Project Objectives
Question:
As the Project Manager you are required to present an Initial Project Report to the Project Sponsor that shows how you propose to Implement this Project. As the Project Manager you may make any assumptions you think are Necessary.
Title of the Project: Social Media Research Centre
PManager
Eight months
The overall budget that would be assigned to the project team for the completion of the project activities will be AUD 50,000.
There are many costs that will be involved with the project such as the ones associated with design, resources, tools, equipment, testing, closure, implementation and likewise (Focacci, 2011).
The main objectives of the project will be to set up a web site for having an online presence for the social media research centre (Mallery, 2011).
- The web site for social media research centre shall include the design details and developmental aspects as per the project specifications.
- There shall be adequate utilization of information sources for data collection.
- Access control, identity management and authentication features shall be implemented in the application.
- The web site shall have the system qualities as performance, availability, reliability and adaptability.
- Project Charter: Document describing the information and activities covered by the project team in the initiation phase including high level view of budget, scope, duties, deliverables and stakeholders.
- Communication Plan: Deliverable would provide information on purpose of communication and the approach of the same (Cho, 2016)
- Project Plan: Planning details associated with the resources, scope, budget, time and risks will be included in this deliverable.
- Application Design: Design in terms of wireframes and UI/UX aspects
- Application Code: Web site’s Source code
- Defect Report: Defects found in the testing phase covering all the parameters and attributes of the defects
- Completion Report: Final closure report of the project
The web site will offer an integrated and collaborated platform for accessing and viewing the details on the research projects and topics which would provide advantages to the organization in terms of goodwill, competitive gain and customer base (Dutot, 2016).
Project of the web site development and implementation will not cover the negotiation and advertising activities.
Impacted Areas
- Organization – The highest impact will be on the organization as new values will be created and customer base will expand.
- Customer – There will be impact on the customers as the functionalities and features on the web site will benefit the activities associated with selection and research work.
- Social – The parties linked with the organization will benefit as there will be new values created.
- Financial – Technical costs, operational costs and cost of resources will reduce.
- Strategy – Automation will be introduced in the organization processes leading to positive impact.
Name of the Parameter |
Value that will be added |
Better |
Performance and goodwill in the market |
Faster |
Time to handle exceptions Query and error handling |
Cheaper |
Resource Costs Technical and Operational Costs |
Do more |
Fulfillment of customer expectations Expansion of the organizational services |
Stakeholder |
Set of Expectations |
Target |
Sponsor of the project |
Better goodwill and performance in the market |
Increase by 29% |
Research Students |
Better query handling and integrated and collaborated information |
Increase by 39% |
Third parties |
Reduction in technical, staffing and operational costs |
Decrease by 25% |
Research Guides |
Better query handling and integrated and collaborated information |
Increase by 39% |
Employees |
Automation of activities |
Increase by 81% |
- The dates of the deliverables that have been specified above are as listed below.
- Project Charter: 5th May 2017
- Communication Plan: 6th June 2017
- Project Plan: 6th June 2017
- Application Design: 17th July 2017
- Application Code: 18th September 2017
- Defect Report: 20th October 2017
- Completion Report:5st December 2017
- The project would be considered as a success only if the entire duration would fall under a period of eight months and budget under AUD 50000.
- Duration of the project shall be eight months
- Budget of the project shall be under AUD 50,000.
- Availability of the team members shall be 48 hours per week.
- Sponsor
- Third parties: vendors and suppliers
- End Users
- Project Manager
- Development Expert
- Design Expert
- Security Tester
- Implementation Analyst
- Technical Associate
- Application Tester
Projects that are similar to the web site development of social media research centre have been observed to fail because of the reasons associated with poor management and inadequate leadership leading to the major risks associated with time and budget along with resources (Nelson, 2005).
The allocation of the project resources and management will be done as per the skill sets and experience in this case to avoid any of such risks (Maravilhas, 2016) Also, an amalgamation of reviews and inspections will also be included to verify and validate the project.
Sign off on the charter will be provided by the sponsor.
The communication plan will be designed and distributed in the project planning phase with the purpose to enhance the communication activities and incorporate the qualities such as clarity and ease of understanding in the project.
The communication with sponsor will be maintained during the entire lifecycle of the project through the modes of communication such as teleconferencing and emails along with exchange of weekly reports on the project progress (Williams, & Lewis, 2008).
The communication with the project team will be the accountability of the manager and there will be exchange of reports, setting up of meeting, one on one discussions and group discussions organized for the same.
Third parties will be contacted once a week to provide them information on the project progress through the medium of progress and status reports.
Developed application will be released and provided to the end users (Papulova, 2016).
A variety of information will be shared during the lifecycle of the project covering details such as specifications of the project, progress details, defects in the developed application, guidelines, ethical standards, quality standards, change requests and deliverable details.
- Progress reports: Daily and weekly to the Project Manager and weekly to the sponsor and third parties
- Team meetings and group discussions: Daily between internal members and weekly between Project Manager and external parties
- One on One Discussions: Weekly basis
The documents, reports, meeting notes and other media will be placed on the common SharePoint location.
The rest of the information will be exchanged and placed on emails and local communicators.
The communication plan will be designed and distributed in the project planning phase with the purpose to enhance the communication activities and incorporate the qualities such as clarity and ease of understanding in the project (Wilson, 2004).
Communication with external parties will be organized and executed with the use of teleconferencing mediums and emails.
Internal communications will be executed using tele-media and meetings rooms.
It is being assumed that the requirements of the project will remain static during the entire lifecycle of the project. However, there are numerous uncertainties and risks that are associated in terms of the project changes (Brady, 2008).
These changes may come up in the form of project specifications, budget, time along with the expectations of the customers. The management of these changes will therefore take place in an organized manner by following the cycle as definition, approval, management implementation and review.
Meetings will play a major role in the project and will have the agenda to communicate the project information to the internal and external parties.
References
Brady, M. (2008). Analysis of a public sector organizational unit using strategic and operational analysis tools. Knowledge And Process Management, 15(2), 140-149. https://dx.doi.org/10.1002/kpm.305
Cho, S. (2016). Raising Seoul’s global competitiveness: developing key performance indicators. Journal Of Public Affairs. https://dx.doi.org/10.1002/pa.1628
Dutot, V. (2016). Social media and business intelligence: defining and understanding social media intelligence. Journal Of Decision Systems, 25(3), 191-192. https://dx.doi.org/10.1080/12460125.2016.1187704
Focacci, A. (2011). Corporate Social Responsibility performance assessment by using a linear combination of key indicators. International Journal Of Business Governance And Ethics, 6(2), 183. https://dx.doi.org/10.1504/ijbge.2011.039968
Mallery, M. (2011). Project Management Portal (PMP) from the University of Washington Information Technology Wiki – https://wiki.cac.washington.edu/display/pmportal/Project+Management+Portal. Technical Services Quarterly, 28(3), 365-367. https://dx.doi.org/10.1080/07317131.2011.574546
Maravilhas, S. (2016). Social Media Intelligence for Business. International Journal Of Organizational And Collective Intelligence, 6(4), 19-44. https://dx.doi.org/10.4018/ijoci.2016100102
Nelson, J. (2005). Corporate governance practices, CEO characteristics and firm performance. Journal Of Corporate Finance, 11(1-2), 197-228. https://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jcorpfin.2003.07.001
Papulova, Z. (2016). Role of Strategic Analysis in Strategic Decision-Making. Procedia Economics And Finance, 39, 571-579. https://dx.doi.org/10.1016/s2212-5671(16)30301-x
Williams, W., & Lewis, D. (2008). Strategic management tools and public sector management. Public Management Review, 10(5), 653-671. https://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14719030802264382
Wilson, A. (2004). How process defines performance management. International Journal Of Productivity And Performance Management, 53(3), 261-267. https://dx.doi.org/10.1108/174104004105237