Introduction
Our company IT solutions inc. is a small company dealing in turnkey network design and implementation. The Company is owned by the CEO Jonathan Weinberger, who is a PMP certified expert and believes in PMI way of managing all projects. In addition to the CEO, the company has 5 project managers who manage and coordinate suppliers, contractors and customers, these project managers each has an assistant including the CEO. The company also has two accountants thus having a total of 14 employees.
Services provided by our company include onsite network solutions such as relocating to new location, upgrading of new network systems or even changing the network system infrastructure. The Company deals with customers ranging from medium to large corporations who require networking solutions. Our main suppliers are firms who are sub-contracted by us to work on end work onsite network installations.
Our company competitors are divided into two categories: first category is competitors who provide services for customers’ internal IT department who are internal competitors in this case; our other competitor’s are external competitors who work on project management. In SWOT analysis, the strength that our firm has over internal competitors is the expertise to come up with a network from scratch, another advantage is the fact that we have worked on numerous projects thus our team has gained considerable expertise in the field of network management unlike our competitors.
Our strengths over external competitors is our experience to manage projects within a specified time frame, our costs are friendly due to sub-contracting most jobs not in our domain and discount we get on equipments hence lowering our cost.
The needs of the Project
The needs of this project are determined by the current situation against our customer needs. The current situation shows that our customer has just taken a new 12 year lease on a new building, the building has painted wall, cubicles and chairs. The aim of our task is to fit the building with new network equipments such as server, new terminals dedicated to every employee of the firm, an internet backbone for communication needs of our customer.
The specific needs of the customer can be classified as follows: – the customer needs to use internet for staff communication, new equipments to ensure that tasks are carried out easily by the employees of our client. The success of this project depends on how the project scope will be implemented. It is critical in this project that the life cycle model must be followed to the last process and all project requirements met as planned for a successful implementation process.
Goals and achievements of project
The main goal of this project is to come up with new networked and fully functional office for our client. Other goals to be achieved by this project include; new equipment for the IT department and seamless communication within the organization. The benefits that MetLife will accrue directly are: seamless communication within their offices, no costs incurred in training their IT staff to undertake this project, they will also save time since their employees will have the benefit of immediate relocation to their offices upon project completion.
Indirect benefits to the client are; the staff will benefit from new and long lasting equipments and also the risks associated with relocation such as breakages, misplacement and even theft of equipment will be avoided.
Product Description
The Project to be undertaken is a turnkey solution, at the end of the project a new networked office should be ready with new equipments wired together into an internet backbone that allow communication needs of the organization to be met. The project will have the following qualities: a fully functional server room to control all networking needs of organization; terminals dedicated to different users with different security controls in their domain; printers and scanners to allow data manipulation, presentation and finally conference rooms which will allow decision and communication needs of the organization.
Functional requirements that the project will address are: Facilitate communication between employees in the organization; ensure network is operational to allow migration of current domain information to the new servers; security and audit controls should be tested before migration to the new office; all equipments should be fully functional and compliant to the technological aspects outlined.
Life Cycle Model
In this project, the model that will be adopted is project communication management which is an example of PMP, the rationale for this choice is that our firm’s CEO believes in PMI way of project management. This model has advantages over other models in that: it focuses on processes which make up a project, these processes need to be well executed in order to complete the project; model takes into consideration constraints such as time, budget and scope of the project; this model also has a plus in that it is internationally recognized by bodies such as the ISO.
The disadvantage of this model is that one cannot start at any stage of the project because all processes have to be followed in order from the start to the end. Our company chose this model based on its strengths, an ability that will enable the project to be completed in time, within the budget and scope.
Project Planning
Work Breakdown structure
Work breakdown structure was developed according to different processes to be undertaken; these processes are divided into stages as shown in the WBS in the next page.
Time Schedule
The time to be taken in this project has been estimated to 21/2 months divided into work stages each with its own time frame. This is shown below.
Budget
The project will have an open budget according to different aspects but subject to revisions as per the preference of the customer. Network supplies and equipment will be procured at 25 % off the market price while other equipments will be bought at 15% below market price. Employees working for the project will be paid $ 40 per hour. Table cost is shown below
Risks
Risks associated with this project are varied depending on the presented scenario. Supplier agreements revision could a risk in that it may increase costs or make the organization to seek a new contractor; the other risk that may be encountered is the revision by the customer as a result of partial completion of the project and result to failure to meet all the client’s expectations. The major risk that the project faces is the failure to meet the stated deadline and hence resulting in lateness.
The above risks can be dealt as follows: – A contract will be signed with contractor for a period of not less than 5months; the other risk factor of non-completion of the project according to customer specification can be dealt with by defining the scope of the project before the project is undertaken. Finally time risk can be dealt with by specifying an appropriate time frame with a grace period of 1 month to ensure project completes on time.
Control
The three most important control indexes of this project are: – Scope, Time and Budget factors.
Scope: this control deals with what the project is all about, it deals with customer requirements, functional requirements and all areas where the project will focus on. Scope is a very important control index, if the scope of the project is not clearly and well defined, the project might stall or complete but fail to meet requirements of the customer. Responsible parties for this control is our organization since we have been contracted by the customer to undertake the project, this control must be managed at the initial stages of the project.
Time: This is another important control, time factor is important since it specifies the period it will take to finish all the processes of the project. Our organization will be responsible for time estimation necessary to finish the project. If not properly controlled, the project might not finish on time; this might result in customer dissatisfaction. Time being an important factor, if properly forecasted it will help our organization focus on future projects.
Budget: Costing of the project is estimated and tabled in a budget; the costs must be anticipated properly to ensure that there are enough resources for completion of the project. Costs must also be within the range acceptable by the client. The responsible party on part of cost estimation is our organization and the client is responsible for the funds necessary for the project implementation. Costs can be compared to the work done, equipments to be used in the project and other factors such as labor costs and the expected customer satisfaction.