Week 9 Assignment 4 Submission
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Assignment 4: Performing Effective Project Monitoring and Risk Management
Due Week 9 and worth 90 points
Imagine that you are employed as an IT project manager by a prestigious coffeemaker organization. This organization operates many coffee shops within the region and would like to promote its brand by creating a mobile application that will provide its customers with the ability to view the nearest coffee shop location within their geographical area.
As a member of the software development team, you estimate a total project cost of $150,000. You have designated control points to measure project progress. At control point 2, the following data is available:
Budget Cost of Work Performed
$ 24,000
Actual Cost of Work Performed
$ 27,500
There are various stakeholders that are interested in the progress of the project. These stakeholders include the marketing management team (internal customers), software designers, programmers, testers, and upper management. The software development team has attempted to release a mobile application of this magnitude in the past; however, lack of sponsorship, mobile development expertise, and technical infrastructure has limited the team’s success.
Write a four to six (4-6) page paper in which you:
Identify at least four (4) attributes of the mobile application development project that can be measured and controlled and evaluate how each is a critical factor for the success of the project.
Generate a project plan summary of the various project milestones. Develop a WBS that details work packages required to complete project scope.
Develop a workflow model that can be used to inspect and detect defects during the acceptance of this mobile product through the use of graphical tools in Microsoft Word or Visio, or an open source alternative such as Dia. Note: The graphically depicted solution is not included in the required page length.
Describe how the defects detected during the acceptance of the mobile application should be reported and explain the circumstances in which a defect may not require reporting.
Analyze the communication needs of the different project stakeholders. Explain the types of project status reports that would be useful to each.
Compute the cost variance, schedule variance, cost performance index, schedule performance index, and estimated actual cost using the information presented at control point 2. Interpret the project schedule and budget status from the calculations.
Explain how work package, binary tracking, and earned valued reporting can be used effectively during the maintenance phase of the software life cycle if various change requests may be assigned to individuals and processed on an individual basis.
Develop a risk register that will document all of the estimated risks. Assign one (1) risk management technique for each risk and explain the basis for your selection.
Use at least three (3) quality resources in this assignment. Note: Wikipedia and similar Websites do not qualify as quality resources.
Your assignment must follow these formatting requirements:
Be typed, double spaced, using Times New Roman font (size 12), with one-inch margins on all sides; citations and references must follow APA or school-specific format. Check with your professor for any additional instructions.
Include a cover page containing the title of the assignment, the student’s name, the professor’s name, the course title, and the date. The cover page and the reference page are not included in the required assignment page length.
Include charts or diagrams created in Visio or Dia. The completed diagrams / charts must be imported into the Word document before the paper is submitted.
The specific course learning outcomes associated with this assignment are:
Develop a software project plan based on IEEE 1058 to solve a business problem.
Explain the methods of creating, measuring, and controlling work products and work processes.
Explain and analyze earned value reporting techniques in software projects.
Describe ethical issues and risk management factors inherent in software projects.
Use technology and information resources to research issues in IT Project Leadership Strategies.
Write clearly and concisely about topics related to IT Project Leadership Strategies using proper writing mechanics and technical style conventions.
Grading for this assignment will be based on answer quality, logic / organization of the paper, and language and writing skills. Click here to access the rubric for this assignment.
Performing Effective Project Monitoring and Risk Management
The increased use of technology in the business sector has enabled the organization to conduct its operations, such as marketing, selling, and providing services to customers more simply and effectively. The coffeemaker organization has made a move to enhance its interaction with customers by developing a mobile application. The mobile application aims at supporting the customers of the company to easily locate the nearest coffee shop. The application will eliminate the need for customers to physically look for the nearest company’s coffee shop, buy providing information on the nearest shop’s location, and the range of products available in the shop. Therefore, the mobile application’s ability to improve business functionality, customer satisfaction, and company revenue makes its development strategically important to the company and will require the efforts of most employees working in the organization.
The mobile application development project is based on developing a mobile application that attains four main attributes that can be measured and controlled. The attributes include user friendly, whereby the mobile application will be easy for users to use. The second attribute of the mobile application is that it will contain a relatively small memory size, which will enable easy download and installation on users’ mobile devices (Fernandes & Ferreira, 2016). The application download and installation process will be free, which will allow customers to use to acquire the application without having to worry about any additional costs. The last attribute of the mobile application is that it will be available on PlayMarket, where customers can freely download and install for usage.
The four attributes of the proposed mobile application are important aspects of project success. The user-friendly attribute of the application will enhance the popularity of the application among customers, increasing the customers for the company. The small memory size attribute of the proposed mobile application will increase the application download speed and make it compatible with most mobile devices, even those with a low ROM (Lavingia, 2006). Making the application free in terms of download and installation will attract customers since other customers may not be willing to pay for the application. The availability of the mobile application is also enhanced by the use of PlayMarket, where customers can easily download the application without obstacles.
The project plan summary incorporates several deliveries. The first milestone of the project is the recruitment and creation of the project team members. The second milestone of the project is for team members’ roles and responsibilities to be distributed by the project manager. The project team’s set-up will be followed by the design and development of the mobile phone application, with each team member focusing on their specified roles and responsibility in the processes. The other critical milestone of the project is the project’s technical stage, which will incorporate the core part of the project (Fortune & White, 2006). Upon completing the project, the team will engage in marketing the developed mobile application, its distribution to customers, and promotion. The last milestone of the project will involve conducting mobile application maintenance and updates to ensure that the mobile application runs smoothly and stably.
The WBS of the project will consist of several key stages, including the creation of the project team with the roles and responsibilities defined. The WBS will also consist of the research and business discovery stage that will involve the highlights of the project proposed, including features and processes (James, 2019). Other stages of the project include project planning such as booking, management, and tacking; prototyping the user flows, which include the creation of wireframes and connecting them over invasion; the graphic design, such as making the mobile application user interface; coding; manual testing and automation testing; application deployment; and the mobile application support and optimization.
The workflow model that will be used to inspect and detect defects during the acceptance of the mobile application is provided in the structure below (Francis, 2017).
The defects detected during the acceptance of the mobile application will be reported to the organization management and the manager of the project. The identified defects will be evaluated to reveal possible downsides in the mobile application, and possible solution analyzed and applied thereafter. The tracking of the application defects will be conducted based on several parameters, including the defect Id, priority, severity, and status (Tutorialspoint, 2020). However, the defects that may not require reporting will be those that are local, and their existence does not tend to have an impact on the mobile application’s entire system functionality. For instance, if the mobile application fails to operate on one mobile device, it is considered a local defect. It does subject the entire system of the mobile application as the problem; thus, such cases are not reported. However, in the process, that problem is identified to regularly occur on various devices, then it holds the merit of being reported.
The communication needs of the company stakeholders will involve the interaction between them despite the diversity of the stakeholders affected by the mobile application. To achieve communication with stakeholders, online communication will be applied, such as email. Several types of project status reports would be useful to different stakeholders. For instance, the project team members need to communicate with each other on the progress of the project and the specified responsibilities. They also need to report to the project manager or the organization top managers regarding the progress of the project or any issues that might hinder the project outcome.
The cost variance (CV) of the projected is 1.2, while the schedule variance (SV) is 1.1. The cost performance index is 0.9, while the schedule performance index is 0.92. Therefore, the project estimated cost will be $201,500. With a successful mobile application implementation and its sales, the project is set to start to bring returns on the investments during the second and third of its deployment.
During the maintenance phase of the software life cycle, the work package earned value reporting, and the binary tracking can be used effectively if the various changes requests are assigned to individuals and processed on an individual level through the assessment of the project progress (Gupta & Sravat, 1998). They can also be used effectively in the implement ion of the mobile application and increasing the interest of customers to the project.
The risk registration will be used in documenting all the estimated risks of the project. Risk management techniques will incorporate monitoring and testing, whereby the technical failure risks of the mobile application will be addressed and documented to the risk register. Another risk management technique will involve marketing research, which will be conducted before the project introduction to evaluate the risks associated with the mobile application’s marketing failure.
References
Francis, P. (2017). Mobile App Development Process. The BHW Group, Inc. Retrieved from https://thebhwgroup.com/blog/mobile-app-development-process
Fernandes, J., & Ferreira, A. (2016). Quality Attributes for Mobile Applications. Modern Software Engineering Methodologies for Mobile and Cloud Environments, Chap. 8, pp.141-154. DOI: 10.4018/978-1-4666-9916-8.ch008
Fortune, J., & White, D. (2006). Framing of project critical success factors by a systems model. International Journal of Project Management, 24(1), 53-65.
Gupta, J. P., & Sravat, A. K. (1998). Development and project financing of private power projects in the developing countries: a case study of India. International Journal of Project Management, 16(2), 99-105.
James, D. (2019). What are some common milestones in most mobile app project? https://www.quora.com/What-are-some-common-milestones-in-most-mobile-app-project#
Lavanya, N. & Malarvizhi, T. (2008). Risk analysis and management: a vital key to effective project management. Project Management Institute. Retrieved from https://www.pmi.org/learning/library/risk-analysis-project-management-7070
Lavingia, N. J. (2006). How to create a world class project management organization. AACE International Transactions, 1-5.
Tutorialspoint. (2020). Defect Logging and Tracking. Retrieved from https://www.tutorialspoint.com/software_testing_dictionary/defect_logging_and_tracking.htm
