(click to download it)




Project: Redesign of Faculty Website

The Roles
  1. The Client
    • [Afsoun, as the dean of the faculty]
    • Management Personality Type:
  2. The Project Manager
    • [Sarah]
    • Management Personality Type:
    • Position: Director of IT within the faculty
    • Responsibilities:
      • · “The development of an IS is a challenging process that requires extensive planning and control to ensure that the system meets user requirements and is finished on time and within budget” – Pg, 131
      • o Follows SDLC
      • · Plan the design and implementation of the new website
      • · Ensure proper, timely, and on budget execution
      • · Ensure project requirements are met
      • · Manage project team members
    • Tools for Project Management (pg, 87):
      • · Clearly define the project objective
      • o Must be agreed upon by the customer and PM
      • · Divide and subdivide the project into work packages (WBS)
      • · Define the specific activities that need to be performed for each work package in order to accomplish the objective
      • · Graphically portray the activities in a network diagram (Gantt, etc)
      • · Make a time estimate for how long it will take to complete each activity
      • o Also resources
      • · Make a cost estimate for each activity
      • · Calculate a project schedule and budget to determine whether the project can e accomplished within the required time, and with the allotted funds, and with the available resources
    • Main Project Decisions:
      • ...
    • Challenges/Risks:
      • · Conformance with university standards
      • · Involving end users to ensure effective and usable design
      • · Time (does this website have to be launched the same time as other faculties/departments???)
      • · Time management and Scheduling"
      • …a large percentage of IS projects are finished much later than originally promised or never finished at all.” à pg, 174
      • o Common problems that delay IS development projects are:
      • § Failure to identify user requirements/properly
      • § Continuing growth of project scope
      • § Underestimating learning curves for new software packages
      • § Incompatible hardware
      • § Logical design flaws
      • § Poor selection of software
      • § Failure to select the best design strategy
      • § Data incompatibility issues
      • § Failure to perform all phases of the SDLC

  • A-Team Member
    • [Alex]
    • Management Personality Type: Appollonian?! (task-oriented)
    • [Amanda] - Incoming Student
    • Management Personality Type:
    • Entry into the Project: Received offer by e-mail to be a usability study participant in return for vouchers at the campus bookstore/cafeteria
    • Prior Experience with Website: minor, used it when first applying to the program, slightly unsatisfied with it
    • Project Activities: several Focus Group sessions
    • Positives: liked knowing that initial problems with the website were being addressed, learned more about the existing website features as a result, got to meet new people, received compensation promptly,
    • Issues: unclear requirements (did not know it would be focus group based beforehand, unexpectedly contacted for another session), no follow-up communication (did not know how input was to be used and why), poor group dynamics
    • Recommendations: hire an experienced moderator, do not hold groups with faculty and students, keep in contact more frequently
      • From Gray and Larson's "Project Management: the managerial process"
        • final review with the customer should include answering these questions: Is the customer getting what he or she desires? Does the project definition identify key accomplishments, budgets, timing, andd performance requirements? Are questions of limits and exclusions covered? (p.101)

  • An Affected User Manager
    • [???]
    • Management Personality Type:
    • NOTE: we're not sure what this would be... but our guess is: not a student / faculty, but some sort of admin.. perhaps: Adrianna of the iSchool, adding content to the website -- she's a "user" but not an "end user" really --
  • An External Consultant
    • [Andrew Canale]
    • Management Personality Type: Dionysian
    • eg. usability expert
      • brought in during the third stage due to delays and lack of experience getting user input


This page contains an outline of the information our presentation is supposed to cover. The outline was created using the Assignment 2 description but if you think it should be adjusted to better suit notes on these areas, please due so! - AB

1) Work Plan
a. Requirement
b. Risk Analysis
i. Management of Said Risks
c. Schedule
d. Uncertainty
i. Method of Addressing
e. Workplace Change and Disruptions
i. Governance for Change

2) Discussion period about plan and projected process characteristics