Due Date: 4:00pm Friday 25th May 2012
Assignment Overview:
The assignment describes a project that needs to be completed at a very high level of quality
within the constraints on completion date and resource availability. You are asked to create a
baseline project plan, and examine the effect of two unanticipated events on the baseline plan.
Your submitted report should demonstrate your familiarity with project management software
(MS Project2010) calendars and formatting options. No handwritten or hand-drawn work will be
accepted.
Assignment Details:
Assume that you are the CIO responsible for the IT function of a medium sized retail company.
The company has Internet access that includes space on a web server, but has no prior experience
in developing online applications using web technologies. Jane Goodyear
(VP of Operations) has made a presentation to the senior leadership committee in order to attract
approval for developing an e-commerce project that involves creation of a company web site
with transaction handling capabilities with key customers. The committee reviewed the Business
Case and authorized the implementation of the project, with Jane agreeing to serve as the project
sponsor.
The senior leadership team considers the project to be of high priority which needs to be
completed within Twelve (12) months. The team is not too worried about the exact cost, as long
as the money is effectively spent and the e-commerce application is developed on time, is highly
reliable, and fulfills all of the functionalities promised. A budget of A$50,000 has been approved
for purchasing a web server and any necessary software for development and operation of the
site. You expect that the total cost of the project will be determined by labour costs that will
depend on the availability of the human resources assigned to the project. Jane drew up a Project
Charter as the formal authority for the project, and obtained formal approval by getting the sign
off from the company CEO. The charter is also signed by John Wu (Head of the Marketing
Department) and Anna Indrian (Head of the Logistics department) who have immense interests
in the project and whose business areas are likely to be affected by the e-commerce project.
Hence, the success of the project largely depends on the input, feedback and cooperation of these
two senior executives. John suggested the involvement of at least two representatives from major
customers who could provide constructive feedback to the project. After much deliberation with
various customer companies, John eventually nominated George Greville and Diana Smith (who
work at two large companies) who agreed to help the project team during the testing phase of the
ecommerce project by giving useful feedback.
The scope of the project includes:
a) The web site with the following details:
• description of the organization (mission, history, and recent events)
• list of services offered
• contact information
• graphics (photographs and other images)
b) The online purchasing facility will need to include
o protected customer password entry
o product codes on the online form should be selected from the company’s ERP system
o customers should be able to view the stock status accessed from the company’s ERP
system
o online submission of customer enquires
c) In addition to creating the e-commerce application, the project scope includes training two
sales staff to do simple web site updates.
Jane has appointed YOU as the project manager and has asked you to work full time (5 days a
week) on the project. John has seconded Jill and Gregory (both are business analysts) from the
Marketing department to work full time on the project, and you have promised to make Abdullah
Aziz (a systems administrator) and Hilary Jones (who maintains the ERP system) available to
work on the project up to 3 days per week each. As only Abdullah and Hilary have web
programming skills, Jane has agreed to authorise you to hire Bill as an e-commerce consultant
for up to 8 weeks at a rate of $80/hr. The time you and the other team members spend on the
project will be charged out at a nominal rate of $50 per hour. All team members work under the
company’s Enterprise Agreement that specifies normal working hours as 8 hours per day,
Monday to Friday, with double their hourly rate for every hour worked on weekends and
holidays.
Jane has done some initial brainstorming on the WBS, and has given you a list of suggested (but
not exhaustive) tasks (activities) she thinks are required for the ecommerce project:
O Collect information on the organisation in hardcopy and digital form (brochures, reports,
organisation charts, photographs, and so on)
O Research web sites of similar organisations
O Collect detailed information about the company’s website design preferences
O Prepare a web server specification and get a good deal on a web server
O Find out about website development software, and acquire a suitable one
O Develop a template for the company to review (background colour for all pages, position of
navigation buttons, layout of text and images, fonts, etc.)
O Create a site map or hierarchy chart showing the flow of web pages
O Digitise the photographs and find other images for the web pages
O Create the individual web pages for the site
O Create the customer database
O Create web functionality that allows authorised customers to view stock information stored in
the back-end ERP system via the website
O Create customer inquiry handling functionality
O Test the pages and the site
O Implement the web site on the company’s web server
O Get feedback from a selected group of key customers
O Incorporate changes
O Create training materials for the company on how to update the web pages
O Train staff (Abdullah and Hilary? Both? Or Someone else?) on updating the web pages
O Crash tests the web server, a task that will take 2 days and run 24 hours/day.
As a project manager, you anticipate that a large portion of the total project cost will be the
labour costs associated with performing project activities in addition to the initial A$50,000
allocated for the hardware and software necessary for the project. You also expect that these
labour costs will vary depending on the constraints of time and quality.
YOUR TASK:
Drawing on this description of the e-commerce project, you are required to produce a project
plan that includes the following:
1) A brief description (1-2 paragraphs) introducing the project.
2) A work breakdown structure (WBS) including task duration estimates and dependencies.
Work packages should be defined to the level of one person, one task. Please note that although
your WBS would be primarily based on the tasks Jane has identified (mentioned earlier), you are
also required to include summary tasks, milestone tasks (e.g., end of training, completion of
feedback session), and several recurring tasks (e.g., weekly project review meetings) in your
WBS. Also note that you are required to make suitable assumptions regarding assigning task
durations, dependency relationships between tasks (e.g. finish-to-start, start-to-start, or finish-tofinish)
and
use
appropriate
calendar
types
for
some
tasks
(e.g.,
crash
test
of
the
web
server
may
occur
24 hours
a
day).
You
may
also
add
additional
tasks
relevant
to
this
project.
Please
ensure
that
some
of
the
activities
are
to
be
performed
concurrently
(i.e.,
in
parallel).
3)
Using
MS
Project
2010
software,
prepare
a project
schedule,
presented
as
a Gantt
chart
and
as
a network
diagram.
4)
Set
up
the
resources
in
MS
Project,
create
a
resource
sheet,
allocate
resources
to
tasks
shown
in
the
WBS
and
prepare
a
resource
report
and
resource
graph.
5)
A
communication
plan,
including
review
meetings
at
the
milestones
identified.
These
meetings
take
time
and
should
be
included
in
the
schedule.
Indicate
which
key
stakeholders
need
to
attend
each
meeting.
6)
A
risk
management
plan
indicating
at
least
three
(3)
risks
(including
risk
name,
description,
root
cause,
probability,
impact,
mitigation
response)
[see
the
additional
note
below*]
7)
Specify
any
assumptions
that
you
may
have
made
for
this
project.
Additional requirements for the risk management plan
The risk management plan needs to include two sections:
*(a) A table of at least 3 possible risks that could cause the project to exceed its time/budget
(other than the ones below), with the likelihood of the risk and a brief (one or two sentences)
description of mitigating actions
(b) Adjustments to MS Project 2010 files for these two scenarios:
O Scenario 1: Assume that Hilary is suddenly required to attend a conference, and will be
unavailable for a week. Make adjustments to accommodate this leave so that the schedule does
not slip and the effect on the budget is minimal, and show the changes from the original plan.
This section should show a revised schedule, bringing particular attention to content that will
change in this scenario.
O Scenario 2: Assume that user feedback indicates some areas in which MAJOR changes are
required which are estimated to take 8 working days of work. Indicate how the original plan is
affected by this proposed change.
SOLUTION
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LD10
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