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Introduction/background ............................................................................................................... 2
Appendix A .................................................................................................................................. 23
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Introduction/background
Give a brief introduction to the project plan and the background of the EPOWER ERP project. [3]
1. Overview
2. Project scope
3. Technical plan
4. Project schedule and budget
5. Organization and personnel
6. Risk analysis
7. Quality discussion
8. Configuration management plan
9. Final project report
The content of each of these sections is considered in detail through the document.
Regarding to the background of the project, EPOWER Ltd is dedicated to fabricate and maintain
machinery for power generation. It is based in the UK but it has operations in 11 places around the
world. All these companies have autonomous computer systems for production planning,
procurement, supply-chain management and finance. They are standardized but without a central
repository, so it is difficult to get global information to make strategic decisions.
As EPOWER had to renegotiate licenses and upgrade its hardware in all the companies, the Board
of Directors hired consultants to prepare a business process re-engineering study and a strategy to
replace its systems. After a SWOT analysis, defining EPOWER requirements and reviewing them
with the Board, consultants suggested to implement an enterprise resource planning (ERP) system
called Baan with a central repository, finances and procurement centralized with high levels of
security and control.
The Board followed the consultants’ recommendation about implementing an ERP for the whole
organization but they chose SAP R/3 instead of Baan because it was implemented in the recently
acquired 12th operating company, MINIPOWER.
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For the project the Board acted as the Steering group and each company appointed its own
project manager. An Indian company, TECHCO, with the cheapest proposal was selected to
implement the ERP due to its familiarity with EPOWER business processes, although it had no SAP
experience. EPOWER and TECHCO agreed a fixed price contract with July 2002 as the end of the
project. TECHCO was to implement the defined requirement in the SAP R/3 package, however any
additional work would be charged at a daily rate. In the case of MINIPOWER, as they had
experience with SAP, they were to implement changes in the system by themselves. To monitor
the project The Steering Group, project managers and TECHCO project manager decided to meet
monthly.
The implementation plan started in three companies consecutively with partial releases of the ERP
system for testing and user acceptance every six weeks. According to the plan, after these three
implementations the requirements were to stabilize and part releases would not be necessary for
the next three companies.
Finally, to involve staff in the project and to let them know the benefits of the new ERP systems,
each project manager started a publicity programme.
Project scope
i. Identify the key objectives for the project using information in Appendix 2. Show how the
objectives have been derived from the results of the analysis in Appendix 2. [8]
1. Reduce running cost and overhead creating a global repository with common systems
across all sites.
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Reduce threat (Poor security of systems could lead to financial loss) and take
advantage of an opportunity (Centralizing procurement and finance would reduce
running costs and provide better security and control)
Address weakness (Poor strategic decision making owing to lack of organization wide
management information)
ii. Identify 4 or 5 alternative strategies to satisfy the objectives defined in (i) above and choose
the most appropriate strategy to satisfy these objectives. Justify your choice. Note that you
can choose a strategy other than the approach adopted in the case study, alternatively if
you feel the strategy adopted in the case study is the best alternative you can choose that
strategy, but you must justify your choice.
Reduce running Provide better Improve strategic decision
cost and overhead security and making organizing wide
creating a global control management information
repository with centralizing according to EPOWER Ltd
common systems procurement and requirements
across all sites finance
Implement Baan ERP
S S S
System
Implement SAP R/3 ERP
S S W
System
To renegotiate licences
W
and upgrade hardware
To keep the existing
infrastructure making
W
some improvements in
security and control.
W = Weak Link M = Medium Link S = Strong Link
Table 1 Matrix diagram relating key objectives to strategies for achieving them
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So, the best strategy is to implement Baan ERP system because it is the best fit to EPOWER
requirements. It provides a global data repository and centralizes finance and procurement with a
high level of security and control. Additionally, it is the best fit to EPOWER requirements.
Technical Plan
What type of project life cycle has been employed in this project? Has the life-cycle been used
with any other approaches to software engineering? Is this the best life-cycle and approach to
software engineering for this project? Justify your conclusions. [8]
The type of project life cycle employed in this project is incremental with reuse (COTS products)
and concurrent engineering. There is some evidence of initial prototyping to define requirements.
Justification:
Incremental
Increments planned
Requirements well known
Implemented in increments
Prototyping why?
Reuse why?
There are two teams working simultaneously. TECHCO and MINIPOWER teams.
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According to David Boddy’s project profile tool, core projects and those with outside links tend to
use incremental rather than evolutionary life-cycles.
So, as this is a core project with outside links, the best project life-cycle is incremental.
i. Prepare an activity-on-arrow network, an initial resource loading char and draw the
corresponding earned value diagram for the activity data given in Appendix 1, at a point in
time before the project started. At this stage assume unlimited resources for the project.
Show all your work and state any assumptions. Clearly identify the project duration, the
peak resource required and the project budget calculated from the prepared schedules.
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6 J=2
20 22
I=3
3 7 8
6 22
C=4 20
E=8
0 A=1 1 B=1 2
0 F=4
1 2 H=2
1 2 18
0 14 G=4
5 6
14 18
D=2 10
4
14
Earliest event
time
Scheduled activity Node
Critical activity identifier
Dummy activity
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Staff
Peak resource is 5
6 between weeks 6 and 9
I
4 D F
2 C E G
J
A B H
Time [weeks]
2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20 22
Figure 2 Initial resource loading chart
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Cost
[Pounds]
PB
47000
44000
BCWS
32000
22000
8500
Time [weeks]
0 5 10 15 20 22
ECD
Figure 3 Earned value diagram
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ii. Redraw the resource loading chart to take account of the resource limitations described in
Appendix 1. Explain the rules used for rescheduling and show all your work. Clearly
identify any changes to project duration and budget after any rescheduling.
Staff
D
2
C E I G
J
A B F H
Time [weeks]
2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20 22 24 26
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iii. Appendix 1 includes some progress and cost information for the project collected at week
10. Calculate the earned value information at week 10 and identify actions that the project
manager should have taken to manage a project in this situation. Assume that the planned
duration and budget of the project at week 10 is still as calculated in (i) above (remember
that in the case study the project manager didn’t re plan the project so the values
calculated in (i) will be used in assessing progress).
Cost
[Pounds]
PB
47000
44000
BCWS
32000 ACWP
22000
CV SV
8500 BCWP
slippage
Time [weeks]
0 5 10 15 20 22
Time now ECD
8.7
CV = BCWP – ACWP = 18500 – 22500 = £ -4000. This means that the project is over budgeted.
SV = BCWP – BCWS = 18500 – 22000 = £ -3500. This means that the project is behind schedule.
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Time now is 10 weeks. Then, we need to find the time at which BCWS equals to value of BCWP at
time now. From the graph that time is 8.7 weeks.
ECD = original ECD + slippage = 22 + 1.3 = 23.3 weeks (Assume no further slippage)
ECD = original ECD * time BCWP / time BCWS = 22 * 10/8.7 = 25.29 weeks (Assume slip at same
rate)
1. Update Gantt
2. Check cause of problem
3. Consult with stakeholders
4. If overspend is not authorized release staff
5. If it is necessary to complete the project on time contract more resources
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Project Board
Senior Consultants (who
Production planning completed Business
Procurement Board of Directors process re-engineering
Supply-chain management study and defined
Finance requirements)
Managers
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The Board of
Directors
TECHCO
project staff Software engineers
TECHCO Project Manager EPOWER ERP Project Management MINIPOWER IT Trainee software engineer
Manager
Operating
companies user MINIPOWER user
acceptance team acceptance team
Consultants
Production planning managers Supply-chain managers Procurement managers Finance managers Other functional department
representatives
Department staff Department staff Department staff Department staff Other operating companies
staff
Key stakeholder
relationships
Other stakeholder
relationships
Figure 7 Stakeholder map
This is the stakeholder map for the ideal management structure for the EPOWER ERP project in i).
The consultants will encapsulate requirements coming from across the organization so the project
manager will have only a point of contact for requirements.
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iii. Choose three stakeholders from the stakeholder map and analyse their potential impact
on the project. Describe how the project manager could ensure that each stakeholder
contributes to success project. Choose stakeholders with varied interests.
Stakeholder Goals Past Behaviour -ve Likely reactions Ideas for action
Reactions or
+ve
Operating Increase the Accustomed Didn’t pay -ve Ignore change until Involve in
companies’ pace of their to changes in much implementation. prototyping and
staff. activities in their attention to testing.
the job. computer the
systems. implementa
tion.
The Board Finish the Enthusiastic Keen to be +ve Worried for delays Check every new
of Directors. project at the in project involved and reluctant to pay requirement
estimated cost implementati and additional costs for across the whole
and time. on. monitor implementing many organization to
progress. new requirements. justify that it is
really required and
apply across all
sites.
TECHCO Gets They were Failing on -ve Charge any Use external
supplier. experience familiar with detect additional work at auditors to
implementing EPOWER future daily rate. estimate cost and
standard SAP business problems impact of any
package and processes. due to they additional work in
keep the had no the standard SAP
relationship experience package.
with EPOWER with SAP
as software R/3
supplier. package
Table 5 Stakeholders analysis
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Risk analysis
Identify three risks associated with the EPOWER ERP project which might have been identified at a
point in time before the project started. These risks must be specific this project and not just
general risks like the project being late or over budget. For each risk identified, suggest actions
that the project manager could take to deal with each risk. Identify the type of risk management
strategy that you have suggested for each risk. [9]
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Quality discussion
This section doesn’t relate specifically to the EPOWER ERP project and is an opportunity for you to
carry out some minor research into quality management. Marks will be awarded in this section for
quality of research and presentation. Please provide references for your work. Word limit for this
section is 500 words.
How has the work of experts such as Deming, Juran, Crosby, Taguchi and Feigenbaum affected
software quality management? Discuss the work of just one or two of these experts. [10]
Accomplish
requirements
Prevent defects
Quality Principles
Produce zero
defects
Measure price of
non compliance
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Software quality management is focused on meeting client expectations. It includes quality plan,
quality assurance and quality control processes, always taking the following aspects into account:
Applying the first principle of Philip Crosby for software quality management, we have that the
project manager should define the methodology, standards and procedures for the project in
order to provide the tools for the project team to accomplish the expected requirements. Also, he
should motivate people to always improve their work because according to Crosby, quality
includes all the members, from the project manager to the lowest level in the team.
Regarding the second principle, it is more difficult to correct errors with patches and new releases
than avoiding defects. For this reason software should be tested to identify if it works as expected,
to find bugs and correct them and to check performance and usability. Using appropriately the six
kind of testing: unit testing, integration testing, subsystem testing, system testing and regression
testing; a project team is avoiding programming defects and in the first software release (doing it
right the first time).
Taking the third principle into consideration, one way to assure no defects is to carry out QA
activities such as reviews and inspections. Quality reviews consist on checking if defined
procedures, standards, design, specifications, etc. are being followed. Program inspection is an
activity carried out by team members using a checklist of programming errors to look for defects.
Both review and inspections are part of the validation and verification processes. Verification is
the checking process to identify if the software accomplishes functional and non-functional
requirements. On the other hand, validation is more general because its aim is to ensure that the
software is meeting customer’s expectations. Although, Crosby refers only to verification process
in the case of software sometimes there is a slightly difference between requirements and what
the client really expects.
Finally, the fourth principle is related to mechanisms to measure the price of non-compliance
which is the money that the project spends correcting errors in comparison to the price of
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compliance which is the money invested in producing well developed software. Examples of price
of non-compliance are the time spending for people involved in configuration management plan
to produce a new release o patch to correct the mistake, the price of the time spending for the
client checking more than once if a software release meet his requirements, etc. On the other
hand, examples of price of compliance are the price of training for team members, the price of
certification processes, etc. In any case, price of compliance always is cheaper than non
compliance. What is more, there are other values more difficult to estimate like prestigious and
user satisfaction.
References:
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Regarding the good features the recommendations for the management of future projects are:
1. To split the project management in each operating company and software supplier. What
is more, all of them were geographically distributed in different places.
2. To decide implement SAP ERP when consultants recommended Baan ERP because this one
was the best fit to EPOWER requirements.
3. To pay TECHCO for any additional work at a daily rate without defining neither activities
nor metrics for these additional works. This way, the software supplier was in a
comfortable situation charging any additional work. It was never pressured to assume its
responsibility for his lack of experience in SAP.
4. Not include in the project management someone with experience in the ERP system to
implement.
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Regarding the good features the recommendations for the management of future projects
are:
1. The project management should not be split into many people without a state global view of
the project. Additionally when there are teams geographically distributed, the best option is to
implement video conferencing; create a project website, use blogs, wikis and social
networking.
2. Future decision about implementing systems should be based on the software which better
support business processes and EPOWER requirements.
3. Before contracting a software supplier, activities should be clearly defined. If activities of the
project are clear enough, it will never be necessary to accept works charged at a daily rate.
4. It is recommendable that people know both platform and business processes are involved in
project management.
Appendix A
1. To elaborate a project plan with the following sections:
1.1. Project scope and contract
1.2. Technical plan
1.2.1.Define project life cycle and software engineering approaches using SWOT analysis,
cause and effect diagram, David Boddy's profile tool and matrix diagram to link
solution strategies to objectives.
1.2.2.Feasibility study using the figure of merit (FOM).
1.3. Project schedule
1.3.1.WBS and estimates.
1.3.2.Prepare an activity on arrow network, resource loading chart, Gantt and milestones.
Take into consideration, to schedule according to calendar time and resource
constraints.
1.3.3.Draw the earned value diagram.
1.3.4.Monitor the project updating activity on arrow network, Gantt and earned value
diagram
1.4. Project budget
1.4.1.Estimates, monitoring mechanisms, earned value diagram
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