Upgrade And Deployment Of Information System For Private Tourist Business In Australia

Project Plan and Scope

Question:

Discuss about the Project Of Private Tourist Business.

XYZ is private tourist business that is based out of Australia and attracts over 200,000 families on a yearly basis. The business involves major tourist attraction along a major Australian highway. The customers that the business serves are domestic as well as international customers. The information system that is currently deployed in the company for the execution and management of business operations has a number of drawbacks. The system is also not efficient to cater the customer needs and demands. Currently, mobile and wireless devices are being used by almost every individual. However, the current system that is followed at the private tourist business cannot be accessed on the mobile platforms.

The solution has been proposed to develop and automated system that will resolve the issues and problems with the current system. The project will include the upgrade of the current system by adding a number of different features and requirements. The upgrades will focus upon the financial model, human resource requirements, scheduling tasks and activities along with customer interface requirements. There will also be a facility management system that will be included in the upgraded information system for the business. The report covers the project plan highlighting the assumptions and limitations associated with the project, project background, and project scope, description of the project elements, resource requirements, project schedule, project costs and the recommendation on the basis of the findings.

• The project team members that have been identified for the project have the adequate skills and knowledge to carry out the project activities. It has been assumed as the project is a critical one and involves a good amount of planning activities along with it.
• The project funds will be provided by the project sponsor and it will include the one-time cost of tools, cost of resources and the project activities. These costs will be necessary as the project operations and activities will not be accomplished without adequate funds.
• The project budget and schedule would be fixed and there will not be any changes or enhancements possible in these two project parameters. The nature of business of the company functions around the year and any delay in the project delivery will lead to business losses.
• The project team members will be provided with the work environment for the successful execution of the project activities. There will primarily be three work environment that the project resources will require in the form of development environment, testing environment and production environment.

The current information system that is followed in the private tourist company has a lot many drawbacks. The customer engagement and satisfaction is deteriorating due to slower processing and long waiting time. There is also poor information management and storage along with enhanced cost for printing of brochures.  Customers often do not get to know about the latest offers as well. The current system does not support mobile devices and the resolution of technical issues is handled manually. There are also safety concerns as the information on the people present at the tourist attraction at a particular time cannot be retrieved.

Due to all the problems stated above, it has been proposed to upgrade the current information system to an advanced integrated solution. The upgrades will focus upon the financial model, human resource requirements, scheduling tasks and activities along with customer interface requirements. There will also be a facility management system that will be included in the upgraded information system for the business (Peslak, 2012).

In-Scope Items

• An enhanced form of information system will be developed for the business which will comprise of the following sub-systems
  • Finance Management System
  • Human Resource Management System
  • Schedule Management System
  • Customer Relationship Management System
  • Facility Management System
• The information system will be made available on the web as well as mobile platforms.
• The sub-systems will be integrated as a single system and the final release will be tested covering system, integration, unit, performance, regression and security testing (Mirza, Pourzolfaghar and Shahnazari, 2013).
• The system will be implemented and deployed at the business side and the end-users will be provided with the training and system documentation.
• The system will also cover the project planning, requirement analysis and project closure phases.
• The non-functional requirements will be incorporated in the system comprising of the system availability, system reliability, system scalability, system maintainability, system adaptability and system performance.

Current System Drawbacks

The following set of activities will not be covered by the project team members during the project life cycle:

• The project team will not be responsible for the delays that will be caused by the third-parties.
• The project team will not entertain the change requests and suggestions that are not approved by the project sponsor (Randolph, 2013).
• The activities around negotiations with the third-parties, such as, suppliers and vendors will not be entertained.

There will be three primary sub-systems that will be incorporated in the project so as to meet the current set of problems and issues.

• Finance Management System: The system will include the execution of the accounting activities and will also determine the budgeting tasks and activities. There are currently problems with the cost of printing the brochures and associated tasks. The new system will design a budget that will identify and eliminate the additional costs. This will result in the cost-effective business activities to be executed (O’Leary, 2009).
• Human Resource Management System: There are various resources that are currently engaged with the private tourist business. There are a number of technical and operation errors that are faced by the resources along with managerial problems. The new system will include the trainings and sessions for the human resources. It will also design a training plan and schedule for each resource. The activities such as one-on-one discussion with the management, discussion of the conflicts and employee grievances will also be done (Gagnon, 2006).
• Scheduling Tasks: The tourist business is mainly based upon the frequency of the customer that visits to view the tourist attraction. The system will schedule the supply of the resources that will be required as per the customer bookings. It will store the number of customers that have visited the tourist attraction on per hour, per day, per month and per year basis. It will allow the development of the adequate safety measures as well. The database will then be upgraded to an advanced version over the time.
• Customer Relationship Management System: The customers will be allowed to access the system on the web as well as the mobile devices. The customers will be allowed to book their tickets in advance and will also be able to view the details on the tourist attraction remotely. They will be provided with the latest details and offers on the social media platforms and accounts. Customer support and assistance team will also be available on a non-stop basis to handle customer queries (Ayiri and Kudzanayi, 2017).
• Facility Management System: There may be a number of technical and facilities issues that may come up. The system will record the incidents at an immediate basis and the resource to resolve the incident will be assigned immediately after checking the availability. In this manner, the downtime involved will be reduced.

Internal Resources

• Project Manager: The resource will be responsible for the overall management of the project and would be required to have the managerial, communication, leadership and technical skills. Project planning, communication, control and closure will be carried out by this resource (Muller and Turner, 2007).
• Project Developer: The developer will write the source code for the various sub-systems that are to be developed and will perform unit testing (Kock, Heising and Gemunden, 2016).
• Project Designer: The interface requirements and the delivery of the system design document will be completed by this resource.
• Implementation Head: The resource will implement the system by managing all the project changes and modifications.
• System Tester: The testing of the system will be carried out by this resource which will include system, integration, performance and security testing.
• Network Engineer: The integration of the sub-systems as a final unit and its deployment on the networks for public use will be done by this resource.
• Technical Writer: The system documentation required for the project will be prepared by this resource.
• Finance Officer: The project budget and the accounting activities will be carried out by this resource.

• Project Sponsor: The resource will review the project progress at frequent intervals and will provide with the project requirements, change approvals and project funds.
• End-User: These resources will carry out the application testing on the system. These will be customers or the families that will be visiting the tourist attraction and will be availing the facilities offered by the business.
• Business Analyst: The resource will analyze the business requirements and will assist the Project Manager in the smooth execution of the project.

Work Breakdown Structure

There are various estimates that are required to be carried out in the project to make sure that the project achieves its goals and objectives. There are several tools that have been designed to assist the project resources in the scheduling of the tasks and activities. It is necessary to have clear information of the project activities to be covered and Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) is a graphical tool that provides a clear representation of the project tasks and activities in the hierarchical manner (Hans, 2013).

In case of the project of automated information system for a private tourist business, there are many tasks which are represented in WBS in three different levels. The accomplishment of the activities from bottom to top will mark the end-result which is the information system itself. It will allow the finance officer and project team to estimate the effort that is required to be put in for specific project task (Indelicato, 2010).

Milestone Name	Start	Finish	Description
Milestone One: Project Plan	Tue 11/28/17	Tue 11/28/17	The milestone will mark the end of the planning phase and the project estimates shall be finalized by the end of this stage.
Milestone Two: Source Code	Wed 4/4/18	Wed 4/4/18	The milestone will mark the end of the development of the front end and its syncing with the back end
Milestone Three: Defect Report	Thu 5/31/18	Thu 5/31/18	The milestone will mark the end of the testing and implementation phase and the areas of improvement shall be identified and implemented.
Milestone Four: Closure Report	Wed 6/27/18	Wed 6/27/18	The milestone will mark the end of the project

The costs have been assigned as per the project activity, the duration and effort that are required to accomplish it and the resource that is assigned to it. The total cost has come out to be AUD 143,504.

Task Name	Duration	Start	Finish	Predecessors	Resource Names	Cost
Private Tourist Business – Advanced Information System	207 days	Tue 9/12/17	Wed 6/27/18			$ 143,504.00
Project Initiation and Planning	56 days	Tue 9/12/17	Tue 11/28/17			$ 57,760.00
Feasibility Study	7 days	Tue 9/12/17	Wed 9/20/17		Project Manager, Project Developer	$ 8,120.00
Project Scope, Budget, Schedule	21 days	Thu 9/21/17	Thu 10/19/17	3	Project Manager, Finance Officer	$ 27,720.00
Risk Assessment and Management	10 days	Fri 10/20/17	Thu 11/2/17	4	Project Developer, Implementation Head	$ 8,960.00
Project Team Selection and Allocation of Duties	12 days	Fri 11/3/17	Mon 11/20/17	5	Project Manager	$ 8,640.00
Communication Plan	6 days	Tue 11/21/17	Tue 11/28/17	6	Project Manager	$ 4,320.00
Milestone One: Project Plan	0 days	Tue 11/28/17	Tue 11/28/17	7		$ 0.00
Project Execution	91 days	Wed 11/29/17	Wed 4/4/18			$ 43,400.00
System interfaces and UI Design	21 days	Wed 11/29/17	Wed 12/27/17	7	Project Designer	$ 8,400.00
Approval of System Design	5 days	Thu 12/28/17	Wed 1/3/18	10	Project Manager	$ 3,600.00
System Source Code	54 days	Thu 1/4/18	Tue 3/20/18	11	Project Developer	$ 23,760.00
Syncing with the Database	7 days	Wed 3/21/18	Thu 3/29/18	12	Project Designer, Project Developer	$ 5,880.00
Unit Testing	3 days	Fri 3/30/18	Tue 4/3/18	13	Project Developer	$ 1,320.00
Release of the source code to the test team	1 day	Wed 4/4/18	Wed 4/4/18	14	Project Developer	$ 440.00
Milestone Two: Source Code	0 days	Wed 4/4/18	Wed 4/4/18	15		$ 0.00
Project Testing and Implementation	41 days	Thu 4/5/18	Thu 5/31/18			$ 32,184.00
Testing activities on the system	18 days	Thu 4/5/18	Mon 4/30/18	16	System Tester	$ 6,912.00
Defect reporting	2 days	Tue 5/1/18	Wed 5/2/18	18	System Tester	$ 768.00
Incorporation of the changes	12 days	Thu 5/3/18	Fri 5/18/18	19	Project Designer, Project Developer, Implementation Head	$ 15,552.00
Monitoring and review of the system	7 days	Mon 5/21/18	Tue 5/29/18	20	Implementation Head, Project Manager	$ 8,232.00
System Integration	2 days	Wed 5/30/18	Thu 5/31/18	21	Network Engineer	$ 720.00
Milestone Three: Defect Report	0 days	Thu 5/31/18	Thu 5/31/18	22		$ 0.00
Closure Phase	19 days	Fri 6/1/18	Wed 6/27/18			$ 10,160.00
System Documentation	11 days	Fri 6/1/18	Fri 6/15/18	22	Technical Writer	$ 4,400.00
Acceptance, Sign Offs and Lessons Learned	5 days	Mon 6/18/18	Fri 6/22/18	25	Project Manager	$ 3,600.00
Preparation of the Closure Report	3 days	Mon 6/25/18	Wed 6/27/18	26	Project Manager	$ 2,160.00
Milestone Four: Closure Report	0 days	Wed 6/27/18	Wed 6/27/18	27		$ 0.00

Recommendations & Conclusion

The project for the upgrade and deployment of the information system for private tourist business is a critical project. There are various activities that are required to be carried out in this project and there are several internal and external resources that are involved as well. This may lead to the occurrence of the conflicts, disputes and problems during the project life cycle. The Project Manager will be the resource that will be responsible for the resolution of all such issues (Greenberger, 2016). However, the resource shall have a set of guidelines and principles to follow. The responsibilities and activities of the Project Manager will be carried out with ease with the aid of the project management methodology as Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK). It will provide the adequate guidelines and rules that the Project Manager and the project team members must stick to during the project lifetime.

The development methodology that shall be followed in the project shall be agile methodology using SCRUM framework. It will offer many benefits to the project as it will become easier to incorporate the changes in the project. Also, it will be possible to keep a connection with the project sponsor and the end-users at all times. The upgraded information system will be scalable, flexible and adaptable in nature. This methodology will allow the execution and the accomplishment of the project requirements in various iterations and these iterations will be referred as the sprints. It will become easier for the project team to understand the effort necessary to fulfill each of the project requirements.

References

Ayiri, G. and Kudzanayi, G. (2017). Embracing Customer Relationship Management (CRM) to Improve Organisational Viability by Small Businesses in Chinhoyi, Zimbabwe. IOSR Journal of Business and Management, 19(01), pp.50-54.

Gagnon, S. (2006). Globalizing Human Resource Management – Paul Sparrow, Chris Brewster and Hilary Harris. Human Resource Management Journal, 16(3), pp.331-332.

Greenberger, L. (2016). Effective Communications for Project Success. Remediation Journal, 26(2), pp.121-128.

Hans, R. (2013). Work Breakdown Structure: A Tool for Software Project Scope Verification. International Journal of Software Engineering & Applications, 4(4), pp.19-25.

Indelicato, G. (2010). Work breakdown structures: The foundation for project management excellence. Project Management Journal, 41(3), pp.101-101.

Kock, A., Heising, W. and Gemunden, H. (2016). A Contingency Approach on the Impact of Front-End Success on Project Portfolio Success. Project Management Journal, 47(2), pp.115-129.

Mirza, M., Pourzolfaghar, Z. and Shahnazari, M. (2013). Significance of Scope in Project Success. Procedia Technology, 9, pp.722-729.

Muller, R. and Turner, R. (2007). The Influence of Project Managers on Project Success Criteria and Project Success by Type of Project. European Management Journal, 25(4), pp.298-309.

O’Leary, D. (2009). Downloads and citations inIntelligent Systems in Accounting, Finance and Management. Intelligent Systems in Accounting, Finance & Management, 16(1-2), pp.21-31.

Peslak, A. (2012). Information Technology Project Management and Project Success. International Journal of Information Technology Project Management, 3(3), pp.31-44.

Randolph, S. (2013). Projects and Complexity. Project Management Journal, 44(3), pp.e2-e2.