IMPORTANT NOTICE:
THIS ARTICLE IS AN EXTRACT OF LINES FROM A REPORT SUBMITTED BY MUKESH PARTHASARATHY TO UNITEC NEW ZEALAND. PLAGIARISM IS A SEVERE OFFENCE. KINDLY USE CITATIONS IF YOU ARE REFERRING TO THIS ARTICLE IN YOUR PAPERS OR WEBSITES.
—
Executive Summary:
This report is concerned with the problems faced during the analysis phase of the CAS project of the Auckland based BEST DVDEO company which is an international chain of DVD, video and game rental and sales outlets.
CAS stands for Customer Activity System which creates a customer profile from customer activity and then target customers who would be more likely to rent a particular movie or purchase a particular music title.
The sudden changes that happened during the course of the project forced the Project Manager (The writers of this report have identified themselves as Denny- the Project Manager) to reconsider the original plan for the project. The sudden changes was chiefly due to the absence of the marketing researcher during the JAD session week as she had met with an accident. This forced the Project Manager to include new tasks and re-allocate resources into the existing plan.
In addition to this, there were also problems with the machines of the systems analysts in order to handle the CASE tools.
All these problems were threatening to postpone the analysis deadline beyond 16th November, 2006.
Since the project may get delayed by one year if this postponement happens, the Project Manager had to come up with a new revised project plan by creating a new Gantt chart that meets the final deadline for the analysis phase.
In order to do this, he has re-allocated resources, added new resources, and re-scheduled tasks.
The new revised plan thus deviced was successfully able to meet the deadline scheduled for the completion of the analysis phase.
As an overhead it also increased the cost of the project. But this is only expected as new tasks were introduced.
This report goes into the details of this new revised plan and analyses it from many different angles.
Justification is provided for the changes made and the impact of these changes on the total duration and likely costs are analysed.
Citations wherever made have been respectfully acknowledged and referenced in the References section of this report.
Steps taken to alter the project plan and its resource allocation:
“You’ve initiated, planned, and kicked off your project, but even a perfect plan can need adjustments after it is put into action. Sometimes a project veers off course and needs to be pushed back on track, but not all changes are negative. A lot of things can give you cause to alter your project plan- from a change in schedules, budgets, or deliverables to adoption of a new technique or standard. If the change makes it impossible for you to meet your original time, cost, or quality targets, you need to initiate the change management process.” (office.microsoft.com, 2006)
The CAS project which was started on 7th October, 2006 has run into problems by 11th October, 2006. The problems have surfaced just after being five days into the project.
These problems are:
The marketing analyst has just had a serious car accident and will not be available to attend the JAD session which starts on 11th October, 2006
The unavailability of the marketing analyst delays the benchmarking of other companies’ activities
The notes of the marketing analyst based on interviewing the NZ marketing manager and the Australian marketing manager are illegible and there is very little information provided for the purpose of the systems analysts
The computers allocated for the analysts are not able to handle the CASE tools and this may delay the development of the initial logical models within the scheduled period of five days
There is also concern that the project may be unable to capture the required information from the existing tables in the databases and that an extra task of five days will be required to determine an appropriate data capture method to add to the plan
The final presentation is likely to get delayed beyond the scheduled deadline of 16th November, 2006
These problems identified paint a very pessimistic picture of the future of the CAS project.
In order to overcome these problems the existing project plan needs to be altered and changes to resource allocation needs to be considered. Once this is done a new revised project plan needs to be proposed. This new revised project plan will be proposed in the next section of this report. It must be remembered that the failure to deliver the analysis walkthrough will probably mean the project being put off for another year. This situation is undesirable. Changes in schedules made must not exceed the deadline set for the current existing plan. This means that the analysis phase of the project should still be completed by 16th November, 2006. This enables the senior management team to be briefed on the project on 20th November, 2006 at their half-year meeting.
Taking into consideration all the above points discussed let us now come up with the steps to alter the plan and the resource allocations.
“The first step in building the project schedule is to identify the resources required to perform each of the tasks required to complete the project. A resource is any person, item, tool, or service that is needed by the project that is either scarce or has limited availability. Many project managers use the terms “resource” and “person” interchangeably, but people are only one kind of resource. The project could include computer resources (like shared computer room, mainframe, or server time), locations (training rooms, temporary office space), services (like time from contractors, trainers, or a support team), and special equipment that will be temporarily acquired for the project. One or more resources must be allocated to each task.” (Stellman-greene.com, 2006)
The following are the steps to alter the plan and the resource allocations:
The marketing analyst is not available from Wednesday 11th October, 2006 till the rest of the week according to the information provided. This means that the marketing analyst will be available from Monday 16th October, 2006. Hence the benchmarking of other companies’ activities is to be re-scheduled. It is important to make the assumption that the JAD session was held inspite of the absence of the marketing analyst because of a serious car accident. This news came out on the day of holding the JAD session which involves a group of BEST DVDEO managers. Hence the risk of a sudden on the spot cancellation of the JAD session is very unlikely. Also it is very difficult to once again get the time of the concerned group of BEST DVDEO managers. Hence the assumption that the JAD session was held as per the original schedule on 11th October, 2006
Allocate 1 extra day for getting clarity from the NZ marketing interview notes of the marketing analyst. This is because the NZ marketing interview notes of the marketing analyst is illegible. This is a new task introduced.
Allocate 1 extra day for getting clarity from the additional interview notes of the marketing analyst. This is because the additional interview notes of the marketing analyst is illegible. This is a new task introduced.
Allocate 1 extra day for extracting more information for the systems analysts. This is because only minor information has been provided to the systems analysts. This is a new task introduced.
Provide appropriate platform for the machines of the project manager so that he is able to use the CASE tools (System Architect Rational Rose Company Standard). This would require some changes to be made in the existing computer system for the purpose of compatibility. The writers of this report estimate that it would take 1 day to solve this problem. This also means that the schedule for developing the initial logical models gets postponed. This is a new task introduced.
“Many people have referred to estimation as a “black art”. This makes some intuitive sense: at first glance, it might seem that estimation is a highly subjective process. Once person might take a day to do a task that might only require a few hours of another’s time. As a result, when several people are asked to estimate how long it might take to perform a task, they will often give widely differing answers. But when the work is actually performed, it takes a real amount of time; any estimate that did not come close to that actual time is inaccurate. To someone who has never estimated a project in a structured way, estimation seems little more than attempting to predict the future. This view is reinforced when off-the-cuff estimates are inaccurate and projects come in late. But a good formal estimation process, one that allows the project team to reach a consensus on the estimates, can improve the accuracy of those estimates, making it much more likely that projects will come in on time. A project manager can help the team to create successful estimates for any software project by using sound techniques and understanding what makes estimates more accurate.” (Stellman-greene.com, 2006)
Allocate 5 days time to determine and add an appropriate data capture method to the plan. This is a new task introduced. Here it must be observed that one of the initial assumptions for the analysis phase was that: We can interface with existing databases to get the identified information requirements- we do not have to gather more information than we already are capturing. This assumption proved to be wrong.
Come up with an appropriate Gantt chart for the revised schedule – This Gantt chart must show that the analysis phase will be over by the given deadline
All these alterations are done keeping in mind that the final presentation in no case gets postponed beyond the deadline of 16th November, 2006.
The revised project plan:
The new revised project plan is as presented by rescheduling the tasks, adding new tasks, reallocating the resources, and finally coming up with a new appropriate Gantt chart that reflects the changes made. All these are done step by step in the subsections 4.1, 4.2, 4.3, 4.4 of this section. Section 4.5 is the explanation of the new Gantt chart created.
We will consider them one by one and we shall take into consideration the steps proposed in section 3 of this report.
The rescheduling of tasks:
Here we make a schedule table containing the list of tasks to be done during the analysis phase against the original start date, the original end date, the new start date, and the new end date. We do this with the help of the Gantt chart provided for the original plan in blackboard.
This approach would put in a nutshell what we need to do in order to come up with a new revised plan. This would help us to build the new revised Gantt chart for the CAS project.
As of now we leave the entries for the column new start date and new end date blank. The entries for these columns will be made in section 4.2 of the report where we are introducing new tasks.
The schedule table is as given below:
The introduction of new tasks:
A study of the table developed in section 4.1 of this report helps us in adding new tasks at the different stages of the analysis phase in order to make the activities more meaningful and make the milestones more tangible. Here we expand the table developed in section 4.1 by adding rows for new tasks introduced and also by adding entries for the columns new start date and new end date. The entries are done with the help of a new revised Gantt chart (See section 4.4 of this report) that takes into consideration all the changes that we plan to make.
The new tasks introduced are:
• Re-study NZ marketing interview notes
• Re-study additional interview notes
• Extract more information for the systems analysts
• Provide appropriate platform to use the CASE tools
• Add an appropriate data capture method to the plan
The new schedule table would now look as given below:
The reallocation of resources in order to deal with the changed scenario:
The choice of the correct resources, both human and material, is important for the completion of the tasks mentioned in The new schedule table.
In order to achieve this, the allocation of the resources to each and every task needs to be considered and the correct choice of resources needs to be made.
Once this is done, we add one more column to The new schedule table called resources allocated and we delete the original start date and the original end date columns for the tasks. We call the table thus obtained as The new CAS project plan table.
The new CAS project plan table is as shown below:
Gantt chart for the revised project plan:
The new Gantt chart reflecting the changes made in the original project plan has been sent through email as an attachment to the lecturer of this course for the purpose of submitting the soft copy of this report to turnitin.com.
The hardcopy of this report contains the print out of the new Gantt chart which is shown before page 25 of this report as a Microsoft Project document.
Justification of the changes made to the project plan and resource allocation in section 4 of this report:
This section is concerned about the new Gantt chart for the revised project plan for the CAS project. In order to understand this section, the reader must have the new Gantt chart for the revised project plan mentioned in section 4.4 of this report by his side for his kind reference.
Changes have been made in the plan so that the analysis walkthrough with the senior management team happens as per schedule. This formally completes the analysis phase of the project by November 16, 2006.
The changes include the introduction of new tasks and resources at the appropriate stages. These changes had to be made in order to cope up with the unexpected problems that happened during the course of the project without compromising on the milestones and the deliverables. In some cases the existing resource for the task have had their workload increased in order to meet the deadlines. This would mean working more hours to finish the given task in a lesser amount of time.
“The most critical phase of any project is planning. Ideally, if the project is planned correctly, the likelihood of success increases dramatically. Unfortunately, no matter how well we plan, changes occur and contingencies must be developed. In early days of project management, planning was performed from milestone to milestone. The problem with this approach is that it leads to suboptimization of the individual project segments, resulting in very little regard for the total effort. In mature organizations, all projects are broken down into similar life-cycle phases. This achieves two purposes: first, it provides for consistency among projects and second, it provides check points where management can either cancel or redirect the project.
Mature organizations have policy and procedure manuals to further encourage consistency. These manuals are not necessarily complex. Some manuals are not more than 20 to 30 pages. Another characteristic of mature organizations is a well-defined audit trail where employees learn from both the successes and failures. Finally, in mature organizations the project managers do not micro-manage. Project managers rely upon the line managers to manage at the technical level of the work breakdown structure.” (Kerzner, 1992, pp 963-964)
Now let us understand the Gantt chart for the revised plan by considering the individual tasks one at a time. Justification to changes made in the project plan and resource allocation is given then and there for each task.
Task1-Orient Analysis Team: This happened before the accident and hence no change is possible on this task. Also it must be noted that this task is the first of the work break down structure and has the WBS code as 1
Task2-Project Management: This happened before the accident and hence no change is possible on this task. Also it must be noted that this task is the second of the work breakdown structure and has the WBS code as 2
Task3-Requirements Determination: This is a summary task whose duration has got increased by 1 extra day to 19th October because of the changes made. This summary task has the WBS code as 3 and has Task4 to Task16 as subtasks under it.
Task4-Interview N.Z. Mkt Manager: This is the first sub task under the WBS 3. No changes are possible here.
Task5-Study N.Z. Mkt Mrg Interview Notes: No changes are possible here.
Task6-Interview Aussie Mkt Manager: No changes are possible here.
Task7-Study Aussie Mkt Mgr: No changes are possible here.
Task8-Conduct additional interviews: No changes are possible here.
Task9-JAD session: The marketing researcher had an accident on the starting day of the JAD session. However as mentioned earlier in the report we have made the assumption that the JAD session will be held anyway. This is justified as a sudden cancellation of the event is not possible as it is not easy to get the time of the group of BEST DVDEO managers once again.
Task10-Re-Study NZ marketing interview notes: This is a new task introduced as the notes of the marketing researcher are illegible. The duration for this task to be completed is justified as 1 day as it took only the same duration earlier in Task5. The resource name for this task is Wendy.
Task11-Re-Study additional interview notes: This is a new task introduced as the notes of the marketing researcher are illegible. It has taken 3 days to conduct the additional interviews. In this context we must observe that we have not taken the help of the marketing researcher who was back on 16th October –the day when this task was performed. This is because on the same day the marketing researcher was busy with Task12. We must also observe that Denny doesn’t have any other task to perform on this particular day. Hence Denny is performing this task. This justifies Denny as the choice of resource name for this task. Also it must be observed that Wendy meanwhile is busy with Task 10.
Task12-Extract more information for the systems analysts: This is a new task introduced as the marketing researcher who is back on the day of performing this task had to address the problem of providing more information to the systems analysts. This would require more effort and research of the different source documents she has and hence the justification of the completion of this task in 1 day.
Task13-Provide appropriate platform to use the CASE tools: This is a new task introduced as the computer allocated for the systems analysts are simply not able to handle the CASE tools. In order to solve this compatibility problem and get the project going we take the help of the hardware support team who are hired resources to complete this task. Hence we also need to pay the hardware support team. It would take 1 day to complete this task and this is justified as the problem is not that serious and may require only re-configuration/installation on the existing machines. We tell the client in advance that this problem needs to be solved in 1 day. This also means that the client will bring the required number of technical people to solve the problem in 1 day. Also we are not interested in changing the machines or buying new ones as this option may not be schedule feasible or cost feasible.
Task14-Prototype development: This task has got postponed by one day to 17th because of the introduction of Task10, Task11, Task12, and Task13.
Task15-Research Data Privacy: This task happened when the JAD session was also going on. The resources for this task were meant to be the market researcher and the legal counsel. It takes 2 days to complete this task. Since the marketing researcher was down with an accident during this time, Denny takes the place of the marketing researcher as his time is not required for the JAD session. Moreover the time of Wendy and the data analyst is required for the JAD session. Thus the resources are justified for this particular task.
Task16-Benchmark other companies: This task has got postponed because of the changes made by one day. Instead of getting completed on the 17th October it got completed on 18th October. It must be noted that this task is handled by the marketing researcher who is back from the accident, fully recovered.
Task17-Requirements Structuring: This is a summary task and has got postponed by one day because of the changes made. But the number of days to complete the tasks under this work breakdown structure has not changed unlike the case with the previous summary task. This summary task is WBS 4 and has five sub tasks under it.
Task18-Revise data flow models: This task which was originally scheduled for 19th October got re-scheduled to 20th October.
Task19-Develop initial logic models: This task which is supposed to start on 20th October got re-scheduled to Tuesday 24th October. The predecessor of this task is Task18. It is important to observe that this task has not started on Monday 23rd October, as it happens to be a holiday in New Zealand because of Labour Day. Hence BEST DVDEO is closed on 23rd.This information about 23rd October has been obtained from the website: http://calendar.yahoo.com/ (Yahoo! Calender). In this context it must also be said that all Saturdays and Sundays are holidays for BEST DVDEO and that no project work happens during these days.
Task20-Add an appropriate data capture method to the plan: This is a new task introduced. This has been introduced as the data analyst feels that the project may be unable to capture the required information from the existing tables in the database. A duration of 5 days has been allocated for this task. This is justified as it is in accordance with the estimation of the data analyst. Also the resource for this task is justified as data analyst as this person is best suited for this job
Task21-Revise data model: This task has been postponed by one day to 31st October
Task22-Finalise models: This task has been postponed by one day. Hence it starts on 2nd November and ends on 8th November. It must be observed that it takes 5 days to complete this task and that 4th and 5th of November are weekends and hence non-working days.
Task23-Alternative Generation & Choice: This is a summary task and has eight sub tasks under it. The work breakdown structure code for this is WBS 5
Task24-Reassess benefits and costs: This task has been re-scheduled to 9th November from 8th November because of the changes made
Task25-Revise Baseline for next phase: Here the task gets started on 10th November (and ends on 14th November) instead of 9th November because of the changes made earlier. However here it must be observed that if the task is carried out for the original duration of 4 days the analysis phase gets delayed by one day and gets finished only on 17th November. It must be observed that if the analysis phase is not complete by 16th November then the entire project may be postponed by one year. This is a dangerous situation and undesirable. The resource for this task is Denny and he has to put 50% (effective of 2 days) as per the original duration. However in order to finish the project on time, Denny will have to work more hours on this task. Denny is also working on Task 27 Study impact on existing systems till 13th November where his contribution is 50%. Hence he can give 100% only on 14th November and only 50% on 10th November and 13th November. If he does so, then he effective contribution to the task is still 2 days but the number of days taken to complete the task gets reduced to a net 2.24 days with his % contribution as: (0.5+0.5+1) out of 3 = 2 out of 3 = 66.666% which has been approximated as 67% in the Gantt chart. Once this change is incorporated the analysis phase deadline comes back to November 16th. Good for the project!!!
Task26-Determine sources of data: Although this task was started and completed on the very first day of the project it logically comes as a part of the current work breakdown structure WBS 5
Task27-Study impact on existing systems: This got re-scheduled because of the changes made earlier in the Gantt chart and ends on 13th November instead of 10th November. It must be noted that 11th and 12th are non-working days as it happens to be weekend
Task28-Generate design strategies: This ends on 16th November instead of 15th November because of the changes made earlier in the Gantt chart
Task29-Preliminary walkthrough: Happens now on 16th November instead of the originally scheduled 15th November. This task has Task28 as its predecessor. The only change is that this preliminary walkthrough happens on the same day as the final analysis walkthrough with the management team (Task31). So it can be understood that on 16th November this walkthrough is held much earlier than the final walkthrough. Although it can be interpreted that delivering the preliminary walkthrough can put some time crunching pressure on the delivering the final walkthrough, this situation can also be argued as the correct dress rehearsal timing for an effective delivery of final walkthrough later in the day and that there is not much risk involved.
Task30-Prepare analysis report: Interestingly this task is not disturbed at all by the changes that have happened in the project and it is done as per the original schedule on 15th and 16th November!!! It also supports the fact that good project management approaches have been adopted in this new revised plan. It is because of the way the Task25-Revise Baseline for next phase was controlled, re-scheduled, and managed. It must be observed that the predecessor for this task is Task25. Good for the project!!!
Task31-Analysis walkthrough with Mgmt team: Happens on 16th November as per the expectations of the original plan in spite of all the problems that occurred in the project earlier. Good for the project!!!
Mukesh Parthasarathy on his performance:
How well I have understood the impact of the scenario changes upon the project?
There have been changes in the project. These changes were sudden and unexpected and the impacts of these changes have been significant. Firstly, the impact immediately brought into play new tasks to be included into the project. These tasks were really an overhead on the project. Secondly, I felt the impact was on the dates scheduled for the different tasks. Most of the tasks got their dates re-scheduled because of the new tasks introduced. In fact the deadline for the analysis phase got postponed because of the introduction of the new tasks and this was an undesirable situation as the entire project would then be put off by one year. We had to take care of this aspect. Next the impact of the scenario changes was felt on the resources for the different tasks. For the new tasks introduced resources had to be allocated. In some cases the resources were hired/ contracted to complete tasks. In some other cases the existing resources for a given task put in more effort to finish off the task quickly. The introduction of the new resources as well as increasing the effort of the resources for a particular task slightly increased the budget for the project. But this was ok considering the fact that the revised project plan was able to meet the scheduled deadline.
How well I felt regarding my dealing with the changes required to the plan and resource allocation?
Dealing with the changes required to the plan and resource allocation meant coming up with a new revised project plan. For this I had to create a new Gantt chart that incorporated the sudden unexpected changes. New tasks were added in the chart and as they were added the final deadline for the analysis phase got postponed. Hence I thought the correct approach would be to reduce the time duration for some of the tasks by increasing the resources or just increasing the effort put in by the existing resources for the task. This strategy paid off well and the project was brought under control and the final deadline was back on schedule.
How well I coped with making these decisions and producing the report under the pressure of limited time?
I had assumed the role of Team Leader for our group. I had to interact with both the Team Coordinator and the Team Resource Manager on an everyday basis to keep a tab on the report status. This involved continuous communication through face-to-face meetings, email, and through telephone. There was some pressure on delivering the report on time, but myself and my group members were well planned in advance to cope up with the work load. We were able to deliver the report on time- thanks to good team work.
Conclusions:
The new revised project plan for the CAS project was thus discussed in this report and we can see that this new revised project plan is able to meet the deadline scheduled for the analysis phase to get over. The strategic addition of new tasks and the re-allocation of resources helped in meeting the final deadline.
The costs for the project increased because of the re-allocation of resources and the introduction of resources for new tasks.
The costs also increased whenever the effort of a particular resource was increased.
The increase in cost for the project was only natural and expected.
