32451 Project Management – Assignment 1
University of Technology, Sydney Faculty of Engineering & Information Technology
32541 – Project Management Assignment One
This is an Individual Assignment
Marks: 25 marks (25%)
Submission: Project Charter
Submission Due: Softcopy in a word document (.doc or .docx) only
6pm, Friday 4th September 2020
Submit via Canvas
Anticipated Commitment: 15 hours
Objectives: 1, 2, and 3
Graduate Attributes: D, E
Requirements
This assignment is based on the Whitley’s Gourmet Food case study (attached).
You have been appointed as Project Manager of the Whitley’s “Gourmet-Online” project. The Project Sponsor has asked you to “do an initial scoping of the project”, keeping in mind that the project should be finished by the end of June 2021.
As you are new to Whitley’s Gourmet Food, you inquire as to what must be covered in an initial scoping of a project. You are informed that Whitley’s use a traditional project management methodology and an initial scoping requires a “Project Charter” to be produced. This document lays out a project’s broad parameters for signoff by the senior executive team. If the broad parameters of the project are approved, then the project can proceed to the project planning phase.
As per the Assignment 1 template the project charter must contain the following sections:
1. Document Purpose
2. Project Background
3. Objectives
4. Value Statement
5. Stakeholders (with position, name and contact details)
6. Success Criteria (product related only)
7. Constraints
8. Scope (product-oriented scope only)
9. Three level Work Breakdown Structure (WBS)
10. Recommendations and Approvals
It is envisaged that your project charter will be approximately 1500 words in length (excluding appendices and table of contents).
Assessment
See separate Assignment 1 Marking Standard
© Alan Sixsmith 2020 1 32451 Project Management – Assignment 1
Late Submission
For assignments submitted after the due date and time late penalties will apply as per page 9 of the subject outline which states:
“Work submitted late without an approved extension is subject to a late penalty of 10 per cent of the total available marks deducted per calendar day that the assessment is overdue (e.g. if an assignment is out of 40 marks, and is submitted (up to) 24 hours after the deadline without an extension, the student will have four marks deducted from their awarded mark). Work submitted after five calendar days is not accepted and a mark of zero is awarded.”
Extensions, Special Consideration and Query of Marks/Grade and Final Results
For information on Extensions, Special Consideration, Late Penalty and Query of Marks/Grade and Final Results, please see Assessment: faculty procedures and advice on pages 9 and 10 of the Subject Outline.
Submission Guidelines
The project charter must be written in the context of the project and use the assignment 1 template available in UTS Online. The project charter must include all ten sections detailed in the template.
All diagrams, figures and tables (if used) should be numbered, titled and explained the text. All lists must have lead-in text.
All material derived from other works (except the assignment case study) must be acknowledged. If using material derived from other sources the report must have:
1. A bibliography/reference list of all works included in the research report. This should list the books and articles, which have been quoted or used in the research report; they should be arranged alphabetically by author's surname with anonymous works listed first
2. The acknowledgement of all evidence and sources of information using the Harvard Referencing System.
3. If diagrams and tables are used to explain the text they should be numbered, titled and, if copied from literature, the source should be quoted immediately underneath.
Submission of Assignment 1 is via the Assessment Task 1 page in Canvas.
Referencing Guidelines
Students should consult the following UTS Library webpage:
• https://www.lib.uts.edu.au/help/referencing
Please note: You do not need to reference the case study. However, text taken from the case study must be paraphrased and not directly copied.
The UTS library HeadsUp program
Students may find the HeadsUp program useful from a referencing and writing perspective, which is available at ? http://www.lib.uts.edu.au/headsup
Academic Standards
Students are reminded of the principles laid down in the Statement about assessment procedures and advice on pages 10 and 11 of the subject outline.
Assignment Return
It is envisaged that assignments marks and written generic feedback will be available in the week commencing Monday, 14th September, 2020.
© Alan Sixsmith 2020 2
Whitley’s Gourmet Food Case Study
Date:
27th July 2020
To:
Gourmet-Online Project Manager
From:
Elizabeth Alexander
Topic: Gourmet-Online @ Whitley’s
_________________________________________________________________________
Welcome aboard this exciting new project that will take Whitley’s Gourmet Food to the forefront of gourmet food distribution in Australia and congratulations on being appointed Project Manager of Whitley’s “Gourmet-Online” project
The attached document has background information on Whitley’s “Gourmet-Online” project.
Planning is the key on this one. We need to know what the project means, how we could do it, how long it would take. The cost can then be determined.
If this project is successfully implemented, IT will become a strategic asset within Whitley’s. If the project is unsuccessful then the future of IT within the organization will be uncertain.
This project is also crucial to the long term future of Whitley’s Gourmet Food. The board and other senior executives see this as the flagship project and have given their full support. Whatever is needed will be made available to the project team. Given the importance of this project our Chief Executive officer (CEO), Ms Susan Osbourne, has agreed to be the Project Sponsor.
As you may be aware, our last projects have been way off the mark in relation to cost and time estimates, therefore we cannot afford to exceed our cost and time calculations on this project despite not having all the necessary detail. As such, research is important at this early stage of the project.
Enjoy the project.
Regards
Elizabeth Alexander
Chief Operating Officer (COO)
1.0 Overview
The Company
Whitley’s Gourmet Food was started in Sydney in 1989 as a small gourmet retail food store. In 1991 the company branched out into the mail-order gourmet food business to serve customers who were unable to get to the retail store. The success of this venture resulted in the company establishing itself as a franchise business in 2002. Whitley’s offered financing to potential owners coupled with a very high visibility and high quality marketing program. Eventually Whitley’s Gourmet Food evolved into a 150 location business across Australia by the end of 2015 and a corporate headquarters operation located in Port Macquarie, NSW.
Gourmet-Online
Due to the success of its franchise operation, Whitley’s Gourmet Food aim to create “GourmetOnline”, using technology to improve business to business and business to consumer processes and relationships. A “Gourmet-Online” website will be developed to provide online order entry, enquiry and account payment facilities to existing and new customers. Web-based applications will replace the existing inventory and supplier management systems.
By creating “Gourmet-Online”, Whitley’s aim to attract an additional 25 new franchise stores and secure a 50% increase in customer numbers by the end of 2022.
By implementing “Gourmet-Online” project, Whitley’s expect to fulfil the following objectives:
• Improve the customer purchasing experience and hence improve customer satisfaction and retention,
• Gain cost savings from more efficient business processes (for example order entry, order and product enquiry and account payments)
• Achieve cost savings through improved inventory, warehouse and supplier management processes
• Attain substantial improvements in staff productivity
The Whitley’s Gourmet Food franchise operators are worried about the impact “Gourmet-Online” may have on their individual businesses and have formed a committee to put forward their concerns about the project and their ideas about how they can work with and benefit from “Gourmet-Online”. The franchise operators committee has also proposed that they should have an involvement in the “Gourmet-Online” project.
“Gourmet-Online” will provide customers with access to password-protected billing information, electronic payment options and account history data. Non-customers will have a user-friendly point-of-entry and, in addition to company information, will be able to view information designed to support their purchasing decisions, including product catalogues, real-time quotes and consumer safety information.
As an independent system with its own database, “Gourmet-Online” will interface with the company's ageing back office applications and database. The back office applications comprise an integrated group of core legacy systems.
2.0 Assumptions
The following assumptions are in place at the start of the project:
1. All software to be developed for the project will be outsourced to Wattle Software who undertake all software development work for Whitley’s Gourmet Food.
2. The new hardware, network infrastructure and security solutions required to run “GourmetOnline” will be purchased under a Request for Proposal process.
3. For testing purposes a pilot version of the new system will be run with 100 randomly selected customers (a mix of franchise operators and individual customers).
4. The project has been approved and has full support of the board and other senior executives of Whitley’s Gourmet Food.
5. The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Whitley’s Gourmet Food will be the project sponsor.
6. The required project team members and resources (office space, project team equipment needs etc.) will be available when the project starts.
7. All required existing business data will be migrated to the “Gourmet-Online” facility.
3.0 Requirements
Whitley’s Gourmet Food has decided that “Gourmet-Online” will be the number 1 project for 2020/2021 in an attempt to improve customer service. To achieve this, a new internet based facility will be developed. To ensure that they get it right this time the following high level requirements have been agreed.
Business Requirements:
1. The “Gourmet-Online” facility will be built from scratch (it will not use any current processes, software or hardware etc)
2. The system will be functionally simple so that customers will find it easy to use
3. Enhancement / update of the products offered through “Gourmet-Online” should be quickly and easily undertaken by Whitley’s Gourmet Food staff.
4. A secure system is essential but ease of use must not be sacrificed.
5. A secure online payment method must be incorporated in the “Gourmet-Online “ system
6. “Gourmet-Online” must be operation 24 hours a day, 7 days a week
7. Whitley’s Gourmet Food staff must be trained to use the new system
8. All business functions must be able to be offered via the new “Gourmet-Online” facility (for example, customer payments, customer order enquiries, product enquiries, new product marketing campaigns, store locators, etc)
9. Each of the existing 150 franchised food outlets in the Whitley’s chain must have access to the “Gourmet-Online” facility
10. “Gourmet-Online” will interface with the company's back office application systems
11. Required business data must be migrated to the “Gourmet-Online“ system
Technical Requirements:
1. An IT architecture plan must be developed.
2. All new hardware, network infrastructure and security solutions will be purchased under a Request for Proposal process.
3. A pilot version of the new system must be built, tested and evaluated
4. The system must be able to handle a predicted 75% increase in customer numbers at twice today’s transaction rate within 18 months of implementation.
5. A new database is required for the “Gourmet-Online” facility.
Software Requirements:
1. All software development for the project will be outsourced to Wattle Software who are contracted to undertake all software development and maintenance work for Whitley’s Gourmet Food.
2. To be determined by staff from Whitley’s Gourmet Food and Wattle Software.
4.0 Lessons Learnt from the Current Online System
Before embarking on this project Whitley’s Gourmet Food undertook a thorough review of its current systems and the following issues surfaced:
1. Staff issues – many of the current problems can be attributed to staff issues involving dissatisfaction with working conditions and poor management leading to high staff turnaround. This exacerbated many technical problems because of the loss of corporate knowledge.
2. Lack of skills – Whitley’s Gourmet Food Online did not hire enough staff with appropriate skills and expected current employees to learn on the job. This has been unsatisfactory and has contributed to both staff issues and the unreliable service of the current IT systems.
3. Poor architectural planning - this is probably the most important lesson learnt. The overall hardware and software architecture and design was not good enough. This lead to technical problems with the web based software/database response, infrastructure not capable of the required through-put or at least not able to handle the increased throughput and finally the web based front-end was not integrated well enough with the back end mainframe system. 4. The high cost of maintenance.
5.0 Stakeholders
The “Gourmet-Online” stakeholders are:
• Whitley’s Gourmet Food Franchise Owners via the committee (paragraph 5 of Overview Section
• The Whitley’s Gourmet Food corporate business units of o IT Operations and Support, o Logistics, o Sales, o Customer Service, o Marketing, and o Finance
6.0 Time Estimate
Rough time estimates for the project range from an optimistic 8 months, to a pessimistic 15 months. IT staff and business analysts think that the most likely timeframe is 10 months. The project must be completed by the end of June 2021.
7.0 Budget
A budget of $A8 million has been allocated to the project. The suggested budget components are:
Suggested Component $A (millions)
Outsourced “Gourmet-Online” Software Development
Gourmet-Online Software Implementation
Training (Whitley Corporate and Franchise staff)
Hardware, network infrastructure and security components (RFP, purchase & implementation)
Database (purchase & implementation)
Migration of required existing Business Data
Project staff costs (Whitley Corporate staff only)
Contingency
Total
8.0 People Resources
A rough, initial estimate has also been done in terms of the full-time staff required for the project is as follows:
• Project Manager (1) - Full-time
• Business Analysts (2) - Full-time
• Hardware engineer (2) - Full-time
• Security engineer (1) - Full-time
• Network engineer (1) - Full-time
• Accountant (1) – Part-time
• Vendor Relationship Manager (1) – Part-time
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Adapted from:
Kemerer, C. F.: “Case 2: Gourmet-By-Mail Point-of-Sale System”, Software Project Management: Readings and Cases, Irwin (McGraw Hill), 1997, pp 622-632.