Automated Information System For Social Media Company – Project Plan

Project Activities

Area Save Time On Research and Writing Hire a Pro to Write You a 100% Plagiarism-Free Paper. Get My Paper	Order of Impact	Details
Strategy (Business & Management)	Four Save Time On Research and Writing Hire a Pro to Write You a 100% Plagiarism-Free Paper. Get My Paper	Modifications in the managerial decisions and methods, changes in the operational mechanisms utilized by the human resources.
Customers & End-Users	One	The automated information system will ensure that the operations are faster and accurate leading to the enhancement of the rate of customer satisfaction.
Financial	Two	The current infrastructural costs will be reduced along with the elimination of the operational costs.
Organizational	Three	The brand value of the organization in the market and among the customer will improve and it will be able to earn better revenues.
Social	Five	The automated system will allow more people to access the website without any hassles leading to the fulfillment of the aim to analyze the user data and information in a better manner to come up with analytics results.

• Better: Customer engagement, data analytics, number of visits, brand image and revenues earned (Vermander, 2005).
• Cheaper: Infrastructure & Operational Costs 

Stakeholder	Expectation	Quantitative Target
Project Client: Social Media Company	Increased site visits	Number of visits: +42%
End User: Customers	Ease of operation and increased speed of service without any compromise on quality	Quality: +62%
Partners	Increased Revenues	Revenues: +30%
Project Resources	Good Feedback by the client	Feedback: +90%

The project activities to achieve the quantitative targets highlighted above must be done in a total timeframe of 115 days.

The primary priority in the project will be the customers who will be provided with an automated system that will lead to the 62% improvement in the quality and will allow an increase in the total number of visits by another 42%. The revenues will be improved by 30% and project resources will receive a positive feedback from its client.

The project team will design and develop an automated information system for its client, a social media company. The system will be designed to streamline and improve the user experience and data analytics. The resources will cover the activities as initiation, requirements analysis, system design and development, implementation, integration, testing, monitoring and closure (Newton, 2015).

The changes that will not be approved by the client will not be implemented in the system. Also, there will be no marketing activities done during the project by any of the project resources (Nita, 2018).

Resource Name	Std. Rate
Project Manager	$95.00/hr
Technical Advisor	$62.00/hr
System Developer	$71.00/hr
Technical Head	$75.00/hr
Implementation Engineer	$85.00/hr
Business Analyst	$89.00/hr
Technical Analyst	$58.00/hr
Finance Officer	$86.00/hr
UI/UX Design Expert	$80.00/hr
System Tester	$63.00/hr
Technical Writer	$68.00/hr
Trainer	$87.00/hr

The scope of the project will be managed with the aid of the management methodology as Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK).

Resource Name	Roles
Project Manager	Planning, chartering, communication & risk management, reviews, and resource management
Technical Advisor	Change Management, Information Gathering
System Developer	Development, integration, and unit testing
Technical Head	Technical feasibility analysis and estimations
Implementation Engineer	System implementation and change management
Business Analyst	Feasibility study and requirements analysis
Technical Analyst	Assistance in implementation, integration, initiation, and closure tasks
Finance Officer	Budget estimation, financial feasibility analysis
UI/UX Design Expert	Designing of the system
System Tester	Testing activities
Technical Writer	System documentation
Trainer	User-trainings

• Database Tool: MySQL
• Development Tool: Microsoft Visual Studio
• Project Management Tools
• Testing Tools: Bugzilla

• WAN connectivity
• Meeting rooms

• Business Specifications
• Project funds

The technique for the estimation of the budget has been chosen as time-phased budget with bottom-up estimation technique.

The project also includes the cost of equipment as $17,500 and cost of tools as $5,200.

Task Name	Month 1	Month 2	Month 3	Month 4
Social Media Company – Information System
Project Initiation
Feasibility Analysis – Technical Features and Aspects	$1,200.00
Feasibility Analysis – Operational Features and Aspects	$1,424.00
Feasibility Analysis – Financial Features and Aspects	$1,376.00
Chartering Processes	$2,280.00
Submission of the Results	$0.00
Milestone 1: Project Charter Document	$0.00
Requirements Analysis & Project Planning
Information collection and analysis	$4,800.00
Project requirements analysis	$3,560.00
Identification of the scope	$2,280.00
Estimations	$8,000.00
Management & Planning of communications and risks	$2,280.00
Project Plan Preparation	$1,088.00
Milestone 2: Project Plan	$0.00
Design & Development
Designing activities		$5,120.00
Source code creation		$22,704.00
Unit test cases creation and execution			$3,096.00
Database connections and syncing			$2,272.00
Network connectivity			$1,856.00
Integration processes			$4,128.00
Milestone 3: System Design & Source Code			$0.00
Project Control
Test case creation and execution		$5,544.00
Management and planning of the changes			$4,000.00	$4,232.00
Review and audits				$3,800.00
Submission of the Results				$2,280.00
Milestone 4: Defect Report, Review Report				$0.00
Closure Phase
User trainings				$4,872.00
Documentation activities				$1,392.00
Sign offs and acceptance				$2,280.00
Lessons acquired				$1,632.00
Submission of the closure report				$3,040.00
Milestone 5: Closure Report
Monthly Total	$28,288	$27,824	$20,896	$23,528
Cumulative Total	$28,288	$56,112	$77,008	$1,00,536

• The project schedule and budget cannot be altered.
• The team will be provided with the information on quality and ethical standards.

The risks will be identified in the planning phase as per the PMBOK project management methodology. These will be listed in the form of a risk register and the corresponding details will be recorded (Dot, 2012).  

The risks management process shall include various steps as risk identification, analysis, evaluation, treatment, and closure. All of these phases must be covered to ensure that there are no occurrences of the risks during the timeline of the project.

Risk	Brief	Project Phase	Resource Assigned	Probability	Impact	Risk Management Strategy
Technical Error	The hardware and software tools that will be used for the execution of the project tasks may turn faulty with usage or due to any manufacturing defect.	Initiation	Technical Head	Medium	Medium	The risk shall be managed with the strategy as the mitigation of the risk by keeping an alternate of every tool and equipment ready for usage.
Overrun of the Project Estimates	The estimations, such as schedule or budget may not be adhered by the project resources leading to a situation of an overrun.	Requirements Analysis & Planning	Project Manager, Business Analyst, Finance Officer	Low	High	The risk shall be managed with the strategy as the avoidance by making sure that project progress and adherence to the estimates is followed.
Security Issues	Security issues, such as attacks on information security in the form of malware attacks, denial of service attacks, data leakage, breaching of information and likewise may take place (Anca, 2016).	Execution – Design & development	System Developer, Technical Head	Medium-High	High	The risk shall be managed with the strategy as the mitigation and avoidance through the involvement and usage of security tools, such as anti-malware tools, anti-denial tools, and likewise.
Staff Risks	The human resources may not put in the complete effort and dedication in the project tasks and activities leading to the delay in the project activities	Control & Monitoring	Project Manager	Low	High	The risk shall be managed with the strategy as the avoidance of the risk. It shall be done with the increase in the frequency of employee trainings and discussions with the management.
Quality & Ethical Risks	Non-adherence to the quality and ethical standards leading to deterioration of customer trust.	Closure	Business Analyst, Implementation Engineer	Low	High	The risk shall be managed with the strategy as the avoidance by carrying out audits and reviews at regular intervals.

• There shall be feasibility studies carried out during the initial phase of the project to make sure that the project can be accomplished as per various parameters.
• The actual values and the estimated values must not have any gaps (Pagong, 2010).
• The UI/UX aspects of the system must be verified as per the design norms and principles.
• There shall be regular reviews and audits carried out by the senior managers and leaders.

• Unit test cases must be executed to validate the source code and its readiness to be delivered to the test team.
• Functional test cases must be executed by the testing team to make sure that the system functionality is as per the specifications.
• Performance and security test cases must be executed by the testing team to make sure that the system performance and security aspects are as per the specifications.
• Regression test cases must be executed by the testing team to make sure that the system defects are resolved without any impact on the existing functions.

The author has laid emphasis on the project evaluation principles and the associated policies that shall be followed. The project evaluation activities have been defined as the tasks that are carried out for impact management along with the involvement of input, output and results. The author has highlighted that the credibility and accountability enhancement plays a significant role in the evaluation of the projects and it is essential to identify and describe the primary set of duties. There is a good use of graphical elements; however, the real life examples could have been included for the enhancement of understanding.

A research paper has been written by Ruegg that covers the details on project evaluation. There are two major sections in this paper. The first section covers the meaning of the evaluation activities and the benefits that may be achieved through the same. The second section covers the measures that must be followed to carry out evaluation activities. Some of these methods that have been suggested by the author include case studies, peer reviews, benchmarking, network analysis, surveys, and many others. The quantitative outcomes that are included in the paper could have been made better through examples.

The process used by the author to describe project evaluation is decision making methods and processes. The author has used the project category as investment projects to cover the details. The various static and dynamic criteria for evaluation and decision making have been covered in the paper. The results are compared with the work done by the researchers in the past. There has been a good use of figures and other graphics in the paper.

The credibility and accountability of the project deliverables shall be validated and verified by the senior management (Ilo, 2018). · Net Present Value (NPV) must have a positive value as per the calculations in the cost and benefit analysis (Scholleova, 2010).  · Peer reviews and other verification activities shall be carried out by the resources in the team along with the senior management (Ruegg, 2007). The results must not have any major gaps. 

MOV shall be used as the primary parameters to evaluate the success or failure of the project. There are quantitative targets defined in MOV that must be compared with the results that are achieved.

• MOV included a quantitative target of 42% in the category of improvement in the total number of visits. This value shall be compared with the original value achieved.
• An increase in the overall quality of the services and associated operations was estimated as 62%. This value shall be compared with the original value achieved.
• The revenues were estimated to increase by at least 30%. This value shall be compared with the original value achieved.
• The project goals and the business goals must be aligned.

The project will be termed as successful if all the above points in the checklist are executed and there are positive results achieved along with absence of any gaps in the actual and estimated values as per MOV.

References

Anca, U. (2016). Risk Identification in Project Management. Icesba.eu. Retrieved 15 January 2018, from https://icesba.eu/RePEc/icb/wpaper/ICESBA2015_32Ungureanu_p259-266.pdf

Dot. (2012). Project risk management handbook: A scalable approach. Retrieved 15 January 2018, from https://www.dot.ca.gov/hq/projmgmt/documents/prmhb/PRM_Handbook.pdf

Ilo. (2018). Project Evaluation. Ilo.org. Retrieved 15 January 2018, from https://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/—dgreports/—exrel/documents/genericdocument/wcms_172679.pdf

Newton, P. (2015). Managing Project Scope. Free-management-ebooks.com. Retrieved 15 January 2018, from https://www.free-management-ebooks.com/dldebk-pdf/fme-project-scope.pdf

Nita. (2018). Project Scope Management Support Guide. Nita.go.ug. Retrieved 15 January 2018, from https://www.nita.go.ug/sites/default/files/publications/Projects%20Scope%20management%20Support%20Guide%20%20ver%200.3_0.pdf

Pagong, A. (2010). Quality Management Plan. Unops.org. Retrieved 15 January 2018, from https://www.unops.org/ApplyBO/File.aspx/Lot%202%20-%20Annex%20IID%20-%20Quality%20Mgt%20Plan%20%20-%20Achol%20Pagong.pdf?AttachmentID=d01d993d-e55c-4b8b-a8a3-c9d277b08b4f

Ruegg, R. (2007). Overview of Evaluation Methods for R&D Programs. Www1.eere.energy.gov. Retrieved 15 January 2018, from https://www1.eere.energy.gov/analysis/pdfs/evaluation_methods_r_and_d.pdf

Scholleova, H. (2010). Criteria for the Evaluation and Selection of Capital Projects. Mruni.eu. Retrieved 15 January 2018, from https://www.mruni.eu/upload/iblock/12a/svecova1doc.pdf

Vermander, B. (2005). Measuring organizational value in the new economy. Pmi.org. Retrieved 15 January 2018, from https://www.pmi.org/learning/library/measuring-organizational-value-new-economy-7444