1. CP60037E Managing IS Projects
Answer:
Introduction
The University of West London is planning to introduce a new booking system for their
student canteen to address issues and restrictions to ensure services in student canteen is
consistent with the Post COVID situation. The requirement of the university is to have a
system that is accessible to any student through a mobile app to be made available for
Android and Apple iOS.
The Application Needs To Have Following Features:
Facility to order and pay for the food within the application itself
Daily offers to attract students should be accessible via this app.
Allowing students to set time to collect their food at their convenience and providing
reminder to students accordingly within the application itself
Allowing employees of student canteen to update daily menu easily through this application
The project, along with adhering to these requirements as discussed needs to follow
timeline and budget constraints.
Background
The University of West London wants to change its existing system of serving students in
canteen and wants to implement more innovative and automated approach for managing
food orders. The idea is to have an automated system that will help in reducing student
gathering and long que for ordering and taking food items as this may lead to chances of
student being affected by coronavirus. Therefore, the requirement of the university is to
have an efficient and automated system to ensure student safety and improve overall
efficiency of student canteen services.
Objectives
To automate canteen services
To support online food ordering
To provide customized food delivery service along with alert for collecting food to avoid
2. long que
To support marketing by showing promotional offers to students
To allow canteen staff to update food menu automatically
Project Initiation Documentation
Project Definition
The project will help creating a new booking system that is aimed at automating current
booking system in student canteen. The objectives include:
Order and pay for the food within the application itself
Daily offers as part of marketing strategy
Facility to set time to collect their food along with reminder to students accordingly
Facility for canteen staff to update daily menu easily through this application
The project including required planning should be completed within 4 months with a
maximum allocated budget of 20,000 pounds.
What Is The Main Goal?
The main goal of this project is to assist the University of West London to introduce a new
booking system for their student canteen as they are planning to address issues and
restrictions following COVId-19 situation through an automated booking system. The
purpose is to ensure that services in student canteen is consistent with the Post COVID
situation while focusing on student and staff safety.
What Are The Desired Outcomes?
The desired outcome of this project is a successful booking system that will allow the
university to create a safe environment for students and staff while accessing student
canteen. The application is expected to help authorities in avoiding long que in student
canteen as booking for food will be made through application, allowing students to collect
their food at their convenience. This will not only make overall booking system more
seamless and efficient but will also maximize safety of students.
Constraints And Assumptions
Constraints
Assumptions
3. The project including required planning should be completed within 4 months.
The project will be completed on time and within required budget of 20,000 pounds.
The project needs to be completed with a maximum allocated budget of 20,000 pounds.
Issues in system will be identified in system integration testing and will help to ensure that
application will be stable and work as per requirements following official launch.
The proposed booking system needs to be accessible to any student through a mobile app to
be made available for Android and Apple iOS.
Required support and resources will be made available throughout project implementation.
The application needs to include every feature as mentioned by the university board.
End users will like overall system design as user acceptance test will be conducted and
necessary changes will be made as per feedback.
Interfaces
To ensure that objectives of university are accomplished with the framework that is to curb
spreading of coronavirus and restrict movement of students outside campus such as visiting
shops. This will help to keep students safe and secure not only from covid-19, but also from
4. other assaults and therefore, maximizing student safety and security.
Project Approach
The project will follow 4D’s approach including characterize, plan, create, and convey. To
start with characterization, extensive research will be conducted analyzing issues to be
solved through this project. As far as planning is concerned it is about creating a
comprehensive guideline to describe how requirements of this project will be met. Once
project plan is developed, the next part is to create the actual product for the project as per
project plan. When product design is completed and implemented in actual business
environment, outcome of the project will be communicated with project authorities as per
requirements (Kerzner 2017).
Project Product Description
The main product for this project is a new booking system and this booking system as per
requirements will be accessible to any student through a mobile app which will be made
available for Android and Apple iOS. The application will offer various features including
facility to Order and pay for the food within the application itself. Along with this, the
application will also provide Daily offers to attract students and this will be mainly
considered for marketing. The application will also provide facility for students to set time
to collect their food at their convenience and providing reminder to students accordingly
within the application itself. In addition to this, this application will also allow employees of
student canteen to update daily menu easily through this application.
Buinsess Case
The project will help in creating an automated booking system and will help the university
authorities to provide a safe and secure environment for students and staff. In order to
address issues related covid19, it is important that the university reduces chances of
student gathering for minimizing chances of students getting infected while accessing
student canteen. The application is therefore, as per requirements of this university as this
application will help authorities in avoiding long que in student canteen as booking for food
will be made through application, allowing students to collect their food at their
convenience. This will not only make overall booking system more seamless but will
enhance its efficiency to maximize safety of students.
Stakeholder List
Students
Staff
Canteen representatives
Project group
Project chief
5. Quality Management Approach
Quality standards will be set early in the project for various project activities including
application design and performance testing of application. Outcomes of project at each stage
will be verified with quality standards and any deviation will be resolved accordingly
(Meredith, Shafer and Mantel Jr 2017).
Change Control Approach
Any change to be implemented in the project, request for changes will be documented
through formal change request form and submitted to project manager and project sponsor
for approval. Changes will be only implemented only after approval from project manager
and project sponsor (Kerzner 2017).
Risk Management Approach
In addition to this initial risks identified in risk register, any new risks identified in the
project will be documented and risk register will be updated and required measures will be
implemented for mitigating risks accordingly (Firmenich 2017).
Communication Management Approach
Communication in this project will be managed employing various communication methods
to address different communication purposes. However, all of these communication
methods will be directed towards making communication transparent and involve
stakeholders accordingly for ensuring successful project implementation (Heagney 2016).
Communication in this project will be made through project meeting, project team
meetings, design meetings, project status meetings and project status reports as per
frequency as mentioned in following communication plan.
Project Plan
Budgetary Information
(De Souza and de Aquino Jr 2014)
Timescales
TASKS
WEEKS
24. Thiviya
Project manager
Board
Board
Business Case
WBS
In this context, a work breakdown structure has been provided that has divided whole
project into four phases including initiation, planning, execution and closing phases.
Another important phase of SDLC that is monitoring and controlling has been integrated
with execution phase as quality control will be integrated throughout project
implementation. This WBS has been considered in creating schedule for this project and has
been presented with a detailed Gantt chart showing description of project activities, its
estimated duration and dependencies between project activities in various phases as
discussed (Heagney 2016). This WBS along with Gantt chart will help in monitoring overall
project execution, its adherence to required time schedule for completing this application
design project on time and within required budget.
WBS
Task Name
0
Development of application
28. 3.1
Application architecture and framework design
3.2
Application database design and integration
3.3
System integration testing
3.4
User acceptance testing
3.5
user training
29. 4
Closing phase
4.1
Post project review
4.2
Stakeholder sign off
4.3
Post go-live support
Gantt Chart
RBS
This shows the stakeholder what is required for the project to operate as well as showing
them where the money is being used.
Communication Matrix
30. Communication in this project will include various communication methods serving
different communication purposes all of which is directed towards ensuring successful
project implementation. Communication in this project will be made through project
meeting, project team meetings, design meetings, project status meetings and project status
reports as per frequency as mentioned in following communication plan.
Communication
Purpose
Medium
Frequency
Audience
Meeting
To provide introductory presentation on the project, discuss on its objectives and scope and
confirm project specifications for an smooth and successful project completion
Face to face meeting
Once
31. Project team
Project sponsor
Stakeholders
Project manager
Project team meetings
Discuss on project performance, project status and any issues identified by project team for
implementing required measures to resolve any issues that may affect project performance
and affect project success.
Face to face or group video call
Weekly
Project team
Project manager
Design meeting
To discuss and review any new designs as well as any new problems that have occurred.
32. To review design solutions and design alternatives if required along with any identified
issues with current design approach to ensure final product meets design requirements and
specifications.
Face to face
As needed
Project team
Project manger
Project status meetings
To review current status of project and evaluate overall project performance.
Face to face
Monthly
Project manager
Stakeholders
33. Project status reports
To communicate with stakeholders regarding project overall project performance including
time and cost performance of project along with any new issues identified in project.
e-mail
Monthly
Project manager
Stakeholders
Risk Register
Risk rating before mitigation
Description of risk
Risk category
35. Project risk
2
5
10
Conduct kick-off meeting to identify client requirements for this project and also involve
client throughout project implementation by sharing project and product progress to
identify requirements for changes early in project.
1
2
2
Ask from client changes required to application and request for additional resources to
incorporate additional requirements and make necessary changes to application design
accordingly.
System analyst
36. Scope creep in project as client wants to add new requirements to project
Project risk
2
5
10
Prepare detailed SOW document highlighting project scope and ask for approval from client
before initiation of project.
1
1
1
Consult with project sponsor and approve or reject changes as per requirements.
37. Project manager
System testing fails to find issues in system performance which may affect system stability
and overall performance following official launch of application
Quality risk
3
5
15
Conduct in-depth testing of application
1
2
2
38. Fix system performance issues through application updates
Programmer
Poor schedule and budget estimation leading to budget shortage in project
Project risk
2
5
10
Consider analogous project estimation for accurate schedule and budget estimation. Along
with this, also create a contingency budget and reserve 10% of original project budget as
contingency budget to deal with project delays.
2
2
39. 4
Consider modifying project plan and accessing contingency budget as per requirements
Project manager
Application design is not so intuitive and affecting user experience and end users refuses to
use application for poor application design and interactivity
Technical
3
5
15
Involve end users and conduct usability evaluation test, obtain their feedback and make
necessary changes in design before official launch of application.
2
40. 3
6
Allow end users to provide their feedback within application itself so that improvements
can be made accordingly to ensure application features and performance meets user
preferences and requirements.
Software developer
Poor integration between front end and back end infrastructure of application and leading
to application crash on android and ios platform.
Technical risk
3
5
15
41. Conduct in-depth system integration testing on android and ios platforms and resolve
issues accordingly
2
2
4
Release system updates to solve known performance issues
Software developer
Project team has failed to deliver project on time and project overall budget has exceeded
allocated budget limit leading overall project to failure
Project risk
2
5
42. 10
Track and document project progress and communicate project progress through status
report on a regular basis to ensure timely completion of project within allocated budget.
1
2
2
Identify activities within original project schedule having more priorities and complete
those activities first to get project back on track. Consider acquiring additional resource
with contingency budget if required for timely completion of project.
Project manager
Report To Project Sponsor
Impact Of Project Progress On Business Strategies
The Business Strategy of the university is to provide best in-class services to students not
only focusing on education but to ensure overall safety and security of the students. As the
world is still finding its ways to deal with issues related to covid-19, maintain social
distancing, avoiding gathering of people, maintaining proper hygiene are some of the most
fundamental yet effective strategies that organizations are adopting. The proposed project
will implement an automated system that will help in reducing student gathering and long
que for ordering and taking food items. Therefore, this approach will help to reduce chances
of student being affected by coronavirus.
Once this proposed system is implemented and mobile applications are launched as per
project requirements it will ensure student safety and improve overall efficiency of student
43. canteen services. This project will provide the university an opportunity to showcase its
innovative approach in dealing with cobid-19 issues and will set example for other
universities. Therefore, apart from student safety, which is the most important priority, this
project will create competitive advantage for the university and therefore, beneficial from
financial perspective as well.
Overview Of Project Delivery
As part of project delivery, instead of delivering a complete application, an initial prototype
will be delivered and feedback will be obtained. The purpose is to identify requirement for
changes as per customer feedback and make changes accordingly to ensure final product of
this project as per requirements and specifications.
Plan To Release Application
A beta version of the application will be launched and provided to students for early access.
Feedback and opinions will be obtained regarding issues in application performance and
any additional features required. To resolve those issues subsequent updates will be
released for the application to improve its stability and overall performance as per
requirements.
Project Management Methodology
The project management methodology that has been chosen for this project is iterative
waterfall method, which is fundamentally similar to traditional waterfall method except
addition of iterations to each phase for incorporating client feedback throughout project
implementation (Gharajeh 2019).
The traditional waterfall method has following benefits and drawbacks (Chandra 2015):
Analysis Of Advantages
Waterfall method is simple and easy to implement and does not require extensive
knowledge of project management methodology.
Waterfall method require complete description of requirements at each project phase and
therefore, requirements are clearly specified which makes it easier to identify requirements
and implement project successfully.
Waterfall method follow a linear approach and each phase is executed once at a time,
making it easier to follow and execute a project accordingly.
Analysis Of Drawbacks
Waterfall method follows a sequential and linear approach which makes it difficult to adopt
any changes in requirement.
Waterfall method does not allow to incorporate customer feedbacks before final project is
delivered and often results in products that are not consistent with client requirements and
44. specifications and therefore, affects project success.
While iterative waterfall method retains all of the benefits of traditional waterfall method, it
makes a slight modification to traditional waterfall method as it includes iterations to each
phase for incorporating client feedback throughout project implementation (Gharajeh
2019). Although agile method is often preferred for software projects, it is time consuming
and requires significant investment. Agile method is preferred for complex projects where
requirements are not clear when project is initiated and new requirements are added or
changes are required to original requirements as project progresses. Therefore, for this
project, where requirements are clarified, time and budget are limited, agile is not a
recommended methodology for implementing this project and iterative waterfall method
has been chosen for this project (Zavyalova, Sokolov and Lisovskaya 2020).
References
Chandra, V., 2015. Comparison between various software development methodologies.
International Journal of Computer Applications, 131(9), pp.7-10.
De Souza, L.S. and de Aquino Jr, G.S., 2014, April. Estimating the effort of mobile application
development. In Proceedings of Second International Conference on Computational Science
and Engineering (pp. 45-63).
Firmenich, J., 2017. Customisable framework for project risk management. Construction
Innovation.
Gharajeh, M.S., 2019. Waterative model: An integration of the waterfall and iterative
software development paradigms. Database Syst. J, 10, pp.75-81.
Heagney, J., 2016. Fundamentals of project management. Amacom.
Kerzner, H., 2017. Project management: a systems approach to planning, scheduling, and
controlling. John Wiley & Sons.
Meredith, J.R., Shafer, S.M. and Mantel Jr, S.J., 2017. Project management: a strategic
managerial approach. John Wiley & Sons.
Sauvola, T., Lwakatare, L.E., Karvonen, T., Kuvaja, P., Olsson, H.H., Bosch, J. and Oivo, M.,
2015, August. Towards customer-centric software development: a multiple-case study. In
2015 41st Euromicro Conference on Software Engineering and Advanced Applications (pp.
9-17). IEEE.
Zavyalova, E., Sokolov, D. and Lisovskaya, A., 2020. Agile vs traditional project management
approaches. International Journal of Organizational Analysis.
