Project Management: 1350410

Introduction

Project management is an art that must be applied to every project being developed. The methodologies used in a project may differ from one to another, but the basis of every project follows the same guidelines set by globally recognized institutes like ISO (International organization for standardization). The project manager controls the flow of the project and is responsible for the success or failure of the project. The other basic responsibilities of the project manager include

  • Resource planning
  • Time management
  • Cost management
  • Quality management
  • Customer satisfaction
  • Project Procurement
  • Monitoring progress.

These are the basic responsibilities of the project manager which eventually leads to project success. The manager of the project plays an important role in this process, as he is responsible for the success or the failure of the project, he aims to delegate the tasks efficiently, oversee the entire project, manage the situations and strive to gather as much knowledge as he goes along with the project, always increasing the quality of the information. (Maylor, 2010)

In the next part of this project management, will be found the aims and objectives for the chosen scenario “do digital technologies improve the life or distract from it?”

Aims and objectives

The first aim of this project management is to find out if digital technology improves life or will distract from it. With the development of technology, it has become easier to complete a task in a matter of some clicks that can perform the task in a much efficient way. As technology improves with each passing day it has become more necessary than ever to perform our tasks with the help of modern techniques. This helps in making our life easier and raising the standards of our lives. If we look at these scenarios, then we can see that we have come a long way in terms of improving our lives with the help of digital technology. Now we can send messages or get in contact with someone in a matter of seconds. Health facilities have improved with the help of this digital technology.

The research will be done by close-ended questions as a questionnaire will be distributed on the social networks, that will focus on the different groups such as young people between the age of 18 and 35, late adulthood between the age of 35 and 55, elderly between the age of 55 and 75. Also, another research will be done based on gender to see which of the two groups are more likely to feel that their life is distracted rather than improved by the technology used. The questionnaire aims to find out what people think about the technology at different stages in their life if they think it’s imperative to have it daily or they can carry on without the technology.

Project objectives

The project management objective is to promote a healthy lifestyle and the interest is in the wellbeing of the population when using the technology. The main objective is to gather enough data that will give the business an advantage over their competitors, by finding out what are the main interest of the different groups when it comes to using technology. The objective of this project states the aspects, which this project is trying to achieve. The Objectives of this project can consider being SMART to get a better idea of the workflow of the project. These SMART objectives can be explained as (Bjerke & Renger, 2017)

  • Specific: The specific objective of this project is to get idea about the digital transformation to human life, which is the main focus of this study. This will integrate the digital technology into the areas of the business by changing the way to operate and deliver the value to the potential customers.
  • Measurable: The measurable objective of this project is to track the project of digital transformation, which will decide the completion of this study. This will create the persistence and desire for undertaking the change. This will implement the initiative and the value can be scaled. This will increase the return on investment by aiming the business value drivers.
  • Achievable: The achievable objective of this project is to promote the healthy lifestyle of the human being using the digital technology. By promoting the healthy life style, this will be able to achieve the value of the digital transformation
  • Realistic: The realistic goal of this project is to collect the real data from the users and analyze for getting adequate results for completing this study. By collecting the data, the project management will get an ideas in which the project can be conducted effectively.
  • Time bound / Timely: Timely objective of this project is to complete the project with much information within time and with proper analysis. By setting the time limit for any particular task, will assist the project to achieve the milestone and proceed with the following process of the project

Project management plan

A project manager must start with a plan for project management. This plan is set out the objectives of the project and helps the manager to achieve one by one every task that has been set up in the plan.

The plan will include costs, scope, quality, communication, time, risks, and resources. The plan is the process of the manager to monitor, execute, and control the project. (Baguley, 2008)

Project Costs

The cost plays an important role in project management, as this will establish what should be done to achieve the goals of the project. The costs can be limited in which case the research can be limited as well or can be sustained by redirecting the budgets of other projects to foresee this project without limitations. The manager of the project will set the budget which will remain the same until the end of the project, or it will be readjusted each time depending on the circumstances and time.

For this project the costs will be classified in the following ways:

(Patriot, 2019)

The cost of the project has been set with approximation, this being because of the fluctuation of the market and the prices that might arise.

ItemsUK
Rent2,000
Incentives10,000
Office expenses3,000
Training4,000
Publicity1,000
Advertising4,000
Employees15,000
Total39,000

Table: Project approximated cost

Project Scope

To complete the project successfully the manager has to consider the scope of the project. This scope includes project planning, development, testing, and design. To maintain the plan and the aims of the project, the scope is to avoid a drawback, by not making unnecessary changes such as changing the target market, taking a new plan or change the plan too often. Project Scope trade-off triangle has three basic entities in it. They are described in the below figure.

Fig: Trade-off Triangle

Project time

Every manager, when develops project management, will set a time scale that has to be achieved, this can occur because there is a specific time in which the market will help the project become reality or because it will increase the costs and will become unfeasible.

The critical path method (CPM) is a very important concept in project management. This helps the manager to map out the most important tasks in the project and based on them to estimate the completion date. The time of the project is a big factor contributing to the completion of the project on the pre-defined time. Each module must be given enough allocated time slots to complete it with all of its requirements. The project manager must consider the overall time of the project while being in the development of a single module.

Project quality

Project quality is the main objective that the manager must consider. The quality has to be maintained at a high level to receive quality results. As a project manager of this project, I will ensure that the time, resources, and decisions are used in the best interest of the company and I will maintain the quality at a high level.

Communication

To achieve great results from the teams, from the consumers and from the project itself, the manager has to acquire great communication skills. It is the most essential part of a plan or a project, meaning that the communication should be with everyone, formal, meaningful, and based on the information and of course, reliable.

Risks and resources

In any business there will be found a risk in a specific project, the risk is based mostly on the limitation of time, resources, misunderstandings, economic and political change. The project will also have resources that are a vital part of the project such as, experienced managers, manpower, investments, and positive attitudes.

Work breakdown structure (WBS)

There are five stages in project management, the first one is the project initiation, in which is measured the value and the feasibility of the project, the second stage is the project planning, in which the manager puts in place a solid plan to guide the team, manage the time and the budget.

The third stage is the project execution, which is the stage where the actual project management is starting. In this stage, the team leaders are allocating resources and keep the team members focused on the tasks, this phase is relying on the planning phase.

The fourth phase is project monitoring and control, to deliver what was promised, the teams must monitor the tasks, calculate key performance indicators, and track variations of cost and time.

The fifth stage is project closure, this is the phase where the teams close a project by delivering the finished product to the consumer and inform the stakeholders and releasing resources for other projects. (Villanova, 2019)

WBS Diagram

Establish Project Aims: Identify the tasks and estimate the cost of the project.

Scale Research: Collecting data and resources, identify the activities, developing a questionnaire.

Analise the Research: Measure how many people have answered the questionnaire.

Reflection on the project: Gather the results and measure the no of people who spent the time answering.

Gannt Chart

The tasks will be finished in the time stated in the Gantt chart and all the plan tasks will be accomplished according to the work breakdown.

Literature review

Digital life connects people to entertainment, education, knowledge, and other people anywhere in the world at any time in a frictionless and affordable manner. Digital technology has now become an essential part of tapping into the ever-widening array of science, safety, health, services, and tools in real-time (Hill, Betts and Gardner 2015). Digital technology revolutionizes the business, personal logistics, civic, and consumers opening up the world for the options and opportunities. Digital technology empowers the people for improving, reinventing, and advancing their lives by allowing the people for self-actualizing, making differences, and meeting the soul mates. The emerging tools will continue for expanding the focus and the quality of digital life.

Digital technology does more harm than helping humans. The cognitive capabilities of people can be changed in various ways, which will include the capability for creativity, mental resilience, memory, analytical thinking, and reflection (Giannini and Bowen 2016). The internet business can be organized around the dopamine-dosing tools, which are designed for hooking the people. The personal agency can be reduced. The pace of digital transmission and the structure of the internet can invite the ever-evolving risks to human security, interaction, privacy, jobs, democracy, and more.

By following the potential remedies, the issues can be solved. The societies may revise the human institution structure and tech arrangements, including the goals, design, processes, and composition (Hermsen et al. 2016). Things may change by reconfiguring the software and hardware for improving human-centered performance as well as exploiting tools such as Mixed Reality, Virtual Reality, Artificial Intelligence, and Augmented Reality. The industries and the government must create the reforms by the agreements on the guidelines, standards, passage of rules and laws as codes of conduct. Educating the people of all ages about the consequences of digital technology on the well-being as well as the functions of tech systems and encourage the proper health uses. The coevolution of human technology comes at the price and digital technology is not different in the 21st century. People should adjust and evolve gradually to digital changes.

The internet can be very helpful rather than harming the well-being of the people as this breaks down all the barriers and support the people in their objectives and goals (Reis et al.2018). A lot of disruption can be seen in today’s world that is caused by such feature as the organizations and the people act out the number of the less desired objectives and ambitions, greed, intolerance, criminality, and racism have lurked underneath the surface as well as this is no surprise for seeing them on the surface. Bu the huge number of the objectives and aims of the people are not noble and the people are desiring for being educated, for communicating with the other people, for sharing the experiences, for creating the culture, commerce, and enterprise network. These all are supported by digital technology and might not be as disruptive and visible as less-desirable ambitions.

A vast amount of work is done in this specific field to resolve the issues of the users. Many organizations and startups tried to fill this gap between user easiness and the efficiency of the project. Computerized interventions are getting progressively famous for the improved prosperity in associations because of their cost-adequacy, their capability to arrive at a bigger number of people, and their capacity to offer more noteworthy obscurity and disgrace decrease contrasted with conventional up close and personal gathering based intercessions. There is significant proof of the effect of poor prosperity in the work environment on people and associations, which clarifies the requirement for the turn of events and assessment of such intercessions.

The framework is at present running however with certain imperfections close by. The current framework is cumbersome, clogged, and not all that easy to understand as it ought to have been. The new clients get occupied by such a significant number of things on the landing page and the sponsorship content that is being appeared on the landing page with all the movement booking indicated districts. As indicated by us, this isn’t a perfect method to invite the new clients who are coming to be related to your framework. (Svejvig & Andersen, 2015)

The UI of the created project is kept insignificant purposefully. The explanation behind doing that is because in past tasks the interface was jumbled to the point that lone experienced clients had the option to associate themselves with the framework. This had its issues as the system was just advantageous enough for the youthful age gathering and was for the most part utilized by them as well. An entire age bunch was feeling the loss of the office of this framework as they did not know about the use of the project.

Research Methodology

The research methodology is a systematic way of solving the problem. This is the science to study about the project or the research, which is for being carried out. The processes, by which the researchers go for their project to predict, explain, and describe the phenomena, which are considered as the research methodology (Taherdoost 2016). The research methodology is the process of gaining knowledge and information. This aims to provide the work plan of the research and this is significant for the researcher for designing the methodology for chosen problems and issues. The researcher must note that if the methods are considered into two problems the methodology will be different for those two problems. This is very vital for the researcher to understand that the research methods and the research methodology both are important for the research.

Quantitative research

Quantitative research is done for the systematic investigation of the system by collecting quantifiable information about methods, techniques, and other variables that may be used in a process. This research is done using different methods such as surveys, observation, focus groups, and questionnaires. The questionnaire prepared is based on 7 questions that will determine if digital technology improves life or distract from it. (Cavana, Delahaye, & Sekeran, 2001)(Glesne, 2016)

This research is performed to find the behavior, attitude, and opinions about the project and make a decision from reviews of a general population of a bigger scale. The basic goal is to understand the link between the dependent variable of the project and the independent variable of the project that relates to the general users.

Questionnaire

  1. How many hours a day are you spending using a laptop computer?
  2. How many hours a day are you spending looking at your phone?
  3. Are you using your computer to run your business?
  4. Do you think that today’s technology information has a positive or negative effect on relationships?
  5. Do you use your phone when you are having dinner with family?
  6. Do you ever experience a headache after using a computer or mobile phone for a long time?
  7. What type of laptop do you currently use?

These questionnaires will provide a brief overview of the user requirements and the expectations that they may have from the system that is being developed. It gives the project manager an idea about how the requirements should be processed for a better quality product.

Qualitative research

Qualitative research is performed to that relies on the non-numerical data as well as unstructured data. This is done to find the underlying reasons and motivations that led to the development of the project in the first place. With the help of qualitative research, one can easily identify the problem statement, the possible solution for this problem, and the hypothesis for future research that may be required for the completion of the project. (Glesne, 2016)

Qualitative research is used mainly to find out the people and customer preferences and their insights. The qualitative research will show to the company how people view the company, what they like and dislike, what would they change and why are they choosing different companies.

In the following section, there will be a few questions that a manager would ask the customers and noncustomers of the company.

  1. Do you think the people of the UK are dependent on technology?
  2. Is the company able to build a better social media platform?
  3. Does the company meet the expectation of the public? (Attest, 2017)

These questions will provide a better insight into a problem, its solution, and the potential research that may be required in the future.

Finding

After conducting the survey with the help of the questionnaires we have found that a lot of people were not happy with the system that was previously being used. People were still using it because they did not have any alternative options to go with. In our survey, we reached 21 people and got a response from 14 people 71.4% of these people are spending more than one hour using a laptop to navigate the internet, while only 42.9% are using the computer to run their own business. The most used social media application is Facebook (all 14 persons use this application), while only 2 of them are using Twitter.

Question 1: How many hours a day are you spending using a laptop computer?

71.4% of people among all participants spend 1 hour using the computer or laptop, where 21.4% of people spend 2 hours using the computer or laptop and the rest people of the participants use computers or laptops for 3 hours a day. 

Question 2: How many hours a day are you spending using a tablet?

From the total participants, 78.6% of people have answered that they use tablets for 1 hour a day on average and 21.4% of people spend 2 hours using their tablets. Most of the people do not use tablets for much time because this is not handy and cannot be used for all time. Where mobile phones are very handy and can be used anytime very easily. That is why people do not prefer using tablets for much time. 

Question 3: How many hours a day are you spending looking at your phone?

42.9% people have answered that they spend maximum 2 hours looking at their phones, whereas 28.6% people spend 3 hours looking at their phones, 21.4% people spend 1 hour looking at their phones and rest of the participants spend 5 hours on average, in which most are the young school or college going student who gets much time to use their phones.

Question 4: How many hours a day are you watching TV shows?

85.7% of people among the total participants answered that they watch TV shows for 1 hour whereas 14.3% of people watch TV shows for 2 hours a day. Nowadays people have become busier and fast forward to growing their business and to earn for getting a comfortable life, they get very little time to watch TV shows. 

Question 5: Are you using your computer to run your business?

From all participants, 57.1% of people do not use the computer for their business as many businesses are still running with the manual business process. 42.9% of people use computers for the business purpose of advancing and developing their business in the advance and competitive market. The business with the manual process also start using the computer in their business as the use of computer will help them to complete their task in less time and very easily. 

Question 6: Are you using any of these applications (Facebook, Twitter, Skype, YouTube, LinkedIn, Instagram)?

All the participants of this survey answered that they use Facebook as Facebook has now become the world’s largest social networking website. Whereas 64.3% of the total participants use Instagram, 35.7% of people use LinkedIn and YouTube and 21.4% of people use Skype and 14.3% of people use Twitter nowadays. 

Question 7: Do you think that today’s technology information has a positive or negative effect on relationships?

57.1% of participants answered that technology has the positive impact on relationships as the people are now able to communicate, chat and talk, video call with other people such as their family members, friends or other mates anytime anywhere, which is creating the positive impact on the people as technology is providing them multiple opportunities to connect with the near and dear ones. Whereas 42.9% of people have answered that technology creates a negative impact on relationships such as using mobile phones may decrease the value of the near person. 

Question 8: Do you use your phone when you are having dinner with your family?

From the participants, 57.1% of people which is 8 people answered that they never use phones while having dinner with family but 42.95 people answered that they use mobile phones while having dinner, which is a bad habit which is being created by using the smart or digital devices. 

Question 9: Do you ever experience a headache after using a computer or mobile phone for a long time?

Of the total participants, 71.49% of people answered that they never experience a headache after using the mobile or computer for a long time. This is because now day’s maximum people are habituated with using laptops or mobile phones for a long time maybe for their work or their personal use. From the participants, 28.6% of people answered that they always experience a headache after long use of mobile or computer as they are not habituated by using smart devices or the long use of smart devices is affecting their health. 

Question 10: What type of laptop do you currently use? (Windows, MAC, Linux)

Of the total participants of this survey, 85.7% of people use Windows laptops and 21.4% of participants use MAC laptops. A maximum number of people use the Windows laptop or computer as Windows is much affordable than the MAC system.

Question 11: What is your gender?

In the survey, 50% of participants were male, and the rest 50% of participants were female. 

Question 12: What is your age?

The participants were from the age group of 18 to 45, in which 42.9% were from 24 to 36 age group, 35.7% were from age group 18 to 24 and 21.4% were from 36 to 45 age group. 

Discussion of finding 

From the survey, this can be said that digital transformation is changing the expectation of the people as well as the government for deliver the real time and the high value digital services. In response to their changing expectations, the government and the organization are keen to change the operation mode for improving the public services for being more effective and efficient in the design as well as achieve the objectives like citizen satisfaction, increased transparency and interoperability. From the survey, this can be find that a systematic insight is there into the way where the public are defining digital transformation currently in their own way with their daily practices. The Findings of the survey also indicated that people would prefer those products developed on international standards rather than those who are not based on any standardized module. Even though non-standard project usually provides more facilities as they are developed without a proper flow and their only goal is to earn the attention of the user and get monetary benefits from it. These findings helped us developing the project more carefully and by keeping user requirements and the scope of the project in mind.

Conclusion

The project is completed according to international standards and user requirements. Each module of the project was integrated after being developed to see the compatibility of the whole system. The testing was performed in the form of Integration testing and user testing. This gives us a better idea about what requirements are fulfilled and other changes can still be developed, and which module specifically needs more attention. This application is created to improve the client’s integration with the project and give better facilities to the client as in the past. Although the past working projects were working superbly yet just a particular class of individuals had the option to utilize it as it has numerous blemishes in it. The questionnaires gave us a brief idea about what the final product should look like. This computing project will lay down the base for the projects that will be developed related to this field.

Reflection

By doing this study, I became able to gain much knowledge about digital technology and the impact on the well-being of human life. From this research, I understood that for achieving success, productivity, and efficiency in the business, digital technology is very essential. It has helped me to improve the ability to communicate, collaborate, manage the content, access to the social networking websites as well as the analytics data, and this has improved my experiences with the other staffs or team members as well as any client. This research has provided me the better knowledge about the requirements and the changes in the development due to the digital technology and how this is changing the human’s life.

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