Project managment

During
a meeting with his boss (David Wright), Bruce has been asked to
establish a researcher centre. The research centre, which will commence
operations in February 2018 first as an informal research group, should
be established by June 2017. Alex’s decision to proceed with this major
project is spurred by the fact that an associated organizational centre,
which researches in a closely related area, has recently ceased
operations. There is also a tremendous pressure from David’s senior
executives to produce high quality research that is focused in nature.
In fact one of David’s senior executives’ comments was that David’s Unit
does not have a clear identity when it comes to its scholarly research
output compared to the one in Australian National University. After
several meetings with subject matter experts (consultants) and a
rigorous analysis of the current trends in research in the area of
information technology it has been decided that the most appropriate
research area for the proposed research centre to focus on is social
media. Fortunately several of David’s Unit staff are active researchers
in this area. What made this direction even more attractive is that
demand from Master and Doctoral students has been largely for programs
in this area. David’s Unit also enjoys a very good relationship with an
international expert Craig Bamworth in the social media area who has
kindly agreed to offer his expertise to Bruce (the program manager).

One
of the projects within the Social Media Research Centre larger project
that Bruce has identified as important is the development of a web
application for the proposed centre.

This
application would include an internet website and section for members on
the intranet. Bruce has appointed You as the manager of this project
commencing work on 1 April 2017. Bruce’s team has conducted the
feasibility study and financial analysis to confirm that project must go
ahead and must commence as you join your role.

You
must assist Bruce in preparing the project charter that need to be
submitted within first week of May 2017 via a kick-off meeting to be
held with all major stakeholders presenting and discussing the charter
before they all signoff and approve charter.

This
website should contain information about the major research projects,
list of supervisors, Masters and PhD student projects, publications
(conference and journal papers), and project reports. The application
manager Sonia Reed should update all these details on the website using
the intranet login. Members can also update their project details via
their member account. It has also been identified by Bruce that
displaying the information, program, recorded presentations and
reports/publications of the events held in the area of social media
research will help in promoting the centre. Sonia would collect this
information from the events manager and update the information on the
web application before, during and after the events as needed.

Your
team must include appropriate experts to assess the application,
network and database software and hardware needs to support this
project.

Your manager, Bruce has given you guidance that the project needs to be completed within 8 months and that costs should be minimised wherever possible with given budget of AUD 50000.00

Task 1: Prepare Project Charter as per below template – 55 marks

Basic details Including (5 marks): Title of the project, Name and email of the Project Manager (yourself), Duration of the project, and High level budget

Project Objectives (10 marks)

• • Clear, concise reasoning for why the project is being performed
  • Clear, concise definition of what the project’s activities will entail ( high level scope)
  • Brief description of primary deliverable(s)
  • Clear description of the project’s benefits to the organisation
  • Recognition and description of any limits that the project will not cover and address

MOV – Measurable Organisational Value ( 15 marks)

(This is the goal of the project and is utilised to define the value that your team project will bring to your client)
Identify
the desired area of impact – Rank the following areas in terms of
importance: Strategy / Customer / Financial / Operational / Social
With reference to your project, identify one or two of the following types of value:

• Better – is improving quality important to your client?
• Faster – does your client want to increase efficiency?
• Cheaper – is cutting costs important?
• Do more – does your client want to continue its growth?

Develop
an appropriate metric – this sets the target and expectation of all the
stakeholders. It is important to determine a quantitative target that
needs to be expressed as a metric in terms of an increase or decrease of
money. ( 5 Bullet Points)

(Note: the MOV should inform everyone
what the project will achieve, not how it will be achieved. It should
also focus on the organisation, not on the technology that will be used
to build or support the information system).

Acceptance Criteria (5 marks)

• • Identification of specific factors against which the project can be compared to determine success/failure
  • Identification of specific deliverables for the project as a whole
  • Inclusion of due dates for the deliverables
  • Clear identification of milestone and milestone exit points
  • Factors should include a specific metrical comparison

Assumptions and Constraints (5 marks)

• • Any assumptions made during the course of the project
  • List of constraints that entail the limitations that are required to be addressed

Stakeholder List (5 marks)

• • Complete
    list of stakeholders including the sponsor, PM, executive members and
    few important members that are required to contribute to high level
    decisions

Lessons Learned (5 marks)

• • Identification of pitfalls to be avoided, based on the past projects and experience
  • Evidence of thought as to what can and cannot affect the project in terms of how the project will run

Charter Sign off (5 marks)

• • This section should include the stakeholders signing off the charter for commitment.
  • Some key stakeholders must comment make comments

Task 2: Prepare Communications Plan as per the template given- 20 marks

Communication Plan Template

• Plan purpose –
  A brief description of why and how the plan was developed, and an
  overview of the overall team communication philosophy. Also states types
  of communications planned, for lateral, downward, and upward
  communication.
• Identification of stakeholders –
  The “who” in the project that requires information, (i.e. team members,
  project sponsor, class professor, etc.) and also the responsible
  parties to receive and/or communicate information.
• Information to be shared –
  The “what” in terms of project information communication. Describes
  types of information that the team uses to communicate amongst its own
  project members, and also to the sponsor
• Frequency of information exchange – The “when” describes how often communications will be held (i.e. daily, weekly, monthly, as needed, etc.)
• Location of information exchange – The “where” states the location of the meeting or other interactions
• Purpose of communication – The “why” description assures that communications are held effectively.
• Mechanism for communication – The “how” describes the media for communication (i.e. physical meeting, email, phone, message group, etc.)
• Change management –
  Description on how the team will handle changes in the project, whether
  it is in terms of project scope, schedule, or resources. This includes
  how the team plans to communicate changes as well as how the team plans
  to make decisions about changes.
• Meeting agenda –
  Gives a brief overview of what the team plans to accomplish in each of
  its meetings, how it documents goals and objectives for meetings, and
  defines and assigns actions for the team to accomplish project
  objectives.

Rationale