Assessment details for ALL students
Assessment item 2— Individual case study
Due date:
1:00 PM AEST, Thursday of Week 11
Weighting:
35%
All students are to submit electronically – max file size
is 2Mb.

Length:
No set length – (This will vary depending on activities
chosen, the sequencing of these activities and the
choice of project management software.)

Introduction and Student Guide
This assessment item is to be completed individually.
The case study simulates a project management scenario where the student takes on the role of
project manager. Students are required to use project management software as part of this
assessment task. 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.
If necessary, students are expected to find relevant information in the academic literature to justify
their answers.
To assist students in their assessment solution development the following information is provided:

• Case description
• Specific assessment questions that must be answered
• Information regarding the submission of the assessment
• Marking guide
ASSESSMENT
2
Big Time Corporation Case Description
Background
Big Time is a corporation that was formed to merge the offerings of three different financial
institutions. Each of the three financial institutions being merged already had systems that
complied with legislative requirements and had systems that supported the requirements
through databases with web interfaces allowing access to investors. The new corporation is
quite large, with approximately 700,000 investors. Given its size, it is not surprising that there
are a diverse range of investors. Some of the investors hardly ever bother checking on their
investments, while others are quite sophisticated and monitor them regularly, engaging in
regular trading.

The Chief Executive of the Big Time (Bill White) recognised that the future of the
corporation depended very heavily on the development of the new financial system. He gave
considerable thought to the appointment of the project manager for the development of this
system. On the one hand, it was recognised that someone from inside one of the old
corporations would certainly know the jargon and the requirements, but an appointment from
within would bring with it some internal political risks. The decision was therefore made to
involve a recruiting agency to handle the appointment of the project manager. It was expected
that the recruiting agency would engage in head hunting to ensure a project manager with an
appropriate depth of experience in merging corporations and also with the
appropriatetechnical background.

After a month, the appointment of Peter Black as Project Manager was announced. Black
recognised the difficulty of the task. So he decided to call a meeting with the three
Information Systems Managers. At the meeting it was quickly apparent that although all three
had stated they were willing to be cooperative and assured Black their staff would be treated
the same, Black recognised that each was trying to arrange the situation so that their systems
and staff would be preferred. It also became apparent that each corporation had used different
standards within the database and had different programming standards.

At the end of the meeting Black simply indicated he would give further thought to what had
been said. However, he felt very uneasy about the way each Information Systems Manager
had wanted to “push their own position”, rather than focussing on the requirements of the
new corporation. He knew that if the problem existed at this level, then the remainder of the
Information Technology staff could easily engage in the same approach.

Black thought it would be good idea to consult with the Chief Executive Officer about the
problem with the Information Systems Managers. He also wanted to explore the recruitment
of the development team that would be necessary for the project. From his vast experience
Black knew a consultant might be able to help. He floated this idea with Bill White and
mentioned that he had previously used Yellow as a consultant in a similar situation and that
Yellow had been able to resolve the problems. He was aware that Yellow would not be
available for two weeks. Black also raised the recruitment of other staff for the project.
White then explained to Black that all appointments for the project should be made through
the Human Resource Department. He also stressed that one of the conditions of the merger
was that existing staff would be given priority in appointments and clearly this included the
Information Technology staff. This meant that initially he indicated that he could not give
approval to calling in a consultant unless there was some particular problem that could not be
resolved by any appointee. Black then questioned “Well what about other staff such as
involvement of key users such as marketing, secretarial and the like?” “Well these are in
exactly the same situation. Let me make it clearer. All appointments must be offered
internally first and only if no suitable applicants can be found, and I think this is highly
unlikely, will we go external to recruit.” “That’s fine. I am glad that Big Time has such
confidence in the staff.” Black replied. “But could you issue a statement about the project and
what is hoped to be achieved. Likewise, could you inform staff in management positions that
there will be a need for staff to be released for the project in a timely manner? At the same
time, could you stress the importance of cooperation as the project team takes the steps to
combine the data in the three databases into one and then later arrange training for
the new system?” White agreed to these requests. He indicated he would arrange for his staff
to develop the statements with Black and then they would be issued under his signature.
Just as Black was leaving, White commented, “Now don’t forget. We have a new
organisation. Whatever form the new system takes, it will have to reflect we are a new
organisation and must tie in with other marketing efforts proposed. Also, please make sure
the system is easy to use for investors – you know so the system leads them and stops them
from attempting things in the wrong places.” Black thought White was attempting to describe
the system as context sensitive, but did not bother attempting to clarify the matter. He could
leave that to the analysts and designers to sort out during the project. As Black left, he felt
that at least some of the ground rules were starting to get sorted out.

At this stage Black knew he would have to apply his mind to the development of the new
system, taking into account the comments of the White had made in their meeting. At the
same time, Black started giving some thought to the various activities that would be
necessary for the project and how they might be sequenced,  the resources required and
duration necessary for the activities.

After a week Black finalised a draft organisation report. The chart showed that there would
be a need for several sections. Initially he thought he would have these groups report to
himself, but if necessary, this could be refined as the project progressed. He therefore
arranged a meeting with the Human Resources Manager (Jenny Blue) to proceed with
appointments at this top level. Black had heard good reports about Blue and how she was
very competent. Blue offered the opinion that she thought the chart looked reasonable. She
also expressed the opinion that in line with Big Time’s policies, it would be necessary to have
Position Descriptions for each of the positions required for the project. She therefore
proposed that position descriptions be developed for the section leaders and that after their
appointment, they should become involved in the recruitment of the staff for their respective
sections.

Blue assigned Katie Green to coordinate the development of the Position Descriptions for the
section leaders. The development took two weeks. All positions were advertised internally
and left open for three weeks. The appointment process of interviews through to acceptance
of appointments took another three weeks. However, it was another week before all the
people appointed could be released from their current positions and take up the new
appointment.

The following people were appointed as section heads:

Section Person Appointed

Section Person Appointed
Operations Peter Smith
Analysts Helen Jones
Database Patricia Hoffer
Programmers (including some who
specialised in web design)
Shaun Grauer

Telecommunications Paul Stamford
Privacy and Security Penny Cooper
Key users Colin Butcher
Conversion team Tammy Baker

Black met them individually and then as a group. He explained the importance of the new
system and how he believed that for it to be successful it would not only require cooperation
and harmony within the team, but also from existing staff looking after the legacy systems.
He also shared the preliminary details of the project that he had developed. He asked them to
take it away and come back to the next project meeting in two weeks time with their
comments. Assume that this next project meeting is to be held on Friday 20/4/12. We will
refer to it as the 20/4 meeting in the remainder of this document. He also asked that in the
meantime they start working with Green on any position descriptions and appointments
necessary for their work area.

Assume that the project will now proceed as described below.

Smith quickly recognised that at this stage, the computing facilities within Big Time would
not be sufficient for the development of the system or for the final production system. He
consulted the Operation staff from the three corporations to get a clear picture of the
equipment and software they currently in use. At the same time, the operation staff provided
Smith with some statistics on the processing that occurred within the servers at the each site.
However, he still he did not know exactly what computing requirements were required for
Big Time. He therefore proposed a two-stage approach. In the first stage they would acquire a
server with ample capacity for the development of the system and in the second stage they
would go forward with a second server to be used when the system was in production.  The
information required to develop the request for the quotation for the first server would be
available after the analysis task. . The information required to develop the request for the
quotation for the second server (i.e. for the production system) would be available after the
development of the training release. The first server would be capable of providing additional
capacity in the final system. Peter Smith did not require additional staff to help him with the
tasks in his area.

For the first stage server, the following activities are required:

Preparation of request for quotation for
server
Period quotation open 3 weeks
Acceptance of quotation 2 weeks
Lead time for delivery  4 weeks
Installation matters (installing, operating
system, security)
2 weeks
2 weeks
Tammy Baker will be responsible for installation of both servers.

For the second stage server to be ordered and installed the following activities are required.
These activities can commence after the program design activities are completed.

Preparation of request for quotation for
server
Period quotation open 3 weeks
Acceptance of quotation 2 weeks
Lead time for delivery  4 weeks
Installation matters (installing, operating
system, security)
2 weeks
2 weeks

The second server must be installed and working with the new software before the conversion
to the new system takes place at any of the corporations. Training with the training release
can take place before the second server has been installed.

In the 2 weeks leading up to the “20/4 meeting”, Jones met with  the Chief Executive Officer,
marketing staff of Big Time and some key users from the three corporations. She also
appointed an additional 2 analysts (from internal staff) to help her with the more detailed
analysis and design tasks. They were to be available to start work after the “20/4 meeting”. At
the meeting the following feedback was received from the section leaders:

Jones reported that the details provided by the Chief Executive Officer had been very helpful.
She found that the marketing staff were enthusiastic about the development of the new
system. As well as being able to satisfy new marketing requirements, she reported that given
the level of cooperation, she was confident that some new efficiencies could be provided by
the new system. However, at this stage she could not provide more specific details of
requirements.

Butcher said he agreed with those comments. Baker expressed the view that there would need
to be provision for staff to be trained with a version of the proposed system that looked and
felt the same as that which would go into production.  Baker mentioned that she had attended
the meetings with Jones, the CEO, marketing staff and users. She had given consideration to
the conversion effort, but until the requirements were a little more specific, she could not
comment on the effort required.

Hoffer reported she had been able to discuss the structure of the databases with the
Information Systems Managers and also their Database staff. Following some spirited
discussion, they had agreed to develop new standards that would apply to the structure of the
Big Time’s proposed database. They agreed it was a unique opportunity to start with a clean
slate and come up with the ideal set of standards. Not altogether unexpectedly, there were
some good ideas in each of the standards that applied in the old corporations’ databases.
However, as it was some time since each of the old corporations had reviewed their standards
and in the meantime there had been new developments in software, it was necessary to define
some new standards that were not present in any of the old corporations. She estimated it
would take about a month (4 weeks)  for the new standards to be finally approved and
documented. Hoffer  took responsibility for producing the documentation and development of
the training database to be used with the training system and for testing. She did not require
additional staff for these tasks.

Grauer reported that he had arranged a meeting with the programmers. There was not one set
of standards that could simply be picked up and used in Big Time. Nevertheless the spirit of
the meeting was such that he thought there would be no difficulty in producing a new set of
programming standards and these should also be ready in a month.

In the brief report on Telecommunications, Stamford said that he had received a big surprise.
He found that all three old corporations were using the same Telecommunications Company.
He expressed confidence that although the existing contracts were not due to expire for some
time, he expected to be able to negotiate with the Telecommunications Company to cancel
the existing contracts and create a new contract for Big Time. He thought that the
negotiations would take about two months to complete (8 weeks). He also mentioned that
given the speed of the connection required for the new system, it would take about two
months   to complete the installation and testing of the telecommunications required. This
could only be started after the creation of the new contract. The installation of the final
system at each of the corporations should not take place until the telecommunication tasks are
complete. Stamford indicated that he did not require any additional staff to assist with the
telecommunications tasks.

Cooper reported to the meeting that she had reviewed the security of the other three
corporations and found they were reasonably strong. She explained, “I expected this. After
all, the systems are open to the public and the corporations cannot afford to have a breach of
security or privacy when they are dealing with peoples’ investments.” She proposed to work
in conjunction with the other members of the project team to develop a multi-layered security
approach. At the same time, she recognised that the system would still have to be easy for
investors to use. The security activities would require 12 weeks of her time at 20% over the
software development stage. This would allow her to develop the security layers required.
This work should commence at the same time as the software development, i.e. after the
design task has been completed, the software standards documented  and when the
development server has been installed. Final testing of the security layers is to be carried out
using the training system. It was estimated that this testing would take a further 2 weeks at
100% of her time. The testing of the security system must be completed before the new
software is installed at any of the corporations. Cooper indicated that no other staff would be
required for the security tasks. However, she indicated that she may need to consult and
coordinate activities with the other developers on the project.

After the “20/4 meeting”, Jones and her team were given three months to perform the more
detailed analysis and a further 3 months to perform the design before the programming tasks
were to commence.

The programming tasks identified were as follows. For the purposes of this assignment you
can assume that you were given these estimates on the 20/4 and these are the programming
tasks and estimates that you should use while developing your schedule.

Program Program Function Estimated Time for Coding
(for 1 programmer)
A Database Extract programs
(one required
for each corporation)
B Database Upload program for
new BigTime database
C Daily update share and unit
prices
program
D Investor reports display
program
E Investor PDF print program 2 weeks
F Investor excel spreadsheet
8 weeks  for each corporation
6 weeks
4 weeks
2 weeks
program
2 weeks
G Unit prices history reports
program
H Unit performance report
program
I Margin loan simulation
program
J Investor Taxation statement
program
K Investor Transaction history
program
L Investor portfolio
program(including new
investments, sale of old
investments)

M Investor Personal detail
maintenance
program
N Investor Cash Receipts and
Advances Program
0 News update program 2 weeks

2 weeks
2 weeks
2 weeks
2 weeks
2 weeks
6 weeks
2 weeks
2 weeks
It was estimated that testing of the programs would take about half of the time it took to code
them. You can assume that three programming staff will be available to carry out the coding
and testing and that the above estimates include time for interface development and web
development. Grauer and three programmers appointed to the project are responsible for
working on the development and testing of the programs.

In addition, Patricia would develop the small database system to be used for testing the
software and to be used with the training system. It was estimated that this would take 4
weeks to develop and that the task could be started after the design task and after the database
standards were documented. The development of this database is a predecessor for testing all
the software.

When all the software (A to O) is developed and tested, a training release can be made
available for training purposes. It was estimated that it would take Grauer and one member of
the programming team 2 weeks to create and test the training release.

It was also decided that the conversion to the new system would be phased in after the new
system was developed and tested. Each conversion would be carried out after all the staff for
that “old corporation” had undergone training with the training version of the system.

With regard to training, assume that each member of staff must undergo 2 weeks of training
and that the training will be carried out in groups of 20. Assume that there is only one trainer
and that the trainer will finish training all staff at one corporation before starting the training
at the next corporation.

Old Corporation Number of staff requiring training
One  160
Two 140
Three 200

It was also agreed that training and conversion at the second corporation would be one month
after the conversion of the first corporations. If any changes were found to be necessary as a
result of that review, the changes identified would be made before training and conversion
commenced at the second corporation. Assume that training and conversion at the third
corporation can take place as soon as possible after training and conversion at the second
corporation. In your part A schedule you can assume that no changes are required and that
training and conversion can take place at the second corporation as soon as the first month of
usage at the first corporation is complete.

The conversion team would consist of Tammy and three other staff. It is estimated that the 4
members of the conversion team will require 2 days to complete a conversion.
Additional Information

• The following public holidays are to be observed in Queensland for 2012: January 2 –
New Year’s Day; January 26 – Australia Day; 6 April – Good Friday; 7 April – Easter
Monday;  9 April – Easter Monday; 25 April – Anzac Day; 7 May – Labour Day; 11
June – Queens Birthday; August 15 – Royal Queensland Show; 25 December –
Christmas Day; 26 December – Boxing Day.
• Assume that work carried out by staff and contractors will be on an eight hour day
working Monday to Friday (except public holidays)

You may need to make some additional assumptions to complete your schedule. Make
sure that you list any assumptions you make at the beginning of your assignment
submission.

Part A Questions

1. Use Microsoft Project to develop the project schedule
a. Your schedule should start after the 20/4 meeting (i.e. commence your project
schedule on Monday 23/4/12).
b. Make sure that you use appropriate indentation to clearly show the WBS.
You
must also have an appropriate project name at the top of the task list and indent all the
tasks below this heading.

c. Include the resource allocation details on the schedule.
d. Resolve any resource allocation issues. Assume that
i. The project is constrained to the resources listed above.
ii. No splitting of activities is allowed.
iii. No partial assignments is allowed (i.e. all resources must be assignment
100%).
2. In this question you must identify the critical path in your schedule.
a. The critical path must be highlighted on your project schedule (i.e. in the .mpp file).
b. List the tasks on the critical path in your answer to this question in the Word
document.
3. Write a memo to Mr. White outlining:
a. the expected completion date of the project, assuming it commences on 24/4/12;
b. the duration of the project (from 24/4/12 until all 3 corporations are using the new
system);
c. the factors that cause the project to require the estimated length of time.
4. Suppose that there were no constraints with respect to budget or resources, is there any way
that the overall duration of the project can be shortened without removing any tasks or
reducing quality? (Justify your answer. Be specific and describe any tasks that you would
target, why you would select those tasks, what you might do to reduce their length and how
this would impact on the length of the project. Discuss any other impact that the change might
have on your project.)
5.
Assume you have been appointed as Project manager.
a.
Are there any project tasks/activities that have been overlooked and if so, what
are they?
b.
Are there any additional project management tasks/planning that should be
carried out, but have not been discussed in this specification? (If so, describe
them.)
6.
What is required to allow all necessary communication to occur within the project and
what part should the project manager play in this?
7. This question relates to risk management.
a. Describe in general terms how the project manager should manage risk throughout
the project.
b. Identify at least two risks for this project and how they might be managed.
8. Describe, in general terms, how the project manager should ensure that the project will meet
its objectives.

Part B

After the conversion of the first corporation, when the first Margin Loan statements were
produced, Big Time advised its clients of the new system. At the end of the first month, they
sought feedback. The Margin Loan clients provided Big Time with some as follows:

The clients expressed the need for the statement to include the date on the statement. Big
Time staff quickly realised that this was an oversight. They recognised that clients could be
looking at statements that were not current, simply because of the parameters chosen within
the Internet browser. It was critical for clients to know the statement was current particularly
if the client was close to a margin call. Grauer told Black this was a simple change and the
changes would be in production within two weeks.

Clients also told Big Time that in addition to knowing the amount of money before a Margin
Call would apply, they preferred to also know the percentage. Grauer told Black that all the
numbers required to produce this were already available within the program. It would only be
necessary to include the formulae and do the necessary calculations. He thought this would
only take one week.

Since these were relatively minor, Black authorised these changes to Programs D and E to
become effective immediately.

Big Time also received some additional requests, which were not quite so simple. Margin
Loan clients can provide security from third parties to allow them access to a margin Loan.
Some had a mixture of their own securities and third party securities. The clients asked that
Big Time separate out these different parts within the statement

The clients also told Big Time that they appreciated the statements being made available in
PDF format. However, they wanted this to include a facility to be able to print statements
retrospectively. They told Big Time that although Big Time did send the statements out, often
they were not received until the second week or third week of the month. Many clients
expressed the need for them earlier than that. They also told Big Time that sometimes they
misplaced them and they would like to simply reprint any statement within the last financial
year.

Black consulted Grauer and Hoffer about these matters. Grauer told Black he could not
program the first request to separate out the different categories at present, because the
database did not provide an indicator to separate the categories of security. Hoffer confirmed
this and advised it would take two weeks to arrange the restructure of the database.

Grauer told Black and Hoffer that these changes were much more complex to program. He
told them that allowing the statement to be parameter driven could mean that clients were
asking for a statement that did not include current investments. So the program would have to
analyse all investments and see if they were part of the portfolio at the time the statement was
required. Similarly the program would have to separate out where the security came from
before it could proceed to produce the statement. So he justified that the changes to programs
D and E would take six weeks each to code.

Before proceeding, Black decided to check the marketing staff for their opinion on the
desirability of the changes. They told Black that they had simply overlooked the separation of
the security on the statement. They also told Black that they were aware that client’s section
often produced the statements requested by client by hand, so having it available would be
beneficial.

On the basis of the above feedback, Black decided to proceed with the changes straight away
and requested they be put into production as soon as possible.

Black reminded Grauer and Hoffer that they were to only use existing staff assigned to the
project.

Part B Questions

1. Copy your part A Microsoft Project schedule to a new file. Using the Project
Management Software Package make changes to the project schedule in your part B
file to incorporate the changes described above. Assume that you will make the
changes to the software before the training and conversion takes place at the second
corporation.  If this is earlier than the remaining 4 weeks of Don’t forget that it will
also be necessary to upgrade to the new software at the first corporation. Assume that
it will take one day to perform the upgrade at the first corporation. Make sure that you
resolve any resource issues before you proceed.
2. In question 1 you have assumed that you will make the changes to the software before
the training and conversion takes place at the second corporation. Can you suggest an
alternative approach and discuss the advantages/disadvantages associated with the
alternative approaches.
3. Explain if the changes will impact upon the critical path? If so how? If not why not?
4. What other impacts (if any) will the changes have on the project?
Assumptions
You are free to make any assumptions necessary to complete the assignment. However each
assumption must be justified and stated clearly in your assessment word document. Marks
will be deducted for any unreasonable assumption or for stating an assumption and then
ignoring it in your assignment.
Submission of Assessment
The assignment is to be submitted as four separate files using the electronic assignment
submission system that can be accessed from the assessment item 2 link on the course
website. The four files to be submitted are:
1. The Word document with the assumptions and solutions to the questions for Part A,
and Part B.
2. The Microsoft project files created for Part A and Part B. Please ensure that the names
of these files clearly indicate their purpose, e.g. BigTime_Part_A.mpp and
BigTime_Part_B.mpp.
Marking Guide f or Assessment item 2 – Individual Case Study
Assignment Question Criteria Marks
available
Part A
Assumptions
Listed, justified and stated clearly

Q1 The adequacy of the Project Schedule 7
Q2 Critical path highlighted and tasks listed  1
Q3 Appropriateness of the Written Memo and all
information correct according to the schedule.
4
Q4 Details on shortening the Project 2
Q5 Additional tasks.  4
Q6 Project communication 2
Q7 Risk management  4
Q8  Ensuring project achieves its objectives (general
discussion)
3
Sub Total Part A  27

Part B

Q1 The adequacy of the amended Project Plan (ensure
no resource over-allocation)
Q2 Discuss alternative approach to scheduling changes 2
Q3 Impact on the critical path 1
Q4 Other impacts 1
Sub Total Part C  8

SOLUTION

1. Introduction

 

Three different financial institutions have been merged to form Big Time Corporation. Merging their huge database and compiling the huge database records of approximately 70,000 investors is the task which needs to be taken care of by the Chief Executive of Big Time Corporation, Bill White.

The new financial system has to be proficient enough to handle and manage the database of varied investors for the success of Big Time Corporation. Peter Black has been appointed as the Project manager for this project.

 

1.1Project Schedule

 

The project will basically start after the Next project meeting which is to be held on Friday 20/4/12, two weeks after the staff meeting taken by Black.

 

1.2Assumptions for Project

 

There are several assumptions which have been made for this Big Time Corporation Project. The assumptions are listed below:

• The Project will take place in two phases. In first phase first server will be acquired.
• Then the programming or coding of the financial project will be done.
•  After programming Testing will be done.
•  Testing Phase will take half the time taken by programmers for coding.
• Since the tasks listed in the case study are being done by single programmer and we can appoint three programmers so the project schedule designed is according to the total time taken by three programmers to complete the project.
• Regarding the training schedule first the Training Program has to be developed then the training will take place.
• The training will take place in a batch of 20 people for 2 weeks by one single trainer. There is trainer constraint too, that is just one trainer is being appointed so the time taken to train all the required people is too much.
• Once the training of 1^st corporation employees is complete then only after one month training of 2^nd corporation employees will start, followed by training of employees of 3^rd corporation.
•  Once training and conversion is over, the second phase of server acquisition will start.
• It is assumed that no changes are being required after training the batch of 1^st corporation and conversion can take place at the 2^nd corporation as soon as the first month of usage at the 2st corporation is complete.

 

1.3Work Breakdown Structure (WBS)

 

S. No.	TASK	Duration	Predecessor
1	Preparation of request for quotation of server	2 weeks
2	Period Quotation open	3 weeks	1
3	Acceptance of quotation	2 weeks	2
4	Lead time for delivery	4 weeks	3
5	Installation matters	2 weeks	4
6	Database extract Programs ( one for each corporation)	8 weeks
7	Database Upload program for new Big-time database	6 weeks	6
8	Daily update share and unit prices program	4 weeks	7
9	Investor reports display program	2 weeks	8
10	Investor PDF Print program	2 weeks	8,9
11	Investor excel spreadsheet program	2 weeks	9,10SS
12	Unit Prices history reports program	2 weeks	8
13	Unit performance Report Program	2 weeks	8
14	Margin Loan Simulation Program	2 weeks	11
15	Investor Taxation Statement Program	2 weeks	14
16	Investor Transaction History Program	2 weeks	15
17	Investor Portfolio Program	6 weeks	14,15
18	Investor Personal Detail Maintenance Program	2 weeks	16,17
19	Investor Cash Receipts and  Advances Program	2 weeks	16
20	News Update Program	2 weeks	19
21	Develop Testing Program and Training Program	4 weeks	20
22	Testing the program	23 weeks ( half the programming time )	21
23	Create and Test Training Release	2 weeks	21
24	Training 1st Corporation	16 weeks	23
25	Training 2nd Corporation	14 weeks	24
26	Training 3rd Corporation	20 weeks	25
27	Conversion	2 days	24,25,26
28	Preparation of request for quotation of server	2 weeks	22SS
29	Period Quotation open	3 weeks	28
30	Acceptance of quotation	2 weeks	29
31	Lead time for delivery	4 weeks	30
32	Installation matters	2 weeks	31

 

1.4Resource Allocation

 

Section	Person Appointed
Chief Executive	Bill White
Project Manager	Peter Black
Operations	Peter Smith
Analysts	Helen Jones
Database	Patricia Hofer
Programmers ( including some who specialised in web design)	Shaun Grauer
Telecommunications	Paul Stamford
Privacy and Security	Penny Cooper
Key Users	Colin Butcher
Conversion Team	Tammy baker
Training	Trainer

 

 

Assuming that the resources are constrained as mentioned above there would be resource allocation issues in case of trainer. The reason being we have just one trainer and so many people requiring training form the staff. So we need to hire extra trainer to make the whole training schedule to be fast and quicker. The number of staff which needs training can be seen from the table below:

 

Old Corporation	Number of Staff needing Training
One	160
Two	140
three	200

 

Moreover the single trainer can train just 20 people at a time and the training will get completed in 2 weeks time. So there is dire necessity of a trainer to fasten the process of training.

2. CRITICAL PATH OF PROJECT

 

The Critical Path can be seen from the MS Project sheet attached with the assignment by either clicking on the “ view” and then selecting network diagram all the red boxes and the red arrows show the critical path for the project. However if we select the view as detail GANTT then it will show the critical path in the Gantt chart only.

Critical path shows all the activities which need to be completed on time to complete the project successfully and on time. The tasks which are falling on the critical path in this case are listed below:

• Training 2^nd Corporation
• Training 3^rd Corporation
• Conversion

Any delay in the above three tasks will cause delay in the whole project, so the Project manager needs to handle the training of 2^nd and 3^rd corporation in very sensitive manner.

 

 

 

3. MEMO to Mr. White

 

To:  Mr. Bill White, Chief Executive, Big Time Corporation.

From: Student Name

Date: 18^th May, 2012

Subject: Database Merger and Creation of Big Time Corporation a Financial entity

 

This is to bring to your kind attention that the Project “Database Merger and Creation of Big Time Corporation “ will start from 24^th April, 2012 and  the expected date of completion of this project is 23^rd August, 2013.

The total duration of the project would be 16 months including all the assumptions, holidays and five days working week. The whole project would be functional when all the three financial corporations would be merged and start using the new system designed for Big Time Corporation.

The factors which cause the estimated length of time being taken by the “Database Merger and Creation of Big Time Corporation” Project is:

• Extraction of database from the three old corporations which is very huge.
• Extensive database of investors which is available with the old corporations.
• Programming of the collected database is another factor which forms the major portion of this whole project, because we need to provide a smart and efficient program for all kinds of investors which are our clients at present and for prospective investors.
• Testing of the  New Program which is being developed
• Training of the staff members of the old financial corporations and availability of just one trainer to train the total staff of 500 people.

All the above mentioned tasks are the ones which are the lengthiest and most time taking. With the support of various departments, the project will be successfully completed as desired and within the allocated budget.

4. Shortening the Project Duration

 

The total duration of the project can definitely be shortened and here we are going to suggest two ways where there would be shortened project without constraints with respect to budget and resources.

 

The Resources can be increased by increasing the number of trainers for training the staff that needs training because it is most time consuming task and moreover training the 1^st , 2^nd and 3^rd corporation staff separately in batches of 20 staff members needs a team of trainers who can simultaneously train at least 5 such batches of 20 staff members. Thus the budget for training department needs to be increased and more trainers need to be hired. This will definitely shorten the time period of the whole project.

The tasks which are targeted are:

• Training 1^st Corporation
• Training 2^nd Corporation
• Training 3^rd Corporation

The only other impact it will have is that increase in the budget of project as more trainers will have to be appointed.

 

5. 1Overlooked Project tasks and Activities

 

There are few tasks and activities which have been overlooked in the project are:

• Taking Feedback from Investors about the program
• Making Changes as per the Feedback of the investors
• Back-end Support after the Program goes live should be there
• Quality Assurance and security of the investor’s data should be guaranteed using Firewalls etc.

5.2 Additional Project management tasks

There are few Project management tasks which should have been carried out and not discussed in the specification and they are listed below:

• Inception Phase:

A survey of the clients / investors needs should have been done and after survey analysis the project should have been followed with kick-off meetings, which would have discussed matters like branding, technical aspects and business (Fairley, 2008).

 

• Business Requirements Phase:

The overall costing and the budget which is very vital part of the project have not been discussed. The Stakeholders and how the money will be sourced for the whole project have not also been made a part of the project. This task of Cost analysis is very vital for any project.

 

• Risk Analysis

The task of finding and analysing the risks in this project is also completely skipped. Risk analysis helps in developing a risk management plan for project management. Thus it is very important to find out the potential risks which might arise during the project and how they will be managed.

 

6. Communication Plan

 

The Project manager plays a vital role in communication to occur within the whole project. SO for proper flow of information and communication between all the staff members a communication plan is necessary as it allows communicating the desired information at different levels of management in proper manner in the organisation. It also tells who will receive, what information and how the information will be communicated is also told by proper communication plan.

 

6.1 Role of project Manager in Communication

 

The Project manager looks after the communication at the portfolio level of the project, and owns most of the resources which are being assigned to the project. Like here in this case too the project manager has to look after the whole project at the portfolio level and has to keep a tab on the cost of each and every task involved in the project. Thus the task of Project manager is to keep check of the overall cost of the project through proper communication.

This is the reason why to maintain the overall cost and profitability of the project the project manager has to communicate with the team members in more detailed manner than anyone involved in the project. In order to keep proper flow and to provide guidance according to the communication management plan project manager perform key role as communicator all through the project.

 

Communications Matrix (Communications Management Plan Template , 2012)

Communication Type	Objective of Communication	Medium	Frequency	Audience	Owner	Deliverable
Kick-off Meeting	Introducing the project and project team. Review management approach and objectives of project	Face-to-face	Once	-Project Sponsor -Project Team -Project Stakeholders	Project manager	-Agenda -Minutes of Meeting
Technical Design Meetings	Discussion and dev. Of technical design solutions for project	-Face-to-Face	As required	-Project technical Staff	Technical lead	-Agenda -Minutes of Meeting
Project team Meetings	Review Project Status with whole team	Conference Call Face-to-face	Weekly	Project team	Project manager	-Agenda -Minutes of Meeting
Monthly Project Status Meetings	Reporting the status of project to management.	Conference Call Face-to-face	Monthly	PMO	Project manager
Project Status Reports	Status of project in terms of cost, resources, activities and progress and issues	Email	Monthly	PMO Project Manager Project Sponsor Stakeholders	Project Manager	Project Status Report

 

 

7. RISK MANAGEMENT

 

7.1 Role of project manager in risk management

 

Role of project manager in risk management is very important. The project manager is totally responsible for the risk management in any project along with other team members. The main role which is being played by project manager is to write and approve the Risk Management Plan. The project Manager is responsible for (Bartlett, 2004):

 

• Approval of Risk Management Plan
• Definition of Risk Management Approach
• Participating in risk management process
•  Should take the ownership of risk mitigation
• Risk planning and risk execution is also taken care of by Project manager.

 

7.2 Identification of Risk in Project

 

The top two risks which have been identified in the project which are of very high probability and high risk to the project:

• Delay in Server Equipment:

Due to backlog in the manufacturer’s backlog, the servers might not be available for large scale application testing on right time. This will definitely delay the project schedule. The project manager can mitigate this risk by getting a backup server from the back-up data centre whenever required.

 

• The Operations Centre not Staffed appropriately

Since there is lead time associated with hiring and training the staff members, the network operations staff will not have proper staff to monitor the regular operations which will cause the delay in the project schedule. The project manager can manage this risk and mitigate by developing an alternate work schedule, by working with Network Operations Team. This will compensate with the staffing shortage which has been created.

 

 

8. Role of Project Manager to Meet Project Objectives

 

The relationship between the project success, project manager’s characteristics and project characteristics was being studied by Rubin and Seeling (Rubin and Seelig, 1967) and according to then the experience of project manager did not have any impact or relevance with the success of the project, but the high priority assigned to huge projects did have some impact on the success of the project.

AS per the opinion of Rubin and Seeling the organisations have the tendency to select the most experienced and the oldest project managers to manage the large and high-priority projects, the success of such projects was affected by the high-priority assigned to these projects (Rubin and Seelig, 1967).

The role of project manager is very critical as they have to set up a successful project keeping in mind the stakeholders or customers (Byatt, 2012). The project Manager should hold a Project Success Plan (PSP) Meeting with all the team members before commencing the project. This will help in arriving at common project goal and to discuss the emotional success factors associated with the project. This will help in gelling the whole team together and will deliver the desired successful outcomes. A Project Success Plan will help in:

• Working as ice breaker between team members
• Team members commit and agree with their roles and responsibilities assigned for the project.
• Assumptions of all the team members regarding the project and their drivers should be discussed in detail and documented.
•  The Project manager should have a collaborative approach and a win-win philosophy regarding the project all through the project.
• The project manager should discuss and then arrive at the same page as the team members while setting the criteria for successful project.
• Everyone should be aware of the modus operandi and personality of each other in the project team.
•  The lessons learnt from the previous projects and past experiences should be collectively discussed amongst the team (Byatt, 2012).

 

 

 

PART B

 

1.Change Management at Big Time

Depending upon the feedback given the client the necessary changes have been made which can be seen from the MS –Project Big Time Part B. The changes made are:

• Investor Reports Display Program has been extended by 14 days
• Investor PDF Print Program has been extended by 14 days or 2 weeks
• Database restructuring has been done after training and conversion of 1^st Corporation which will again take 2 weeks.
• New Investor Reports program has been developed which will take 6 weeks or 42 days.
• New Investor PDF Print Program will also take extra 6 weeks or 42 days
•  Up gradation at the 1^st Corporation of the necessary changes will take 1 day.

There would be resource issue as now Patricia Haufer; Shaun Grauer will have to work extra hours. Moreover we cannot hire extra staff as mentioned in the case study so the company will have to pay extra or overtime to both these people.

 

2.Alternative Approach

 

The alternative approach for the assumption which has been made that the changes in the software will be made before the training and conversion takes place in Second Corporation is that we can take the feedback from the clients after testing and making the program live.

This way we would be able to know what all changes are required in the new program. So the trained staff of First Corporation will not have to be trained back again after making the changes this will save the time and cost spent on training and conversion.

Another alternative which can be worked upon is that while training the staff of Second Corporation when they reach the module where the changes have been made the staff of the 1^st corporation can be accommodated so that they would also learn along with the staff of 2^nd corporation about the new and changed program. This way it will save the training cost and the extended time spent on retraining the 1^st corporation staff will be saved.

 

1.1Advantages and Disadvantages of the alternative approaches

 

The advantages are many like the project manager can save upon the time and cost of extra training which is needed by following either of the two alternative approaches.

The disadvantage is that the trainers will be working either over and above their capacity and the database manager and programmers will have to incorporate the changes in fast manner, before the scheduled time for training of 2^nd corporation staff arrives.

 

3.Impact of Changes on Critical Path

 

There would definitely be impact on the critical path because of the changes made to the original project schedule. Now the critical path would be having many more tasks in it:

• Database Upload Program for new Big-time database
• Daily Update share and unit prices program
• Investors report display program
• Investor PDF Print Program
• Investor excel Spreadsheet program
• Margin Loan Simulation Program
• Investor Taxation Statement Program
• Investor Transaction History Program
• Investor Cash Receipts and  Advances Program
• News Update Program
• Develop Testing Program and Training Program
• Create and Test Training Release
• Training 1st Corporation
• Conversion of 1^st Corporation
• Database Restructure
• New Investor Reports display program
• New Investor PDF Print Program
• Upgrade at first corporation
• Training 2nd Corporation
• Conversion 2nd corporation
• Training 3rd Corporation
• Conversion 3rd corporation
• Launch of New Program

 

4.Other Impacts of Changes

 

The other impacts of changes which can be seen on the project are:

• Development of more refined and effective program.
• Attract more investors due to new added features
• Retention of old investors due to effective new program with new changes which are very competitive.
• The project schedule will be delayed and now the project will finish on 25^th February, 2015.
• Thus the project cost and resources needed, will also increase and the deviation from the budget allocated to the project will be there.

 

 

 

Bibliography

Bartlett, J. (2004) Project Risk Analysis and Management Guide, APM Publishing Limited.

Byatt, G. (2012) Project Success Plans – Planning for Success, 16 May, [Online], Available: http://www.projecttimes.com/articles/project-success-plans-planning-for-success.html [19 may 2012].

Communications Management Plan Template (2012), [Online], Available: http://www.projectmanagementdocs.com/templates/communications-management-plan.html [19 may 2012].

Fairley, J. (2008) Effective Website Development Project Plan, 13 June , [Online], Available: http://www.forwardleap.com/effective-website-development-project-plan/ [19 May 2012].

Rubin, I.M. and Seelig, W. (1967) ‘Experience as a Factor in the Selection and Performance of Project Managers’, IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management, vol. 14, no. 3, September, pp. 131-135.

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