COMPANY PROJECT PLAN

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COMPANY PROJECT PLAN

Scenario

Company XYZ is in the software games application development and has been aware that

their production of a popular game application will not continue to satisfy consumer demands.

This application has seen an increase of about 10 – 12% for the past five years. Currently the

games are sold as individual packs. However, sales forecast has indicated that this will not

continue due to other products emerging in the market, customer preferences, market

distribution and price competition.

The CEO had asked an internal team to review current processes and propose changes, along

with upgrades to software to meet the demands for the future. The proposed changes include

writing new games to suit young audiences, licensing options, access to games through

mobile devices and smartphones. The CEO also wanted an upgrade to equipment used to

develop software applications as well as test them, and a redesign of the processes in software

development processes with solid metrics relating to the increase in customer markets.

This has necessitated XYZ in specific anticipated changes such as team composition,

procurement of skills to write software to the mobile and smartphone markets, distribution of

their applications through telephone companies, and providing ongoing support for access.

The above specific changes also warranted XYZ to think about their software team

composition, marketing team composition, finance team composition, game writing process

aspects, and customer care team composition. XYZ is keen to make changes to their HR

composition as well as software writing processes, and would like to investigate, if these

changes were made to the organisational process, whether they would be able to manage those

process changes.

The Project Plan

XYZ would like to see an outline of a project plan with tentative timelines and cost ranges so

that serious consideration can be given to the process changes. The project plan that XYZ

would like to see should include included identification of needs for increased production, as

well as identification of affected departments and/or processes if the increase in production

were carried out.

XYZ knew from experience that changes to software writing (specific to games) would

impact other areas. For example, procurement had a set budget for hiring software engineers.

The expenditure necessary for software libraries that were not ready to be used in software

writing would impact cash flow and require consideration as to how this can be handled as

procurement of software takes time. Further, additional vendors may be sub-contracted in the

software development, as XYZ doesn’t have all the skills required. Should the current vendors

be unable to meet increased demands, then alternative vendors needed to be in place before

any supply issues arose.

So, XYZ is keen to see a proper project plan for identifying the stakeholders and how they

would proceed to gather the data necessary to accurately document the change management

processes in order to develop new gaming software. The plan that XYZ is keen to see should

include a detailed list of requirements to achieve the market share, and list HR, software,

hardware and other resources.

XYZ is also interested in the identification of potential risks and strategies for managing them

should they come to fruition. They wanted to be sure that once they finalise the process

changes for gaming software development, they could accommodate potential changes to

other processes. They knew that changing one process would likely have a domino effect

throughout the company. For example, during one of the scenario planning sessions, the

project team found that if procurement was unable to fulfil the skills needs of software

writing, without a back up vendor in place, there would potentially be a disaster. As XYZ is

keen to advertise their process changes and advertise that a new game is going to be released

to the market on a certain date, this would be unacceptable to XYZ and would ultimately

cause customer dissatisfaction, which could lead to a loss of business to competitors.

XYZ would like to see a proper breakdown of skill and other procurement options, and

several milestones, to allow the company to move forward with working with new processes

and upgrades to resources without interrupting the current schedule of activities. At each

milestone, there were several tasks for measuring progress and comparing it to expected

results and baselines. Assessments were completed regularly to ensure the current plan held

true to the objectives. At any point during the project, if the assessments showed deficiencies

from the objectives, then an evaluation and correction strategy would be required. The Work

Breakdown Structure should also include an induction and training time to get individuals up

to speed.

The Risk Management Plan should include contingencies should current employees be

incapable of delivering the new game software and performing their role in a timely fashion.

Part of the contingency plan was to use employees who adapted quickly to the new vision and

mix with other employees in the organization. An integrated team concept, including

mentoring, will be put in place to assist people in getting up to speed on new vision.

The current status of the company is that XYZ is selling about 250,000 games (the most

popular game of their product line) per quarter. At the time of the undertaking of the process

improvement initiative, client demand had just reached 240,000, and demand forecast

indicates a potential decline by 30% half-annually over the next 3 years.

The directive from the executives is to pitch the sales of the new game at 300,000 for the first

quarter in 2016. Based on current projections, the company would experience a five-year

timeline before having to undertake another increase in production to satisfy growing client

demand. At that point, if client demand continued to increase, the company would be in a

better position to invest in another production site in order to meet demands after the five year

mark.

Additionally, in the current production line there was, on average, a 3.6% defect rate in

software produced. One of the directives specific to this project was to attempt to reduce this

defect rate by at least half within the first two years.

The following were discovered during the current process analysis:

1. Capacity for procurement was limited due to cash flow and budgetary issues, as well

as storage. Any new process needed to take this into consideration once production

increased and would have to allow for a smooth flow between skill procurement and

product manufacturing and distribution.

2. It became apparent that once the number of game sales increased, demands on

warehousing and delivery would increase accordingly. A plan was put in place to

change warehousing and delivery processes to reduce the strain on these functions.

3. The project is allowed to run slightly (8 weeks) over the projected timeline, but

should remain within budget. The increase in the timeline may result from an

underestimate of the skill required, procuring this skill, contractual obligations etc.

4. If the decrease in the defect rate was .06%, then this will significantly exceed the goal

of 1.8%, thus causing an increase in storage and distribution. Although this is not

anticipated in a contingency plan it will not cause the executives to be unhappy. It is a

good problem.

Your task is to develop a project case for XYZ within the above scenario. If any parts of the

scenario in unclear, you are allowed make necessary assumptions, but the assumptions should

be realistic. Your task is to develop a project management document to provide an initial

idea and scope as to the cost in procuring various resources and timelines. Your

submission should include the following documents:

1. A complete project plan (PERT & GANTT Chart)

2. A Time Schedule for procuring the resources to meet 2016 implementation

3. A resource document detailing the type of resources required, cost to procure the resource

and the involvement of the resource in the development

4. A set of potential risks that you are anticipating in implementing the system

The above documents should clearly be developed using a project tool that is available to you.

You are required to state your assumptions clearly and package the documents in a professional

report to the top management for their consideration.

Report Submission:

Your report submission should be in four parts. The first part should provide a comprehensive

analysis of your research. This is a simple document, written with supporting arguments as to

various aspects highlighted, includes proper references etc. You will base this report on your

research conducted. The report should be contained within 2000 words. This report is pitched

to the management board and you are asked to use simple language as board members are

drawn from both technical and non-technical domains.

The second part of the report contains the project aspects. The four key aspects required for

the development should be explained and properly annotated.

The third part of your report should highlight the set of anticipated risks and you plan to

mitigate these risks.

The final part is the development of a complete project plan through PERT & GANTT Chart