Reference no: EM131055445

Assignment: Software Project Management

Module Learning Objectives:

• Understand phases of projects
• Understand the estimation processes and their importance
• Develop project management planning documents.
• Use MS Project software as tool to create Gantt Chart and network diagram
• Monitor and control the project

Part 1: Initiation

Scenario

Toys4U is a small business selling toys in your local area. However, the business has grown to a greater extent in the last five years. Number of employees has been increased from 25 to 100 in the last 5 years and the turnover from £100k to £500k. It has been planned to open four additional branches next year. Part of the reason for the company's success has been their strong work culture.

The company's founders wanted to focus on using information technology and innovation to improve sales further. The current system works fairly well, however, only offline as the company does not have presence online. This is a major disadvantage for the company and hence the founder, John believes in e-commerce and wants to go online. After several weeks of consultations with his senior staff, John decided to implement a system for online sales to increase the business further and is ready to invest substantially. Davis, the head of Toys4U IT department, which looks after their local network of computers, printers etc., is very optimistic that his IT department can setup and provide the necessary IT infrastructure. However, he is also aware of many solutions like outsourcing the whole system development and SasS (Software as Service) and HasS (Hardware as Service), which are part of cloud computing.

Tasks

1. Write a short report by critically evaluating the advantages and disadvantages of outsourcing of software development.

2. Assuming Toys4U decides to go for cloud computing services for both hardware and software, what advantages and disadvantages would they have? Briefly research the cloud computing and list at least three leaders in providing these services.

3. After spending several weeks on outsourcing and cloud computing, John decided to outsource this project and has been awarded to your company, where you have been working for the last two years as a analyst programmer. Assume that you have been assigned to work on this ecommerce project. You are part of a team to define skill requirements for the project manager for this project. You would actually like to get the project manager position. Write a short job description for this person, including a description of job duties, required experience, education, and desired skills.

4. Near accurate time and cost estimation are extremely important for any project to be successful. Assuming you have been asked to estimate the cost and time for this project, critically evaluate the applicability and suitability of different type of estimation methods.

5. Prepare a project charter for this Project. Assume the project will take six months to complete and cost about £80,000. Use the project charter template provided on the student Portal.

Part 2: Planning

Scenario

You have an important role to play as a team member of this project and should finish it successfully within budget and on time, not compromising any functional requirements for a typical e-commerce website. You promote the idea of working with highly talented and motivated individuals who can work well on self-managed teams.

After several consultations with John and staff at Toys4U over 8 weeks, several functional and non-functional requirements have been identified and documented. These requirements have to be analysed and a solution has to be designed, implemented, tested and deployed. Some non-functional requirements like online security have become very important as online fraud has become very sophisticated.

Some of the functional requirements are, customers should be able to order several toys over the Internet, receive them via express mail, return via express mail, cancel the order before it has been dispatched, edit the delivery address, automatic email generation to confirm the order. Several companies already provide this kind of service. Market research and corporate values suggested your company focus on educational and sports-related toys in addition to general merchandise toys. You also plan to serve an international market, providing information on products in several different languages. This system must be very user-friendly, providing customers, the ability to search for specific toys, by different categories, age, gender appropriateness, customer reviews, sport (for sports-related toy), language, and so on. Registered customers must be able to track delivery and return of toys, pay online or via other payment methods (including credit card or bank payments, cheque, PayPal etc.), and provide reviews of their online experience with Toys4U customer services. The system must also be able to track referrals to the site from corporate partners and customer referrals, display advertisements and track customer usage patterns.

Tasks

6. Research similar Web-based applications. Based on the scenario description about similar Web sites, and your personal opinions, summarise what you believe are the main functions this system should provide. Rate the functions as mandatory, optional, and nice-to-have. Also provide an initial assessment of how difficult it would be to provide each function. Write your results in a short report, citing important references.

7. Prepare a weighted decision matrix using the template provided on portal to evaluate the functions you identified above in task 6. Develop at least four criteria, assign weights to each criterion, assign scores, and then calculate the weighted scores for each function and prepare the spreadsheet and bar chart with the results. Write a short report describing this weighted decision matrix and what the results show.

8. Write a short report describing your "dream team" for this project. What type of people would you want on your team? Make up names, backgrounds, and personality traits for your dream team. Assume you are considering having four full-time people and four people working 25 percent of their time on your team.

9. Prepare a stakeholder analysis for this project, using the template provided on portal. Be creative in making up information about stakeholders.

10. Develop a work breakdown structure (WBS) for the project. Break down the work to level 2 or level 3, as appropriate. In addition to the functional requirements listed in the scenario above, you can add suitable additional functionality as well.

11. Use the WBS you developed in the above step to create a Gantt chart and network diagram in MS Project or any similar software. Estimate task durations and enter dependencies, as appropriate, and include several milestones.

12. Identify any major risks that could affect the delivery of the project or cause to exceed the project budget, time scale or increase the required resource. Construct a risk assessment table that will rate the impact of each risk that you identify.

Part 3: Execution

Scenario

Your project has been going well until now with no major challenges and your team is proud of it. It has been two months into the project since it has started, and you have another four months to go. One of the key staff members, Bill met with an accident and has been advised to take bed rest at least for four months. This is a big setback for you as you cannot afford to lose even a single staff.

Tasks

13. How can the above unfortunate situation with Bill be solved? Write a short report with several alternatives and suggestions to meet up with John.

14. Prepare a monthly progress report and a five to ten slide presentation that you could use as part of your monthly progress presentation to senior management. Be sure to address key issues and not hide important information from senior management.

15. Prepare a milestone report for the project based on information in your Gantt chart. Add additional milestones, if needed, to make the report more meaningful. Use the milestone report template on portal.

Part 4: Controlling

Scenario

Due to economic recession, John could not promise any extra funds to hire or replace Bill and his own work is being piled up. Three months into the project, your project manager and your team are very concerned about the progress of the project. After reviewing the progress, it has been decided to have a series of bi-monthly meetings with all affected staff.

Tasks

16. You have been asked to chair these meetings and send a memo to all employees emphasizing their commitment and the strategic importance of this project to making it a success. Draft a short memo to this effect.

17. After the first bi-monthly meeting and consultations with business experts, you have convinced John that the only way to finish project successfully is to compromise scope by having only absolute essential functionality. Critically evaluate what functionality and/or features can be compromised.

18. Update your Gantt chart to reflect the above changes and include critical path analysis.

Part 5: Closing

Scenario

Its one week before your final project presentation. You have been successful in meeting time and cost deadlines. However, scope had to be compromised. You have been really helpful in making this project a success. Your project manager has recognized your project management skills and is recommending you to be a project manager for the next project, which is starting soon.

Tasks

19. Prepare a short presentation with ten to fifteen slides that you could use at the final project presentation to summarize the results of the project. Assume that you have fifteen to twenty minutes to give the presentation. Highlight the main challenges, actions taken, and results of the project.

20. Prepare a lessons-learned report for the entire project. Include input from all stakeholders in summarizing the lessons learned. Use the template provided on portal.