MSG Team's other articles

11688 Payment Mechanisms in International Trade

Setting up International Trade Mechanisms involves inter disciplinary processes including Finance, Logistics, Taxation and Supply Chain disciplines. Every Business Manager would need to know the nuances of the trade even though he may or may not be involved in the micro management of the processes. Any Import or Export entails commercial transaction and payment. When […]

9459 A Global Perfect Storm in 2013: Some Directions for the Global Economy

According to many respected commentators like Nouriel Roubini and Joseph Stiglitz, the Global Economy is facing severe headwinds which can culminate in a “Global Perfect Storm” in beginning 2013. The term perfect storm refers to the coming together of extreme weather conditions that culminate to produce a storm of such a magnitude as never seen […]

11453 Supply Chain Network and Technology

The entire concept of business philosophy has moved away from traditional model to being more customer oriented, driven by demand and based on collaborative and joint operational strategies across global markets. Supply Chain Networks have in recent times evolved from simple sequential and linear process networks to highly dynamic processes that call for information and […]

11875 What is Kaizen? – The 5 S Approach

“Kaizen” refers to a Japanese word which means “improvement” or “change for the better”. Kaizen is defined as a continuous effort by each and every employee (from the CEO to field staff) to ensure improvement of all processes and systems of a particular organization. Work for a Japanese company and you would soon realize how […]

10022 Inventory Migration Scope

Inventory Migration is a mammoth project exercise involving internal teams as well as many external agencies. Detailed planning, process, simulation, and training are the basis to ensure successful inventory migration exercise. Project Teams would consist of teams from all functional departments namely finance, legal /compliance, inventory planners, IT, procurement, marketing, order fulfillment and logistics & […]

Search with tags

  • No tags available.

Introduction

This article deals with the Automation project for a maintenance project in a software company. The project involves automating the processes that are discrete and disparate into a centralized monitoring mechanism via a tool developed for this purpose.

This article lists the scope and the different aspects like resource and schedule planning along with the network diagram and the work breakdown structure.

Project Scope

The scope of the project is to develop an automation tool for centralizing the processes of the work stream. This includes:

  • Developing the dashboard as well as the database required for such a purpose.

  • Listing out the functional requirements that include monitoring the processes for SLA compliance and throughput definition.

  • Maintaining access rights with varying levels of control for the different layers of management.

The timekeeping and other administrative functions are not part of the tool and hence out of scope. The scope is directly related to the output of the deliverables that include the front end and back end components as discussed above.

Resource and Schedule Planning

The project involves having a team of six resources dedicated to the project with a team leader included to oversee the development team.

The resources would be divided into two teams:

  1. One team is responsible for design and development and the other team doing the requirements and testing aspects.

  2. The second team would have the functional expertise in mapping out the requirements as well as translating the same into usable specifications for the first team.

Further the expertise of this team is to be utilized for testing as well as they understand the scope and the functional aspects of the same.

The schedule of the project would be for a period of two months. The first couple of weeks would be for the requirements from the various stakeholders and the next month would be spent in actual design and coding. The last couple of weeks would be spent in testing and implementing the tool.

Network Diagram

Network Diagram

Critical path is as listed above. Since this project involves straight through development, the critical path would be the same as that of the SDLC phases.

Effect of crashing the schedule

In case the schedule is crashed, the requirements phase can be merged with the design phase with parallel activities. This would involve moving beyond the normal “waterfall” model of SDLC and instead having an agile methodology.

Effect of Level loading the resources

The two teams of the resources can be used interchangeably with the requirements that the skills sets of the resources to be the same.

Risk assessment

The risk management plan for the project would be having the following items listed as potential risks and their mitigation plans:

  • Resource risk: divided into two components in terms of knowledge acquisition and attrition risk. The first component is mitigated by training and knowledge sharing and the second component is mitigated by documenting the processes and knowledge management

  • Scope creep: Any changes to scope must be approved by all the stakeholders with costs to be shared.

  • Variance: Any variance in the budget due to time, cost or quality constraints (the “triple constraint”) should be dealt by all the stakeholders. This is to be done by regular status reporting and identification of potential issues to be resolved by the various stakeholders

  • Technology: Any change in technology would pose an immediate risk to the project and it should be ensured that proper technology is selected for the same.

Conclusion

This article has attempted to portray some aspects of the project management processes taking an example of an automation tool for a maintenance project in a software company. While this is by no means comprehensive, it does address some of the questions listed in the assignment.

Article Written by

MSG Team

An insightful writer passionate about sharing expertise, trends, and tips, dedicated to inspiring and informing readers through engaging and thoughtful content.

Leave a reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Related Articles

Costs in Project Management – Costs associated with the Projects

MSG Team

Communications Management during Project Planning

MSG Team

Bidding as an Essential Skill for Project Managers

MSG Team