CIS8010_Assignment 3 SPECIFICATIONS
Description Marks out of Wtg(%) Due date
Assignment 3 (MS Project) 100 35% See the study schedule
This written assignment is to be electronically submitted through the EASE system in
the CIS8010 Study Desk. Hardcopy or email submission will NOT be accepted and
will NOT be acknowledged. (You MUST use a plagiarism application to ensure that the
part is plagiarism free)
Student requirements
The objective of this assignment is to assess your understanding of basic project management
concepts and your proficiency in using project management software to produce project
charts and reports. In particular, the assignment focuses on the following project
management knowledge areas in the PMBOK: project integration management, project scope
management, project time management and project resource management.
Scenario
Company XYZ is in the software games application development and has been aware that
their production of a popular game application will not continue to satisfy consumer demands.
This application has seen an increase of about 10 – 12% for the past five years. Currently the
games are sold as individual packs. However, sales forecast has indicated that this will not
continue due to other products emerging in the market, customer preferences, market
distribution and price competition.
The CEO had asked an internal team to review current processes and propose changes, along
with upgrades to software to meet the demands for the future. The proposed changes include
writing new games to suit young audiences, licensing options, access to games through
mobile devices and smartphones. The CEO also wanted an upgrade to equipment used to
develop software applications as well as test them, and a redesign of the processes in software
development processes with solid metrics relating to the increase in customer markets.
This has necessitated XYZ in specific anticipated changes such as team composition,
procurement of skills to write software to the mobile and smartphone markets, distribution of
their applications through telephone companies, and providing ongoing support for access.
The above specific changes also warranted XYZ to think about their software team
composition, marketing team composition, finance team composition, game writing process
aspects, and customer care team composition. XYZ is keen to make changes to their HR
composition as well as software writing processes, and would like to investigate, if these
changes were made to the organisational process, whether they would be able to manage those
process changes.
The Project Plan
XYZ would like to see an outline of a project plan with tentative timelines and cost ranges so
that serious consideration can be given to the process changes. The project plan that XYZ
would like to see should include included identification of needs for increased production, as
well as identification of affected departments and/or processes if the increase in production
were carried out.XYZ knew from experience that changes to software writing (specific to games) would
impact other areas. For example, procurement had a set budget for hiring software engineers.
The expenditure necessary for software libraries that were not ready to be used in software
writing would impact cash flow and require consideration as to how this can be handled as
procurement of software takes time. Further, additional vendors may be sub-contracted in the
software development, as XYZ doesn’t have all the skills required. Should the current vendors
be unable to meet increased demands, then alternative vendors needed to be in place before
any supply issues arose.
So, XYZ is keen to see a proper project plan for identifying the stakeholders and how they
would proceed to gather the data necessary to accurately document the change management
processes in order to develop new gaming software. The plan that XYZ is keen to see should
include a detailed list of requirements to achieve the market share, and list HR, software,
hardware and other resources.
XYZ is also interested in the identification of potential risks and strategies for managing them
should they come to fruition. They wanted to be sure that once they finalise the process
changes for gaming software development, they could accommodate potential changes to
other processes. They knew that changing one process would likely have a domino effect
throughout the company. For example, during one of the scenario planning sessions, the
project team found that if procurement was unable to fulfil the skills needs of software
writing, without a back up vendor in place, there would potentially be a disaster. As XYZ is
keen to advertise their process changes and advertise that a new game is going to be released
to the market on a certain date, this would be unacceptable to XYZ and would ultimately
cause customer dissatisfaction, which could lead to a loss of business to competitors.
XYZ would like to see a proper breakdown of skill and other procurement options, and
several milestones, to allow the company to move forward with working with new processes
and upgrades to resources without interrupting the current schedule of activities. At each
milestone, there were several tasks for measuring progress and comparing it to expected
results and baselines. Assessments were completed regularly to ensure the current plan held
true to the objectives. At any point during the project, if the assessments showed deficiencies
from the objectives, then an evaluation and correction strategy would be required. The Work
Breakdown Structure should also include an induction and training time to get individuals up
to speed.
The Risk Management Plan should include contingencies should current employees be
incapable of delivering the new game software and performing their role in a timely fashion.
Part of the contingency plan was to use employees who adapted quickly to the new vision and
mix with other employees in the organization. An integrated team concept, including
mentoring, will be put in place to assist people in getting up to speed on new vision.
The current status of the company is that XYZ is selling about 250,000 games (the most
popular game of their product line) per quarter. At the time of the undertaking of the process
improvement initiative, client demand had just reached 240,000, and demand forecast
indicates a potential decline by 30% half-annually over the next 3 years.
The directive from the executives is to pitch the sales of the new game at 300,000 for the first
quarter in 2016. Based on current projections, the company would experience a five-year
timeline before having to undertake another increase in production to satisfy growing client
demand. At that point, if client demand continued to increase, the company would be in a
better position to invest in another production site in order to meet demands after the five year
mark.
Additionally, in the current production line there was, on average, a 3.6% defect rate in
software produced. One of the directives specific to this project was to attempt to reduce this
defect rate by at least half within the first two years.The following were discovered during the current process analysis:
1. Capacity for procurement was limited due to cash flow and budgetary issues, as well
as storage. Any new process needed to take this into consideration once production
increased and would have to allow for a smooth flow between skill procurement and
product manufacturing and distribution.
2. It became apparent that once the number of game sales increased, demands on
warehousing and delivery would increase accordingly. A plan was put in place to
change warehousing and delivery processes to reduce the strain on these functions.
3. The project is allowed to run slightly (8 weeks) over the projected timeline, but
should remain within budget. The increase in the timeline may result from an
underestimate of the skill required, procuring this skill, contractual obligations etc.
4. If the decrease in the defect rate was .06%, then this will significantly exceed the goal
of 1.8%, thus causing an increase in storage and distribution. Although this is not
anticipated in a contingency plan it will not cause the executives to be unhappy. It is a
good problem.
Your task is to develop a project case for XYZ within the above scenario. If any parts of the
scenario in unclear, you are allowed make necessary assumptions, but the assumptions should
be realistic. Your task is to develop a project management document to provide an initial
idea and scope as to the cost in procuring various resources and timelines. Your
submission should include the following documents:
1. A complete project plan (PERT & GANTT Chart)
2. A Time Schedule for procuring the resources to meet 2016 implementation
3. A resource document detailing the type of resources required, cost to procure the resource
and the involvement of the resource in the development
4. A set of potential risks that you are anticipating in implementing the system
The above documents should clearly be developed using a project tool that is available to you.
You are required to state your assumptions clearly and package the documents in a professional
report to the top management for their consideration.
Report Submission:
Your report submission should be in four parts. The first part should provide a comprehensive
analysis of your research. This is a simple document, written with supporting arguments as to
various aspects highlighted, includes proper references etc. You will base this report on your
research conducted. The report should be contained within 2000 words. This report is pitched
to the management board and you are asked to use simple language as board members are
drawn from both technical and non-technical domains.
The second part of the report contains the project aspects. The four key aspects required for
the development should be explained and properly annotated.
The third part of your report should highlight the set of anticipated risks and you plan to
mitigate these risks.
The final part is the development of a complete project plan through PERT & GANTT Chart
Other Report Submission Requirements:
1. Remember state your assumptions clearly prior to developing the above documents and
your modeling.
2. Only PDF format of the final report is to be submitted through EASE system available through UConnect. (All other mode of submissions are considered as assignment is not
submitted)
OTHER REQUIREMENTS
Marks can be deducted for the following errors:
1. Problems with format and structure of report
2. Lack of referencing (Harvard referencing format is the acceptable standard)
3. Spelling, grammar and expression error
4. Indication of plagiarism/collusion
5. Inappropriate use of in-text references
6. Late Submission as per USQ policies and procedures
Please use the following naming convention when saving your digital document:
Student last name_assignment #_CIS8010_Student USQ ID
For example, the first assignment for CIS8010 submitted by Poul Moller, student #
005890420163. If I (Mr. Poul Moller) were uploading this assessment item, file would be
named as follow:
Moller_A1_CIS8010_005890420163.doc