Assignment – 2
For
Project
Management & Its Applications
Buy Now from this Link
Section A (20 Marks)
Write short notes
on any four of the following:
1.
Project Management System
2.
Performance Analysis
3.
Optimum Project Schedule
4.
Project Workflow Sector
5.
Vendor
evaluation
Section B (30 marks)
(Attempt any three)
1.
What are the major software’s
available for project monitoring and control?
2.
Describe various types of
“Bell” and “S” curves and their significance. How can these curves be used for
project progress monitoring?
3.
What factors must be considered
to have an effective procurement planning?
4.
Explain the impacts of
overtime, workforce size, and work intensity on rework.
Section C (50 marks)
(Attempt all questions. Every question carries 10 marks)
Read the case “Project
Management at Dotcom.com ” and answer the following questions:
Project Management at Dotcom.com
Dotcom.com, a software engineering
and systems development consulting firm, sells a wide assortment of Internet
and computer-based solutions for resource planning, administrative, and
accounting networks to organizations in health care delivery, financial
services, and hotel management. Typically, a service provider approaches
Dotcom.com with a list of problems it has and some targets for organizational
improvement. Because most of Dotcom's clients are not themselves computer
savvy, they tend to rely heavily on Dotcom to correctly diagnose their
difficulties, propose solutions to correct these problems, and implement the
new technologies. The industry Dotcom operates in is extremely competitive,
forcing successful organizations to make low bids to win consulting contracts.
In this environment, project management is vital for Dotcom's success because
poorly managed projects quickly "eat up" the profit margin for any
job.
Unfortunately, Dotcorn's senior
management team has noticed a recent upsurge in project operating costs and a
related drop-off in profitability. In, particular, Dotcom's executives are
concerned because the last seven consulting contracts have resulted in almost
no profit margin because the software systems were delivered late and required
several rounds of rework to fix bugs or correct significant shortcomings in the
software. The firm decided to hold a weekend off-site retreat with the project
managers responsible for these most recently completed projects in order to
learn why project management was being done so poorly.
To a person, the project, managers
fixed the blame for their problems on the clients. A typical response was made
by Susan Kiley, a project manager with over five years' experience, who stated,
"We are put in a very tough position here. Most of the customers don't
know what they really want so we have to spend hours working with them to get a
reasonable Statement of Work that we can develop the project scope around. This
takes time. In fact, the more timer spend with the customer up front, the less
I have to get my team to actually develop the system for them. It's a
Catch-22---If I want to get things right, I have to pry information out of
them. The better I do getting a sense of their problems, the less time I have
to develop and run the project.
Jim Crenshaw, another project
manager, spoke up. "It doesn't stop there, unfortunately. My biggest
problems are always on the back end of the project. We work like dogs to get a
system up that corresponds to the client's demands, only to have them look it
over, push a few buttons, and start telling us that this was not anything like
what they had in mind! How am I supposed to develop a system to solve their
problems when they don't know what their problems are? Better yet, what do we,
do when they `think' they know what they want and then when we create it, they
turn around and reject our solutions out of hand?"
After two hours of hearing similar
messages from the other project managers, it became clear to the senior
management team that the project management problems were not isolated but were
becoming embedded in the firm's operations. Clearly, something had to be done
about their processes.
Questions:
1.
How would you begin redesigning
Dotcom.com's project management processes to minimize the problems it is
experiencing with poor scope management?
2.
How do you balance the need to
involve clients with the equally important need to freeze project scope in
order to complete the project in a timely fashion?
3.
Why are configuration
management and project change control so difficult to perform in the midst of a
complex software development project such as those undertaken by Dotcom.com?
4.
How might project closeout help
Dotcom improve its project management?
5.
What you infer from the case
study?
No comments :
Post a Comment