IT Project Management Proof Reading Services

IT Project Management Proof Reading Services

Introduction

The project report revolves around the case study of Willow brook School in which new information systems are required to be developed and for this the SWOT analysis will be done for the school which helps in developing the project structure. The project charter will be made and signed by the stakeholders of the project which means it has been approved and now it can be started officially. In the last section of the report, the communication plan will be developed where different types of communication and its purpose will be discussed. (Bonnal, 2012)

Task 1 SWOT Analysis

For analysing the present situation of the Willow brook School, SWOT analysis is conducted which gives a description about the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and threats of the school. which will ultimately help in making strategic plans for the school.

Task 2 project Charter

Project Initiation
Name-
Email-
Duration- 3 months
Budget- $80000
Project Objectives
 

• The project has been performed to develop a new information system for the administrative and financial tasks of the school. The meeting has been planned so that the need of a new information system can be discussed with the director and Principal of the school. (Klaus-Rosi?ska, Zab?ocka-Kluczka, 2014).
• The project activities will entail the economic feasibility of the school. The economic feasibility includes the costs of the project. Project also entails training to the staff to use the newly installed information systems in the organisation. The staff can be divided into the groups according to their activities and use of the new software. A support plan is to be developed in advance so that any problem occurring to the software can be solved. (Charter project, 2009)
• The Primary deliverable of a project is an information system which will be used to manage the administrative and financial activities of the school. A new information system is needed by the school because the flow of work is increasing; the burden of administrative work is growing in the school, because of the growth in the know of admissions in the school. (Bonnal, 2012)

The benefits of the project to the organisation are:

1. The project will provide the economic benefit to the organisation. The organisation will be able to cope up with the growing admissions in the school and it will bring more revenue to the school.
2. Different tasks and activities will be monitored easily and necessary further actions can be taken for the benefit of the school.
3. The documents will be prepared completely in the system and the transactions will be easily recorded without any loophole. (Charrois, 2016)

The limits of the project which is not described in the project are:

1. The budget for the development and implementation of a new information system in limited to $80000
2. The time is limited for the development of project which is 3 months limits of the
3. Development of an information system is a complex process which may involve risk.
4. The staff of the school may find it inappropriate until and unless they are trained for the new systems.
5. The technology may face any kind of fault during the development of the system. (Botchkarev, Finnigan, 2015)

Acceptance Criteria

The project development may face success or failure at the end which is determined by various factors. These specific factors which determine the success/ failure of this project are:

• Resources availability- The availability of resources determine whether the project will success or fail.
• Support from top management: It is very important for the project manager to get proper support from the top management of the school
• Preplanning: This shows the preparation for the project and what all estimates are done for    the project. (RONK, 2009)
• Environment of the project (Political or Social): The political, economical or social environment also determines the success or failure of the project.(Botchkarev, Finnigan, 2015)

Specific Deliverable for the project:

The specific deliverable for the project is the development of IT solutions for school. The school, needs an It system for the handling of administrative and financial tasks of the school. There are certain functions in the school like payroll system, managing the human resources, financial accounts of school, maintenance of admission records, maintenance of transportation vehicles, attendance management, etc which are to be managed in a proper way. So, new and updated software’s are required for the purpose of the school. The project is designed to deliver best possible information system to the school so that best administration can be done. (Bonnal, 2012)

Agency- specific deliverables

The agency specific deliverables is the information system for the administration and financial management of school within the given time and limited budget by the school. Agency will have to deliver support services after the implementation of the Information system. The staffs of the school are to be grouped according to their activities and trained for the new information systems. Agency should deliver the monitoring and control services to the client for the new information systems. (Charter project, 2009)

Inclusion of due dates for the deliverables

The due dates for the deliverables of the project are given below in the table:

Clear identification of Milestones and Milestones exit points

Setting of Milestones is very important for the business plan or project plan. It includes practical plans, budgets, and deadlines of the tasks in a projects and responsibilities of management of the organisation in completing those.

Assumptions and Constraints

Certain assumptions were made during the project:

• The project planning stated on May 1 and according to the set time frame, the project completed and implemented within the set time frame.
• The project completed within the provided budget of $80000
• It was assumed that the other local schools are giving competition to the Willow brook School
• The staff of the school is supportive and are qualified enough
• All the staff is ready to work on the new software’s and according to the new information systems, nobody opposed to the decision of management
• The trust of the school gave the permission to the school to make such changes(Charter project, 2009)

List of constraints that entail the limitations that are required to be addressed
The constraints are those conditions which limit the activities of the project; it defines the boundaries of the project. It shapes the tasks of the project and plays its role in reaching the final results o the project.
The constraints of the project are:

• Limited resources: The budget available to develop the information system is limited to $80000 and the time available is 3 months.
• Schedule of the project: The project and its activities should be scheduled in a proper and practical way so that the actual task do not differ much from the estimated dates(Charrois, 2016)
   

Stakeholder List

The high level decisions of the project are taken by the stakeholders of the school which are affected from any activity of the school. The stakeholders included are:
 

• The trust of school
• Owners of school
• Employees of school
• Society
• Students
• Government
• Sponsors
• IT solutions development firm (Charrois, 2016)

Lessons Learned

On the basis of the past experience of the students, the pitfalls to be avoided are:

• Students are taking some courses again and again just because they are changing their school.
• Lot of time of students gets waste because of the time taken in the admission processes, registration system, etc.
• Student doesn’t know which course they should take, there is  a lack of counselling in students
• There are more students and fewer teachers which increase the workload on the staff of school and individual attention is not given to the students. The advisors are decreasing and the student’s enrolment is increasing. This also affects the ability of the advisors to work well and their efficiency becomes low.
• The schools are nowadays helpless to retain their students till the completion of the courses. This happens because of the unavailability of the courses which a student wants to pursue or high tuition costs charged by the schools. (Bonnal, 2012)

 The project of the information system development can be affected by:

• Support from the management of school
• Right team for the development of project
• Proper planning and Strategy
• Proper leadership
• Open and healthy Communication
• Risk management
• Proper delivery of projects
• Proper controlling and monitoring
• Delay in time (Botchkarev, Finnigan, 2015)?

Charter Sign off
The sign off section is the last section of the project Charter and it has to be signed off by the key stakeholders, project manager, project sponsors and other representatives.
The charter is prepared by the sponsor of the project and all the stakeholders sign the project charter and after that, the project begins officially.The signing up means that the charter has been approved and the mentioned resources will be provided to the project.

Task 3 Prepare Communications Plan as per the template given

Communication Plan

Plan Purpose-

The communication plan is developed so that effective communication takes place between the various stakeholders of the project and so that the project can be completed effectively.  The project communication plan shows that how the communication will take place during the project. It includes the objectives of the communication, target audience, communication methods, etc. The purpose of a communication plan is to establish effective communication among all the stakeholders of the project and the loopholes can be identified earlier in order to avoid the mistakes later on. (Yang,  Ho, 2013)

In communication plan of Willow brook School, the people involved are the students, sponsor of the project, Project manager and other stakeholders. It is important to establish good communication in a project team so that the work can be done without any hurdles. Team meetings are conducted so that the discussions can be carried out on the important matters and the important decisions can be taken. (Zulch, 2014)

The types of communication take place for:

• Upward communication- Face to face communication
• Downward communication- meetings, notices or emails
• Lateral communication- calls, emails or face to face communication
• Diagonal communication- conference call, meetings and face to face communication

Identification of stakeholders

Information to be shared
The information is shared among the project managers, project teams and project sponsors and also with the teachers so that the requirements of the information system can be identified and certain changes can be made accordingly.

Frequency of information exchange

• The information between the stakeholders exchanges through
• Project team Meetings- weekly
• Technical design meetings- when needed
• Monthly progress meetings- monthly
• Project status reports- monthly

Location of information exchange
The information can be exchanged according to the mutual consent of the stakeholders. The interaction can take place at client’s office, at the project company office, on telephone, emails or at any other place.

Purpose of communication
The purpose of communication is to complete the project effectively without any loophole in the development and implementation of the project. (Ziek, Anderson, 2015)

Mechanism for communication
The communication takes place through conference calls, face to face communication, emails, meetings, conferences, notices, official letters, etc. This depends on the nature and criticality of the communication. (Ziek, Anderson, 2015)

Change Management
The change management refers to the management of the project team when they make changes in the project. It includes communication escalation where the communication becomes necessary when some issue arises or when the requirements of the project are not met by the project team. The escalation process escalates the issues and then the decision authorities take the final decisions on the issues. (Zulch, 2014)

Here the escalation takes place up to three levels where:

Level 1- Critical issues: decision is taken within 3 hours

Level2- serious issues: decision is taken within one business day

Level 3- normal issues: decision is taken within 2 business days

Conclusion

It can be concluded from the report that the project management includes different activities and tasks which decides the future of the project. It includes pre planning, investigation, planning, development, testing, and installation and post installation activities. Also communication is an important function of project management so that the tasks can be performed effectively.

References

Bonnal, P. (2012). Project management. Construction Management and Economics, 30(3), 248-250. doi:10.1080/01446193.2012.655253
Zulch, B. (2014). Leadership communication in project management. Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences,119, 172-181. doi:10.1016/j.sbspro.2014.03.021
Charter project. (2009). Arkansas Business, 26(14), 4.
Charrois, R. (2016). Project management. Photogrammetric Engineering & Remote Sensing, 82(4), 251-252. doi:10.14358/PERS.82.4.251
Botchkarev, A., & Finnigan, P. (2015). Complexity in the context of information systems project management.Organisational Project Management, 2(1), 15-34. doi:10.5130/opm.v2i1.4272
Ziek, P., & Anderson, J. D. (2015). Communication, dialogue and project management. International Journal of Managing Projects in Business, 8(4), 788-803. doi:10.1108/IJMPB-04-2014-0034