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Names:
Assignment Title:
Module Code:
CE00348-3-PMGT
Lecturer:
S. MOHANARAJAH
Intake Code:
TP3F0812CSE
Project Management
Group Assignment
Materials Management and Planning System
Project Management
Table of Contents
Table Of Contents ..... 2
Introduction ... 3
Management Summary And Assumptions .... 4
Selection Of Methodology . 6
Group Work - Amit Agrawal ... 7
Integration Management .. 8
Scope And Quality Management . 11
References .... 16
Group Work - Mohamed Maiz .... 17
Cost Management . 18
Human Resource Management ........ 20
References .... 23
Group Work - Dorcas Jori Titus .. 24
Risk Management . 25
Procurement Management ... 31
References .... 34
Conclusion . 35
Individual Journal Reflection - Amit Agrawal ........ 37
Individual Journal Reflection - Mohamed Maiz ..... 40
Individual Journal Reflection - Dorcas Jori Titus ...... 43
Appendix A - Project Charter .... 46
Appendix B - Summary Of Budget ....... 53
Appendix C - Organizational Chart ..... 54
Appendix D - Department Information And List Of Equipment ... 55
Appendix E - The Impact Category ... 56
Work Load Matrix ...... 57
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Group Assignment
Materials Management and Planning System
Project Management
INTRODUCTION
Project management skills and selecting the right methodology is important to manage a
project. This project requires saving a current project that is running out of time. The project
team will choose an appropriate methodology and use that methodology to apply in the
knowledge areas of project management to solve the current situation.
There are many problems occurred in current situation by the previous project team and
we will need to categorise the problems into few types of management in order to solve it.
Research will need to be done about various types of management.
This assignment as it base on real world problem, we learn to improve the way we think
about the solutions and experience what kind of problems we might have to face in a project. It
gives us knowledge and understanding about how the outside working life style would be.
Group Assignment
Materials Management and Planning System
Project Management
Satyam is a leading global business and information technology services company, delivering
consulting, systems integration, and outsourcing solutions to clients in 20* industries and
more than 65* countries.
Satyam leverages deep industry and functional expertise, leading technology practices, and an
advanced, global delivery model to help clients transform their highest-value business
processes and improve their business performance. The companys 52,865* Associates excel
in engineering and product development, supply chain management, client relationship
management, business process quality, business intelligence, enterprise integration, and
infrastructure management, among other key capabilities.
Satyam development and delivery centers in the US, Canada, Brazil, the UK, Hungary, Egypt,
UAE, India, China, Malaysia, Singapore, and Australia serve 690* clients, including 185*
Fortune 500.[1]
Recently the regional head office of Satyam in Malaysia has embarked on a new project which
will assist the manner in which materials and services are contracted and procured within the
various departments in the office. Previously this was manually done and delays were
experienced in the service and contract selection, approval and award processes. It is aptly called
Materials Management and Planning System.
As the project progressed, it was meeting its high-level milestones for the first 9 months, and
with 3 months left, it was now deemed as failing to meet its target dates, not doing what it
was supposed to do and was unreliable. This documentation contains a revised charter and a
recovery strategy to address those issues.
The cause of 6 problems was lack of proper project management methodology with appropriate
processes. As project was failed and needs to re-done, steering commit has request us to get
handle on this project by using formal project management methodology with appropriate
processes so that it can solve the 15 problems which are mention in case study.
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Group Assignment
Materials Management and Planning System
Project Management
Group Assignment
Materials Management and Planning System
Project Management
Selection of Methodology
Everyone in our group had a discussion of choosing between two methodologies which is
PMBOK and PRINCE2. We have done some research about the two methodologies and after the
research and our discussion session we decided to choose PMBOK as our development
methodology.
The entire group members at last agreed on using PMBOK is because the management
and knowledge area in PMBOK is more familiar to us. Since the project has only 3 months left,
if we are choosing a methodology that we are not familiar with, it might affect the time we need
to spend to understand the flow of the methodology. When we try to categorise the 15 problems
into the knowledge areas of PMBOK and PRINCE2 methodology, we found out that PMBOK 9
knowledge areas are easier to be categorised and implemented than the 8 from PRINCE2.
PRINCE2 and PMBOK methodology, both starts with planning and after that planning
goes to different processes. There are some similarities in both in terms of processes and
knowledge area such as risk management, quality control, etc. The knowledge area in PMBOK is
more suitable for us to categorise the 15 problems comparing to the 8 problems in PRINCE2.
From our past experience in developing project, PMBOK methodology will be easier for us to
implement as we got some experience in some of the type of managements. There are some
dilemma occur when we are trying to categorise the problems using PRINCE2 so the entire
group strongly suggested PMBOK as the methodology.
We as a team of three members each one of us as a Project manager has chosen PMBOK.
For categorizing the given problem we have used Project Managements knowledge area where
all the problems possibly fit into the scenario.
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Materials Management and Planning System
Project Management
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Materials Management and Planning System
Project Management
Integration Management
According to the problem scenario faced, the project approval was not formally documented.
Furthermore there was no clear designated sponsor for the project. The PC and server hardware
technical specifications were constantly being changed to suit new or added requirements. And
above all there is no evidence that a proper project management process was followed.
Assumptions:
The role, task and responsibility were not assigned properly to staff members.
Another important loophole was that the organization spent a huge amount of money
without looking into the legal matters which was really important to meet changes.
Project Integration Management includes the process required to ensure that the various elements
of the project are properly coordinated. It gives the overview of the following major processes:
(Willian R. Duncun, 1996)
Project Plan Development taking the result of other planning processes and putting
them into a consistent, coherent document. Here, for having a good planning of project
the well organized management process should follow, as there is no evidence that a
proper project management process was followed. It leads to unorganized planning of the
project. Moreover, the development plan was not coherently documented. There was no
properly formal documentation which was approved for project initiation.
1. Project Plan Execution carrying out the project plan by performing the activities
included therein. The main activity here was to sponsor the project. Though, project plan
development was followed improperly which later on resulted in to wrong execution of
project plan. The project was flowed wrongly from the scratch itself. The execution of
planning couldnt take place because of undesignated sponsor. There was no clear
structure of sponsors. So the activity which involved executing and processing the project
plan leads to unsuccessful criteria.
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Materials Management and Planning System
Project Management
2. Overall Change Control coordinating changes across the entire project. Well the starting
two phases of the integration management were not followed accordingly thus change
couldnt control appropriately. The PC and server hardware technical specification were
constantly being changed to suit new or added requirement. The major lesson learnt from
this failure is that when a project is undertaken then the task and the responsibilities must
be assigned clearly to the staff members and if the people are hired from outside the
organization, then there should be clear definition of the roles and the responsibilities.
There should have been a contingency plan for the case when the system didnt work out
properly as its being constantly changed to suit new requirements. There should have been a
monitoring of the performance of the system after the implementation and the necessary
steps should have been taken when the things didnt work out well.
The steps should have been followed to accomplish the task:
Overview of Integration Management- taken from A guide to the project management body of
knowledge, P 41
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Materials Management and Planning System
Project Management
Now one thing we need to do as the project team is to make sure that the project is integrated
into the workings of the company not only when it is being developed (allocation of resources
and manpower to the project without negatively affecting the operations of the company or other
projects) but also at completion by ensuring the project outcome actually does end up integrated
into the company. A project charter has to be developed. A project charter is a document issued
by senior management that formally authorizes the existence of a project and provides the project
manager with the authority to apply organizational resources to project activities. Share this with
everyone you think may be affected (all stakeholders) so that everyone acknowledges the
existence and importance of the project.
By creating the Project Charter, an analysis has to be carried out and understand the scope of the
current status of the system and why was it a failure. This includes the project requirements,
criteria, assumptions, constraints, and others which are related to the project and how each will
be managed. Each specific are of the product requirements has to be documented. Through this
the work breakdown structure can be prepared. Appropriate actions can be taken to have the
project performed in accordance with the project management plan, the panned set of integrated
processes and the planned scope. One of the most vital phases is to measure and monitor project
status, and the processes.
Group Assignment
Materials Management and Planning System
Project Management
the current network infrastructure needed a major upgrade to support the PCs and
servers for the new system (see section VII)
Assumption:
The project scope which covers the business case was not clear enough to ensure the deliverable
of the project. And it results in incompletion of the project.
The network infrastructure which is the main factor to show the project size and its complexity
under scope management was not upgraded to ensure its quality.
Problems and the action being taken:
PMBOK as guide provides five major project scope management processes - Initiation, Scope
Planning, Scope Definition, Scope Verification and Scope change control. (William, 1996)
According to this, we need to elaborate the business case in order to meet the process.
A business case is a formal document which serves the following main purposes [2]:
a. The Business Case is used to obtain management commitment and approval for scope in
business change, through rationale for the quality.
b. The Business Case provides a framework for planning and management of the business
change.
The ongoing viability of the project will be monitored against the Business Case
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Materials Management and Planning System
Project Management
The purposes as stated above clearly addresses the problem stated in the case study. If the
organization would have had a well defined business case then the problems mentioned would
have not occurred.
Why business case?
Business case is an important document and ignoring it or taking it lightly can result in big
disasters and blunders. One of the most recent examples of the project failure due to a weak
business case is the failure of the project ADVISE [Richard L Skinner, June 2007] which
was under U.S Department of Homeland security. The managers for the project did not write
a formal business case and apparently they didnt define scope properly and spent $42 million
on a gut feeling without a business plan.
Thus it is evident that the business case carries a lot of stake with it and thus a well defined
business case can really help the project managers to refrain themselves from committing big
blunders and errors. Here comes the project charter. If project charter is formally documented by
fulfilling its era such as project sponsors, project description, project requirements, project
justifications, milestones etc it can lead to strong business case. Project charter mainly covers
following area thoroughly shown in the diagram:
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Materials Management and Planning System
Project Management
Further down on the list of problems indicate that, at a later stage the project team found
out that the current network infrastructure needed a major upgrade to support the PCs and servers
for the new system (section VII). Based on the scope of the project, it is clearly evident that there
was a major miscalculation on part by the development team. Addition of 360 PCs and 2 new
servers, coupled with added software that would need network resources obviously requires a
major upgrade to the network especially if the current network consists of slow components such
as Network Hubs. In any case an addition of new PCs would require additional hardware to
connect them to the network with added bandwidth issues that may be needed to solve. Hence
the whole scenario suggests that resources are not adequately calculated. The project team should
have included upgrading the network as part of the project scope. Possible reasons it was omitted
could have been that a WBS was not formulated and the project team was not familiar with such
projects.
Another major problem faced in management of Scope is the scope creep evident from
the fact that requirements were constantly changed. Two major problems identified were that
proper scope control procedures were not adopted and the organization structure being not a
projectized (as indicated by that the project manager does not have enough power) also
contributed to make it very difficult to control the scope as the project manager was constantly
overridden by managers of individual departments.
Remedial Actions
Formulate a project charter and redefine the scope of the project which includes the weak
business case and the upgrading of the network as well.
Implement Scope verification and controlling techniques which the project lacks at this point as
per PMBOK guide on section 5.4 and 5.5.
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Materials Management and Planning System
Project Management
Overview of Scope Management- taken from A guide to the project management body of
knowledge, P 48
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Project Management
Scope verification
Scope verification includes formalizing the acceptance of the project scope by the stake holders
(Willian R. Duncun, 1996). It requires reviewing the work product to ensure that all were
complete and satisfactory. This needs to be duly signed by the company manager to formally
approve the project and to clearly identify the project sponsor as the Materials Department.
Key procedures to be implemented for scope verification:
1. Inspect the work already done, and formally document what is being done and what
needs to be done.
Scope control
A proper scope control procedure needs to be adopted. This will ensure to identify when scope
changes are required and possible impact on the project and the final finished product too.
Key procedures to be implemented as per PMBOK guide.
1. Scope change control system which includes a framework of paperwork, tracking
systems, and approval levels needed for a scope change to occur. This would work in
conjunction with the reorganization of the project team.
2. Performance measuring techniques such as trend analysis, variance analysis or EVA
(earned value analysis) to assess the impact of scope changes.
Group Assignment
Materials Management and Planning System
Project Management
Reference
[1]. Unknown, ud, Company profile retrieved on February 20, 2009 from
http://www.satyam.com/about/about_us.asp
Richard L Skinner, June 2007,ADVISE could support intelligence analysis more effectively,
retrieved on March 23, 2009 from
http://www.dhs.gov/xoig/assets/mgmtrpts/OIG_07-56_Jun07.pdf
Willian R. Duncun, 1996, A guide to the project management body of knowledge, Project
Management Institute
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Cost Management
Cost management of the pervious project was not efficiently executed. As we know from the
introduction of this project that the necessary funds were allocated for a 12 month period. But as
9 months passed the project was already running out of funds, while so many costs were
pending. Such as the hardware and software which were still being negotiated, and network
upgrade for the new systems.
If proper cost calculations were done for tasks and resources calculated earlier in the project and
by chance if there were funding issues, it should have arisen at the end of 12 months, not after
the end of 9 months.
The fact that two of the main costs have not been covered indicated that the funds were not
adequately calculated and proper cost controlling procedures and techniques were not enforced
throughout the project.
Considering all facts, the project needs to allocate resources for the new systems and additional
hardware which is needed to upgrade the network infrastructure. Hence a new estimate for the
next 3 months is needed and it requires imposing of an adequate cost controlling procedures.
This costing must comply with the resources needed and the new organization structure attached
in the appendix.
Remedy Solutions
A Work Breakdown Structure should be produced from which cost and recourses can be
adjusted. The adjusted estimates have to include outsourcing the development effort as
per the new project team is put together. This should also include formerly unaddressed
costs such as network upgrading. Based on the estimates a financial plan is formulated
(attached in appendix B) that needs to be obtained for the next 3 months to successfully
Group Assignment
Materials Management and Planning System
Project Management
Overview of Project cost management - taken from A guide to the project management body of
knowledge, P73
Key actions include.
Adopting a cost change control system which includes a framework of paperwork, tracking systems, and
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Project Management
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Remedy Solutions
Handling people in a team is not easy as they may have their own personal skills and some of
them might not be able to work well as a team. One of the processes in project human resource
management is to make most effective use of the people involved with a project. There are three
major processes we need to take note in human resource to prevent the current problem occur
again which are organizational planning, staff acquisition and team development. If these three
aspects are handled well, the project can progress smoothly without major human resource
issues.
According to PMBOK, an organizational structure will influence the project. As a project
manager, he/she must be given a certain level of authority to ensure that he/she can control the
team. The table below is an organizational structure about project manager.
Group Assignment
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Project Management
To encounter the current human resource problems, we will start with the organizational
planning. First thing we will do is to create the organizational chart. Remedy solutions will be
applied to this organizational chart and it will help in managing the project in the next 3
months. This chart will state our project managers and the people or departments working under
them. This will prevent the authority of the project manager being overridden by the
departments head. The project team is projectized and he/she will have the most authority to
manage his/her department. All the department managers will be working under the project
manager so this will ensure that the project managers authority will not be overridden by any
department managers. When there is only one person who has the full authority to be in charge
of the department, all decisions will be made by the project manager so there will be no conflict
of authority occurring. The project manager will be chosen by us and he/she will choose the team
of people who will be working under him/her as a department. We will try our best to get the best
combination from our previous working experience as a team, to develop a good team to
complete the project in the remaining time.
With the organizational planning, we can prevent authority overridden and the department
heads will not feel that their department is the most important department because we are
assigning the tasks in the work definition and assignment process. Each department are equally
important and have their own type of tasks, none of them are special from each other.
Staff training comes under human resource management. Hence as for the lacking of technical
skills in network and security area, we will provide them a 3 month course to train them up in
these particular areas. We will get lecturers to train the staffs simultaneously with the progression
of the project; they will be able to learn up most of the things in 3 months time.
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Project Management
REFERENCES
Books
Willian R. Duncun, 1996, A guide to the project management body of knowledge, Project Management
Institute
Kathy Schwalbe, 2000, Information Technology Project Management, Course Technology.
Websites
Dr. Paul Dorsey, 2000, Top 10 Reasons Why Systems Projects Fail [online], Dulcian, Inc., Available from
http://72.14.235.104/search?
q=cache:sMsARAV8yrQJ:www.dulcian.com/Articles/Dorsey_Top10ReasonsSystemsProjectsFail.pdf+
%E2%80%98Top+10+Reasons+Why+Systems+Projects+Fail
%E2%80%99&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=3&gl=my [Accessed: 25th May 2009]
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Risk Management
The risks associated with the project, although documented, had no detailed action plans
and were not categorized in terms of impact or severity.
Proposed Solution
According to Clifford, Erik (2008), Risk is an uncertain event or condition that, if it occurs, has positive
or negative effect on project objectives. Any decision that we take generally carries some amount of risk,
and as such may result in a gain or loss for us. Risk taking entails making a choice; it actually involves
some level of change of some sort, like a change in place, a change in profession and change in opinion.
The same is applicable to project, as it also entails strategy.
Reactive
Proactive
Reactive strategy waits till the problem occurs before it is been applied to tackle the problem. That is to
say, when the problems crop up, the team members goes into action and takes the initiatives to solving the
problems.
Some of the threats inherent here basically is the lack of technical skills observed in the network and
security areas. The material management and planning (MMPM) system is a project of 12 month, but in
the course of that 12 month there were a lot of incompetent team members reflecting from the
inconsistency being exhibited. The firm never accounted for the fact that any may leave, it simply took
the continuance of the team members. However some of the team members left the company and
invariably the project without any giving prior notice. In such a situation, the entire burden falls upon the
very few remaining crew. Due to the shortage of time, the company might not be able to hire new staff
immediately, and the project then suffers massive set back, abandonment or unnecessary delays.
Reactive strategy will mean hiring and training new staff after the earlier staff has quit. Had the problem
been foreseen, the team members who plan to quit could be made to train the new staff before they leave.
Proactive means taking the initiatives before the problem becomes a menace. This strategy with respect to
MMPM will mean acting in advanced, that is predicting that a problem may arise, and taking
precautionary measures for it. Identification of risk may occur, therefore prioritizing them, and planning
solution strategies to deal with these risks are part of proactive strategies.
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Risk
Project Management
Category
Probability
Impact
TE
30%
BU
40%
PS
60%
PS
30%
RMMM
Generic Risk
Product-Specific risks
2. Risk Assessment
Determined the impact for each component using the table in AppendixA
3. Risk Response
Contingency Plan
Project Manager
System
Developer
Testers
Risk Mgmt
Team Members
Identify Risks
Analyze Risks
Take Action
Activity
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Legend:
P=Primary/Major responsibility
J=Joint/Shared responsibility
S=Support/Involved
No methodology
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5. Hardware Implementation
6. System Installation
These are basically the identified threats, which were just identified and no action were taken by the
previous team members. The next step is to analyse the seriousness of each risk in order to prioritize
them. Risk prioritization is based upon the concept of risk exposure,risk exposure is determined using the
relationship:
RE =P*C
Where:
RE= risk exposure
P=Probability of occurrence of risk
C-cost to the project should the risk occur
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Risk identification only 70 percent of software component for scheduled for reuse will be integrated into
the application, remaining functionality will be custom developed.
Risk probability 80% likely
Risk impact 60 reusable software component were planned. If only 70 percent can be used, 18
component would have to be developed from scratch (in addition to other custom software that has been
scheduled for development) since the average component is 100 LOC, and the local data indicate that the
software engineering cost for each LOC is $14.00, the overall cost impact to develop the component will
be: 18*100*14 = $20,200
Risk Exposure = 0.80*25,200~$20,200
Risk exposure can be computed for each risk in the table in fig1, once an estimate of the cost of risk is
made. the final estimate MMMP can be adjusted once the total risk exposure for all risk (above the cutoff
in the risk table) is calculated
A risk referent level must be defined for risks based on performance, cost, and schedule.and support. A
risk reference level has breaking point or reference points, which indicate whether the project may be
continued or terminated.
After a careful identification of all high threats to the project, an effective risk Response can be
considered:
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Project Management
Transfer: This option would involve insurance thereby making the insurance company responsible for the
consequences of any such identified huge threats.
Contingency plan: This would be the primary option the project manager and team would employ as it
has specific actions that would be taken for potential problems identified with this failing project. This
step comes into picture when risk avoidance has failed and risk has become a reality.
The teams contingency plan would address system planning for every critical system and also include
specific trigger dates i.e. implementation dates while including alternative solutions to critical services
provided by outside parties. Consideration would also be made for system compatibility and alternate
systems provided. Project staff issues would also be addressed as well and alternate solutions derived.
After carrying out the risk analysis and management exercise, the team would carry out regular reviews as
these would involve formal reviews of the risk analysis, testing systems and plans appropriately
The project manager and team would manage inherent variability by acknowledging and accommodating
the possibility of risks through recognizing, evaluating, estimating, and communicating its existence to
management and other stakeholders as appropriate.
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Project Management
The hardware and software delivery was still being negotiated while there
were only 3 months to complete the project
It was generally felt that the in-house developed system was not very
different from vendor developed software, e.g. SAP
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Project Management
Procurement management will redefine the project scope statement and product description that know
what exactly the projects needs, for instance the hardware and software requirement and a suitable server
for the system
Secondly, solicitation planning that using the previous procurement plan and statement of work to
produce procurement documents and evaluation criteria. Developer has to define a specification
requirement and establish a deadline for supplier to ask for offers because the amount of hardware and
software is already listed in the case study. The hardware specification is not only requirement for now
but must support future use. The minimum requirement must be support up to 5 years to run the daily
task. Within the 5 years must have a good after sales services such as warranty and services for the
hardware and software. In current market, there are a lot of suppliers provide a good after sales services
example like Dell, IBM, HP and etc. ((Rory Burke, 2000)
Next step is solicitation that uses the prepared procurement documents and chooses the qualified suppler
lists. Now they have to request the quotation or proposal from the qualified supplier. Developer should
request from different supplier to receive different proposal and compare the price and services that
supplier will provide. They are not list the entire hardware specification for supplier but let the suppliers
specialist team to purpose the best hardware requirement for different departments and developer going to
consider it.
for purchasing the hardware and software. The contract is a mutually binding agreement which the
supplier to provide the specified product and obligates such as after sales services, warranty, deliver
deadline and etc. And they have to make sure the hardware have included 5 years after sale services. It is
important if we found some problem to the hardware and the supplier will give a good after sale services.
With the contract, they can confirm the prospective supplier to deliver the hardware and software within
the deadline given and check is the hardware requirements from us is same with the proposal. The
supplier must include the invoice so that we can check on the price too. If developer unsatisfactory with
the deliverable, they can request change of the product. If the project management team cannot agree on
compensation to the product, they can claims, disputes or appeals to the supplier. If everything works fine
and agree
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Purpose of RFP
II.
Organizations Background
III.
Basic Requirements
IV.
V.
VI.
VII.
Possible Appendices
A. Current System Overview
B. System Requirements
C. Volume and Size Data
D. Required Contents of Vendors Response to
Example of Request for Proposal Template
()(Office
of Information
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References
Clifford .F, Erik W.(2008),Project Management the management process 4e, 4th ed,McGrawHill,Newyork.
Burke R., 2000, Project Management Planning and Control Techniques, 3ed. John Wiley & Sons,
Inc, 3rd avenue, New York, NY.
PMBOK Guide, 2004, A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge 3rd ed,Project
Management Institute, Four Campus Boulevard, Newtown Square USA
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Conclusion
Project management is a wonderful domain and the importance that it holds in terms of the
success and failure of the project is immense. The six issues that were part of the case study
made us touch various facets of project management and it was a great experience leaning to
solve these issues using the project management tools and techniques.
The selection of the project management methodology was the first challenge and based our
research we learnt how PMBOK methodology scored over other methodologies such as
PRINCE2. We learnt how PMBOK has dedicated components for all the tasks and how they
helped us to solve the problems by decomposing them based on these components.
The problems were discussed in the group and all the group members gave their comments. We
had brain storming session for all the problems and it was really heartening to have that spirit in
the group. We were really amazed to find out how even the small things can make a huge
difference in project management. We are referring to the solution of problem of Scope
Management. We never thought that a well defined business case could be so important in
project management. A good formal business case is really important for the success of the
project.
The infrastructure had also affected the scope of the project. The project team was mainly
responsible for it. But by following steps of Project Scope Management processes, we were able
to conclude the appropriate solution.
Another important aspect that we got to know through this case study is that only planning is not
enough for a project. It is necessary to monitor and control that plan and also to re assess and re
plan things after a time period. A consistent monitor and control strategy allows for finding the
errors and flaws early and thereby allows for more time and flexibility to mitigate them.
Human resource management is an integral part of any organization. Great stress is laid on
implementing an effective human resource system in an organization. There are lots of
department in an organization that makes use of human resource to setup strategic planning and
means to process officials assignments. The companies that do not have a proper human resource
department suffer from official disorders and lack of management in office activities.
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Next problem under me was that to categorised those specifically defined 15 problems into 6
major categories. But Mr. Maiz gave one very important point and that was to categorized
15 problems using project management knowledge area. It was a good piece of observation.
In this project, I was responsible to solve the Scope, Quality and Integration management. Before
I start provided the remedy solution to the problems, I started with doing the research from many
of reference book in library and internet to understood what is scope, quality and Integration
management and what information must prepare for that. I also tried to look up on some
diagrams and business case example to support my documentation part.
The best part which we have decided was that we had to research before any meeting as the
agenda was set before and this helped in coming with some really reasonable suggestions. Every
time we had something to show, something to support our work, our discussion. As a group we
discussed every problem and suggested each other with number of solutions.
To conclude I would like to thank Mr. Maiz and Ms. Docras for being so corporative, supportive
and open minded throughout the project. Working with them during this project was an enjoyable
experience and we have learnt many things from each other especially as the project is designed
such a way that the same problem could be resolved in different ways based on the assumptions
we made.
I also would like to sincerely thank Mr. S. Mohanarajah for his invaluable lessons and guidance
given to us during the lecture sessions and especially in making the tutorials sessions enjoyable
and interesting.
Group Assignment
Materials Management and Planning System
Project Management
Group Assignment
Materials Management and Planning System
Project Management
Group Assignment
Materials Management and Planning System
Project Management
The problems that I solved are human resource management which is problems no 4, 5, 6 and 13 and the
cost management which is problem no 11. In problems 4, 5 and 6 I found out that the organization
planning is very important. The task assignment and organizational chart is really important to be
developed so there will be no conflict of task and authority. The problem will occur when there are
conflicts between the project team. Every individual will have different knowledge areas and expertise, it
is not an easy task to identify and assign the right person for the right task and making all of them to work
as a team.
While doing the cost management I figured out that prices keep changing all the time. They are never
fixed. It can increase and at the same time decrease. We cannot predict what will happen in the market
within 12 months. Hence we have to make some assumptions and we have to fix every deal we need to
make as soon as we fix the budget. For example we shouldnt wait till the middle of the project duration
to start purchasing the systems or software. We have to finish it as soon as possible while the prices keep
constant as it is show in the budget.
This assignment is a group assignment and the group is selected by the lecturer. Luckily I knew one of my
group members before this, nevertheless there is a challenge to cooperate with both of them to complete
this assignment. We have good communication and we can work as a team to solve the problem. I would
like to thank both of them and we enjoyed working as a team to finish this assignment. We used msn and
yahoo messenger so that we can discuss online and share our opinion and the tasks wed done. Were not
only working as a team in this assignment, but we also have built up our friendship during the
development of the project. We had fun times and enjoyed working together so we never felt stressful in
doing the assignment. Well at least not till the last minute.
As Amith said to conclude I would like to thank Mr. S. MOHANARAJAH for helping us, teaching us,
and guiding us thorugh this project. And I would also like to thank my colleague CHEA VICHHEKA for
he have made it so interesting arguments in our classes. Finally I am very confident by doing this project I
have made it so easy for myself to do my upcoming project management exam. Thank you.
Group Assignment
Materials Management and Planning System
Project Management
Group Assignment
Materials Management and Planning System
Project Management
Group Assignment
Materials Management and Planning System
Project Management
One of the factors that the group members achieved by making this project a success is the
constant communication amongst them selves, due to the time constraint and many other factors
that could make it not a reality.
My own personal experience as a developer, was basically trying to comprehend the
methodology PMBOK and it majors Knowledge areas, and how to apply it to MMPM projects.
As a group of three the 15problems was merged to six problems, and was shared to each and
every member of the group. Each of the group members had two of the problems to discuss.
The two problems given to me as a developer to use to come up with a solution as a developer,
which will be a great favor to the crumbling projects, are basically:
Risk Management
Procurement
Using PMBOk as a guide methodology to use in handling such a problem and to give solution
where applicable, PMBOk is use as a guide with a lot of scenarios on similar projects. The most
challenging aspect of my problem area is the risk Management, which is one of the alarming
factors of projects, most projects are not insured that is why when threats shows up, most
projects will be put on hold and when they decide to continue the project, the projects becomes
an old. And at the end of the day the money we were scared of losing, we will not only loss, but
their will time wastage
I have gained a lot of experience about critical success factors for most projects, what causes
project failures and how to revive ailing projects. Even though I acknowledge that there might be
more scenarios out there that might require a totally different approach to them, the knowledge
gained from this project would serve as a terrifying foundation for much more learning and
experience in the project management world.
The attitudes of accidental project managers and their team members should be aligned to the
success of the project by satisfying and delivering the needs and wants of the intended users of
the system. Such a positive attitude would in turn influence the entire project and give it that
boost it would need to propel the project team through the project lifecycle.
Project management as a career will be suggested to every individual who was to successful
either in team work or in every aspect of our live, decision
Asia Pacific Institute of Information Technology
45
Group Assignment
Materials Management and Planning System
Project Management
Project Description
Satyam is a leading global business and information technology services company, delivering
consulting, systems integration, and outsourcing solutions to clients in 20* industries and
more than 65* countries.
Satyam leverages deep industry and functional expertise, leading technology practices, and an
advanced, global delivery model to help clients transform their highest-value business
processes and improve their business performance. The companys 52,865* Associates excel
in engineering and product development, supply chain management, client relationship
management, business process quality, business intelligence, enterprise integration, and
infrastructure management, among other key capabilities.
Satyam development and delivery centers in the US, Canada, Brazil, the UK, Hungary, Egypt,
UAE, India, China, Malaysia, Singapore, and Australia serve 690* clients, including 185*
Fortune 500.[1]
Group Assignment
Materials Management and Planning System
Project Management
Recently the regional head office of Satyam in Malaysia has embarked on a new project which
will assist the manner in which materials and services are contracted and procured within the
various departments in the office. Previously this was manually done and delays were
experienced in the service and contract selection, approval and award processes. It is aptly called
Materials Management and Planning System.
As the project progressed, it was meeting its high-level milestones for the first 9 months, and
with 3 months left, it was now deemed as failing to meet its target dates, not doing what it
was supposed to do and was unreliable. This documentation contains a revised charter and a
recovery strategy to address those issues.
Project Requirements
The project involves a system that will be used by 9 departments distributed over 18 floors of the
building. The following requirements are identified for the project.
1. Development of Materials Management and Planning (MMPM) System was using inhouse with existing staff from the company for the first 9 months. But based on the
analysis of the problems, a new project team is brought in for the next 3 months.
2. A central storage is required in order to store and access information to approve the
various department services and contracts.
3. All employees must have access to this new system (access privileges will vary)
4. 360 new PCs are to be installed as per Appendix B.
5. 6 new servers are to be installed as per Appendix B.
6. Current Network infrastructure is to be upgraded to accommodate the new PCs and
servers and the software being developed.
7. The cutover - (old manual system to new automated system) must be in parallel.
8. A software needs backup and recovery capability to ensure stability and integrity
Group Assignment
Materials Management and Planning System
Project Management
Project justification
The new system will revolutionize the way in which materials and services are contracted and
procured within various departments. With the development of the MMPM the Contacts
department will be able to fully automate procurement processes such as contract selection,
approval and award processes and at the same time monitor the procurement requirements of all
the departments in the office while individual departments will have completely new tool with
which they can communicate with the Materials Department in all matters related with
procurement. MMPM will enable individual departments to track the status of their procurement
processes, how far it has gone without much hassle.
With the development of the new system delays experiences in the current manual process will
be totally eliminated and the communication gap between the Materials Department and other
departments will be minimized.
A total duration of 1 year, from the date of commencement of the project. The total
remaining duration to complete the project is 3 months.
Direct and coordinate the work of the team members and schedule overtime hours if
required.
Request services from all departments and coordinate activities to meet the deadlines and
requirements.
Group Assignment
Materials Management and Planning System
Project Management
Summary Milestones
Milestones have been divided into two phases. Phase 1 includes a high level milestones that are
achieved in the past 9 months and phase 2 starts from where phase 1 ends and includes
milestones that need to achieved in the next 3 months
Phase 1
Project kickoff
0 days
1/Apr/2008
2 days
3/Apr/2008
3 weeks
24/Apr/2008
69 weeks
30/Dec/2008
Group Assignment
Materials Management and Planning System
Project Management
Phase 2
Problem Scope identification and formulating recovery
plan
6 days
3-Jan-09
2 days
5-Jan-09
1 month
9-Jan-09
56 days
26-Feb-09
4 weeks
2-Mar-09
4 weeks
12-Mar-09
15 days
12-Mar-09
2 weeks
17-Mar-09
2 weeks
18-Mar-09
3 days
21-Mar-09
9 days
24-Mar-09
0 days
3-Apr-09
30 days
1 month parallel
running
Group Assignment
Materials Management and Planning System
Project Management
Stakeholder Influences
Stake Holder
Influences
Project Manager
Group Assignment
Materials Management and Planning System
Project Management
Functional Organizations
The new project team will includes a project manager and 9 team members grouped in four
departments. The four departments are the procurement, development, training and installation
department. All of 10 members will be working in Satyam Corp. for the next 3 months to
complete the project. All the department staffs will be reporting to the department head and all
the department heads will be reporting to the project manager.
Business case
Materials (Contracts) Department, Satyam Corp needed a system to manage the way in which
material and services are procured. The system being developed is tailored to the exact
requirements of the company allowing the software to fully integrate, helping to meet key
business objectives. The software being bespoke is scalable which is a positive factor compared
to off the shelf systems such as SAP as it is able to accommodate the changing requirements of
business growth and could evolve with the company to provide an ongoing perfect fit for the
company.
Once software is developed, the organizations IT staff could handle the maintenance of the
software without added fees which maybe imposed by off-the-shelf software.
Group Assignment
Materials Management and Planning System
Project Management
The budget has been prepared to address the current problems at hand which contain upgrading
the network infrastructure which has not been identified at the initial stages of the project. It also
accounts for the additional man-hours required to finish the project within the next 3 months.
The project team was part of the Satyam for the first 9 months.
The next three months will be done by external project team working inside the Satyam.
900 Man-days is based on 10 people working for the next 3 months.
Group Assignment
Materials Management and Planning System
Project Management
Group Assignment
Materials Management and Planning System
Project Management
Desktop PCs
95
Controllers (Accounting
and Finance)
72
Engineering
109
Materials (Contracts)
38
Law
Public Affairs
12
Payroll
11
Human Resources
10
Planning
Total
Servers
Production
Web Server = 2
D/B Server =1
File Server =1
Backup
D/B Server =1
File Server = 1
360
The departments are distributed across 18 floors in a building which has a data centre and all the
Desktop PCs are connected using structured cabling best practices (vertical and horizontal
cabling) which is scalable where growth and expansion is possible.
Group Assignment
Materials Management and Planning System
Project Management
APPENDIX E
Risk Projection, is also called risk estimation rates can be carried out in two ways;
the probability or likelihood that the risk is real, and the consequence of the
problems associated with the risk, should it occurs.
Category
Components
Negligible
Marginal
Critical
Catastroph
ic
Performance
Early achievable
delivery date
Realistic
achievable
schedule
Possible slippage
to delivery dates
Group Assignment
Materials Management and Planning System
Project Management