CASE 1
ACE is a premier real estate consultancy involved in real estate dealings for top notch companies in the country. As ACE is growing, the support staff at ACE offices is growing in numbers. The management at ACE realises the need for dedicated collaboration across its different offices spread across the country. The human resource department at ACE works in a distributed fashion. The Head Office of ACE has the core HR team and the regional offices have supporting HR staff along with supporting staff like site supervisors, accountants, legal executives and customer support. In all, there are 500 ACE employees spread across the country with almost 1500 telephone lines connecting them. The existing emailing system facilitates communication and collaboration partially. Keeping in consideration the case above, the management at ACE decides to get a software application developed to cater to the collaboration requirement of ACE.
ACE head office has an in-house technical team who have been taking care of the IT requirements till now. This team is known as the ‘Internal System’ in ACE. Mr. Sharma, one of the Vice Presidents in Senior Management chose Ms. Mary D’Souza from the Internal System team as the project manager for this assignment. Ms. Mary needs to co-ordinate with all the regional offices in the country to develop the software. She would need inputs from all offices to decide the functionalities of this application. This application would integrate the existing email facility and ensure that there are many more features which support the collaboration needs of the organisation.
Mr. Sharma briefs Ms.Mary of the above mentioned problem statement and the possible solution. Followed by this, Ms.Mary is instructed to do the needful.
Based on the above case, answer the following questions:
- Prepare a business case
- Draft the feasibility report
- Identify the stake holders involved in this project with their suitable role and responsibilities
- Under what circumstances can Ms.Mary outsource this work?
- Identify few known quality principles/policies that can be implemented while developing this project.
CASE 2
Rakesh has been just assigned as the project manager to develop accounting software for a firm based in a country which has been hostile for quite for sometime. Rakesh has been deployed in the customer’s country with an initial team consisting of three members. Rakesh meets the customer Mr. David and starts the requirement gathering process. Mr. David recommends a team of 10 people from his company to facilitate the requirements gathering process. Rakesh with his three team members conducts the requirements gathering phase and comes with a rough estimate of the development time in weeks for the five modules that have been identified.
Module
| Model Name | Development Time (In person weeks) | ||
| Pessimistic | Optimistic | Most Likely | |
| A | 7 | 3 | 4 |
| B | 4 | 2 | 3 |
| C | 8 | 6 | 7 |
| D | 15 | 5 | 13 |
| E | 20 | 1 | 16 |
Pretty soon Rakesh realises that he will need a bigger team to complete the project on time. Rakesh raises this human resource requirement to his head office in India. Head office suggests Rakesh that he needs to work with human resources from the local country. Head office approves him to go ahead with hiring in the local country.
Based on the above data/information, do the following:
- Calculate the weighted average development time for each module
- Standard deviation for each module
- Calculate the standard deviation for the complete project and the estimated time frame for completion?
- Assuming Rakesh has to finish this project 20 weeks. What is the team strength he would need to do it?
- What are the possible issues Rakesh may face while hiring Human Resources from the local country?
Case Study 3
Stefan has been working on a computer simulation project to forecast about the cyclones and storms. This project also involves understanding the impacts of these natural calamities and predicting the estimated damage to human lives and property. This project is sponsored jointly by 10 governments across the world.
Stefan is the project manager with a team of 20 people and their profiles are listed below.
| Designation | Number of People | Description |
| Programmers | 12 | Programming the modules based on the designs supplied by the team leaders. |
| Team leaders | 3 | Team leaders design the software modules and give them to the programmers for programming. Team leaders are remotely based in the geographical locations which are cyclone and storm prone. They work closely with the subject matter experts who provide the technical details about natural calamities. Team leaders travel to cyclone/storm hit areas and assist the subject matter experts. |
| Subject Matter Experts | 3 | Subject Matter Experts are people with specialized knowledge and skills related to storms and cyclones. These people keep on travelling to various locations for studies and provide the development team with necessary data and details. |
| Graphical Designers | 1 | These people design the Graphical User Interface for the software modules developed by the programmers. |
| Accountant | 1 | Accountant keeps track of the project budgeting, costs and expenditures. |
While the programmers are co-located in a relatively safe environment, the team leaders and the subject matter experts travel in a hostile environment.
Based on the scenario described above, perform the following:
- Based on assumptions, identify minimum of five important risks involved in the project
- Perform a qualitative risk analysis based on the answer for Q. 1 above
- Perform a quantitative risk analysis based on Q.1 and Q. 2 above. Assume numerical value ranges for probability and impact (Exposure) of risks
- Prepare a sample risk register for such a project
- List out three positive risks in such a project
CASE 4
New Boston School is a reputed school in the city and has been in existence since last 75 years. With IT affecting all domains of life, the school has identified the need of a web based school portal to connect the
school, students and parents/guardians. This will help the school maintain a transparency between its staff, students and parents. The business case has been drafted and approved. D-Smart Infotech, a local software development firm, has been awarded this project and Lillie has been identified as the project manager for this project from D-Smart Infotech. Lillie has completed the feasibility study for this project and D-Smart Infotech has decided to go ahead with the project.
The project deadline is very crucial and ends after one year of awarding the project. Since D-Smart Infotech is running short of human resources, it plans to outsource this project again to a third party vendor. Since Lillie has been assigned as the project manager, she has to identify, select and negotiate a vendor for this assignment. The school has awarded this project to D-Smart Infotech on the firm condition that the project should be completed within a year.
Based on the above scenario, answer the following:
- Should a third party vendor be selected to do this software project? If yes, then what are the legal formalities D-Smart Infotech need to complete with New Boston School and the selected vendor?
- What are the high level risks associated in such a project?
