Assignment 2

MGT215: PROJECT MANAGEMENT

Asadhu Shujaau (33475) | Word Count: 2004

FACULTY OF SCIENCE | MALDIVES NATIONAL UNIVERSITY

Assignment 2 November 6, 2014

Table of Contents
Executive Summary ................................................................................................................................ 2
1.0 Introduction ....................................................................................................................................... 3
1.1 Scope ....................................................................................................................................... 3
1.2 Vision and Mission ................................................................................................................. 3
1.3 Objectives ............................................................................................................................... 4
1.4 Deliverables ............................................................................................................................ 4
2.0 Project Leadership & Governance .................................................................................................... 5
3.0 Resource Scheduling ......................................................................................................................... 6
4.0 Risk Assessment & Mitigation ......................................................................................................... 7
5.0 Project Monitoring & Evaluation...................................................................................................... 8
6.0 Conclusion ........................................................................................................................................ 9
References ............................................................................................................................................. 10
Annexes ................................................................................................................................................ 11
Annex 01: Organizational Chart ....................................................................................................... 11
Annex 02: Roles & Responsibilities ................................................................................................. 12
Annex 03: Resources Table .............................................................................................................. 13
Annex 04: Risk Categorization ......................................................................................................... 14
Annex 05: Stakeholder Information Requirements........................................................................... 15
Annex 06: Project Team Information Requirements ........................................................................ 16

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Assignment 2 November 6, 2014

Executive Summary

This report looks into four areas in project planning. The areas are project leadership and
governance, resource scheduling, risk assessment and mitigation and project monitoring and
evaluation. These four areas of an ATM Software project for ABC Bank will be discussed as
planned by Kin Links Inc.
After going through each above mentioned area it is compared with the theoretical frameworks
of project management. By comparing, it was found out that although some of the areas in the
above mentioned project were quite similar there were some areas that were not. There were
few differences in all four areas when they are in practice. The details can be found in this
document.

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1.0 Introduction

This report looks into a planning process of a medium-sized project and compares it with the
theoretical aspects of project management. The project used in this report is a modified version
of a real life project done on Nirvana National Bank. The following is the online link to the
project document used for this report. www.projeegitimmerkezi.com/userfiles/file/detailed.pdf

The report will focus on the following areas of the selected project. The areas are, project
leadership and governance, resource scheduling, risk assessment and mitigation and project
monitoring and evaluation. The report will focus on how the aforementioned areas were carried
out in the selected project and compare each area separately with the theoretical aspects of
project management concerned with each area. Other areas of this project are out of scope for
this report.

The project selected for the above mentioned purpose is an ATM Software project taken by
Kin Links Inc. to build the software for ABC Bank’s ATM service. ABC Bank is a newly
started bank which hopes to expand their business nationwide. Kin Links Inc., a software
solutions specialist firm, has proposed them with a plan of action for carrying out the project.
The following are the scope, mission and vision, objectives and deliverables of the project.

1.1 Scope

Scope of the project is to build a fault proof software for managing the ATMs of ABC bank
and a user-friendly software for the ATMs which will be used by the customers of the bank
and to provide adequate training for the staff of the ABC Bank.

1.2 Vision and Mission

The vision of the Kin Links Inc. is to be the best software solutions provider in the nation.

The mission for the project is to provide the ABC Bank with a working fault proof software
that fulfills all the requirements expected by the Bank and to give proper training to the staff.

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1.3 Objectives

The objectives of the project include the following:

 Completing project on the deadline given by the ABC bank

 Completing the project within the given budget
 Joining the customer database of the bank with ATM software to track the accounts
 Building a software for management and ATM interface that fits the specified criteria

1.4 Deliverables

The following are the deliverables of the project

 The software for management and ATMs

 Installation of the software
 Project and software documentations
 Staff training

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Assignment 2 November 6, 2014

2.0 Project Leadership & Governance

The project contractor is the ABC Bank, and it is carried out by the project manager of Kin
Links Inc., Ahmed Mohamed. Kin Links project manager leads the project and has divided
different tasks of the project to different groups. Each group has a leader who reports directly
to Mr. Ahmed about the project. ABC Bank has to contact with Mr. Ahmed to get the details
about the project. Any clarifications and/or tools required by the teams are passed to Mr.
Ahmed who contacts with top management for any required tools and contacts with ABC Bank
if further clarifications are required. Team meetings are to be held weekly to check the project
progression and discuss other related matters. Participants of the meetings will be the group
leaders and the project manager Mr. Ahmed. An organizational chart of respected parties can
be seen on Annex 01 of this document.

Roles and responsibilities are assigned to each group. The group leaders will be responsible for
carrying out the tasks and finishing them on the given deadlines. The work will be governed
by these leaders while also taking part in the work itself. In case of one task being a preceding
activity for the next task, as one group might sit idle, they will be helping other groups in ways
possible. For example a multi-skilled person who works in designing area and knows to
programming as well, can help the work in coding area. Roles and responsibilities are provided
on Annex 02.

Above mentioned are how this project is governed by ABC Bank and lead by Kin Links Inc.
Now let’s compare the above points with the theory of project governance and leadership. As
mentioned by (Larson & Gray, 2011), Mr. Ahmed does not consider the possibility of workers
under each team not sharing information with the team leader. However, he has sight of his
role and has assigned the different tasks of the project to different groups within the larger
team. Mr. Ahmed is dependent on many players in order to go forward with the project. He
depends on his teams, team leaders (functional managers), top management and the contractor.
As per (Larson & Gray, 2011), a project manager should understand how stakeholders can
affect the project and should develop methods to manage the dependencies, instead of trying
to do everything on his own.

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3.0 Resource Scheduling

Kin Links Inc. project manager, Mr. Ahmed, has made tables showing number of experts
required in each phase of the project. Table shows the hourly pay rate along with the amount
of people required in each area. Table also specifies the total working hours for each
specialist/specialist group. This table is provided on Annex 03 of this report.

Increase or a decrease in cost is to be addressed to the top management of Kin Links Inc. When
materials are used, although they have abundant amounts to be used, Mr. Ahmed has allocated
certain limits to each phase of this project. In case of lacking resources, meetings will be held
with team leaders to know what extra is needed and a formal request is to be made from the
top management. Then, the remaining time of the tasks are calculated before allocating new
resources, so that as soon as work is done, additional resources can be removed or moved to a
new task at hand.

When we compare it with the theory of project management. We come to know that Kin Links
Inc. does not have to worry about resources. We can know that resources are available to be
used at any time they want to use at. From this we can conclude that it is not a resource
constrained project. Also the reallocation of resources shows proof to the aforementioned.
From this it could be concluded that the project is more of time constrained than resource
constrained.

An assumption stated by (Larson & Gray, 2011), says that level of resources used for an activity
cannot be changed. This lined is followed by saying that this however does not exist in practice.
From above mentioned points it is known that resources are reallocated as necessary.
Moreover, as theoretical aspects of project management talks about creation of resource
schedule tables, it is known from above points that this guideline is followed by Mr. Ahmed in
this project as he has created resource allocation plans. This area is quite similar to what is
taught in theory of project management.

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4.0 Risk Assessment & Mitigation

Each project has risks that no amount of planning can overcome. Hence, risk assessment and
developing plans to overcome them are necessary to go forward with any project.

In this ATM Software Project, Mr. Ahmed has provided details of risk assessment in his project
plan. A risk categorization table is used, from start to the end of the project, to store risks they
might or might not face as project goes on, risks are rated with “high, medium, low” according
to their level. This table is already listed with possible risks, and if it cannot be evaluated at the
current stage of the project it is left with a dash “-”. As project goes forward these are updated.
Moreover, team leaders are assigned with a task to gather up a list of possible risks every week
as project goes forward and it is taken to weekly meetings where solutions are discussed with
the project stakeholders. Risk table is provided on Annex 04.

Risk response plans are made for the project as it goes forward. As a risk is identified then a
mitigation plan is develop in team discussion meetings when team leaders come up with
potential risks that occur weekly.

From theory point of view, (Larson & Gray, 2011) points out that some risks can be identified
prior to project while others cannot be predicted at all. Due to this the project manager above
mentioned has identified some of the initial risks in the project while also letting his team
members come up with potential risks as they go on with the project. We also know that risks
should and can be scaled on level on severity. In this project, risked are labelled either high,
medium or low according to their level of impact. To come up with best solutions the project
manager is involving whole team to solve problems that might occur along with the risks.

However, risk assessment matrix is not used as taught on project management. The manager
has not gone into such depths with calculations identifying its impacts and there is no mention
of risk severity matrix. Also mitigation plans are not developed beforehand. Only as project
goes forward risks are identified and mitigation plans are developed. This might be the right
way for some of the tasks as they cannot be evaluated at the start of the project.

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5.0 Project Monitoring & Evaluation

ATM Software project is monitored through meetings and documents. Information

requirements were specified by the ABC Bank. Also updates of the project are to be given to
the top management of Kin Links Inc. as well. Mr. Ahmed has prepared table to show what
information is required by the stake holders of the project. Also, another table is provided
showing detailed information requirements of particular team members. This way everyone
involved can be updated about the project without much confusion. Each team will be able to
know what needs to be done next. Hence, they can report on progress and any additional
requirements.

How communication goes within ABC Bank is for them to decide. Mr. Ahmed relays
information to ABC Bank through the person in charge from the contractor’s side. Information
are mostly shared through post or email. However, the intranet of Kin Links Inc. will be used
to share information among project team members. Moreover, presentations are held as well in
Kin Links Inc. office where whole team takes part along with a representative from ABC Bank.
This way doubts are cleared and everybody knows how far they have come in the project.

According to (Larson & Gray, 2011) before project monitoring can be carried out it should be
known that, what data are to be collected, how, when and who will collect data, how to analyze
data and how to report progress. The above mentioned information shows that these guidelines
are well followed by the project manager. Stakeholders’ requirements shows what data to be
collected and when to be collected. Mr. Ahmed and his team will know exactly what to do with
the help of initially created tables which gives them guidelines to carry out the tasks. Reporting
information is well discussed above as well. Further information regarding monitoring process
of this project can be found with the help of Tables on Annex 05 and Annex 06.

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6.0 Conclusion

In conclusion it can be said that while some projects can contain all areas studied under the
theory of project management, this might not be true to some other projects. This can have
many factors. Projects in practice might change depending on requirements of the group
leading the project or due to the size of the project. Another reason can be the culture inside an
organization.

Although what is done in managing projects is mostly same as the theoretical aspects of project
management. There are areas which might or might not be used in every project. This can be
due to the fact that projects can be of different types from construction to research and
development. The project focused in this report was about Software development. The report
looked into differences and similarities in theory and in practice of project leadership and
governance, resource scheduling, risk assessments and project monitoring. By comparing these
areas, it was known that even though most activities done through the phases are same in
practice and in theory, some are not.

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References
Larson, E. W., & Gray, C. F. (2011). Project Management: The Managerial Process (5th ed.). New
York: McGraw-Hill/Irwin.

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Annexes
Annex 01: Organizational Chart
ABC Bank
(Contractor)

Kin Links Inc.

(Project Worker)

Top Management

Project Manager

Requirements &
Design

Implementation &
Maintanence

Validation &
Support

Training, Installation
and Documentation

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Annex 02: Roles & Responsibilities

1. ABC Bank
2. Kin Links Inc. Top Management
3. Project Manager of Kin Links Inc.
4. Requirement & Design Team
5. Implementation & Maintenance Team
6. Validation & Support Team
7. Training, Installation & Documentation Team

Task 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Initiation x x x
Allocating Resources x
Setting up Project Environment x
Create WBS x
Project Monitoring Plan x
Managing the Project x
Schedule Updating x x
Software Management x
Develop System Requirements x
Designing x
Verification & Validation x
Testing x x x
Documentation x
Training x
Implementing x x x

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Annex 03: Resources Table

Human Resource Working Project Phase Quantity

Hours
Project Manager 1200 All 1
Requirements Analyst 120 Requirements 2
Software Designer 300 Requirements, Design 1
Programmer 800 Implementation 2
Validation Engineer 600 Requirements, Design 2
Quality Analyst 250 All 2
Database Engineer 90 Design, Implementation, Installation 1
Training Specialist 240 Training 1
Technical Writer 300 Documentation 1
Installation Specialist 50 Installation 1

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Annex 04: Risk Categorization

Risks Low Risk Medium Risk High Risk Evidence Risk

Evidence (L) Evidence (M) (H) Rating
(H, M, L)
Project Fit Fits within the Requires some Out of hand for the firm L
organizations help from outside
level
Project Team Works together Needs some Division among team L
improvement
Management Works together Delays in No support at all L
Support Support
Customer Happy Normal Upset -
Experience
Training Needs Needs little or no Needs moderate Need a lot of training M
training amount of
training
Budget Budget is enough Might need Too less for the project M
for the project additional budget
Technology Latest With few Not good enough to be M
possible faults used
Costs Low Medium High M
Project Within the Little behind the Too much time wasted M
schedule expected time time schedule,
frame can be caught up
Designing Necessary Some resources No proper resources L
Resources are has to be bought available
available or borrowed
Documenting Easy to Normal Hard to understand L
understand
Implementation Full support from Delays in support No Support L
the contractor
Testing Resources are Require No adequate way to test M
available for additional
testing support
Communication Well established normal No communication or L
among less communications
stakeholders
Quality Well checked Normal Not checked L
Assurance
Complexity System is easy to Can be used with Need experts to use -
use some training

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Annex 05: Stakeholder Information Requirements

Stakeholders Description Format Frequency

Schedule Electronic Monthly
ABC Bank Performance Reports Electronic When required
Status Updates Oral Monthly
Kin Links Inc. Schedule Paper Weekly
Top Management Performance Reports Electronic When asked
Meeting minutes Paper When meetings held
Documents Paper Monthly
Performance Reports Paper Monthly
Status updates Electronic Weekly
Meeting minutes Paper Weekly
Project Manager Plans Electronic Weekly
Schedule Electronic Daily
Progress Report Electronic Weekly

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Annex 06: Project Team Information Requirements

1. ABC Bank
2. Kin Links Inc. Top Management
3. Project Manager of Kin Links Inc.
4. Requirement & Design Team
5. Implementation & Maintenance Team
6. Validation & Support Team
7. Training, Installation & Documentation Team

Task 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Schedule x x x
Status Updates x x x
Meeting Minutes x x
Software Requirements x x
Design Requirements x
Project Management Plan x x x x x x x
Project Updates x x x x x x x
Test Plan x x x
Quality Plan x x x
Validation Plan x x
Installation Plan x x x
Documentation Plan x x x
Implementation Plan x x x x

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