Information Systems Project Management

Information Systems Project Management - Initial Project Plan

Project Background Description

This project relates to the system design, end to end development, and then the implementation / integration with the existing IT infrastructure of the company. The system being developed is the information system for the company’s Human Resources function and the system shall automate the process of recording, tracking, managing, and retrieving the performance management processes relating to all of the employees at the company. By way of developing this system, the company can improve the efficiency of the overall process, enhance resource usage, and save costs from removing redundancy in the extant manual process. The company shall plan, manage, implement, and control / monitor this project by way of using internal personnel donning the roles of project management team and actin as the project management office. The project team shall include one senior manager at the role of project lead the four members who reporting to this project lead. In terms of business outcome expected by way of the project, the company shall benefit from costs saved over years by moving to an automated process and gradually developing process level efficiencies. The overall budget planned and assigned to this project inclusive of contingency fund is equivalent to $350,000 and project schedule planned from initiation until the system delivery / integration is 8 months.

Project Charter Report

Project Objectives, Scope, Deliverables, & Exclusions

On the basis of the detailed background presented, the specific objectives of this project is undertaking system design, end to end development, and then the implementation / integration with the existing IT infrastructure of the company of an information system for the company’s Human Resources function and the system shall automate the process of recording, tracking, managing, and retrieving the performance management processes relating to all of the employees at the company to improve the efficiency of the overall process, enhance resource usage, and save costs from removing redundancy in the extant manual process.

The scope statement of this project can be stated as the designing of the system, overall development, as well as its implementation and integration of the information system for the company’s Human Resources function to automate the process of recording, tracking, managing, and retrieving the performance management processes relating to all of the employees at the company. This project will be undertaken with a budget of $350,000 and project schedule period of 8 months.

On the basis of the project objectives defined and the scope statement developed, the key set of deliverables concerning this project includes the following: [i] Undertaking requirements analysis to determine the business need of the system and determining the required specification of the system to be developed, [ii] developing design manual by determining suitable design and system factors as is relevant to the system development, [iii] planning and procurement of the resources where needed, [iv] undertaking development of the system using a team of system engineers, developers, and testers, [v] on successful developed, implementing, integrating and testing the system for successful roll-out, and [vi] project completion within the allocated budget of $350,000 and project schedule period of 8 months.

The project in its current scope include varied different elements and the deliverables specific and exact. In this context, the exclusions or elements that shall not be covered by this project includes the following – [i] training / education program for use and operation of newly developed system, and [ii] post-implementation operation as well as maintenance of the system.

Work Break Down Structure & Project Tasks List

The project scope and deliverables list offered a comprehensive understanding on the broad level outputs and specific deliverables that are required from this project for successful completion. In this context, this section presents the detailed work breakdown structure (“WBS”) as well as detailed task list with dependencies mapped (Milosevic & Martinelli, 2016; Fuller et al., 2017; Nicholas & Steyn, 2017).

Table 1: Level wise Work Breakdown Structure

Table 2: Task List & Task Dependencies

Stakeholder Register: Roles & Responsibilities

One of the important parts of the project planning is the identification of personnel needs and assigned specific roles and responsibilities to ensure effective project management is undertaken (Milosevic & Martinelli, 2016; Fuller et al., 2017; Nicholas & Steyn, 2017). In this context, the below table presents the detailed register with roles and responsibilities.

Table 3: Stakeholder Register with Roles & Responsibilities

Proposed Strategy for Stakeholder Management

Any project requires a strong and effective management of its stakeholders to ensure successful and desired outcomes. In this context, the strategy that is proposed for stakeholder management with respect to this project entails the following: [i] undertaking the mapping of key stakeholders over the early stages in the course of a project by way of undertaking thorough and end to end analysis of the stakeholders for identifying the stakeholders, and then determining and evaluating the key set of factors pertinent to these stakeholders (Milosevic & Martinelli, 2016; Fuller et al., 2017; Nicholas & Steyn, 2017), [ii] assessing influence of the stakeholders by way of understanding the levels the influence in terms of allowing one in predicting the ways by which specific set of stakeholders shall interact in a direct manner with the project teams, or else amongst others (Milosevic & Martinelli, 2016; Fuller et al., 2017; Nicholas & Steyn, 2017), and [iii] identifying the relevant triggers in terms of how the stakeholders shall react over myriad ways to varied set of project related actions, and by way of determining the triggers as well as mitigation measures, preventable issues can be avoided (Milosevic & Martinelli, 2016; Fuller et al., 2017; Nicholas & Steyn, 2017).

References

Fuller, M. A., Valacich, J. S., George, J. F., & Schneider, C. (2017). Information Systems Project Management: A Process and Team Approach, Edition 1.1. Prospect Press.

Milosevic, D. Z., & Martinelli, R. J. (2016). Project management toolbox: tools and techniques for the practicing project manager. John Wiley & Sons.

Nicholas, J. M., & Steyn, H. (2017). Project management for engineering, business and technology. Routledge.