsoft Project 2013 to make sure that the critical path(s) are automatically displayed in red on the bars of the Gantt chart view of you schedule.

At this point there may be resource over allocation issues. Do not attempt to resolve these before answering question 2. Save this version of your schedule in EduSydLMS_PartA1.mpp. You will be required to submit this file as part of your assignment submission.

2. Ignore any resource over allocations at this point. Answer the following questions based on your EduSydLMS_PartA1.mpp schedule (assume that you have no resource constraints):

a) How long will it take (duration) to complete the project?

b) What are the start and finish dates of the project - see the starting date in page 3.

c) List all activities on the critical path.

d) Did the holidays make any difference to the end date of your project? Explain the reason.

e) You have been asked to complete the project 1 week earlier by reducing the duration of some of the tasks in the project. Is it possible to reduce the duration of any tasks?

- If it is possible to reduce the duration of any tasks, which tasks would you target for reduction and why? In your answer, discuss how you would reduce the duration of those tasks. Make specific recommendations.

- If it is not possible to reduce the duration of any task, discuss the possible reasons. Outline the possible risks and consequences if the duration of any task is reduced. Identify specific tasks in this case.

3. Create a copy of EduSydLMS_PartA1.mpp in another file called EduSydLMS_PartA2.mpp. If there were any resource over-allocation issues, resolve these in this new EduSydLMS_PartA2.mpp without adding any additional resources. Save the "modified" version of EduSydLMS_PartA2.mpp.

a) If you had any resource over-allocation issues, was it possible to use Microsoft Project 2013 to resolve those issues? If so, explain how you did it.

b) In your Word document, list any activities that are now displayed as "critical".

c) Are there any impacts on the project duration and the end date as a result of resource constraints and resolving these issues? Explain.

d) Sometimes it is possible to resolve resource over-allocation issues by levelling within available slack. What impact does this have on your project schedule? (Hint: explain both advantages and disadvantages in your answer.)

4. As explained above, the Education Consultant will be assigned by the "customer". Except for tasks within activity 1, the customer needs advance notice of 5 working days before you require the involvement of this consultant. Answer the following questions based on your EduSydLMS_PartA2.mpp schedule:

a) Excluding any involvements in activity 1, according to the current schedule, what other dates would you expect the Educational Consultant to work on the project? Provide the WBS number and the dates in a table.

b) According to your schedule, when is the last date you need to give notice to the customer to request the availability of the consultant for activity 4?

c) Add a "milestone" as a reminder of the last date you need to give notice to the customer for activity 4. Highlight this new milestone in green in the task list, using the "background colour" icon on the task ribbon. This is milestone 10.

d) Are there any more resources that may be needed from the customer? What are these resources, and for what task/s? (Assume these resources will not cost to the project).

5. Write a memo to Mr. Rafael outlining:

a) the expected completion date of the project, assuming it commences at the start date given in the case scenario;

b) the total duration of the project;

c) an explanation of the main factors that cause the project to require that timeframe and any recommendations that you might make if time was a priority for the project;

d) the estimated direct labour cost of the project (excluding the cost of the Educational Consultant).

Assessment Part B

Mr. Rafael reviews your project schedule and requests that the System Analyst should be involved in the User Acceptance Testing (UAT) process. He has also asked you to reduce the time for Online User Manual development (3.4.4) to 4 days. Additionally, he wants to include the BA and SA to be available at the delivery of EduSydLMS version 1.0 to the customer (activity 5).

1. Create a copy of EduSydLMS_PartA2.mpp in another file called EduSydLMS_PartB.mpp. Amend the project schedule in EduSydLMS_PartB.mpp incorporating the requested changes from Mr. Rafael.

Highlight all the changes in blue (including changes to predecessor relationships in other tasks). This is to aid your marker.

If necessary, resolve any resource over-allocations (resolve if possible, explain the reasons if not). Submit this file (EduSydLMS_PartB.mpp) as a part of your assignment submission.

2. Describe any impact(s) of each of the following on the project schedule:

a. The addition of the System Analyst to the User Acceptance Testing.

b. Any changes in duration of Online User Manual development.

c. Addition of resources to EduSydLMS 1.0.

Explain your answers.

3. Describe any impact(s) of each of the following on the project budget:

a. The addition of the System Analyst to the User Acceptance Testing.

b. Any changes in duration of Online User Manual development (3.4.4).

c. Addition of resources to EduSydLMS 1.0

Explain your answers.