CMGT 410 Week 5 Final Paper PDF

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Running head: PROJECT EVALUATION AND CONTROL

Project Evaluation and Control CMGT/410 September 29, 2018 David Carrier

Week 2

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Running head: PROJECT EVALUATION AND CONTROL The following paper is about a software program that is going to be implemented within our organization. The name of this software program is Bright Pearl and this paper will state what all it will entail in order to incorporate this software program into our corporation. In all company aspects the management system is the key for success for operating cost, sales, production, and overall performance. The organization looks at their background for a full view of opportunities and finds positive alternatives to enhance their performance. What made this project occur was the low reviews on orders fulfillment, customer data reports, accounting practices, and where to gather the information accurately and rapidly. Bright Pearl has the capabilities to handle and sustaining a growing business with a multichannel system. It offers simple integration and quick responses to real-time customer orders, inventory, and accounting financial reports. The benefits of Bright Pearl it’s linking capabilities between systems such as excel spreadsheets, and multiple corporation systems. Allowing the user not to waste time and extract the necessary information they are trying to obtain and make management decisions and move forward rather backwards in daily workloads. Being a new management system there will be side effects that can slow performance and require assistance, with Bright Pearl they offer online, phone, and techs to provide the support to maintain an operating business. This is crucial to a business that wants to implement a project and have all parties involved understand and work with the system not against. The project will have a ROI which enabled a management decision to push forward on this project, so in the end the remarkable finish and maintenance of the system will embark on new opportunities and fulfill any requirements of the company. Goals and the objectives of the project is to eliminate those low review of performance from the initial corporation audit. This is how the project was brought forward and research and

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Running head: PROJECT EVALUATION AND CONTROL development came across Bright Pearl. The remarkable reviews of other industries that used and implemented this system into their practices shows a gain in customers and increased production overall. Once the organization was clear and understood the cost of the system they reviewed what it can do for the company and what will it bring to the table. Both ending results showed positive number values and feedback on both ends which led to a management decision to move forward. The project scope statement provides a detailed description of the project, deliverables, constraints, exclusions, assumptions, and acceptance criteria. Additionally, the scope statement includes what work should not be performed in order to eliminate any implied but unnecessary work which falls outside the of the project’s scope. This project includes the design, programming, and testing of a new software program that involves bringing orders, inventory, customer data, accounting and reporting. The deliverables for this project are a completed software application for order tickets, inventory, customer data, accounting, and reporting tracking with the flexibility to modify and expand the application as necessary in the future. This project will be accepted once the new software has been successfully tested in each department and has been shown to be compatible with the company’s current information technology (IT) infrastructure. This project does not include ongoing operations and maintenance of the software. Only internal personnel and resources may be used for this project. Additionally, the project is not to exceed (8) days in (duration or ($1,788.00 in spending. Assumptions for this project are that support will be provided by the project sponsor and all department managers and that adequate internal resource are available for the successful completion of this project.

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Running head: PROJECT EVALUATION AND CONTROL In order to effectively manage the work required to complete this project, it will be subdivided into individual work packages which will not exceed 40 hours of work. This will allow the Project Manager to more effectively manage the project’s scope as the project team works on the tasks necessary for project completion. The budget on this project is very important and is set at a standard that the organization can afford. All personnel involved with this project needs to know and understand that budget that has been set in order to not go over budget. While it is understood that there are times that some projects may go over budget it will be necessary to complete a form in order to have that approved. The budget that is set for this project is $149.00 per month which comes out to $1,788.00 annually for the cost of this project to be implemented (“Bright Pearl”, 2014). The time that is required for this project will be 40 hours which will be broken down to 5 eight hour days in order for it to be completed within a timely manner and for the organization to stay on budget. The roles and responsibilities are important when it has to do with the project that the team is going to complete for our organization. First off the team members of the project are going to be divided based on their skill and what they can bring to the project. There will have to be a team lead that will be appointed who will oversee all of the team members and this will also be the person that will answer questions from the team members. It will be very important for the team lead to make sure that the team members are staying on task and that scope creep does not happen. If there is a change that will need to be made within the project then the proper form will be completed and this is where the stakeholders will become involved. The stakeholders will review the form with other members of the organization to see if the changes are feasible for

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Running head: PROJECT EVALUATION AND CONTROL the organization. If all members involved in the project follow this order then the project will meet the goals that are set and will be successful (“Usability”, 2014). The project approach our team intends to take to fulfill meeting deliverables of the project is the traditional project management approach. This approach identifies five components, or states of a complete project: 

Initiation

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Planning and design

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Execution

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Monitoring and controlling

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Closing

We are current in the initiation phase. We have decided on our topic, the objectives and scope, and purpose has been identified. As the project is definitively designed, we will design a project team, which individual responsibilities to move on the next phase. There are six steps involved in the initiation stage; develop a business case, undertake a feasibility study, establish a project charter, appoint the project team, set up the project office, and perform the phase review. The second step is planning and designing. At the core of project designing is the development of WBS. This creation involves listing of all of the project outputs, identifying all of the activities required to deliver the outputs, dividing these activities into sub-activities and tasks, identifying the deliverables and milestone of each task, and identifying the time usages of all of the resources required to complete each task, The third step is the execution phase. During this stage the all tasks, previously described, are executed. At the end of the Executing phase, a phase review is conducted and lessons learned and documented for future consideration. The last phase is the closing phase. This includes all of the activities necessary of the project office to

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Running head: PROJECT EVALUATION AND CONTROL close the project. In this phase contract documentation will be collected, formal acceptance, administrative closure, completion of closeout phase review and lesson learned and complete a Post Implementation Evaluation Report. The information that has been researched within this paper will help this organization in completing a project that they will benefit from in the future. If the project scope and charter are followed then this project should meet all goals and be successful. The organization as well as all the employees will benefit greatly from this project. Week 3 The following paper will identify the tasks that will be done when implementing the Bright Pearl project within the organization. It will go over the project initiative, planning of the project, execution of the project, and completion of the project. The stakeholders that will be involved with this project are the stockholders and the employees. The technical support team will consist of the members that are going to help with any issues that may arise during the project that has to do with the technical portion of the project. They will be contacted either in person or by the phone if any team members that are working on the Bright Pearl project should encounter any issues. It is also going to be considered that they may start a technical support chat room where simple issues may be able to be handled (“Technical Support”, 2014). The project scope of this Bright Pearl implementation will be that the organization will have an up to date software program and it should take three months in order for it to be completed. Once this project is completed the organization will be able to handle customer orders in a faster way and it will be done in real time. This will help the company in being able to fill more orders in a timely fashion and also satisfy the customer as they will be receiving their

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Running head: PROJECT EVALUATION AND CONTROL orders much faster. This not only helps out the employees of the organization but gives the customers satisfaction. The project charter will be completed within the initiation of the project and the budget will also be determined. This will be done by using a project statement that the project manager will go over with the stakeholders. It will then be presented to the project team members so that they will have a better understanding on what is expected of them. The project team will consist of the team members that the project manager sees as fit for this project. There will be team leads that have the most knowledge over the project who the team members will report to. Any questions or concerns will be brought to the team members who will then report them to the project manager if they are not able to resolve them. Once all of this is in place a project plan will be developed in order for all team members and all employees that are involved in this project will follow. It will be very important for all team members and employees to follow the project plan as this will help in scope creep not happening which could further delay the project. The key to a successful project is in the planning. During this stage, the detailed project scheduled and budget are defined, the plans for change control, communications, and management of quality, issues, risks and procurement are included, the baseline to control and manage the project is provided, and the project to begin work is approved. As previously mentioned, the stakeholders have been identified as the stockholders and the employees. It is important to understand the needs of the stakeholders. A team will be developed to interview the stakeholders to draw out the true needs that create real benefits. From these interviews, a comprehensive list will be created and prioritize.

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Running head: PROJECT EVALUATION AND CONTROL Within the prioritization all tasks will be considered by noting the count of the lowest level tasks, excluding summary, subproject, zero baseline duration, and milestone tasks. The “complete tasks” will be identify is this will provide a definitive count of total tasks with an actual finish date. The “incomplete tasks” will be the count of the total tasks that do not have an actual finish date. The “baseline count” will be all of the tasks that should have been completed on or before the project date. This will take approximately two days to complete. Secondly, the change management process will be created. This is the sequence of steps or activities that change management team or a project leader would follow to apply change management to a project of change. The first phase is to prepare for the change by using assessments and strategy development. The change management strategy will be defined. Once defined the change management team will be prepared and then the sponsorship model will be developed. The second phase is to manage the change. There will be detailed planning and change management implementation. The change management plans will be developed and action will be taken to implement plans. The third phase is to reinforce the change by gathering data and taking corrective action. Feedback will be collected and analyzed; gaps and manage resistance will be diagnosed, and corrective actions will be implemented. Developing the change management process will take approximately four days. Next, the project will be finalized. The project charter will be accepted and approved by the project sponsor and other designated stakeholders. Formal approval acknowledges the completion, review and acceptance of all deliverables during the Initiate State. This section contains the signatures of the project sponsor or sponsors, the project manager, and other key project stake holders, confirming that they agree to their roles, the description of the project, and the project deliverable and outcomes presented in the project charter.

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Running head: PROJECT EVALUATION AND CONTROL A finalized and project charter can be viewed as a deliverable in itself. The finalization of the project will take approximately two days. After the project charter is finalized, it will need to be distributed to all parties involved. Effective communication is one of the most important factors contributing to the success of a project. It is important to provide timely and accurate information to all stakeholders. This includes general communication between team members but is more encompassing. It utilizes the WBS for a framework, it is customer focused, it’s limited in time, it is product focused with the end in mind, and it involves all levels of the organization. The suppliers must communicate with the task managers, and the task managers must communicate with the suppliers and the customers. The project communication plan will include a brief introduction and background, a list of the project sponsor, project management, and stakeholders, methods of communication to be used, including the formal meetings to be held, project reporting information, stakeholder analysis, goals for the projects, preferred methods of communication, preferred method of recognizing performance of the team, and a communication matrix to track performance by project component and WBS element. The distribution of the project charter will take approximately four days. Once this is completed, all signed documents on project charter will be collected. This will take approximately one day. After the documents are collected, the weekly meetings will be added to the calendar to discuss. Our company is greatly appreciative of the stakeholders, sponsors, partners, and other personnel who are involved in this new project, but it does not stop here. Our project managers and other team member are still responsible for carrying out the same protocols that were followed planning this project. Once the project goes into what is called an active stage or execution stage nothing changes. Team responsibilities are as simple as monitoring the

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Running head: PROJECT EVALUATION AND CONTROL performance of the actions moving forward, providing a project status as the project moves along, project admin protocol, executing the procurement plan, documenting the work results, verifying the scope, and work authorization. Monitoring the responsibilities is simple and all you have to do is assign each member a job and deadline and as the project manager, follow up and set work performance check ins to determine if the proper work assigned is being done and also being done by the person in which it was assigned to. Project monitoring also goes hand in hand with project status and documenting the work results of all team member as the project moves along. Project administration basically is another way to monitor work results by using things such as new estimates of work still needing to be completed, resource change or alteration, tracking time spent on project activities, timesheet forms, and of course project status reporting back to the project manager. Now we have the procurement plan and the procurement plan is basically a plan created using methodology and precision. But, executing this plan can be difficult and sometimes in order to execute this pan properly you will have to go outside of the current resource bubble that’s given to you but at the same times following a proper policy and defined set of guidelines to that execution. Lastly, we have to make sure through every step of the project we are verifying our scope and remaining on the task at hand. It is very easy to fall short of a goal or deadline or perform above and beyond the given scope and add more work to the team or an individual member than is unnecessary. So, goal here is to stick to the given scope and you will not exceed the amount of work needed as well as not provide less than what is required. These rules and guidelines are

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Running head: PROJECT EVALUATION AND CONTROL what control a project and a project’s execution. When following these rules of execution everything meets is required deadline and completion day. Week 4 The following paper will cover the cost of the project that is being implemented into our organization. This software program that is going to be built into the systems of the organization is called BrightPearl. Any possible implications that may arise will also be mentioned in this paper. Also the resources that will be involved in the project will be gone over. According to “Project Management for Construction” (2008), “Cost estimating is one of the most important steps in project management”. This will establish what the project may cost at different points within the project and as the tasks are completed. The way that the cost estimation is figured is by using the data that is provided for a certain project. With that being said the cost estimates for the Bright Pearl project that will be done in the organizations software program will consist of the following estimates. The cost estimation for the BrightPearl Data Management System that will be set up for our organization will be $36,040.00. For the initiation of the project which will include identifying the stakeholders, developing the project scope, developing the project charter, determining the project budget that will be worked with, developing the project team members that will be working on the project, and developing the project plan will come to an estimation of $4,600.00 to be completed. The planning of the project which will include confirming the tasks of the project, developing the change management process of the project, finalizing the project charter that has been put together, destitution of the project charter to all that will be involved in the project, collecting the signed documents on the project charter, the weekly meetings that will be held with the support team, and completing the planning of the project will come to an

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Running head: PROJECT EVALUATION AND CONTROL estimation of $5,440.00. The execution of the project includes preparing of the se...