November 9, 2022

EAST WEST UNIVERSITY

Department of Computer Science and Engineering
M.Sc. in Computer Science and Engineering Program
Midterm-1 Exam, Fall 2022 Semester
Course: CSE 596 IT Project Management and Entrepreneurship (Reading course)
Instructor: Rashedul Amin Tuhin, Sr. Lecturer, CSE Department
Full Marks: 50 (25 will be counted for final grading)
Due: 23:59 November 16, 2022

Notes: There is only ONE question, Follow the instructions and present your findings.
Cognitive levels are C4 (Apply) and C5 (Investigation).

Citation and referencing: Any claim, example, incident must be supported with relevant
references in IEEE style.

Formatting: Font: Times New Roman, Size: 10-12pt, Line Spacing: Single

Submission method: Google Classroom

Introduction

In the post Covid world, almost every organization was forced to rely on IT systems to
maintain their respective business processes. These IT systems provide only a few
functionalities, and rest of them are managed largely via email communications. Video
conferencing systems are being utilized for meetings, and real-time communications.

Scenario

Let us consider a use-case of a fictitious university in Bangladesh, called Acme University,

Bangladesh, a large organization containing graduate and undergraduate studies. They have
an IT system consisting of different “islands” of systems, some of them are interconnected
and some are not.

Since everything went online, the university is facing tremendous challenges to maintain its
activities online. The previous systems are not yet ready to be exposed online due to lack of
security. The university is already in the process of a half-done solution (being developed in-
house) which is currently supporting some of the business process to be conducted online
(e.g. advising, grade submission, transcript generation, leave application, item requisition,
and so on).

These systems are interconnected as-needed basis. For example, the HR module is connected
with the “Accounts & Finance module”, and the “Accounts & Finance module”is connected
to the “Advising module”. The “Advising module” is not connected to the “HR module” but
it can be connected by developing an API, or physically collecting the requested information
or via email.

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The university has a core team of software developers, more could be hired on a contractual
basis. The university already has a physical data centre, but like every data centre, this one is
also prone to hardware failure and external attacks. Regular rigorous backups are taken
physically, lowering the chance of data loss.

Currently, the processes at the department level are partially supported by the system. For
example, section change is a process at the department level, but supported by the advising
module. Therefore, not all the processes are supported by the system. Herein and after,
system means the collection of software and hardware that provides a service to a client.

The presence of a tracking system could significantly improve the performance of a system.
For example, let us assume a process called “semester drop”, which is initiated by a student
by sending a request via email to semesterdrop@acme.edu. An officer validates and forwards
the email to the Chairperson, which is forwarded to the Dean before being forwarded to the
Registrar’s Office. If this process takes more than 4 months, a student is blocked from the
system due to “unauthorized absence”.

Presence of such a token-based system that supports this process by binding the issue with a
token. The above use case can be assigned as Token#4226 for future tracking. Token#4226 is
assigned to this issue when the student sends the email (i.e., a process called “semester drop”
is triggered). A process is terminated whenever a token reaches at the end of it process. The
status of the token is marked as resolved. Token based system also enable process mining
which discover bottlenecks, loops, dead-ends in a process. This data facilitates decision
making significantly. Resource utilization monitoring could also be enabled using such
token-based systems. Service discovery can also be automated using machine learning
features. The possibilities are endless.

With this basic building block in mind, the project goal is to create a token-based system that
provides some critical services at the either department or university level (Requirements
collection will be applicable here). These “services” can already be existent, yet you may
offer improvements, or could be developed from scratch, in-house or outsourced (financial
analysis vs. budget constraints). Due to budget constraints, the implementation could be a
long project of 10 years, built one-block at a time, or built parallelly (based on the resources).

Furthermore, Google and Microsoft's education packages for universities are supporting the
majority of the critical processes like lectures, meetings, and emails, and audio-visual
communications. It is not the goal to develop in-house solutions for the already existent
services.

Vision and Mission Statements:

The vision is to provide service to all academic and administrative activities using a single
platform, but on different interfaces depending on the role, or through mobile applications.
The mission is providing a modular and token-based system that provides the regular
services at the department and university level.

Task and assignment:

You are assigned as a project Manager to complete this project in a defined time frame.
Please provide a detailed project management structure as described below:

You will follow the following five processes:

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1. Project Initiating
2. Project Planning
3. Project executing
4. Project Monitoring and Control
5. Project Closing

You will address following knowledge areas:

1. Scope Management
2. Time Management
3. Cost Management
4. Quality Management
5. Organization Management
6. Stakeholder Management
7. Communication Management
8. Risk Management
9. Procurement Management
10. Integration Management

Instructions:

1. The data will be generated by your own planning and from meetings from the
stakeholders of Acme University. Cover as much detail as possible considering that you need
to present it within a week. This is an open-endedproject; the focus is on going through
different stages of the project’s management processes. Therefore, based on individual
assumptions, the outcome of the project could be different. Therefore, please be realistic
with your assumptions.

2. Microsoft project/other tools need be used.

3. The following must be included in your report:

a. Project charter statement

b. Stakeholder Registrar Management plan

c. Project Scope

d. Work Breakdown structure (WBS)

e. Gantt chart of Project Schedule

f. Project Quality plan

g. Project Risk Register

4. Submit the report and present the findings.

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