Web Application Development For Social Media Research Center: Project Management And Planning

Project Management Process

Project management provides a structured approach to the project manager and his team which helps them to achieve all the objectives of the project. It simplifies all the activities and allows manager to gain deeper understanding about the subject matter (Kucharska,& Kowalczyk, 2016).

The main activities involved in it are planning, organizing, controlling, allocation of resources, implementing and closing the work. It is important to take care of budget, time scales and the quality of all the activities. These factors affect the performance of the project and decide its outcome. The present report is based on the case of Social Media Research Center. The unit needs a website application which will help them to produce quality research in their center. Along with this, WBS, Gantt chart, risk register, Quality management plan and project evaluation methods have aloe en included in the report.      

Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) is a breakdown of all the activities associated with the project. It allows the project manager to divide work and helps him to complete the task in the desired time frame. The scope of website development project of Social Media Research Centre has been divided into small chunks (Bresnen, 2016). It becomes easy for team members to understand all the processes because each level provides details regarding the components included in it. The major activities involved in the project are initial phase, creating plans, implementation stage, execution and control and closure and checklists.

Similarly, there are sub groups involved in the structure. The sub-deliverables included in initial stage are Analysis of Requirements, Determining objectives of the project and Technical, social and environmental analysis. The creating plans stage has sub groups which consist of Development of designs and layouts, Website management plan, scheduling of tasks, Allocation of Budget and assigning responsibilities. Furthermore, Implementation stage consists of resources allocation, execution and testing. Execution and control stage includes monitoring, maintenance and review and change management. While closures stage consists of project closure and final report (Morris & et.al, 2016).     

Project Plan

A project plan for the website development will enable the team members to identify the subsequent tasks and take decision accordingly. It will help them to follow the schedule which will make that the project is delivered on time.

WBS	Task Name	Duration	Start	Finish	Cost
1	Project for the development of website for Social Media Research Center	174 days	Mon 03-04-17	Thu 30-11-17	$50,000.00
1.1	Initial phase	32 days	Mon 03-04-17	Tue 16-05-17	$3,800.00
1.1.1	Analysis of Requirements	15 days	Mon 03-04-17	Fri 21-04-17	$1,000.00
1.1.2	Determining objectives of the project	7 days	Mon 24-04-17	Tue 02-05-17	$1,000.00
1.1.3	Technical, social and environmental analysis	10 days	Wed 03-05-17	Tue 16-05-17	$1,800.00
1.2	Creating plans	65 days	Wed 17-05-17	Tue 15-08-17	$35,500.00
1.2.1	Development of designs and layouts	10 days	Wed 17-05-17	Tue 30-05-17	$30,600.00
1.2.2	Website management plan	10 days	Wed 31-05-17	Tue 13-06-17	$800.00
1.2.3	scheduling of tasks	10 days	Wed 14-06-17	Tue 27-06-17	$1,800.00
1.2.4	Allocation of Budget	10 days	Wed 28-06-17	Tue 11-07-17	$500.00
1.2.5	assigning responsibilities	25 days	Wed 12-07-17	Tue 15-08-17	$1,800.00
1.3	Implementation stage	28 days	Wed 16-08-17	Fri 22-09-17	$4,200.00
1.3.1	Resource allocation	12 days	Wed 16-08-17	Thu 31-08-17	$1,500.00
1.3.2	Execution	13 days	Wed 16-08-17	Fri 01-09-17	$1,000.00
1.3.3	Testing	15 days	Mon 04-09-17	Fri 22-09-17	$1,700.00
1.4	Execution and control	42 days	Mon 25-09-17	Tue 21-11-17	$4,500.00
1.4.1	Monitoring the progress	10 days	Mon 25-09-17	Fri 06-10-17	$900.00
1.4.2	Maintenance	12 days	Mon 09-10-17	Tue 24-10-17	$1,900.00
1.4.3	Review and change management	20 days	Wed 25-10-17	Tue 21-11-17	$1,700.00
1.5	Closure and checklists	7 days	Wed 22-11-17	Thu 30-11-17	$2,000.00
1.5.1	Project closure	5 days	Wed 22-11-17	Tue 28-11-17	$1,000.00
1.5.2	Final closure report	2 days	Wed 29-11-17	Thu 30-11-17	$1,000.00

time phased budget

Task	Total cost (In AUD)
Development of designs and layouts	30600
Maintenance	1900
Technical, social and environmental	1800
Scheduling of tasks	1800
Assigning responsibilities	1800
Testing	1700
Review and change management	1700
Resource allocation	1500
Analysis of requirements	1000
Determining objectives of the project	1000
Execution	1000
Project closure	1000
Final closure report	1000
Monitoring progress	900
Website management plan	800
Allocation of budget	500
Total	50000

Assumptions and constraints

• Proper funding would be available for the completion of the project.
• The research center will provide all the information regarding the development of web application (Papke-Shields & Boyer-Wright, 2017).
• All the people including the company, team members, stakeholders and sponsors will support the project.
• The labor cost remains constant for the entire project (Young, 2016).
• All the resources will be available when needed.  
• The requirements and deliverables of the unit do not change after the commencement of the project.

The major constraint in the web application development is time, cost and resources. Apart from this, the skills and technical knowledge is also essential for completing the project in the stipulated time.  

Risk Register

Risks	Possible causes	Preventive measures	Impacts
Negative risks
Change request in design or interface	Stakeholders can demand change in design or functions of the website application. It will affect the schedules and time frame allocated to each activity (Martinelli & Milosevic, 2016). The time scale is limited and such incidents will affect the delivery of the project on time.	Requirements analysis and planning should include all the expectations and needs of the stakeholders. Proper communication and mutual understanding should be developed. Scope statements should be signed by all the stakeholders and the sponsors.	The impact of this risk is high as the project follows a particular plan and direction (Srivannaboon & Munkongsujarit, 2016). The probability is medium because all the requirements have been mentioned by stakeholders.
Bugs in the software	If the team is unable to find abnormalities or bugs in the application then it will result it unnecessary escalation which will affect the schedule of the budget (Turner, 2016). It can be due to human errors, software or hardware incompatibility or errors detected during the development stage.	Project manager should appoint experienced programmers who can guide the workers in the programming and development of website application. The budget of the project also allows appointment of two programmers.	The probability of this risk is high as the entire project is dependent on software development and designing (Walker, 2015). The impact is also high.
Focus on low priority tasks	Low and high priority sectors have to be identified in the website development project. High priority tasks are time consuming and require more efforts from the team (Gido & Clements, 2014). They should not spend more time on low priority elements such as choosing the color of the web pages etc.	Project manager should implement a feature focused approach. The requirements and expectations of the stakeholders should be discussed and duly signed by them in advance. Testing phase should be given enough time so that they can check all the functions of the website.	The impact of this risk is high as the project schedules are fixed. The probability is medium (Saunders & Lewis, 2014).
Positive risks
Better design for the application	The team can find better alternatives and designs for the website application which is less time consuming (Srivannaboon & Munkongsujarit, 2016). They become more excited in implementing the new design in the website development project.	Project manager should ensure that all the discoveries and alternatives are assessed in early stages of the project. New changes are difficult to implement because it requires lot of changes.	The probability of this risk is high and the impact is also high.

Quality management Plan

Quality management Plan for the website development for the Social Media Research Center should focus on quality assurance (Saunders & Lewis, 2014). All the activities should be compared and monitored to ensure that they comply with the standards set up by the project manager. The main objective of the project team is to deliver quality system which includes user friendly interface, easy compatibility, fast processing, easy accessibility and installation. All the requirements of the unit should be included in the application (Walker, 2015). There should be a separate section of intranet for the members of the center. The phases of the project are:

• Planning
• Testing the deliverables
• Audits
• Verification and implementation

Work Breakdown Structure (WBS)

The quality issues related to the project are:

Low cost configuration and development: The website should be developed in low cost and its maintenance should not be of high cost (Turner, 2016).  

Safety and security: It should be free from viruses and malwares. The safety and security should be high because confidential data and researches are present on the website (Walker, 2015).

User friendly interface: The interface should be easy to use for all the members such as faculty, students, scholars etc. The programmers have to understand the knowledge, skills and requirements of stakeholders for this purpose.

Closure checklist and project evaluation

The website development project for Social Media research Center should include all the requirements of the stakeholders (Saunders & Lewis, 2014). They should be mentioned in a proper sequence along with the priorities. The checklist of web application development is as follows:

• Review of project is completed
• Testing all the activities
• Creating the project status report
• Staff performance evaluation
• Communication of project closure: Internally and externally
• Comparison of the project performance in terms of cost, time, quality, scope, risk and benefits.
• Objectives were met
• Issues resolved in the project
• Documentation of feedback from the stakeholders done
• Assignment of project maintenance

The above checklist will allow the project manager to ensure that the project has been properly closed.

Project evaluation

Project manager can initiate the project evaluation to ensure the success of the web application development project. It involves various steps:

Individual assessment: The assessment involves all the team members and questionnaires are used to collect their views about the project. Peer review method can be used in this evaluation.  

Review: the review stage consists of group meetings between team members, sponsor and manager. The main discussion points in the meeting should be MOV and success or failure of the web application development project. Similarly, the scope, time, cost and budget is also discussed. Along with his, the challenges and issues arising and their resolution done by the manager is also accessed.   

Project Audit: The project auditor does audits of all the activities in the project and highlights the issues and problems to the project manager.

The project manager of web application development should evaluate the MOV of the project in a series over the next year. It can be done in the following manner:

• Between 1 to 5 months evaluation should be done of wait times in scheduling. All this have to be done after the implementation stage.
• Rescheduling is also assessed after implementation stage.
• The impact on ROI should be evaluated
• Impacts on operational costs should be analyzed
• Feedbacks and opinions can be taken from the students to analyze the social impacts of the project.

Conclusion

Project management involves various activities which helps the manager to create plans and understand the subsequent activities. The website application project of Social media research Center has to be completed in 8 months and the budget is AUD 50,000. It is essential for the manager to follow the project schedules and complete all the activities in the given time period. The risk register will allow them to eliminate all the potential risks. On the other hand, Quality management plan will ensure high quality deliverables. All these activities will help the team members to achieve the objectives of the project.    

References

Bresnen, M. (2016). Institutional development, divergence and change in the discipline of project management. International journal of project management, 34(2), 328-338.

• Gido, J., & Clements, J. (2014). Successful project management. Nelson Education.
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Kucharska, W., & Kowalczyk, R. (2016). Trust, Collaborative Culture and Tacit Knowledge Sharing in Project Management–a Relationship Model.

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

Morris, A., & et.al, (2016). Development of a project management framework in local government. RICS COBRA.

Papke-Shields, K. E., & Boyer-Wright, K. M. (2017). Strategic planning characteristics applied to project management. International Journal of Project Management, 35(2), 169-179.

• Saunders, M. N., & Lewis, P. (2014). Doing research in business and management: An essential guide to planning your project. Pearson Higher Ed.
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Young, T. L. (2016). Successful project management. Kogan Page Publishers.