Developing An Automatic Roster System For Proper Management Of The Riverina Agriculture And Lifestyle Show

Skills and Knowledge Required

Question:

Discuss About The Performed For Proper Management Of Show?

Globex Corporation organizes the show for the publicity of its agricultural equipment and lifestyle facilities since the year 2000. During 2000 it was the same company but with different name (BT & Sons Farming Equipment). The show is being name as Riverina Agriculture and Lifestyle Show (RALS). Many tasks like ticketing, guard at gate, clean the area after the show, first aid facility and many more are required to be performed for the proper management of the show. To manage all such tasks, few volunteers are being invited every year during three days show in November. The volunteers are being managed by Globex employees like their meals, roster, transportations etc. all these lists are being maintained manually by the Globex Employees. To increase the efficiency and error free system, Globex has ordered Virtucon to develop an automatic system for maintaining the roster. Virtucon being the old consultants of Globex and shall not charge for its project management activities from Globex Corporation.

Skills & Knowledge: all the members need to have good hold on their respective technical field along with the soft skills which are mandatory like good communication skills, conflict management skills, group work skills and motivational skills (Quick Base, 2010).

Project Manager: the overall coordination among the stakeholders, especially the external stakeholder management needs to be taken care. Taking care of wellbeing of the team, always motivate the team members and look for resolving any conflict quickly (Carson, 2015).

Team Members: the technical and system development part shall be taken care and along with this team members are expected to be confident, never take decision alone and always decide after a meeting, never criticize any fault, always maintain the basic discipline of the organization (Basu, 2017).

Meeting Times & Location: we shall meet at every alternate day at mutually agreed time may be at the beginning of the day or at noon else evening before leaving office at Virtucon campus.

How to communicate: when within the office premises, we shall avoid e-mails and rather try to meet personally to make the interpersonal relationships better and whenever outside, we shall use the e-mail, sms or phone for communicating to each other.

Where to store data: we need to store all our important documents at some central location so that all can access along with maintaining its security too. For this reason the documents need to be kept at the documentation folder with very restricted administrative rights.

Project Manager and Team Members Responsibilities

Previous Team Experience: the working experience with the team is very positive till the goals and objective of the project are well defined (Miller, 2017). If the objectives are defined and shared with the team then whole team shall always put their effort towards the common goal and so the bright result can come. Whereas on the other hand if the objectives and goals are not clear then it has a potential to develop conflict, communication gap, reduce team work and may also incur loss.

Goal of the team: the ultimate goal is to develop an automatic roster system which shall satisfy every stakeholder’s expectation.

Team values: all members need to be passionate about the work they have been assigned, loves to work in a team, never generate conflict (Santilli, 2017), always motivate the team members, never criticize other’s work and always value the organization we are working and maintain faith in management.

Team Ethics: all the members need to maintain integrity, the responsibility sense towards organization and employees, put the effort to generate the quality work and always share correct information, never break discipline of the office and maintain good team work spirit (Jenkins, 2017).

Rules and Expectations: all the communications need to be flown through project manager, all the members need to attend meetings every alternate day, all planned leaves must be taken prior approval, all must maintain good behavior with others (WordPress, 2010). All the organizational policies are required to be maintained properly.

Organiser: the team member who shall coordinate among the stakeholders and document the minutes of the meeting is the organizer. The organiser for the case shall be the Project Manager, being the central coordinator project manager can justify the position well.

Scribe: the other team members shall document the ideas to look forward for the changes which can help in going ahead by rotational basis to equally own the workload and the balance to visit the volunteers to collect the requirements of the project.

By adopting the above skill, we shall develop learning records as per the author (Marchewka, 2005).

Known Facts	Information assumed	Few unknowns
Globex corporation awarded the consultancy contract to Virtucon for developing the automatic roster system	RALS to organize the show this year too	Final scope of work which is required to be considered while developing the system
The fund generated by this show shall be given to ICV charitable trust for the wellbeing of Indigenous people	Few RALS coordinators shall be within our team to assist the development of the system	Schedule of the project is not clear (the overall time duration).
	In spite of not getting any profit from the project management activities to be done for the project, Virtucon management shall provide all administrative supports toward the team	Cost heads and cash reserves are not known
		Resource availability during the project is not known
		Required quality standards is not known

Now once the unknowns of the project is documented, so the way forward to resolve it is required to be identified so that we can finalize the actions beforehand.

Few unknowns	What is to be done for making the unknowns to known	Action required by whom	Action needed to be taken and by when
Final scope of work which is required to be considered while developing the system	Requirement gathering meeting is required to be organized with all stakeholders either at a common place or at different locations with separate stakeholders	Main coordination is required to be done by the Project Manager but all the stakeholders are required to be involved in the process	Minutes of the meeting need to be developed and get signed by all stakeholders on the same day. The meeting is very important so need to be organized at the Initiation stage itself.
Schedule of the project is not clear (the overall time duration).	After the requirement is finalized, the activity listing and their dependencies are required to be finalized	Main coordination is required to be done by the Project Manager but all the stakeholders are required to provide their inputs especially the RALS employees	Minutes of the meeting need to be developed and get signed by all stakeholders on the same day an develop the time and cost schedule. The task is very important so need to be organized at planning stage.
Cost heads and cash reserves are not known	Cash flow charts are required to be developed at the very beginning to know that how far we can stretch with the scope of work	Project manager need to coordinate among Virtucon and Globex management to finalize the same	Similar to above, the minutes is required to be developed and circulated among the applicable stakeholders in planning stage
Resource availability during the project is not known	Resource requirement need to be finalized after the scope & time finalization	Project manager need to coordinate among Virtucon and Globex management to finalize the same	Similar to above, the minutes is required to be developed and circulated to HR department for further action during planning and execution stage
Required quality standards is not known	Quality requirements shall also be finalized along with the scope. But the checkpoints need to be finalized before the start of execution	Main coordination is required to be done by the Project Manager but all the stakeholders are required to provide their inputs especially the RALS employees	Again the minutes is required to be circulated to all stakeholders in planning stage itself

The document which is prepared by involving each and every team members to write down the stakeholder’s expectations and the plan to meet such expectations is the communication plan document (WordPress, 2009). The communication plan for the case is below:

Name of Stakeholder	What information need to share	At what frequency	At which location	Why need to share the information	Method of sharing the information
Project manager	All the reports related to progress and constraints	Daily, weekly & monthly from different internal and external stakeholders	Mails or at meeting room at various locations	Being the focal point and central coordinator, the project manager need to be updated to take proper decisions on the project	e-mail, fax, presentation
Team Members	All reports from stakeholders	Daily, weekly & monthly	Meeting room	To update PM	e-mail, report
Sponsor	All reports related to time, cost, resource, quality & change order status	Monthly	Conference room	To take appropriate decision and arrange funds	Presentation
Virtucon management	All reports related to time, cost, resource, quality & change order status	Monthly	Conference room	To take appropriate decision and arrange funds	Presentation
Volunteers	Status report	Weekly	Meeting room	To update the status	e-mail, report
Globex Employees	All reports related to time, quality & change order status	Daily & Weekly	E-mail & Meeting room	To update the status	e-mail, report
Customers like farmers	New product information	Quarterly	Newspaper	To maintain enthusiasm	Advertisement
Customers like small businessmen	New product information	Quarterly	Newspaper	To maintain enthusiasm	Advertisement
Customers for lifestyle equipment	New product information	Quarterly	Newspaper	To maintain enthusiasm	Advertisement
Local authorities	All status reports of time	Monthly	E-mail & meeting	To inform and keep satisfied for obtaining permissions	e-mail, reports
Indigenous people	All status reports of human resource requirement	Monthly	Meeting & Publication	To provide opportunity	Advertisements, newspaper
Advertisers	Report to publish	Quarterly	Meeting	To publish the report	Report

Communication Plan

My experience while developing this report has provided me an exposure to the various leadership skills. I got the opportunity to use techniques of a leader which is very much required for the success of any project. My experience started with the development of team charter, in which we (our team) had to meet four times to finalize the roles and responsibilities, skill requirement, team values, ethical values, communication procedure and team spirit level as these are the main skills and techniques which are being used by the leader. This assignment has provided the opportunity to develop all such skills which are required for leading a project successfully in the real professional world. Because in professional world, the above learned skills like developing the best communication skill, being confident, always motivating the team, passionate to work in a team, delegates the work load equally (Marsh, 2013) and so on are the few important skills required to be present in a leader to lead the project successfully.

Based on my experience which I gathered during the preparation of this report ‘Teamwork and Reflection’, I feel that an ICT project manager involved in IT profession must have all the skills and techniques which are being used by the leaders to lead a project successfully. The minimum skills like confident of own decision, always listen to other team members, provide motivation to all, appreciate the good work of the team, never criticize the bad work in fact provide training to the member, delegates the work with equal workload, maintain discipline in office by setting an example of self, always look for a resolution, never attract any conflict (Krahn & Hartment, 2006) and maintain harmony in the team to deliver the objective of the project and satisfy the expectations of all stakeholders.

References

Basu, R. (2017). Project Success Criteria and Success Factors. Retrieved September 3, 2017, from Informa UK Limited: https://www.gpmfirst.com/books/managing-quality-projects/project-success-criteria-and-success-factors

Carson, R. (2015). TOP 10 QUALITIES OF A PROJECT MANAGER. Retrieved Septmber 6, 2017, from 2020 Business Insight: https://2020projectmanagement.com/2013/04/top-10-qualities-of-a-project-manager/

Jenkins, A. (2017). 5 Factors That Demonstrate a Strong Work Ethic. Retrieved September 14, 2017, from Hearst Newspapers: https://smallbusiness.chron.com/5-factors-demonstrate-strong-work-ethic-15976.html

Krahn, J., & Hartment, F. (2006). Effective project leadership: a combination of project manager skills and competencies in context. Skill Development. Newtown Square: Project Management Institute.

Marchewka, J. (2005). Information technology project management: Providing measurable. New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons.

Marsh, F. (2013, July 11). 10 Great Leadership Skills of Project Management. Retrieved September 6, 2017, from About Leaders: https://aboutleaders.com/10-great-leadership-skills-of-project-management/

Miller, B. (2017). The Purpose of Project Management and Setting Objectives. Retrieved August 27, 2017, from www.projectsmart.co.uk: https://www.projectsmart.co.uk/purpose-of-project-management-and-setting-objectives.php

Quick Base. (2010, March 1). 10 Signs Your Team is Effective. Retrieved September 10, 2017, from quickbase.com: https://www.quickbase.com/blog/10-signs-your-team-is-effective

Santilli, M. (2017). 8 core values every team should have. Retrieved September 3, 2017, from TechBeacon: https://techbeacon.com/8-core-values-every-team-should-have

WordPress. (2009, March 8). Types of Communication. Retrieved September 6, 2017, from https://www.notesdesk.com: https://www.notesdesk.com/notes/business-communications/types-of-communication/

WordPress. (2010, March 9). 15 Ground Rules for Project Team Management. Retrieved September 10, 2017, from https://virk.wordpress.com: https://virk.wordpress.com/2010/03/09/15-ground-rules-5-project-teams/