INFO 638

Assignment #3 Project Control & Management

Due date for this assignment is on the syllabus.

As usual, there are no specific page limits.
Continuing the project used for Assignments 1 and 2, now you are defining
the approach that will be used to manage your project. The purpose of this
section is to give your customer confidence that, once your project begins,
you will have adequate and appropriate controls in place to manage it well.
1. Define how your project will report status, and to whom.
o A diagram might help show who reports to whom, something like
this:
Overview of Status Reporting for Project X

Testers
Customer
Development
Manager

Developers

Program
Manager

Network
Engineers
Infrastructure
Manager

Division
Manager

Database
Administrators

o For each type of report or status meeting (e.g. Weekly Issues

Review above), identify: who prepares it, who receives it, how
often it is prepared, time scope (past, present, and future and
how far into the past and/or future), and what kind of content it

has (technical, management, cost, etc.). A tabular summary for

each kind of report can be done, or use narrative text.
Technical content can, for example, address
accomplishments, focus on problems and issues, plan for
future needs, etc.
Consider whether sensitive issues like risks and cost are
addressed. Some lower level audiences (e.g. project staff)
might know effort but not cost, for example.
Each unique report name in the diagram only needs to be
described once. In the example above, there are four kinds
of reports that would be described; dont describe the
Weekly Issues Review twice.
Make sure to use the same name and capitalization for
each report or meeting consistently - in describing the
example, if you referred to just Weekly Status, I dont know
if you mean the Review or Report.
2. Define the types of meetings that will occur, both periodically and as
needed.
o For each type of meeting, define its purpose, who will attend,
when it will be held, and what kind of decisions will need to be
made.
o How will the results of each meeting be captured (e.g. minutes)?
How will followup actions be managed (e.g. action items)? Will
each meeting control minutes and action items for itself, or will
there be a central repository for the project?
o Some of the purposes might include
Review of status and progress (might be more than one in
this category, and there could be overlap with the previous
section of the assignment)
Risk management
Change control (see next section)
Escalation (if problems arent addressed at the lowest
level, who resolves them?)
3. Define the change control process for your project. Whether for a
proposed new feature, a defect, a customer complaint, or an upgrade
in a commercial component of your system, define the process that will
be used to assess that change, and follow it through to
implementation. Naturally this process might use one or more of the
meetings defined in the previous section.
o The change control process should define what organizations,
groups, committees, or other entities are used to perform each
step of the process, and provide a flowchart of the process.
o See the PTR process example in the Assignments section of
Blackboard for ideas. Your process will probably be simpler than
that example.

4. Produce a risk-analysis for your project. Prioritize risks, produce a riskaction-plan, and discuss (briefly) what procedures you will put in place
to manage project risks.
Keep in mind that there could be many levels of interaction the technical staff on your project,
lower levels of project management (if they exist on your project), the customer(s), the PMs
manager (upper management), vendors, subcontractors (rare), and so on. Your management
approach should account for all of the levels of interaction which are relevant and allowed in
your project.
Feel free to add narrative text to explain your approach for management. How often status and
other meetings are performed could depend on the size of the project, the type of application or
system being created, the culture of your organization, the nature of the customer, etc.
Examples for reports are optional call it extra credit if you feel like doing so.