Essay: IT Project Management: Problems, Opportunities, And Directives.

Describe the Information Technology Project Management.

Problems, Opportunities, and Directives in the Project

The term ‘problem; refers to a situation that tends to be harmful or unwelcome and is needed to be averted or overcome at the earliest. Simply stated, it can be noted as a situation, which needs or attracts attention. First comes the individual or the situation that is affected by the problem. Secondly, every problem has its own timeframe. The timeframe determines whether the problem is worsening or fading off with the passage of time. Finally a solution to it is also important.

An opportunity is a however mentioned as a group of events or circumstances that makes it possible to figure out an outcome.  Any opportunity comes with its scope and scalability. It gives its recipients the stage to maximize their talent. At times opportunities are considered to be the best medium to advent innovation.

Directives are the official orders generally coming from the management or higher authorities with a motive to fulfill certain objectives. These are mandatory executive orders that encourage or discourage the course of activity.

In this scenario, the problems, opportunities and the directives can be uniquely identified and discussed. The problem to keep in mind regarding the project is that an online system must be built that has the capability to handle the votes of over 600,000 electors. This online portal must also deal with cross border access for Australians to vote from overseas as well. To identify the opportunities involved a closer look into the project’s aspect must be poured. The project brings out situations that allow scope for improvement and innovation. Opportunity management within this project helps to recognize the utilization of leadership and sponsorship resources alongside identifying the international and political aspects of the project. In case of recognizing the directives involved in this project management, the Government laid path to implement the rules and regulations of election must be adhered to. Directives include the policy to make every elector recognize their duty to vote and to check their authenticity.

The stakeholders involved in this project are needed to deal with all the adversities of it. They are:

• The Australian Government.
• Project Manager
• Survey Supervisor
• Survey Team.
• Survey Experts.
• IT project management team.
• The general citizens.

Below is the Communication Management Plan for the whole project:

Communication Type	Objective of Communication	Medium	Frequency	Audience	Owner	Deliverable	Format
Initial Meeting / Requirement gathering	Introducing the project team and the details of the project.  Review and analyze project objectives and the management’s approach.	Face to Face	Only once for a period of 2 weeks.	·  The Project Sponsor ·  The Project Team ·  The Stakeholders	The Project Manager	Agenda	Soft copy archived on the confirmation of project’s requirement.
Survey Process Meetings	Conduct meeting with the Survey Experts to convey message	·  Face to face	Only once	·  The Project stakeholders. ·  Project manager. ·  Survey Process Supervisor ·  Survey process team.	The project manager	·  Agenda	·  Soft copy and hard copy archived.
Survey Process	Conduct the survey process	·  Online	1 month	·  General public ·  Survey team	Survey Process Supervisor	·  Report status	·  Soft copy and hard copy archived.
Survey Process Analysis	Analyze the results of the survey	·  Face to face	1 month	·  Survey team ·  Analysis experts	Survey Process Supervisor	·  Status report	·  Soft copy and hard copy archived.
Project Team Meetings	Review the status of project requirements with the team. The HR should also share all the policies involved with the team.	·  Face to Face ·  Video or call Conference	Weekly for 2 weeks.	·  The Project Team ·  HR management	Project Manager	·  Agenda ·  Meeting Minutes ·  Project schedule	·  Soft copy and hard copy archived.
Technical Design Meetings	Discuss and develop technical design and development solutions for the project.	·  Face to Face	Regularly for 1 month	·  Project Technical Staff	Specific teams and their Technical Lead	·  Agenda ·  Meeting Minutes	·  Soft copy and hard copy archived
Monthly Project Status Meetings	Reports about the status of the project to the management while it is in its development phase.	·  Face to Face ·  Conference Call	Monthly for 7 months	·  PMO	Project Manager	·  Slide updates ·  Project schedule	·  Soft copy and hard copy archived
Project Testing	Report and resolute the bugs and fixes.	·  Face to Face ·  E-Mails	1 month	·  Stakeholders ·  Project Manager ·  Project team	Project Manager	·  Bug analysis report ·  Project Status Report	·  Soft copy and hard copy archived
Project Status Reports	Report the status of the project including activities, progress, costs and issues.	·  E-mails ·  Face to face	Monthly and at project termination.	·  Project Sponsor ·  Project Team ·  Stakeholders ·  PMO	Project Manager	·  Project Status Report ·  Project schedule	·  Soft copy and hard copy archived
Project Handover	Handover project to the stakeholders/client by signing off all payment and necessary details.	·  Face to face	One week	·  Project Sponsor ·  Stakeholders ·  Project Manager	Project Manager	·  Project Status Report ·  Billing and handover report.	·  Soft copy and hard copy archived
Project Maintenance	Maintain all aspects of the project.	·	Daily for 24 months	·  Project management and maintenance team ·  Client side stakeholders	Project Maintenance Manager	·  Daily project status report	·  Soft copy and hard copy archived

A project scope statement is a necessary tool to outline a projectdeliverables and identify every key constraint, assumption and success factors involved (Pheng 2018). The project scope statement for this project is listed below:

Project scope description – This is an Australian Government sponsored project. It is aimed at improving the electoral experiences of Australians. To overcome the geographical barriers for voting is considered as one of its prime motives. The Government wishes to hold online elections regarding Australia becoming a Republic nation by 2020. To achieve this goal, a survey is needed to conducted that tries to figure out ways to make sure certain aspects of this initiative. It must sure that the system reaches every elector. The eligibility and authenticity of voters and votes is also needed to be checked by the system.

Communication Management Plan for the Project

Project deliverables; An online or physical survey model that consists of every minute detail that concerns the commencement of the project as a whole. The survey report must convey clearly, what the project is meant to achieve. The class of people who have been contacted for the survey must also be mentioned, however, their identity must be concealed. The report must also emphasize on the personal feedbacks from every individual. The conclusion should be reached after careful calculation and study of the whole report. Finally all these information is required to put into the system report for the developers to develop.

Project constraints; To reach out to every Australian across the globe is a tough ask. Technological barriers must be figured out and averted to overcome the project’s boundaries. However, to analyze and conclude from the data produced from the survey of more than half a billion people is a humongous task. Furthermore, special care must be taken in designing and developing the online portal or application, as it is a matter of National importance, thus any discrepancy, or error in the process can be heavily problematic.

Project assumptions; It is assumed that the online survey project released would be robust enough to attain the specific goals. Feedbacks to the survey process is expected from the majority of the citizens and respondents.

The following milestones shall be heavily celebrated in the projects commencement process:

The Survey Report submission:

Specific- It must be made sure that the questions in the process were simple and significant towards solving the problem.

Measure- The survey should be analyzed properly. Those responsible for the process are required to go through the details of each respondent’s answers to the survey process.

Agreed upon- The stakeholders in the survey process must all comply with the conclusion and the policies of it. The respondents are required to make sure that their private information is kept concealed. The supervisors must also take into consideration all aspects and calculations in the process of reaching to a specific and united conclusion.

Relevant- The goals that the survey process was destined to achieve must be checked before the release of the final project.

Time- The survey report is to be presented to the government and the IT team within one month of the completion of the survey process.

Specific- The user interface must be kept as simple and sophisticated as possible.

Project Scope Statement

Measure- The rules and policies laid down by the government for the building of the project must be ensured thoroughly.

Agreed upon- The client must agree to the product efficiency in performing such great a task. All bugs in the product shall be reported and fixed until the final confirmation is achieved.

Relevant- There must be thorough testing of the product based on the results that it is destined to attain.

Time- The project is meant to be compiled and delivered after the development process with in a time span of twelve months.

The newer techniques that are available for cost estimation of the software development process are:

Use Case Points;is one of those software estimation techniques, which the process of prediction of the software size in software development (Estler et al. 2014). Use Case Points is used when the UML (Unified Modeling Language) and the (RUP) Rational Unified Process methods are in use for software development.

Object Points are an approach used in;the software development process;under certain models like COCOMO-II. These are a way of estimating effort size. They are not necessarily related to objects of OOP. The objects that are referred to, include reports, screens, modules of the language. The number of complexity and objects of each process are estimated and a total weighted Object-Point count is computed and utilized to base estimates of the needed effort.

Advantages of using the Use Case Point technique is that the process can be automated and that they produce pure measure of size. This approach therefore allow the project managers to separate the estimation of size from the derivation of duration.

One disadvantage of using this technique is that it takes a lot of time in the planning of the system.

Object Point is an efficient and cheap method for cost estimation. In addition to that, it is also easier to estimate and therefore saves time.

The technique requires core experts. The estimations made can be very inaccurate without the presence of an expert.

Outsourcing certain parts of this project would prove to be of immense risk. This, being a Government project with national and political interest; it would only be preferable for trusted development farms to deal with. This would make it difficult to adhere to the government policy and regulations regarding the project.

The Rural Outsourcing concept would also not be a clever option for this project. To hire novice startups or freelancers to deal to with a nationally important project is not recommended. There would be a bulk of private data to be dealt with in the process. Additionally, it would be difficult for the Government to supervise such tasks and integrate to the parent process.

Project Deliverables

Financial Analysis for Project - Republic Online Survey Project
Discount rate	10.00%
Assume the project is completed in Year 0	Year
	0	1	2	3	Total
Costs	$ 1,000,000.00	$  200,000.00	$   70,000.00	$       70,000.00	$ 1,340,000.00
Discount factor	1.00	0.91	0.83	0.75
Discounted costs	$ 1,000,000.00	$  181,818.18	$   57,851.24	$       52,592.04
Benefits	$    500,000.00	$  700,000.00	$ 900,000.00	$  1,500,000.00	$ 3,600,000.00
Discount factor	1.00	0.91	0.83	0.75
Discounted benefits	$    500,000.00	$  636,363.64	$ 743,801.65	$  1,126,972.20
Discounted benefits - costs	$  (500,000.00)	$  454,545.45	$ 685,950.41	$  1,074,380.17	$ 1,714,876.03	NPV
Cumulative benefits - costs	$  (500,000.00)	$  (45,454.55)	$ 640,495.87	$  1,714,876.03
ROI	169%
Payback period (Year)	1.1	Years
Assumptions
Costs and year wise benefits

Part B: Project Status

Provided data is:

BAC = $500,000

PV = $125,000

RP = 90%

AC = $150,000

Section a: Cost variance, schedule variance, cost performance index (CPI), and schedule performance index (SPI)

BAC = $500,000 (Budget at Completion)

PV = $125,000 (Planned Value)

RP = 90%

AC = $150,000 (Actual Cost)

Therefore, cost variance (CV) = EV – AC

Schedule variance (SV) = EV – PV

Cost Performance Index (CPI) = EV/AC

Schedule Performance Index (SPI) = EV / PV

Now, EV = RP% * BAC = (90% * $500,000) = $450,000

CV = $450,000 - $150,000 = $300,000

SV = $450,000 - $125,000 = $325,000

CPI = $450,000 / $150,000 = 3

SPI = $450,000 / $125,000 = 3.6

Section b: Project status as per CPI and SPI

The CPI value is estimated at 3 and SPI value is estimated at 3.6; therefore, CPI and SPI being greater than one. The project is on budget and ahead of schedule; therefore, the project is continuing with proper allocation of budget and time.

Section c: Estimation of EAC and time taken

Estimate at Completion = Budget at Completion / Cost Performance Index

                                      = $500,000 / 3

                                     = $166666.67

Schedule Performance Index = Earned Schedule / Actual Schedule = 3months /9months = 0.33

Schedule variance = Earned Schedule - Actual Schedule = 3months – 9months = -6months

Estimated Duration = Planned Duration / SPI = 12months / 0.33 = 36 months

There are certain breakdown risks that come from online election system that is undertaken by Australian Government.

a) Business risks that come from online election portal are that voters that are lost cannot be regained or retrieved. The electronic intrusions can alter the votes that were previously cast so that they may change the result of the election.

b) Technical risks that can come from this voting portal are firstly the system failure or the network failure. There are also risks as work is done overseas; every country has their own data protection standards and protocol. Therefore, voting form other countries are not a feasible solution for the online voting portal system.

c) The organizational risks come from inside the system. The stakeholders, inside workers are mainly involved in the organizational risks, which alter the number of voting from inside the organization.

Project Constraints

d) Project Management also faces risks in handling the project. There are sudden procedures and techniques to handle a project by the process of project management. There are mainly five different project management methods to solve such processes. However, there must be certain policies and standards in handling the portal by project management method.

The storming phase of Tuckman model is that storming phase in a project starts when conflict starts between the members of the team and in their working styles. While completing a project, different people may have different working styles. Storming phase happens when these conflicts arises. There may also question about the goal of the team and this may resist them to take tasks.

If the most experienced member of the project, which handles the election portal, is threatened, then all the process that is carried out in the project will be delayed. Different members of the team who handles a project have different part of work and their working styles are also different. If experienced members are threatened to leave, then the work will be delayed more.

The company is interested in the implementation of a Maturity Model to the project of Online Election Portal and all the future projects. Currently, the company considers itself as having processes in place and the resources for supporting these processes. However, they have decided to improve by implementing anyone of the maturity model between OPM3 and CMMI.

The major components of Organizational Project Management Maturity Model or OPM3 are s follows:

Knowledge: This represents acquiring an understanding of the model and the implementation.

Assessment: The comparison between the OPM infrastructures to a specific OPM infrastructure.

Improvement: The determination of the changes that are feasible at a specific time and the implementation of the changes.

The major components of Capability Maturity Model Integration are as follows:

CMMI for Development: It represents the service and product development processes.

CMMI for Acquisition: It represents the supply chain management, acquisition and the outsourcing processes.

CMMI for Services: It addresses guidance for delivering the services within a specific organization.

The main difference between OPM3 and CMMI is that, CMMI offers approaches for staged and continuous assessment, whereas OPM3 offers assessment for stages of improvement.

The company should utilize OPM3 as it provides best practice standard for the assessment and development of the capabilities for the execution of the strategies.

References

Estler, H. C., Nordio, M., Furia, C. A., Meyer, B., & Schneider, J. (2014). Agile vs. structured distributed software development: A case study. Empirical Software Engineering, 19(5), 1197-1224.

Pheng, L. S. (2018). Project Scope Management. In Project Management for the Built Environment (pp. 63-77). Springer, Singapore.