Establishing A Social Media Research Centre: Project Charter

Project Objectives

It has been observed from various researches that many students at master’s and Doctoral / PhD level concern with scholarly research outputs. Current research centres does not have clear identity in terms of scholarly therefore there are need to develop new research centre. Primary deliverables of the project includes development of web application that will run over internet. Development of application, network, database and software/ hardware is another key deliverables of the undertaken project.

Web application or website of social media research centre should include various sections of social media research centre. As compared to Australian National University there is no other research centre that has authenticated scholarly research in terms of social media. This project will provide benefit to the organisation as there is no other research centre that provides research or information on social media (Babou, 2014).

Benefits to stakeholders- Many students at different levels will be benefited from the undertaken project of research centre that research on social media field. Web application has been used to disseminate research articles, conference and journal papers, thesis, publications, etc to stakeholders. Displaying information, social media programs, recorded presentations related to social media and publications of the events of social media research will provide benefit to stakeholders of the research centre project.

Success factor of the undertaken project is completion of project with defined objectives, within timeframe of 8 months and within budget of AUD 50,000. Another success factor of undertaken project is involvement of many stakeholders as members.

MOV – Measurable Organisational Value

Measurable organisational value is the process of identifying overall goal of undertaken project and defines how success will be measured for client. In the undertaken project ultimate goal is to develop and implement web application and value shall be measured from defined success factors. Following are some areas that undertaken project of development of social media research centre (ranked in terms of importance):

Customer- From the undertaken project, customers will be impacted at most in terms of availability of information on social media. Students and tutors are customers in the project that will become member of the organisation.

Operational- Operational efficiency will get improved from the undertaken project. Since currently, Readers Lab does not have any recognised library or readers section. Therefore social media research centre will improve operational efficiency and capacity of Readers Lab.

Financial- In terms of financial analysis, Readers Lab’s financial condition will get improve when undertaken project will be implemented. By becoming members at Readers Lab i.e. at web application, they will be getting membership fees (Esposito, 2015).

Strategy- Next area that will be impacted from the undertaken project is business strategy of Readers Lab. Better management and increase in operational efficiency of Readers Lab will get impacted from the undertaken project.

Social- Here social means society at large. From the undertaken project, goal of establishment of social media research centre project is to help students at various levels.

From the undertaken project of social media research centre, following values has been created for Readers Lab:

Measurable Organisational Value

Better – From the undertaken project, efficiency of Researches Lab will get improved since they do not have clear identity in terms of research centre.

Do more – Another value that undertaken project will create for Readers Lab is continuous growth in its business operations.

Measurable Organisational Value Matrix

• Increase in customer base i.e. customer base from the social media research centre. This will increase cash inflows for the Readers Lab in terms of membership fees. Present fee revenue is AUD 2500 per month and expected fee revenue is AUD 4000 per month (McConnell, 2010).
• Another MOV is to increase market share of Readers Lab from the undertaken social media research centre. Presently they cover only 7 % of market and management is expecting market share to be 15 % after implementation of undertaken project.
• Another expectation from the project is of improved quality of research papers, publications and academic working related to social media. At present 650 articles or other scholarly research output weer sole to customers in a month. Target is to sell more than 1000 scholarly research output in a month after implementation of project.
• At present, Readers Lab upload 200 scholarly research outputs from researches and events. Their target from the undertaken project is to upload more than 500 scholarly research outputs on social media before, during and after the event after collecting information from event manager.  
• Another target is of association of more experts, supervisors and masters and PhD students. Readers Lab has been expecting increase in experts, supervisors and masters and PhD students to be 200 or more members per month. 

Acceptance Criteria

(Naybour, 2010)

Assumptions and Constraints

• It is assumed that management of Researchers Lab has clear design of web application
• It is assumed that Researcher Lab gets required approvals from legal authorities for establishing social media research centre.
• All experts has been appointed through contracts or agreements

Constraints in undertaken social media research centre are as follows:

• Government approvals and following legal compliances of establishing research centre.
• Design and development of web application and get approval from management

 Stakeholder List

Stakeholders can be defined as the members or individuals involved in the undertaken project. Following are stakeholders of establishment of social media research centre project:

Students: These are ultimate stakeholders of the undertaken establishment of social media research centre. They will be provided scholarly research outputs on social media or they can upload scholarly research outputs on social media on the web application.

Customers: Customers includes members or purchasers of scholarly research outputs on social media that will be available on web application.

Sponsoring Agency: They will be sponsoring total project for Readers Lab therefore they are major stakeholder.

Project Manager: Project manager is internal stakeholder, responsible for designing, implementing and evaluating undertaken project of social media research centre (Shedlock, Vos & Chard, 2016).

Executive Members: They are human resource engaged in project management activities of undertaken project.

Experts: These are experts involve in providing their services for building and offering their expertise in different filed. International expert Craig Bamworth and experts appointed for assessing hardware, software, database, web application and network.

Government / Regulatory authorities: These are external stakeholders involve in providing approvals and checking compliances of applicable of laws and regulations.

Vendors: These are creditors or suppliers of hardware, software, database material and other spare part or material required for implementing project’s activities.

 Lessons Learned

Following are some pitfalls that are required to be managed in the undertaken project:

Risk management: There shall be proper risk management policy in the undertaken project of establishing social media research centre. Risk in terms of shortage of finance (i.e. AUD 50,000), time frame, etc has been managed (Graham, 2013).

Defined scope- There shall be defined scope for defining limits of undertaken project. This project is limited to social media researches and experts in the field of social media.

Contingency plan has been developed and approved by management of Researchers Lab.

Prepare Communications Plan 

Plan purpose 

Communication in terms of project plan is required to be communicated to many stakeholders of the business organisation. Communication plan is developed to communicate flow of project management activities of establishment of social media research centre. Communication plan is required to be developed because it helps in overcoming doubts and provide clarity to stakeholders in terms of undertaken project. In this case, lateral or horizontal communication will take place i.e. communication between various stakeholders of the business organisation (Researchers Lab). Following are schedules of different meetings for communication of plan:

(Lunenburg, 2010)

Minutes of meeting will be prepared and submitted by Researchers Lab Company Secretary and shall be viewed and understood (sighed) by project manager and management.

Identification of stakeholders and Information to be shared 

Acceptance Criteria

Frequency of information exchange, location of information exchange, purpose of communication and mechanism for communication

In the undertaken project of establishment of social media research centre, information flow shall not be stopped or there shall be continues exchange of information. Following is the information related to frequency, location, purpose and means of communication or information flow:

(Carpenter, Baue & Erdogan,  2010)

Change management 

In this section change in planned activities as stated in project charter will be managed and controlled. Change management or escalation methods will comes into play when there is change in the defined or desired activities of the project of establishment of social media research centre. In present case, escalation in terms of risk of project objectives, roles and responsibility of project team, dependencies on experts for testing or assessment and scope management of project has been established. In order to overcome escalations in the undertaken project, issue management capabilities will be used. Following are some issue management or escalation management techniques that will be used in the establishment of social media research centre:

Development of Issue logs: Problems, gaps, inconsistencies and difficulties arise while performing or implementing project activities shall be recorded and presented. This is known as issue log (Project-Management.Com, 2017). Issues are then investigated and resolved in lesser time frame as they are in written format. Following details shall be recorded and presented in issue log:

Type of issue encountered: whether technical, business process, third party issue or issue related to resources

Timing: When issue in the undertaken project has been arise shall be noted

Responsible person: Who will identify and note issue in issue log will be stated. Project manager and any member in project team facing issue can identify and note in issue log.

At last, changes, if any, done in the project scope, project activities, project deliverables and any other factors related to undertaken project will be communicated to all stakeholders of the project (Schiff, 2012).

Meeting agenda

Various meetings have been held to successfully complete the undertaken project and each meeting has its own agenda. Agenda of meetings includes goal of meeting, objectives of meeting, documentation, etc. Following are agenda of different meetings that will be held:

References

Babou. (2014, January 06). What methods & techniques are used in Project Scoping? Retrieved March 23, 2017, from leadershipchamps.wordpress.com: https://leadershipchamps.wordpress.com/2014/01/06/project-scoping/

Carpenter, M., Baue, T., & Erdogan, B. (2010, April 2). Different Types of Communication. Retrieved April 20, 2017, from Catalog.flatworldknowledge.com: https://catalog.flatworldknowledge.com/bookhub/5?e=carpenter-ch12_s03

Esposito, E. (2015, October 05). Demystifying the 5 Phases of Project Management. Retrieved March 23, 2017, from www.smartsheet.com: https://www.smartsheet.com/blog/demystifying-5-phases-project-management

Graham, N. (2013). Avoiding project management pitfalls. Retrieved April 20, 2017, from Dummies.com: https://www.dummies.com/careers/project-management/avoiding-project-management-pitfalls/

Lunenburg, F. C. (2010). Formal Communication Channels: Upward, Downward, Horizontal, and External. Focus on Colleges, Universities and Schools, 1-4.

McConnell, E. (2010). Project Management Framework: Definition And Basic Elements, 1. Retrieved April 07, 2017, from https://www.mymanagementguide.com/project-management-framework-definition-and-elements/

Naybour, P. (2010). What is a Project Management Framework?, 2. Retrieved April 07, 2017, from https://blog.parallelprojecttraining.com/project-management-articles/what-is-a-project-management-framework/

Project-Management.Com. (2017, January 27). A Guide to Escalation in Project Management. Retrieved April 20, 2017, from PROJECT-MANAGEMENT.COM : https://project-management.com/a-guide-to-escalation-in-project-management/

Schiff, J. L. (2012, September 26). 12 common project management mistakes — and how to avoid them, Retrieved April 20, 2017, from Cio.com: https://www.cio.com/article/2391872/project-management/project-management-12-common-project-management-mistakes-and-how-to-avoid-them.html

Shedlock, K., Vos, M., & Chard, S. (2016). Design Science Research: Building evaluation into the construction of indigenous cultural artefacts in New Zealand. Australasian Conference on Information Systems, 1-12.

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