IT Project Management Case

Study Hotels Management

System

Contents

1 Project charter

1.1 Preface

1.2 Business need and environment

1.3 Project objectives and constraints

1.3.1 Objectives

1.3.2 Constraints

1.4 Solution background

1.5 Project Timeline and Project Cost

1.6 Stakeholders

2 Organization structure
2.1 Why Organization Structure is essential part in Project
Management?

2.2 Roles and responsibilities of each team member in the project

2.2.1 The Executive Director of NiteRest Hotels Chain

2.2.2 The Project Manager

2.2.3 The Mircorland Coperation(The main contractor)

2.2.4 The Hinditron Systems(sub-contractor)

2.2.5 Sleep Away Software Group (SASG)

2.2.6 The Software Architect

2.2.7 The Developer

2.2.8 The Tester

3 Team charter

3.1 Preface

3.2 What will make us Succeed?

3.3 Rules of Behaviour

3.4 Communication Protocols

3.4.1 Meeting Protocols

3.4.2 Reporting Protocols

3.4.3 Email Protocols

3.4.4 Escalation Protocols

4 Stake holder analysis

5 Project Success Criteria

1 Project charter

1.1 Preface
This Hotelware management system project charter gives an
overview of the project by outlining reasons for undertaking the
project i.e. the current situation at NiteRest Hotels and the proposed
solution, how the implementation of the new system will help the
Hotels achieve their objectives, the project objectives and constraints,
the stakeholders in the project, and the projects costs and schedule.
The document also lists the necessary resources required to complete
the project.
1.2 Business need and environment

NiteRest Hotels Chains is currently operating its 20 countrywide

hotels on decade-old computing facilities that are highly varied in
each of the hotel chains and therefore have no integration. This means
that each hotel operates individually and therefore reconciliation of
data from each hotel has to be manually done. This leads to huge
wastes of the businesses resources in terms of costs and efforts. The
company’s customer satisfaction index and image is also falling as
compared to their competitors.

Once the HotelWare hotel management system is implemented, the

Hotel Chain will be able to operate more efficiently thereby cutting
down of costs and eventually be more profitable. NiteRest Hotels
Chains will also be able to make use of the new computing facilities to
capture and store information of customers so as to secure repeat
business, create additional business and raise occupancy levels in the
hotels. One of the chain’s strategies is to expand its business to 24
hotels by the end of the coming year, and the profitability resulting
from successful implementation of the new computing facilities could
be used for this expansion goal.

The business objectives are:

1. To make the process of guest administration more efficient so as to

raise the customer satisfaction index.

2. To improve on function administration to increase profitability

3. To improve the management of staff and services so as to achieve
staff reductions and significant increases in both hotel occupancy and
utilisation of facilities

4. To acquire and disseminate marketing information with ease so as

to secure repeat business and create additional business.

1.3 Project objectives and constraints

1.3.1 Objectives
The objectives of the project of implementing a modern cloud based
integrated computing system across the hotel chain are:

To set up, configure and customise an instance of HotelWare on

SASG’s cloud so as to integrate the functions in the various hotel
branches resulting in costs saving.

1. To install suitable desk top computers in all the NiteRest hotels for
business users in order to achieve efficiency in the process of serving
customers therefore improving the satisfaction index.

2. To train users on how to use the HotelWare management system to

improve on function administration and subsequently profitability.

1.3.2 Constraints
The following are the main constraints within which the project must
operate:
1. Project budget — The budget is set at $1 million and an additional
annual fee of $300,000 for Hotelware usage.

2. Timelines — all personal computers are to be delivered within 90

days from contract date. The project should be fully implemented
within 8 months.

3. The system needs to be installed without disruption of hotel

functions and provoking of complaints from customers.

4. A prototype of the new system is required to be availed for users to

get a look and feel of the system before its implementation.

5. Project implementation locations are spread throughout the

country.

6. The supplier relies upon another company called Hinditron

Systems to supply the personal computers to be used. And
additionally rely upon SASG to set up an instance of HotelWare on
SASG’s cloud.

1.4 Solution background

In order to achieve the aforementioned project objectives, the system
and software requirements of the hotel chain have to be first
determined. Thereafter, it is ensured that the proposed solution of
implementing the HotelWare hotel management system is able to
meets the requirements. If it does, all required hardware are installed.
These include the new personal computers that are to be acquired.
The project manager will then work with Microland to get SASG to
provide an instance of the software as a prototype which will also be
later on used for training the system users. Complete testing
including acceptance testing shall then be carried out before finally
implementing the new hotel management system across all
countrywide branches and the headquarters.

1.5 Project Timeline and Project Cost

The project is expected to be commenced and fully implemented
within 8 months with a working deadline of February 2018. The
personal computers that are to be used with the new system should
be delivered within 90 days of the contract. The project is expected to
have a one-off cost of $ 1, 000,000 and subsequent annual fees of $
300,000. Training of the system users is also required before the
system goes live.
Figure 1 Project timeline and project cost

1.6 Stakeholders
Table 1 Project stakeholders

2 Organization structure

2.1 Why Organization Structure is essential part in

Project Management?
With the improvement of technology, various projects are being
developed to uplift the life of people and make easier day to day
activities. From all of the projects web based project is one of the
important project categories in the world. But not all the projects have
become successful. There should be a properly organized approach to
achieve the goal of a project effectively. It can be fulfilled by creating
an appropriate Organization Structure for a particular project. It
helps to collaborate and implement project activities in efficient way.
Organization Structure’s main reason is to make an collaborative
interactions among the team members without any conflicts or
overlapping (Phillips, Bothell, & Snead ,2011).

Proper organization structure minimizes the confusion and

uncertainty since each team member has a clear idea about his role in
the project and it shows relationships among the team members of
the project. Organizational structure should be designed according to
the project characteristics which are differed from project-to project.
Also it helps to interact team members to achieve the project goals
within the specified schedule, scope and budget (pm4dev,2016).
Figure 2 Organizational structure for NiteRest Hotels Chain System

2.2 Roles and responsibilities of each team member in

the project
In the “HotelWare” system development process, each team member
has different tasks or activities. Therefore every team member plays a
valuable role and has different roles and responsibilities in the project
to achieve the end goal. Every team member should have a great
understanding about their role in the development process
(Brown,2016).

2.2.1 The Executive Director of NiteRest Hotels Chain

He should be responsible for giving the proper strategies and guiding
the whole team to a proper direction.

• The Executive Director has the authority of approving any changes

to scope of “HotelWare” software project

• He is responsible to provide financial resource to the “HotelWare”

project

• If there is any change in the scope of the “HotelWare” software

project it is required to apply additional funds to the project.
Executive director is the responsible team member to do that

• He approves the project deliverables.

2.2.2 The Project Manager

The project manager should be responsible for all the steps of the
project initiation to project delivery since he manages each aspects of
the project. Also He is responsible for ensuring that the project is
delivered on time, within the scheduled scope and budget. Below it is
explained the roles and responsibilities of the project manager in
HotelWare” software development project.
• The project manager should report the current progress of
HotelWare” system to the Executive Director while he receives
direction from the Executive Director.

• He should Participate in project planning meetings and every

deliverables of “HotelWare” system.

• He has to review, manage and prioritize each development tasks of

HotelWare” project with objective to stay on time and on budget
(Project Team Roles and Responsibilities, 2017).

• Responsible for allocating resources to each task and managing or

supervising technical project managers, team leads and team
members.

• He should collaborate all the team members to resolve issues and

identify the appropriate team members for each task.

• He should recommend resource and policy changes to the executive

directors.

• Also the project manager should bring issues to the executive

director of NiteRest Hotels chain as needed.

• He should arrange progress review meetings and monitor each

aspects of the project developments.
• One of his roles is motivating Micorland Corporation (The Main
contractor ), Hinditron Systems(sub-contractor) and SASG to achive
the end goal.

• He is responsible for risk management analysis.

• He is also responsible for reviewing and approving deliverables.

2.2.3 The Mircorland Coperation(The main contractor)

The system integrator and the main contractor of the “HotelWare”

project is Microland Coperation. They will provide all the personal
computers which are used to connect to the new cloud system.Also
they will interact with SASG to set up an instance of HotelWare on
SASG’s cloud. The Microland Coperation will also be responsible for
configuring and tailoring NiteRest’s instance of HotelWare to meet
the needs of users in the hotel chain. Microland Coperation will be
responsible for personal computers’ existence and they will give two
years warranty for the computers. The issues regarding computers
will be solved by them with the follow-on service. Microland will
preload all necessary softwares on the personal computers before
delivery to the Customer. They are responsible to deliver personal
computers within 90 days.

2.2.4 The Hinditron Systems(sub-contractor)

All the personal computers are installed by them at each of the hotels
and the Head Office. They are responsible for installing and configure
the computers to execute the HotelWare system smoothly.
2.2.5 Sleep Away Software Group (SASG)

They are the team who develops the integrated cloud based hotel
management system (HotelWare ) and their responsibility is
delivering the project on time and the final output should meet the
each requirements (Bisk,2017).

2.2.6 The Software Architect

He is the translator of business requirements into a solution. The
software Architecture of Sleep Away Software Group (SASG) is
responsible for selecting the appropriate architecture and
frameworks for the developments of HotelWare system and it should
meet the business requirement and achieve the goal within given time
and budget.

2.2.7 The Developer

His role is applying his own technical knowledge to solve the

problems with respect to the project requirements.

Every developer of HotelWare project is responsible for completing

each task within the planned time period. Also they should be
responsible for reporting their status of deilivrables to project
manager and communicating with each team member.

2.2.8 The Tester

The tester will review and test the “HotelWare” systems with respect
to the NiteRest Hotels chain’s requirement. They will search for the
issues and test the whole system. the tester should have a in depth
detailed knowledge of the requirements (Gibbs,2007)

3 Team charter

3.1 Preface

The team charter of HotelWare Cloud System project aims to set the
principles that all the team members should follow throughout the
whole project. It can be benefit from four main aspects, including
clarifying the team’s aim and purpose, establishing a shared vision of
a success project, aligning roles and responsibilities of team member
and clearing up lines of communication between team members and
outside stakeholders (Knutson, 2015).

All the project team members should strictly comply with the team
charter. This is one of the critical prior condition to insure the success
of this project.

3.2 What will make us Succeed?

Apart from delivering the high-quality service and products to the

customer timely within the budget, one critical success factor is to
ensure all stakeholders are satisfied (Subramanian, 2017). NiteRest
Hotels chain satisfied with the new cloud system and promote
efficient and accuracy with lower cost, SASG broaden its percentage
in hotel chain area, Micorland Corporation win the fame in consulting
industry. PM wined his career reputation and all team members
enhanced their professional experience through this project.
Following critical factors are listed:

• Client involvement (Schwalbe, 2015). Active communication,

consultation, and listening to all impacted parties of client.

• Client acceptance. The act of “selling” the final project to its ultimate
intended users (Pinto & Slevin, 1988).

• Experienced project manager. Competence of the project leader and

the amount of authority available to perform his/her duties.

• Top management support. Willingness of executive to provide the

necessary resources and authority for project success.

• Clear business objectives. Initial clarity of goals and general

directions

• Emotional maturity. Be objective and use fact-based thinking.

• Skilled resources. Recruitment, selection, and training of the

competent staff for the project team.

• Execution. Availability of the required technology and expertise to

accomplish the specific technical action steps.

• Communication– The provision of an appropriate network and

necessary data to all key factors in the project implementation.
3.3 Rules of Behaviour

To support productive teamwork, a series of rules of behaviours

should be set as follows:

Table 2 Rule of behaviour

3.4 Communication Protocols

The communication protocols are set to ensure timely and accurate

flow of information between all the project team members and
stakeholders related to this project (Vanita et al., 2010). As NiteRest
Hotels, SASG, Micorland Corporation and our project members are
geographically separated, some information technology like meeting,
reporting, email are adopted to achieve the communication
requirement.

3.4.1 Meeting Protocols

Meeting is one of the most effective and efficient way of
communication in this project. There are four kinds of meeting in this
project:

• Kick-Off Meeting: The Kick-Off meeting is organized at the

beginning phase of the project. It marked the formal beginning of the
whole project and team building process.

• Regular Team Meeting: The most frequent meeting that should be

conducted and organized on a regular basis, like daily, weekly and
monthly. Daily meeting can be scheduled in the communication
management plan.

• Change Control Meeting: To review change requests organized by

the change control board. The outcome is to decide the changes
agreement, communicating with related stakeholders and adopting
follow-up actions.

• Status Review Meeting: Organized periodically to review and

analyse the current progress of the project and its quality. Weekly
review report will be distributed by project manager to all the team
members and stakeholders to gain visibility into current progress and
aware of potential risks.

The following rules are essential to conduct an efficient meeting:

• Set objectives.
• Set an Agenda.

• Invite the right people.

• Using template meeting minutes.

• Keep documents organized.

• Start and finish the meeting on time

3.4.2 Reporting Protocols

Performance reporting will keep up-to-date with stakeholders in
terms of the resource usage and the progressing of the project
(Schwalbe, 2015). Three main reports are included:

• Milestone Report: Monthly report to describe what the project’s

milestone status in a specific point of time.

• Progress Report: Weekly report to describe what the project has

completed during a period.

• Status Report: Weekly report to describe where the project stands

in a specific point of time from the perspective of time, scope and cost
goals.

Following are template information of each report:

Table 3 Template information of report

3.4.3 Email Protocols

Email is a key professional communication tool in this project,

especially useful for progress management and backup. The Email
protocols including:

• To, Cc: Always make sure email the right people in the right way.
The To field is for people that this email information directly affected
and is responsible to give you feedback. The Cc is for people in loop
who only to keep informed but do not need to act or reply (Biagio,
2011).

• Content: Make clear request and avoid vague languages. Only

include the “minimum viable reference” material to save the reader’s
time.

• Style: Use brief sentences that catch the point directly. Put
important information at the very beginning. Use as many line and
paragraph breaks as possible.
• Format: Don’t abuse the format by using icons, flashing text, etc.
Use bold to highlight key point in the email. Use larger text for
headlines.

3.4.4 Escalation Protocols

Each team member is encouraged to follow the formal process of deal
with the problems at hand. However, escalating a project issue at the
right time, to the right person with the right amount of information is
also necessary for project benefit.

• Complete your part of the job well before escalating.

• Avoid the Cry-Wolf scenario. This is means avoid frequent and un-
necessary escalation.

• Keep focused. Keep your escalation focused to the specific issue and
only make one escalation at a time.

• To the right stakeholders: Only escalate to the right person and do

not involve all in the issue.

• Provide the right amount of information: Give background,

highlight severity level (High/Medium/Low) and suggested
solutions.

• Document escalation with data points: Mark all necessary actions

with owners and add in the “To” field of the escalation email.
4 Stake holder analysis
Table 4 Stake holder analysis

5 Project Success Criteria

The main idea about the project success criteria from the project
manager point of view is the completion of project on time and also
within the budget already stated ( Project Sucess Criteria, 2017). In
the NiteRest hotel Project the success criteria can be defined as the
project completion according to the expectation of the Executive
Director, HAKA 1, with in time scheduled for the project and within
the budget allocated for the project.
The main success factors are the contribution of management
towards the project development ( Project Sucess Criteria,2017).

1. Project Manager: He/she should have set of skills to be deployed

for the project

2. Project Team: Expertise project team should be there for each

section

3. Project structure: There should be scope, objective and perfect time

line for project

4. Organization Support: Organization should support Project

Manager and his team positively.

5. External Environment Influence: No constraints from external

environment should affect the system of project. There should be a
backup plan always.

Project can be considered as a success when it meets the following

features:

• Project should be finished on time or before the deadline.

• It should not be over budgeted.

• All the Hotel staff should be trained to use the new software system
otherwise there will be stress.
• New system should meet all the needs and expectation of all the staff
members.

• The hardware and software providers Microland Corporation

should deliver their product on time.

• Documented details for all the purchase of software, hardware etc

• Developed Software should meet all the Hotel needs for billing and
all other involved stuff.

• User document details for the software should be kept as a part of

record keeping.

• In the long run the “Guest” should feel easy to use the system for
booking and other facilities with new implemented software.

To encapsulate, one can say that a project is a success with all the
stated factors most importantly the time span of completion and
within budget. But also a strong willed, friendly Project Manager and
enthusiastic team members should be the back bone of every
Successful Project.