Part A

A)  Stakeholder analysis for this project 

As mentioned by Eskerod and Larsen, (2018), stakeholder analysis of a project helps to identify the people who are involved in the project and their level of interest in the project. In this project of upgradation of the information system, a number of stakeholders are involved.  

I. Organization

The organization ‘prime consultancy company’ is the major stakeholder of this project. Apart from this, the major stakeholders can be divided into two categories, internal and external. Therefore, the stakeholders of this project are mentioned below:

Internal stakeholder:

Internal stakeholders of this project are:

• David (project manager)
• Amanda (head of Prime consultancy company)
• Robert ( legal advisor)

External stakeholder:

The external stakeholder of this project is as follows:

• Government
• Sally (head of the government department)

ii. Role on project

In this project, all these stakeholders have different roles and responsibilities. They are:

• David: to monitor activities of this project and ensure to accomplish the project within time
• Amanda: to manage the activities of Prime consultancy company
• Robert: to provide legal advice to the project and assist David in the legal process.
• Sally: to assist Joachim in technical matters
• Government: to provide funding for this project

iii. Unique facts

The unique fact about the stakeholder of this project is that all the stakeholders depend on each other in order to maintain the project activities. For example, Amanda has a lack of knowledge on the government legal system, which is why she depends on Robert.

The interest and influence level of the stakeholders and ways to manage the relationship with them is mentioned below in the table manner:

Table 1: Interest and influence level of the stakeholders and ways to manage the relationship with them 

Source: (developed by the author)

b) Memo to Amanda about the requirements of the top management to assist David in order to manage the challenges of this project along with the success factor of this project

Memo

Prime Consultant Company

To, 

Amanda

Date: 

Subject: Requirements in the project of up-gradation of information system in the Government department 

The new project of the prime consultancy company is the up-gradation information system in a federal government department. In order to accomplish the project, it is required to cost around $300 million. The funding will be generated from the federal government. The major requirements of this challenging project are as follows:

• Technical team for the up-gradation of the information system through the support of Joachim.
• Legal advisor as it is a government department project.
• Huge Investment is also required.
• An efficient project manager to handle the project activities. 

Therefore, in order to meet the challenges of this project, there are requirements of some employees. They are as follows:

• Employees to manage communication with various stakeholders of this project
• Team of expert and efficient technical employees.
• Finance employees to monitor the proper wages of the project.

The success factor of this project:

In this manner, the identified key success factors of this project are as follows:

• Proper planning of the project activities in order to complete them within time and budget
• Effective and efficient employees

From,

David

c) Explain the key documents that can be used in the whole process

Key documents are required to accomplish a project in an organized way. Therefore, it has been identified that the project management plan and project charter are the two key documents of this project. Below, they are discussed in details:

• Project management plan:

As mentioned by Harding et al., (2016), the project management plan is actually a formal document which is used in the project to track the project activities. A project management plan basically outlines the project scope, project objectives, cost, timeline and deliverables (Wang et al., 2017). Therefore through the proper project management plan, the following project will identify the required resources, their uses, budget and its spending in the project activities and other aspects of this project. Through this project management plan, the authorities can determine the intended outcome of this project as well. 

• Project charter:

Along with this, the project charter is another essential document of this project. As per the view of Starns, (2019), the project charter is a short document which describes a project from every aspect. As a project charter, majorly involves the fulfilment of project objectives; therefore, this project charter will enable the authorities to accomplish every objective of this project.

Thus, these two have been identified as the major documents to start off the project activities. Apart from this, other needed documents for this project are work breakdown structure, Gantt chart, risk management plan and others.

d) Discussing the ways through which the benefit of the project to the organization might have been reached

The new project of a prime consultancy company is involved with the up-gradation of information systems in a government department. The activities of the federal government are involved with each other; therefore, it is needed to adopt advanced technology by the federal government. After the completion of this project, the government department will achieve a number of benefits which are discussed below in details: 

• Through the upgrade of the information system, it will be possible to maintain communication among the different departments (García-Abad et al., 2019). Therefore, the coordinating process among the department will be easy.
• The new system after the upgrade will enable the federal government to manage its organizational activities in a more organized way.
• The new technology will be helpful to reduce the timing and expenses of the federal government in order to manage their activities. 

As a lot of activities are incurred every day in the department of Federal government, therefore, up-gradation of the information system has become necessary. Thus, it can be mentioned that up-gradation of information systems will be beneficial to manage their business activities in a more organized way.

Assessment Part B

Introduction 

The company has decided to install new software in the organization in order to enhance information technology. As business growth is running fast, the company needs more advanced technology in order to compete with the other markets. Thus the company made a plan for installing Off the Shelf software system replacing the old manual method. In order to complete this task, new technological equipment is required such as network cabling and others. The report has been produced to present initial planning for completing the task and a WBS reflected to show the work progression. The Gantt chart has been presented in support of the Gantt chart. 

a.      Developing a work breakdown structure 

                                             Table 1: WBS for the project

                                                 (Source: created by author)

The project was started on the 27th of October 2006 and the estimated time of completing the project is 5th of July, 2007. The entire project covers the interview sessions, requirement fulfilling and installing the software including the testing procedure till the end of the project which has been planned for 36 weeks. The interview of the staff has gone for 3 weeks from the beginning of the project and ended on the 16th of November. The approval of the project took 1 week and finally got in hand on the 7th of December. The OTS package has been evaluated for 6 weeks and the entire procedure of evaluation ended on the 4th of January. 2007. The team has cooperated well throughout the session and then the installation of the hardware started on 9th of February 2007 and ended on 12th of April completing the check and test of the system. The software package installation started on 4th of May and ended on the 10th of May where all procedures checked properly and the communication with the staff started. The training requirement was identified on 19th of January, 2007 and ended on 25th, consecutively. Training the new user took 9 weeks to complete the task and training period completed on 22nd of march 2007.  The transfer of the data and implementation to the new system went for 3 weeks and finally completed on the 5th of July 2007 and by this step, the entire project had been ready to work finally.  

b.      Differences between this WBS and a product breakdown structure (PBS) diagram

The basic difference between WBS and PBS is as discussed below,

                                            Table 3: the difference between WBS and PBS 

                                                    (Source: developed by the author) 

c.       Developing a Gantt chart for showing the dependencies

                                           Table 2: Gantt chart 

                                                (Source: Created by author)

According to the Gantt chart, the entire project has been completed within the proposed time and that took 36 weeks. The project was started on the 27th of October 2006 and the estimated time of completing the project is 5th of July. The entire project covers the interview sessions, requirement fulfilling and installing the software and the testing procedure till the end of the project which has been planned for 36 weeks. The interview of the staff has gone for 3 weeks from the beginning of the project and ended on the 16th of November. The approval of the project took 1 week and finally got in hand on the 7th of December. The OTS package has been evaluated for 6 weeks and the process ended 4th of January. 2007. The whale team worked effectively to install the hardware that started on the 9th of February and ended on the 12th of April completing the check and test of the system. The software package installation started on 4th of May and ended on the 10th of May where all procedures checked properly and the communication with the staff started. The transfer of the data and implementation to the new system went for 3 weeks and finally completed on the 5th of July 2007 and by this step, the entire project had been ready to work finally.

Critical path 

Table 4: Critical path

(Source: Created by author)

Table 5: Critical path for the project

(Source: created by author)

As per the critical path the Requirement sizing has been estimated for 6 weeks which includes interview and list-making of the equipment completed within 8thof October. The OTS package evaluation started on the 8th of October and completed on the 18th of January. After specifying the required orders the approval has been signed within 1 week and then test and installation of the new hardware that took 3 weeks. Testing the newly installed system and transferring the data took 9 weeks. The final implementation of the new system and loading data took 3 weeks with successful go-live achievement.

d.      Redeveloping Gantt chart for showing the progress 

                                  Table 5: Gantt chart showing the progress of the project

                                                       (Source: Created by author)

In terms of installing the new technology, the project has taken over the responsibility. In this way, the required time to specify the order and installing the hardware was 3 weeks. At the end of the project, the installation of the packaged software took 4 weeks which was assumed to be taken 1 week only. However, the modification and testing of the new system finally accomplished successfully and ready to use.

e.   Potential risks associated with the project 

The increase of the duration of task D may be the cause of delaying task F which may interrupt the entire project by 1-week delay. In this project task F is a critical one and slack of the previous task may increase the planned duration to 37 weeks from 36 weeks. Thus task F is required to emphasize more in order to complete the project within the assumed time. Reducing the time of modifying and testing by 1 week can be invested in task F as the task has a plan to complete within 15 weeks and it is a long time. As per the Gantt chart of the project, task F has taken 4 weeks and this factor seemed risky during the execution of the task.  

f.  Identification and application of project management concept 

Provide project definition

A project is defined as a series of activities that are required to be completed within a specific time to achieve a particular result. On the other hand, it is simply an input-output method that helps to achieve a certain goal. Managing the project is important to maintain the flow of the project and thus it is required to be an efficient project manager. As mentioned by Radujković and Sjekavica (2017) a successful project needs a group of efficient people with high knowledge about developing and planning the required tasks. The aspects of a project can be both tangible and intangible. The project is a compilation of tasks and activities that has a specific trend to achieve the desired result. 

Project scope and the decision of the successful project 

The scope of the project is referred to as the task that is required to be performed in order to supply the final product or the result (Derenskaya, 2018). The scope of the project is divided into small pieces of requirements and works as well. It is important to note that the scope of the project depends on a successful management decision. Thereby proper planning is needed in order to accomplish the goal. The organisation or the authority would be profited by implementing the successful project plan. The planning for the effects budget is also an aspect of the project scope that helps to reduce the risk factors and project cost.

Go-live’ strategy

Go live strategy is applicable when the installed software or any new technology is tested ready to use. The checklist of the newly installed system such as the rectifying issues, working properly and other facts that will be running in future. Go live task includes following plans as,

i) Scheduling the go-live date: 

Setting the realistic and specific date for testing and implying the project is important. The process has the ability to find out the missing objects and then it can be implemented successfully. The schedule must be on working days so that the employees can fully focus on the project.

ii) Go-live checklist: 

The go-live checklist includes all the steps of the task along with the breakdowns which are required to go through by the users. The checklist should be produced before the estimated time so that the team can identify the real issues and the process of the system.

iii) Communicating with the employees: 

The interaction with the employees or the customer is important in order to make the go-live project successful. In this way, the employees or users can understand the problems.

Documentation

Documentation is one of the most important functions of project management which works for the requirements of the projects. Apart from this, the documentation works for ensuring the traceability of the project in order to understand the result of this task. The certain changes or addition of the project can be verified by the documentation and it works as the proof of the project (Bastos et al., 2018). Documentation of the project maintains the quality of the work and it creates reliability in front of the clients. The basic standard of the project that can be initiated by the project manager and the cost structure can be maintained by this process. 

Monitoring & Control

Monitoring and controlling a project is the process of executing the task activities by following the project life cycle. The ongoing project quality is thoroughly checked and modified by the process of monitoring and controlling (Varajão et al., 2017). The major issues and the drawbacks are identified and the activities of the project members are traced through the process. The current status of the project and the estimated time can be analyzed by monitoring the project activity in order to improve the project quality. The purpose of monitoring is to revise the project for future development and the time management can be scheduled by following the method. 

Conclusion 

The project management is an important tool for the execution of a successful project plan. A Work Breakdown Structure is required to produce as the blueprint of a task so that the activities can be run smoothly. The scheduled plan helps to estimate the time of the entire project and that can reduce the cost of construction and manage time properly.  In this report, the WBS and the Gantt charts have been produced in order to reflect the installation process of new information technology. The potential risks have been evaluated in terms of resolving the issues. Finally, the project management concept including the application of new technologies using go-live strategy and monitoring the project activities have been discussed briefly.