DigiNet SAT II Redevelopment

An Australian company “DigiNet” is company that offers phone (land line), mobile phone,
dialup and board Internet services to Australian families and business companies. The
company has been operating more than seven years in this business.

DigiNet does not have franchised sales outlets around the country unlike other mobile and
Internet providers. The company is able to offer cheaper rate to phone, mobile and internet
services to customers. Since the company do not have retailing shops in selling mobile plans or
phone accessories, the company is operating a very effective customer service call centre in
Melbourne. Whenever customers need services, they have to ring the call centre. The call
centre receptionist will direct customers to different service departments.

For customers who want to switch the land line to DigiNet, the operator will setup the service
contract over the phone. That includes the customer information, phone number, contract terms
and payment method.

For customers who want to place an order of a mobile phone with a mobile plan, the customer
will choose a mobile phone from different brand. The operator will enter the customer details,
SIM card information, contract terms and payment method. The order is sent to the packaging
section and then the mobile phone will be packaged and the courier to the customer. At the
moment, 75% of the customer placed their order over the phone. In the next few years, the
customers are expected to place their service request over the internet. These services include
sales, account enquiries, technical support etc.

For customers who phone up the company to place an order for dial up internet service, the
operator will enter the customer details, connection speed, down load limit, contract terms and
payment method. The operator will pass the information to the technical support service to set
up the username and password.

The company had just offered board band service to customers half year ago. At the moment,
their board band offers are not competitive at all. There are only very small amount of
customers who choose to use their board band internet services. When customer places an
order with the board band, they need to check whether the customer is located in the ADSL
enabled telephone exchange. Then a service requested will be raised to Telstra to have the
ADSL configured for the customer. DigiNet will record the customer information, connection
speed, download limit, contract details and the payment method. They will organize to package
and courier the ADSL modem plus the setup details to the customer. Sometime, the customer
would like to purchase a router or their accessories through the company.

Once the order has accepted, the packaging section needs to check with the existing stock. If
the stock is not available, a back order will be placed to the supplier. Basically, the packaging
section is running the inventory control system.

The company has over 1.5 million customer accounts last year. They are about to announce a
very good pricing package deal to customer who has DigiNet mobile phone and also want to
use board band Internet service with DigiNet. The company anticipates that there will be a
20% increase in sales once the package deal is offered to public. The company is using a web
based application “SAT” to handle the sales, account payment and technical support. “SAT”

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was developed 5 years ago and has been heavily maintained throughout the recent years. Its
performance is an increasing concern to management. It comes to a point that the system needs
a major re-development.

SAT was developed by the in house IT system development team. In the recent years, it was
maintained by a small IT services team including system analysts, programmers, database
administrator, network supports and network administrators. SAT was developed using the
early web technology accessing through the Apache server in the IBM AS/4000. It used the
DB2 database.

The SAT II system will contain most of the SAT existing functionalities. SAT II will be running
in the HP midrange integrity rx8620-32 server. It will use the HP-UX 11iV2 operating system.
The server has dual Itanium processors and expandable up to 512GB memory. The SAT II
system will be using the Oracle 10g Database instead of the DB2 database. The system will run
an Apache server and Tom Cat server. The system will be developed in J2EE platform.

Financial situation
The company is able to provide to sufficient funding for the project. However, the general
policy in cutting expenditure applies to all departments. It cutting includes the IT department
as well. Fortunately, the computer expenditure for the servers has been approved before the
release of the general expenditure cutting policy. However, there are concerns in the hiring
external consultant or contractors whether they will be approved or not.

The project
The SAT II has two aspects in the development and implementation process. The first aspect is
the software development. The second aspect is the network and server upgrade. The SAT II
has no new functionality except the performance has to be enhanced by using a different
software technology (J2EE) and database technology (Oracle).

The company has planned the SAT II to be completed before the new pricing offer is launched.
Therefore the SAT II software will have the capacity to handle the increase in sales and the
existing business. With the pricing strategy, the company allows the project to be completed in
six month maximum. The project will begin on 4th April 2005 and should be completed as
close as possible to 31st October 2005. Anything that takes the project to complete later than
31st October 2005 should be justified.

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The Organisation Structure

Managing
Director
Tim Jones

Finance /
Sales Marketing Warehouse Human
IT Manager
Manager Manager Manager Resource
Joe Black
David Smith John Cross Jack Manning Manager
Jim Keeling

Advertising
Sales Account Software Network and
and Pricing
Operation /Customer Development IT Operation
Promotion Section
Section Section Section Section
Section

Figure 1. Organisation Chart

Information Technology (IT) Staff Profiles

IT Manager – Joe Black

Experience:
• 5 years Power Builder and Sybase Programming
• 3 years analyst/programmer for a banking system
• 3 years DP manager for a web development company
• 3 years DP manager for a printing company

Web Content provider – Jim Higgs

Experience:
• 3 years web development
• 1 year Java programmer
• 2 years technical writer
• 2 years graphic designer

Database Administrator – Tai Chung Wong

Experience:

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 • 3 years C programming
• 1 year Java programming
• 1 year DB2 database system
• 2 years Oracle database system
• Database documentation
• Data Migration/Conversion
• OO Development Methodology

Senior Analyst/Programmer – Heath Staples

Experience:
• 2 years J2EE and Java programming
• 2 years web development
• 3 years maintenance and support on SAT
• Testing
• Project management
• Quality management

Analyst/Programmer – Kim Morris

Experience:
• 1 year Oracle programming
• 3 year J2EE and Java programming
• 2 year business analyst
• OO Development Methodology
• Data modelling
• Technical writing

Analyst/Programmer – Frank Quinn

Experience:
• 2 years C++ programming
• 2 years J2EE and Java programming
• 1 year user training
• Data modelling
• User schema design
• XML and ASP

Programmer – Mary Hawkins

Experience:
• 1 year J2EE and Java programming
• 2 year web editing
• Data modelling

Network Administrator – Daniel Ligi

Experience:
• 3 years Network Administrator in Unix system

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 • 2 years Microsoft Exchange servers
• 2 years LAN and WAN network design
• Server installation
• Project management
• Quality management

Security Administrator – Dale Knott

Experience:
• 2 years Network Administrator
• 2 years help desk administrator
• 2 years Network security
• LAN and WAN design
• Performance measurement
• Web and email server setup

Network Technical Support – John Higgs

• 2 years Network Administration
• 2 years Technical support and Network security in a worldwide ISP distributor
• 2 years Help desk
• User training
• Website deployment
• Technical writing

Operation administrator – Julie Pierson

• 3 years operator
• 1 year network administrator
• System backup and database backup
• Data conversion
• Technical writing

Fig 2. Staff Profile

The existing SAT system will continue to run until the SAT II is fully tested and implemented.

During the initial study, the project overview, task dependency and their tasks broken down (at
this stage) are collected as in the following charts:

Task Description
1. Establish Project
1.1. Project Definition
1.2. Project Funding
1.3. Project Charter Sign-off
2. Systems Analysis

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 2.1. Software Analysis
2.1.1.Preliminary Software Investigation
2.1.2.Problem Definition
2.1.3.Stakeholders Request
2.1.4.Use Case Model
2.1.5.Product/functional features
2.1.6.Non-functional requirements
2.1.7.Risk Analysis
2.2. Network Analysis
2.2.1.Preliminary Network Investigation
2.2.2.Review Existing Network
2.2.3.Capacity Planning
2.2.4.Requirement Specification
2.3. Systems Analysis Review & Sign-off
3. Systems Design
3.1. Software Design
3.1.1.Class Design
3.1.2.Database Design
3.1.3.Interface Design
3.1.4.Architectural Design
3.2. Network Design
3.2.1.Address, Name & Network Management
3.2.2.IP Routing & Design
3.2.3.IP Security
3.2.4.Multi-Casting & Quality of Services
3.2.5.Internetworking Design
3.2.6.Website Capacity Planning
3.3. Systems Design Review & Sign-off
4. Construction
4.1. Software Construction
4.1.1.Database Construction
4.1.2.Program Construction
4.1.3.Program Testing Plan
4.1.4.System Testing
4.2. Network Construction
4.2.1.Server & Accessories Acquisition
4.2.2.Cabling
4.2.3.Server Setup
4.2.4.LAN construction
4.2.5.WAN construction
4.2.6.Gateway and submask setup
4.2.7.Web Site Deployment
4.2.8.Function Testing
4.2.9.Performance Testing
4.3. Documentation, Review and Sign-off
5. Quality Assurance (QA)
5.1. Develop QA Criteria
5.2. Plan & Prepare QA
5.3. Conduct QA
5.4. QA Review & Sign-off
6. System Implementation

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6.1. Plan for Implementation
6.2. Convert Existing Data
6.3. System Handover
Fig 3. Task Description

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Project Task Task Name Elapsed Skills requirements
Stage Duration
(Days)
1 Establish Project 30 • Managerial skills
1.1 Project Definition • Project planning.
1.2 Project Funding • Business analysis.
1.3 Project Charter Sign-off • Systems Analysis.
1.4 Establish Project Completed • Report writing.

2 Systems Analysis 40
2.1 Software Analysis • DigiNet Business
2.1.1 Preliminary Software Investigation knowledge.
• SAT knowledge.
2.1.2 Problem Definition
• Systems Analysis.
2.1.3 Stakeholders Request
2.1.4 Use Case Model • OO Development
Methodology.
2.1.5 Product/functional features
• Risk analysis.
2.1.6 Non-functional requirements
• Report writing.
2.1.7 Risk Analysis
• DigiNet business
2.2 Network Analysis
knowledge.
2.2.1 Preliminary Network Investigation • SAT knowledge.
2.2.2 Review Existing Network • Network
2.2.3 Capacity Planning administration.
2.2.4 Requirement Specification • Capacity planning
2.3 Systems Analysis Review & Sign-off • Report writing.
2.4 System Analysis Completed
3 Systems Design 40
3.1 Software Design • OO development
3.1.1 Class Design methodology.
3.1.2 Database Design • Data modelling.
3.1.3 Interface Design • User schema design.
3.1.4 Architectural Design • Technical writing.
3.2 Network Design • LAN design.
3.2.1 Address, Name & Network • WAN design.
Management
• Network security.
3.2.2 IP Routing & Design
3.2.3 IP Security • Technical writing.
3.2.4 Multi-Casting & Quality of Services • Capacity planning
3.2.5 Internetworking Design • Managerial skills.
• Report writing.
3.2.6 Website Capacity Planning
3.3 Systems Design Review & Sign-off
3.4 Systems Design Completed

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4 Construction 50
4.1 Software Construction J2EE/Java programming.
4.1.1 Database Construction Database Programming.
Web editing.
4.1.2 Program Construction Network administration.
4.1.3 Program Testing Plan LAN / WAN design.
4.1.4 System Testing Cabling skill.
4.2 Network Construction Web server setup.
Web security.
4.2.1 Server & Accessories Acquisition Performance measurement.
4.2.2 Cabling
4.2.3 Server Setup
4.2.4 LAN Construction
4.2.5 WAN Construction
4.2.6 Gateway and Submask Setup
4.2.7 Website Deployment
4.2.8 Function Testing
4.2.9 Performance Testing
4.3 Documentation, Review and Sign-off • Managerial skills.
• Report writing.
4.4 Construction Completed
5 Quality Assurance (QA) 110 • Software quality
5.1 Develop QA Criteria assurance.
• Network quality
5.2 Plan and prepare for QA
assurance.
5.3 Conduct QA
• Project planning.
5.4 QA Review & Sign-off
• Managerial skills.
5.5 Quality Assurance Completed • Report writing.

6 System Implementation 51 • Data conversion.

6.1 Plan for Implementation • Web programming.
6.2 Convert Existing Data • Network
6.3 System Handover administration.
6.4 System Implementation Completed • Managerial skills.
• Report writing.

Fig 4. Project strategy and their tasks broken down at this stage

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 1.1

1.2 1.3

1.4

2.1.1 2.2.1

2.1.2 2.2.2

2.1.3

2.1.4 2.1.5 2.1.6 2.1.7 2.2.3 2.2.4

2.3

2.4

5.1 3.1.1 3.2.1

3.1.2 3.1.3 3.2.2 3.2.4 3.2.5 3.2.6

3.1.4 3.2.3

3.3

3.4

4.1.1 4.2.1 6.1

4.1.2 4.1.3 4.2.2 4.2.3

5.2

4.1.4 4.2.4 4.2.6

4.2.5

5.3 4.2.7

4.2.8 4.2.9 6.2

4.3

4.4

5.4 6.3

5.5 6.4

Fig 5. Task dependency and their work breakdown relationship

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Staff in the IT department knew that the SAT II upgrade was inevitable due to the expansion of
the business opportunity. All networking staff had completed the training in using the HP-UX
11iV2 operating system 2 months ago. IT software development staff had also completed a
range of up skilled program recently. Staff are quite competent in their current job position and
trained to move into the new IT platform. However, the managing director had indicated that
the company will redevelop the system in the most prudent way. Contract staff or outside
consultants would not be approved unless there are conflicts in work schedule cannot be
resolved or specialist skills are required where existing staff are not able to fulfill.

In addition to the tasks mentioned in the above charts, there are tasks intrinsic to the project but
they are within the resources schedule and allocation.
Project Administration:
• The managing director had also allocated the project manager with 2 hours per day as
ongoing resources for project management. (i.e. Continuous Project Management from
Project Start to Project Finish and the resource is 2 hours per day for the Project
Manager.)

• There are also weekly regular meetings. The managing director proposed 2 hours
meeting each week for the following members:
o The Project Manager
o IT Manager
o Software development representative
o Network development representative
o External consultant if required

Known external consultancy:

The managing director concerned with the backup and recovery contingency plan and
procedures for the Oracle Database 10g operational transactions. The existing staff has not
been trained for the 10g backup and recovery procedures. External consultant will be used for
this task. The task is named as Develop Disaster Recovery and Contingency Plans – Project
Start to Project Completion. The resource is the external Oracle Consultant. The cost was
$15,000.00 which was negotiated and agreed with the database consultant company.

Assignment Requirements:
This assignment is divided into two parts. Students are expected to complete the Part 1 and
demonstrate them to their lecturer before attempting the Part 2. Some requirements would
require students to submit in MS-Word document and some requirements need to be
completed in MS-Project 2003. It is advised that you save the project under a different name
for each requirement (i.e. “Save as”). You are advised to use the naming convention as the
following:
StudentName_Reqxx_Vxx.mpp
Reqxx is the Requirement number.
Vxx is the version number.

It is often easier to go back to the plan and carry on from there. Once when you formed the
baseline, many parts may not be changed.

11
For submission, you should hand in the final version of the plan with the printed
documentation. You are required to demonstrate your project file to your lecturer. Make sure
that the file that you submit are not corrupted file. If the file is corrupt it cannot be marked.

You should complete the assignment progressively week by week. If you are not sure with any
part of the requirements, you should seek assistance from your lecturer.

Part 1
Requirement 1
You are required to produce a project scope document outline the business environment of the
project. The document should outline:
• The project title and date of authorization
• Project manager’s name and contact information
• The overall project goal or mission in business terms
• The project objectives in specific and measurable terms
• Roles and their responsibility of the key people?

There are many ways that the scope document or project definition can be written. For the
purpose of this case study, you can refer to the Project Chart layout on page 601 of the
Schwalbe textbook. Example is on pg 77.

Assumption:
The project has adequate funding for the project. However, the use of funding for purchasing
of major hardware need approval.

Requirement 2
Use the MS-Project 2003 to create a new project without the use of template. Enter the phases
and their tasks to give the work break down structure from the given Task Description table
(Fig 2). Note that the project phases become the summary tasks in the project schedule. Assign
tasks to their corresponding phases. For the purpose of the case study, the tasks given in the
WBS was broken down into a very high level. In real commercial projects, the tasks must be
broken down into “primitive or atomic” activities that can be performed by an individual or
small team. The project manager will then need to derive the WBS from scratch. For the
purpose of this case study, the tasks are already identified under their major project stages.

Requirement 3
Create a project calendar. The default working hours are Monday to Friday 8:30 am – 12:30pm
and 1:30- 5:30pm. Each day has 8 working hours and therefore each week has 40 working
hours.

For each task and activity identified, determine their start time and duration.

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Assume the project start date is Monday 04/04/2005. Enter the information of public holidays
into the MS- Project 2003. The public holidays are:
• Anzac Day (25/4)
• Adelaide Day (16/5)
• Queen’s Birthday (13/6)
• Labour Day (03/10)

Requirement 4
a) Add a task to indicate the milestone for each phase. Each milestone should have zero
duration. Milestones are symbolic tasks that are used to indicate the progress or the end of
a significant phase of the project. The milestones are:
• 1.4 Establish Project Completed
• 2.4 Systems Analysis Completed
• 3.4 Systems Design Completed
• 4.4 Construction Completed
• 5.5 Quality Assurance Completed
• 6.4 System Implementation Completed

b) Based on Fig 4, enter the duration for each task. The project strategy provides the overall
phase elapased duration information. You need to determine the reasonable elapsed
durations for each task. Note that the project phases become the summary tasks in the
project schedule.
c) Assign the relationship between the tasks. The Task Dependency and their work breakdown
relationship (Fig. 5) provides the information. In general, all tasks require their predecessor
to finish before they can start but with the following exceptions:
i. Program Construction can start when Database Construction is 80% complete.
Some program modules do not rely on the database access.
ii. Cabling can start when Sever & Accessories Acquisition is 40% complete. The
Network Design would have the roadmap for the servers and workstations.

d) After all of the tasks dependency has entered, analyse the potential for tasks that can start at
the same time, or with minor lead-time. Write a note to address these changes, if
appropriate.

Requirement 5
Format the following:
a) In the Gantt Chart view, make the text style for the Milestones to be Bold and Italic.

b) In the Network Diagram view, make the critical path to be thick black border in the box
style and the black arrows to indicate the link of the critical path.

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Part 2

Requirements 6

The skills required are displayed in the following table.

Task Skills Specific skill requirements

1.1 Project Management, Report Writing DigiNet business experience.
1.2 Project Management, Business Finance DigiNet business experience.
1.3 Project Management, Report Writing DigiNet business experience.
2.1.1 Experience Experience with SAT.
Business Analysis
Good People Skills
2.1.2 Experience Experience with SAT.
Business Analysis DigiNet business experience.
Good People Skills Report writing.
2.1.3 Experience Experience with SAT.
Business and Systems Analysis DigiNet business experience.
Good People Skills
2.1.4 Experience Experience with SAT.
Systems Analysis RUP development methodology
2.1.5 Business and Systems Analysis Experience with SAT.
Report Writing RUP development methodology
2.1.6 Systems Analysis
2.1.7 Business Analysis Specific Risk Analysis skills
Reporting Writing
2.2.1 Business Analysis Experience with SAT
Network administration
2.2.2 Business Analysis Experience with SAT
Network administration
2.2.3 Network administration Capacity Planning
2.2.4 Network administration Experience with SAT
Report writing Unix experience
2.3 Project Management, Report Writing DigiNet business experience.
3.1.1 Systems design J2EE programming
3.1.2 User schema design Oracle administration
3.1.3 Systems Design Experience with SAT
Web design
3.1.4 Experience in Java programming RUP development methodology
3.2.1 LAN design Experience with SAT
Network administration
Technical writing
3.2.2 Network administration Experience with SAT
3.2.3 Network security Experience with SAT
Network administration
3.2.4 Network administration Experience with SAT
Quality assurance
3.2.5 WAN Design Experience with SAT

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 Network administration WAN experience
Technical writing
3.2.6 Capacity Planning Capacity planning experience
3.3 Project Management, Report Writing Experience with SAT
DigiNet business experience.
4.1.1 Database administration Experience with SAT
Data Modelling Oracle DBA
XML XML
4.1.2 Java programming J2EE programming
Web content provider
4.1.3 Test plan development DigiNet business experience.
Experience with SAT
Quality assurance
4.1.4 System testing DigiNet business experience.
J2EE programming Experience with SAT
Web editing Quality assurance
4.2.1 Management Experience DigiNet business experience.
Procurement experience Experience with SAT
Hardware knowledge
4.2.2 Certification in network cabling Cabling certification
4.2.3 Hardware installation System administration
Operation system setup Unix experience
4.2.4 Hardware installation System administration
Unix experience
4.2.5 WAN construction DigiNet business experience.
Experience with SAT
WAN experience
4.2.6 Network administration Network design
4.2.7 Web security System administration
Server setup Experience of web security
4.2.8 Network administration DigiNet business experience.
Quality assurance Experience with SAT
Technical writing
4.2.9 Performance measurement Experience with SAT
Network administration
4.3 Project management DigiNet business experience.
Report writing Experience with SAT
5.1 Software quality assurance Quality assurance methods and
Network quality assurance standards
5.2 Quality assurance DigiNet business experience.
Quality assurance methods and
standards
5.3 Quality assurance DigiNet business experience.
Quality assurance methods and
standards
5.4 Project management and report writing DigiNet business experience.
6.1 Project management DigiNet business experience.
Experience with SAT
Need both software and network
experience (possibly 2 people)

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 6.2 Database administration Oracle experience
6.3 Project management and report writing DigiNet business experience.
Experience with SAT

Fig 6. Skills Requirements List

SATII Resource Pool

Resource name Skills Cost per Availability Status

day
Joe Black Business analysis $220 In house Permanent
Report writing
SAT experience
DigiNet experience
Project management
Jim Higgs Web content provider $220 In house Permanent
Graphics design
Web Scripting
Technical writing
Tai Chung SAT experience $220 In house Permanent
Wong DigiNet experience
Database experience (Oracle & DB2)
Data construction & conversion
OO development methodology
Heath Staples J2EE and Java programming $220 In house Permanent
Web development
SAT experience
DigiNet business experience
Program testing
Project management
Quality management
Kim Morris J2EE and Java programming $220 In house Permanent
Web development
SAT experience
DigiNet business experience
Data modeling and Oracle skills
Technical writing
OO development methodology
Frank Quinn J2EE and Java programming $220 In house Permanent
SAT experience
DigiNet business experience
Data modeling and user schema
design
XML and ASP
Mary Hawkins J2EE and Java programming $220 In house Permanent
Web development
Data modeling

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Daniel Ligi Network administration (Unix) $220 In house Permanent
LAN and WAN design
SAT experience
DigiNet business experience
Server installation
Project management
Quality management
Dale Knott Network and security administration $220 In house Permanent
LAN and WAN design
SAT experience
DigiNet business experience
Performance measurement
Web server and email server setup
John Higgs Network administration (Unix $220 In house Permanent
experience)
Network security with ISP experience
Website deployment
Web security
Report writing
Julie Pierson (Not involved in the SAT II project N/A In house N/A
due to the daily support of SAT)
Consultant Software Architectural Design $1200 External Contract
(Software consultant (J2EE platform)
architect)
Consultant Quality assurance & standards $900 External Contract
Consultant WAN design consultant $1000 External Contract
Consultant J2EE programmer and program tester $450 External Contract
(J2EE
Programmer)
Cabling Cabling (Certified) $400 External Contract
Consultant Network/system administrator with $450 External Contract
(Network HP experience
administrator)
Consultant Capacity planning $450 External Contract
(Capacity Performance measurement
planning)
Consultant Oracle DBA $800 External Contract
(Oracle
administration)

Fig 7. Resource Pool

Given the resource pool, you are required to set up the resource pool in the MS-Project 2003.

Requirement 7
You need to assign personnel resources to tasks for the project. You may choose the personnel
from the Resource Pool that you have setup from requirement 6. You must review the case

17
study and determine the essential skills required at each stage. Please note that the project
establishment and analysis and design stages (both software development and networks)
require DigiNet and SAT experience. In principle, hiring external consultants will be kept to
minimal unless there are skill shortages in those areas.

Once when you have decided the skill requirements, you need to determine whether you will
use the in-house resources or the resources from external organization. You are required to
determine how many of each resource are required.

Note: when you assign work content to resources, if a task is listed with a duration of 20 days,
then it will require 160 hours to complete it (i.e. 20 days * 8 hours = 160 hours). Therefore it is
not correct for a 20 day task to be show as 80 hours of effort allocated to it. You will need to
read Section 4.1 (Rachel Bunin) of the MS-Project 2003 tutorial book for completing this
requirement.

For DigiNet staff, they are charged at $220 per day for their productive work. Overtime is not
recommended but if it is need, the company is paying 50% above their normal rate.

Requirement 8
After the resources are assigned to the required tasks, the project schedule can be assessed for
any conflict of resources. You need to highlight any resource that is over-allocation or resource
under-allocation.

In this requirement, you need to use the views for Resource Graph and Resource Usage to see
the resource conflicts. You are required to resolve the resource conflicts.

We assume that the full-time permanent staff have plenty of work to do when they are not
engaged with the SAT II project. You should use minimum number of consultants or outside
contractors whenever possible.

However, you need to aware that assigning 10 people to a ten-day task does not necessarily
mean that the task will be completed in one day, although the MS-Project 2003 may tell you
that it will finish in 1 day. If you do that you may be behind schedule in real life. In this
exercise, you should try to reduce the overall project elapsed duration, and therefore the project
completion date may be brought forward.

Requirement 9

After the resource conflict has been resolved, you can determine your project with the project
start date, project completion date and the critical path.
Look at the Project Info Dialog Box. Record the finished date.

You need to fine tune the project plan. You need to adjust those resources which have been
allocated to those tasks for a short period of time during a day. i.e. not all resources are
working 8 hours a day for the project. They may be 2 hours per day.

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In this requirement, you also need to print some samples of the project summary report such
as:

• Project summary
• Gantt Chart (1 page)
• PERT sheet
• Resource sheet
• Critical task report
• To-do list for any 2 resources
• Cost budgeted

You need to make sure that these reports are readable. You need to set the report header so that
your report is easier to be identified.

Requirement 10
Form the project baseline before the project begins. Save your project and also you save the
project using “Save as” to a different filename. Then use the baseline command to create
Baseline Start and Finish Dates.

Configure the Bar Styles to include a Baseline Bar Style (i.e. use Format, Bar Style)
referencing “from” Baseline Start “to” Baseline Finish. Set the bar style to a thin line in green
color.

Requirement 11
After the project schedule is baselined, you can monitor the project by entering the actual start
date and actual finish date of each task. The following table shows the actual start date and
finish date or adjusted task duration. You are required to enter this data into the project
schedule and look at the project completion date and any other impacts.

Task Actual Start Actual Finish Comments

Date Date
1.2 25/04/2005 20/05/2005 Funding not committed by sponsor on time.
2.1.1 23/05/2005 02/06/2005 Key players on sick leave
3.1.4 - - The architectural design took 10 days longer
due to external consultant availability.
4.2.3 - - Sever took 1 week longer to setup due to
technical problem for the new OS.
4.2.7 - - Takes 1 week longer to register a URL.
4.2.8 - - Takes 1 week longer to complete due to key
function failing the acceptance test at once.

Requirements 12
To satisfactorily complete Requirement 12, students are required analyse the Project Schedule – now
that actual dates have been included, and revise the Project Schedule to ensure that the project can still
be completed on time. If you cannot complete the project on time, can you explain why?

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Resolving the effects of Tracking progress can be complex and tedious. However, the project
management tool used in this module offers some handy features. The most useful one is the Tracking
Gantt Chart. The baseline schedule offers an effective means of establishing progress, and comparing
actual task end dates to planned task end dates. Slippages are clearly visible.
In analysing opportunities to recover ‘lost’ time, students should fully review the validity of task
dependencies and resource allocations, as well as the effect of providing additional resources for
specific tasks – but be prepared to justify your actions. Look for opportunities to restructure the project
schedule to undertake non-dependent tasks in parallel with one another – to reduce elapsed time – but
not work content.
Every effort should be made to adjust the project schedule to bring the completion date back to the
baseline completion date, if possible. You should note in your written submission the specifics of
strategies you have used to recover ‘lost’ time.
You should print out the following:
• Project Summary (after entering actual completion dates)
• Tracking Gantt Chart
• A list of strategies used to recover project overrun
• Anything else you consider relevant

Requirement 13
Prepare a Quality Agreement for the SAT II development project.

• If you are a networking student, you only need to provide the quality agreement on the
Network Analysis, Network Design and Network Construction stages.

• If you are a software development student, you only need to provide the quality
agreement on the Software Analysis, Software Design and Software Construction
stages.

The document should consist the following.

• Introduction & Overview
• List of defined outcome quality acceptance criteria, and the proposed measures to verify
compliance
• List of phases and activities in the product development life-cycle which will undertake defect
identification & removal to satisfy the quality acceptance criteria, including structured reviews
of the design, construction and solution
• A Responsibility Matrix to identify who is responsible for compliance and audit
• Proposed control strategies to ensure compliance outcomes are recorded for verification &
follow-up
• Provision for sign-off
and be approximately 2 – 3 pages in length. Include tables and charts where possible

Requirement 14
You are required to generate a testing plan for one of the following item of the SAT II
development project.

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 • If you are a networking student, you only need to prepare a test plan for the proxy
server setup.

• If you are a software development student, you only need to prepare a test plan for
Customer Monthly Usage function.

You test plan should include:

• Criteria to be tested.
• Testing strategy to be followed
• Testing scenarios to be utilised – including proof of OK and not OK
• Proposed testing outcome recording procedure
• Responsibility
• Proposed sign-off procedure

Requirement 15 (Merit question – 4 merit points)

a. Assume that the current date is 16th September 2005, you need to write a report to the
Finance manager on the current status of the project. That includes the how far ahead or
behind when compare with the plan. Is the project to be finished on time? Is there any
action taken in order to make the project to be completed on time. Explain and justify the
action that you may have taken.
b. Produce a list of possible risks which may affect the project (e.g. not started, delayed or
abandoned). You should not list more than 20 risks. You should classify these risks into
Internal or External risks.

c. Produce a Risk Analysis Matrix that shows the likelihood of Occurance vs Impact on
Project. Show the risks that you have listed above (in item a) in the appropriate quadrants.

d. For the risks that are the High/High on the matrix, suggest a counter measure sub-project to
reduce the risks.

Submission:
The assignment should be submitted in a printed report format that covers the answers for each
requirement. You also need to organise a time to demonstrate your MS-Project files to you
lecturer before Friday 15th June 2005.

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