Phase 2 – Scope/Timeline/Resources

Phase 2

As we learned in Chapter 9, project management can be formal, informal, or a matrix of
both methodologies (Kerzner, 2014, p. 441). For your project, most of you will be using
informal project tools and techniques unless you are experienced in using project
management software and methodologies. The assignment this week will focus on some
of the basic issues needed when planning the project: defining the scope,
timetable/schedule, and resources.

Complete the following three areas and upload your completed document in the correct
area. Use the three major headings listed below in your paper. Only include your name at
the top of your paper – you do not need a title page for this assignment. At the end of this
class, each of the five phases will be combined to form one final paper.

Project Scope Statement:
The scope statement is the “top-level document for articulating the overall project goals,
objectives, and mission-critical parameters, such as overall timing and resource
constraints. It defines the project baseline for all other documentation and management
actions.” (Thamhain, 2005, p. 148)

The scope of a project defines what is included in and excluded from the project. Based
on your project proposal and the information provided in the project charter, submit a list
of what will be included in the scope of your project and what will be excluded. Include
the following headings and include the necessary information under each heading based
on your individual project. The Project Scope Statement should be no longer than a page
or page and half (single spaced).

• Project objective – 1-2 sentences
o Example: To construct a high-quality custom insulated doghouse within 4

weeks at a cost not to exceed $5,000.
• Deliverables: What are you going to accomplish.

o Example:
§ A 5’ x 7’ finished doghouse with one doorway
§ White aluminum siding
§ Shingled Roof
§ One (1) Doorway

• Milestones: Dates for specific high-level milestones for the project.
o Example:

§ Permits approved – June 1, 2016
§ Foundation poured – June 10, 2016
§ Framed, siding and roof completed – June 25
§ Final inspection – June 30

• Technical Requirements:
o Examples:

§ Doghouse must meet local building codes.
§ Wall and ceiling insulation must meet ______.
§ Floor insulation must meet ______.

• Limits and Exclusions
o Examples:

§ The doghouse will be built to the specifications and designed
provided by the customer.

§ Owner is responsible for landscaping.
§ Doghouse does not include windows or a door.
§ Site work will be limited to Monday through Friday, 8:00am-

5:00pm
Timetable/Schedule
Create a timeline/schedule for your project showing major milestones and/or
deliverables. This must be in the form of a chart-type diagram (Gantt, Milestone, PERT,
or Excel). For now, you must include a minimum of five items in your chart. Review
Chapter 6 in the Thamhain textbook if you need more detailed information or examples
of charts.

There are many different types of charts used in the management of projects and the type
and complexity of the chart you choose will depend on your project as well as your own
skills. This assignment does not require you to use Project Management or Open Source
software; however, if you are familiar with the software and want to use one of their
charts, please feel free to do so. Otherwise, for some of your basic projects, an Excel-type
chart is sufficient.

This timeline will be used as the basis for future actions on your project. As you define
other important milestones in future Phases of this project (e.g., Work Breakdown
Structure), you will include additional information in your final chart.

Resources
In project management, resources are defined as anything necessary to carry out the
project tasks. This includes people, equipment, facilities, funding, or anything else
needed for your project.

Please include a list of the resources you will need to complete your project. At a
minimum, it must include people, equipment, and funding. Include headings for each of
these areas and be specific. With the doghouse example, under the heading of personnel,
you might include yourself, a carpenter, and someone familiar with laying cement (or
subcontractor). For the funding, we need to see a breakdown of costs for items, such as
building materials, permits, and employee costs. These must all be reasonable and match
your project scope.

References:
Kerzner, H. (2014). Project management best practices: Achieving global excellence.

Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons.
Thamhain, H. (2005). Management of technology: Managing effectively in technology-

intensive organizations. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons.

Running head: PHASE 1 – PROJECT CHARTER 1

PHASE 1 – PROJECT CHARTER 2

Phase 1 – Project Charter

Yusuf M Saed

Project Title and Description

The project title Introduction of Cloud Computing Services and is about introducing cloud computing services as part of the services being offered by Future Link. This move is to increase the competitive advantage of the company as cloud computing is one of the latest technological trends which will supplement the internet services being offered by the company. The company is aiming at being a provider of cloud computing services, and this can be achieved through selecting all the three services in cloud computing, which are platform, infrastructure, and software and partnering with companies that offer the services before introducing them to the clients. The company will be able to cut down on costs with most of the equipment being owned by the partner, and Future Link will have a competitive advantage over their competition by providing cloud services. The changes in the technology industry demand that companies are up to date with technological advancements in order to stay ahead in business.

Project Purpose

Cloud computing is a way of providing IT services as it involves obtaining data and programs over the internet in place of the hard drive (Jagirda, Venkata & Qyser, 2013). The introduction will give the company a competitive edge over its competitors as the company will increase its market share as it gains more clients who are seeking the services. The project will make sure that clients enjoy high speeds, automatic software integration, and unlimited data storage. The project is essential as it will also enable the company not only to cut its costs but offer competitive services in a saturated market. Several laws are governing the cloud computing environment, which includes federal, state laws, and international policies that affect both providers and clients. These laws include the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, The Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard, and the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act. These laws and policies are mainly on data protection.

Business Case/Requirement

The project will ensure a quick return on investment for the company. This is because the project will allow the clients to cut down on their costs while enjoying most of the benefits of cloud services. The company will also benefit by offering competitive services to its clients apart from the regular services they have been offering, increasing their brand as the company continues to expand. There are alternatives to cloud computing services, which include providing application hosting services to clients that will allow clients to deploy their applications on the company’s servers. The use of virtual machines will allow this to work the same way as to cloud computing, as there will be no need for purchasing physical devices. The business requirements include a world-class data center and security, business-driven configuration, seamless integration, a high performance IT infrastructure, a total cost ownership model, and faster deployment.

Constraints

Three main constraints may interfere with the implementation of the project or the success of the project. Time is a significant constraint in the project as the project requires time before integrating the current infrastructure with the new infrastructure. The staff also needs training and education as part of the implementation of the project, which will eat into the time allocated. The project runs on a budget that has both fixed costs and variable costs. Any changes in the costs will impact the project as most of the figures are estimates made in developing the budget.

Risks

The cost risk will occur due to the escalation of costs due to having wrong estimates of the expenses in the budget. Budgetary cost estimates are derived from historical information, vendors, and other entities and situations where the costs are underestimated. Schedule risk is where the project activities take longer than the estimated time or time allocated. This will result in increased costs that were not assigned to cover the extra time and, in the long run, lose the competitive advantage. Performance risk is another risk in project management, which is the risk if the project is failing due to poor results, which are not consistent with the project specification.

Project Deliverables

At the end of the project period, the project manager and his team will be expected to deliver an IT infrastructure that offers cloud computing services to the clients of Future Link. The support includes hardware and software elements that are needed for the provision of cloud computing services. This will consist of computing power, networking, and storage. There is a virtual infrastructure that mirrors the physical infrastructure with components like servers, network switches, memory, and storage. In addition to the infrastructure, the project team will deliver the necessary training and education that will be required for the staff before the execution of the project. Staff training and education are essential for the success of the whole project as it will not be able to function without the staff. The training will involve all the staff with the emphasis being placed on the technical and marketing team that is in direct contact with the clients. External deliverables will be the provision of cloud services to current and future clients of the company.

Project Milestones

The project definition should be finished by 20th March. This involves agreeing on what will be put on the cloud and what will not. 1st April should complete the selection of a platform. The platform chosen should be fast and easy to deploy and able to support business growth. Grasping of security policies will be done by 7th April. A clear understanding of who is responsible for data security and the various legislations and procedures involved in cloud computing. The selection of a provider and determination of service level agreements should be completed by 7th May. This consists in finding a cloud service provider and ensuring all the items in the service level agreement are taken care of like data security and availability. The definition of owning recovery should be agreed on by 7th May. In the case of outages should be known in advance who will be responsible for improvement. Migration should be completed by 1st September. The migration will be done in phases to prevent interruptions and reduce risks. Training and education should be completed by 1st December. Staff will require preparation and knowledge on how to use the new technology. The execution of the project will be done by 31st December. This is when the project will be completed, and the company will be able to offer new services as a third-party provider of cloud computing services.

Project Manager

The project manager will be responsible for all the planning, procurement, and execution of the current project. He is the current project manager as Future link and will be accountable for; ordering and motivating the project team. Planning for meeting the project deadlines, development of the project budget, and creating cost estimates for the project, ensuring the project is within the budget to avoid budget overruns, evaluation and management of project risks, and managing any documentation and reports while monitoring the progress of the project. Lack of experience and training can be mitigated through assessing the available team members and outsource training. The current project requires skilled expertise in order to implement the project successfully. By hiring the expertise would help mitigate the lack of experience and training.

Project Employees/ roles/ Responsibilities

Project team members usually belong to different groups with different functions, all geared to the successful completion of the project. A project employee has a fixed contract that runs during the duration of the contract. They may hire externally from outside the organization to assist during the duration of the project. Internal project employees are those who work for the organization and are involved in the project. The project manager assigns their duties and responsibilities. And some of these responsibilities include; providing the necessary expertise needed during the project, they work with users to establish and meet business needs, completing individual deliverables, documenting the process, and ensuring that they contribute to the overall objective of the project.

Project Sponsor

The project supporter for the current project is the executive management of Future Link, who includes the CEO, the IT manager, the Finance Manager, the head of marketing, and the COO. They are led by the CEO, which makes most of the decisions regarding the project. The sponsor will be responsible for ensuring the success of the project. And the responsibilities will include; describing the principles of the project’s success and how it’ll be aligned with the business objectives of the organization. Offering required support for the project, including financial resources, ensuring the project plan is realistic and feasible, and resolving issues that are beyond the project manager. The implementation duties include; evaluating the project progress while providing any necessary feedback to the project manager, solving any problems that may arise, identify any issues that may occur, and revel the accomplishment of milestones.

References

Jagirdar, Srinivas & Venkata, K & Qyser, Dr. (2013). CLOUD COMPUTING BASICS. International Journal of Advanced Research in Computer and Communication Engineering. 1. 343.

Aaltola, Kirsi. (2017). PROJECT MANAGEMENT HANDBOOK.

TM 402

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Technology Project Management: Final Project/Paper

Project management is an essential skill in today’s business world. “Today’s project

manager has more of an understanding of technology than a command of technology, but

has an excellent knowledge of the business” (Kerzner, 2014, p. 114). Additionally,

organizations are faced with increasing pressure to complete more complex business and

technical projects with smaller budgets and within shorter time frames (Thamhain, 2005).

Professionals need a method to align all projects with the strategic plan of their organization to ensure their success. While students may not pursue a career as a project manager, all of you will at some time be involved in a project. This may be as the project leader, a project team member, or as a business expert collaborating on the initial plan, execution, or review process.

This assignment is designed to provide you with experience in applying project management concepts through designing, planning, and executing a small project. This project integrates information from different courses from your Technology Management program, business electives, and general education required courses. The final project will result in a high-level project overview and will demonstrate your understanding of the concepts and methodologies necessary for a project’s success.

Project Management software is not required to complete this assignment; however, if you are familiar with the software or would like to try it out, feel free to incorporate some of the activities into your paper (e.g. Gantt chart). The computer labs in Sill Hall contain Microsoft Project Management software or you can download the free Open Source Project Management software.

This project is broken down into the five-phase project lifecycle based on A Guide to the Project Management Institute’s Body of Knowledge (PMBOK): Initiate, Plan, Executing, Controlling, and Closing(Project Management Institute [PMI], 2015).Because this is a class assignment with limited time and resources, the project you choose must be small; do not select enterprise-wide projects.

Please select a project that you would like to study for your project. This can be based on your existing company (you may change the name), a past company, oar company that you would like to start. You will need to have my approval for the organization that you choose. This feedback is particularly helpful to ensure that your project is small, focused, and achievable. If you need assistance selecting a project, please let me know. Each of you works in a different industry, thus your projects will be varied in concept as well as complexity. Examples of past projects include: building a small structure, designing a new online game, designing and implementing a website, selecting/implementing a new technology product/feature for the organization/division, order signing/implementing a new product/ invention.

When you consider your project, it is important to keep in mind a project’s unique characteristics:

•A project has a unique set of activities• A project has a specific goal

• A project has to be completed by a specified date

• A project has to have some standard of quality

• A project requires a sequence of activities(Lientz & Rea, 2011)

Project Milestones

Project Approval Assignment:

This assignment is a written proposal outlining your project. You will receive feedback from fellow students as well as the instructor.

Phase1: Initiate-Project Charter

This phase is to identify the project, identify ahigh-level overview of the project, and gather the commitment required to get it started.Phase2:Planning–Scope, Time, Resources This phase is to devise and maintain a schedule of tasks and resources needed to fulfill the business need the project will address.Phase3:Executing-Scheduling and Estimating/Work Breakdown Structure This process identifies a method for coordinating the people and resources needed to execute the project tasks. Phase 4: Controlling-Risk Assessment/Mitigation, Communication. This process ensures the project objectives are met by monitoring and measuring the progress of the project. Also, addressing risks and unexpected hurdles in a timely manner is necessary for the project’s success. Phase 5: Closing-Status Reporting/Closing, Lessons Learned, Best Practices When the project is complete and all deliverables met, the closing phase formalizes the completion of the project. Final Paper: The final paper will consist of a complete and well-written document that includes only the five phases listed above. You will be expected to make the needed corrections/additions to the different assignments based on your own research or any feedback you received.