MIS 478 Case Study 1
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University Of Arizona *
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Course
478
Subject
Information Systems
Date
Feb 20, 2024
Type
docx
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Uploaded by MateSteelGerbil31
MIS 478 Case Study 1
Team 2
Jake Thompson
Hyun Park
Mark DeBeaulieau
Paul Moon
Overview
A&D High Tech currently does not have an online ecommerce web store. However, A&D wants to enter into the online marketplace in order to increase the company's sales volume and compete
nationally with other online tech sales firms. A&D previously decided to build a customize software package for the internet store due to the lack of suitable software packages for the company's requirements. The Previous Project Manager, Eric Robinson, left the project due to a family emergency soon after completing the initial the planning stage of the project. Currently, the new Project Manager Chris Johnson is assigned to finish planning the project and to give senior management recommendations for project completion.
Initial Panning Issues / Problems
The initial WBS schedule, created by Eric Robinson, will not result in project completion before Christmas 2003. The initial plan has a 543 day total project duration, which means if the project starts May 26, 2003 it will finish June 22, 2005. The online store's scheduled deployment date, according to the original WBS, will be February 16, 2005.
The initial WBS schedule also has labor over-allocation issues. The personnel scheduled within the original WBS will not be capable of performing the workload assigned to them on schedule. If the current plan's labor over allocation problems are leveled without additional recourses, the project will have a 555 day duration. The project finish date will be July 7, 2005, and the online store deployment will finish on February 28, 2005. Recommendations
Assumptions Used for Recommendations:
(1) All tasks scheduled within the original WBS are effort driven tasks without fixed time
durations.
(2) The original WBS is an accurate representation of the needed tasks and those tasks have effort driven requirements for project completion.
(3) Additional workers with the same skills can be found within the company or hired from outside firms to meet increased labor requirements. Expenses for these additional workers will be the same as the current budgeted workers with the same skills.
(4) Crashing the project is possible through adding more workers to tasks to reduce the effort driven time frame. (5) Crashing expenses are zero within the project due to labor expenses offsetting each other within effort driven tasks. For example, 2 workers for 8 hours is equal to 1 worker at 16 hours within an effort driven task, so the total labor expense is the same.
(6) Schedule dates within the WBS are made assuming a May 26, 2003 project start date. If the project start date is different the scheduled dates will also need to be adjusted based
on the actual project start date.
Recommendation 1
We should not attempt to use a 2003 Christmas shopping season deadline as a goal for completing the new A&D High Tech internet store. The initial project schedule duration is 555 days, after leveling over-allocated resources. It will be unrealistic and overly risky to attempt to crash a project as complicated as this down to a total duration of approximately 127 days, in order to achieve a mid or late November 2003 project completion date. Recommendation 2
The project date should be crashed where possible through additional personal, not through large
overtime scheduling of existing personnel. The duration of the project is too long to crash using existing personnel scheduled to work regular overtime and weekend overtime. If too much overtime is scheduled, the project team will probably suffer morale, productivity, and quality reductions that could endanger project completion and success. Scheduling excessive overtime, also reduces the possibility of using overtime as a buffer period to resolve project issues when problems surface throughout the project life cycle. The possibility of overtime usage should therefore be held in reserve to mitigate future project risks and to ensure project completion.
Recommendation 3
After studying the WBS in Microsoft Project, we have concluded that a realistic date for "Deployment to Production" (task 58 in the WBS) of the internet store project would be September 13, 2004. This newer version of the WBS would allow the online store to start operations for the 2004 Charismas shopping season. The project final completion date would be at the end of the final task "Project Wrap-Up" on January 21, 2005. (
Please see attached WBS CD-ROM). In order to achieve the September 13, 2004 deployment of the internet store, the following critical tasks and personnel additions need to be made:
Task 54: "Perform System Testing" must be crashed from 160 days to 80 days. Task 55: "Perform Validation Testing" must also be crashed from 80 days to 40 days. These reductions in time can be achieved through doubling the number of assigned personnel to the above effort driven tasks. The following additional personnel will be needed to perform those tasks from November 27, 2003 to May 12, 2004:
1 - Test Lead
1 - Tester
1 - Development Lead
1 - Developer with similar skills as the currently assigned Developer 1.
2 - Developers similar skills as the currently assigned Developer 2 and 3.
1 - Functional Lead
1 - Functional Analysis
The additional personnel will be scheduled within the current standard calendar and it is assumed
the additional personnel will have zero additional costs within the current project budget (assumption 5 above). Tasks 54 and 55 were crashed due to the assumed costs of crashing, the nature of these tasks, and length of these tasks on the critical path.
Recommendation 4
In the event further reductions in project duration are needed/wanted, the additional personnel used to crash the project in recommendation 3 should be assigned to Task 57: "Implement System" in order to reduce the task duration from 80 days to 40 days. This would led to a internet store deployment on July 19, 2004 and a project completion date of November 26, 2004.
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Conclusion
The recommendations above are designed to reduce the project schedule, while keeping the project scope, quality, and costs the same. If all of our assumptions are accurate, the likelihood of
project scope success within the recommended WBS schedule is greater than if the original WBS
schedule is compressed to meet the Christmas 2003 goal set by management. In our opinion compressing the project to meet a Christmas 2003 date would result in project failure that may delay the project beyond a Christmas 2004 implementation.