Website Development Project Plan For ABC Trading Organization

Project Management Plan

ABC is a trading organization that provides trading support to investors and training to the brokers getting into trading business. The company has been operating online through various business networking platforms such as LinkedIn and other specialized traders’ platforms where they are registered (Dinsmore & Brewin, 2010). However, the company realizes the need to have a new website so that it can have a detailed presentation of services and portfolios and engage potential customers on the website which is likely to give them more conversion. The company has decided to use the open source content management system called WordPress for it is one of the most popular systems across globe. The project is going to be outsourced to a third-party development contractor (BENAIJA1 & KJIRI, 2013).

Project Management Plan 

Project Selection

The company was approached by an organization that lists various types of businesses online and the company had suggested ABC the allow them to register them for the services that would allow creation of a webpage for the company that would look like a website. A promise was given that the page will give the company more traction into the online space (EU, 2005). After discussion with the team, management discovered that there was another option which was to develop a full-fledged website for company instead of just a page.

The two project presented opportunities from which only one could be selected (AG, 2013). The project selection was made using a scoring model in which the management representatives were asked to score each project on certain criteria such that the project assuming higher total score was selected. The criteria included cost of development, expected rate of return, ownership, control, rate of conversion, exposure, quality of deliverables, timelines, strategic alignment, and so on. The development of own website got a higher score in the process which is why the same project has been proposed here (Baguley, 2008).

Background

This project would involve development of a website for an organization that is into trading business. The contract for the development has been awarded to an IT organization that acts as an independent contracting agency (GALWAY, 2004). The website development project would include development of user’s interfaces, website pages, graphics, and content elements. It would have interfaces designed for the customers to connect to the brand through chat and email functionalities. The project would take five phases for completion and these include project initiation, project planning, website designing, implementation, and project closure (Cliff COnsulting, 2007).

Background

The project would begin with purpose of a domain name and webspace. Once these are in place, a content management system called WordPress would be installed on the DNS acquired. A plan would then be developed for executing the remaining project activities needed to complete the project. It would include plan for the management of different areas of project management including schedule management, budgeting, project scope management, risk management, and resource management. A design would then be developed for the website pages and then the project plan would be implemented (C.R & Thomas, 2011).

Implementation stage would include development of the website features, interfaces, graphics, and content. Once all these components of the website are developed, they would be installed on the CMS and testing would be followed to identify any bugs in the website. This statement of work defines all these activities that are in the scope of the project. The project has been allotted a budget of $1,00,000 and the website development needs to be completed in 6 months starting from initiation till the closure of the project (Leroy, 2012).

Project Scope

The project would be completed in five stages including initiation, planning, designing, implementation, and project closure. In initiation phase, the independent contractor would gather requirements for the project by interviewing the company representatives. The requirements gathered would be used for planning and designing stages of the project (Heerkens, 2015). Based on these requirements, the project would be planned and the design would be developed for the website. After the approval of the design, actual website would be coded and then tested. The project scope would define the outcome and deliverables of the project (Dinsmore & Brewin, 2010).

Activities within the scope of the website development include:

• Procurement of domain name and webspace for the website
• Installation of content management system
• Creation of the design for the development of the website
• Development of website features based on the approved design(Ayyalaraju, 2017)
• Installation of WordPress widgets for development of planned features on the website
• Coding for the customization of the website features
• Testing of the website to identify bugs and eliminate them(Cliff COnsulting, 2007)

Activities that are not in the project scope include:

• Training the employees of the company on the use of CMS
• Launching the website for the public to see(Ayyalaraju, 2017)
• Work Requirements

The project would have the following requirements to be fulfilled in each stage of the project:

Initiation: In this phase, the contractor would be selected and outsourced the work of the website development. The contractor would get the DNS and webspace for the website development and install a CMS on the space. Once that is done, the contractor would interview the key stakeholders of the project to understand their requirements (Leroy, 2012).

Planning: In this stage, the contractor would develop the website involving installation of plugins needed for the development of different website components including chat functionality, home page slider, testimonials, feature boxes, and blog pages. It also included development of codes for customization of website features and interfaces (Ayyalaraju, 2017).

Project Scope

Designing: A design would be developed for the website in this stage which would be based on the requirements of the project and would form the basis for the development of the CSS or PHP codes (Liu, 2013).

Implementation: In this stage, the plugins would be installed as planned on the website and the customization of the website features and components would be done using the custom coding done on PHP and CSS. In this phase, the developed website code would also be tested to identify if there are any bugs. These bugs would be eliminated when found and the updated code would be finalized for the website (AG, 2013).

Closure: By this stage, all the deliverables of the project would be completed and they would be recorded in the project closure documentation by the contractor. This would include the review of the project completion based on which the company head would take a decision on the acceptance of the developed website. The acceptance from the client organization would mark the completion of the project and the client would give a final sign off (Mushtaq, 2016).

The tasks would be executive in a sequence as covered in the Work Break Down Structure provided below (Devi & Reddy, 2012):

• Project Initiation
  • Contractor Selection
  • Set-up
    • DNS
    • Webspace
    • WordPress CMS installation
  • Requirement Gathering(Baguley, 2008)
• Planning
  • Budgeting
  • Scheduling
  • Resource Management
    • Roles & Responsibilities
    • Team Management
  • Scope Management
  • Risk Management(Devi & Reddy, 2012)
• Designing
  • Features
  • Functionalities
  • Pages
  • Graphics(Baguley, 2008)
• Implementation
  • Website Development
    • Theme installation
    • Plugins
    • Content development
    • Uploading of Graphics
    • Custom coding(RCF, 2003)
  • Testing
    • System testing
    • Functional testing
    • Use Acceptance testing(RCF, 2003)
  • Project Closure
    • Project Acceptance
    • Project documentation
    • Project sign off (Devi & Reddy, 2012)

Schedule

Assuming the project starting on 1^st Sept 2018, it would have the following milestones:

Task	Finish Date
	Contractor Selection	1st Sept 2018
	Set-up	10th Oct 2018
	Requirement gathering	17th Oct 2018
	Project Management Planning	25th Nov 2018
	Website design	28th Nov 2018
	Website Design review & approval	30th Nov 2018
	Plugins installation	27th Nov 2018
	Content Development Uploading (Bruce & Langdon, 2009)	31st Dec 2018
	Custom Coding	25th Jan 2019
	Testing	24th Feb 2018
	Project Completion review	25th Dec 2018
	Project Closure Documentation	28th Feb 2018
	Project Sign off	5th Mar 2019

Budget

The website development project has a budget of $1,00,000 in which all the stages of the project would be covered. The budget would be released in portions depending on the requirement of each stage of the project (SAEO, 2015).

Acceptance Criteria

The project would be reviewed at the end of each stage and only after the outcome of each stage is accepted will the final project be seen as accepted. The criteria for acceptance at each stage of the project are as follows (C.R & Thomas, 2011):

Initiation Stage acceptance criteria:

• Installation of DNS, web space, and CMS is completed
• Selected contractor has both capabilities and experience of working on website development projects(Sabyasachi, 2018)

Planning Stage completion acceptance criteria:

• All key stakeholders have participated in the requirements gathering stage
• The plan explains how each of the following project components would be handled(Cliff COnsulting, 2007)
  • Budget
  • Schedule
  • Risks(Kärri, 2014)
  • Scope
  • Resources(Ponnappa, 2014)
• All the human resources have been assigned appropriate responsibilities

Design stage acceptance criteria:

• The design presented has all the components needed on the website(DESPA, 2014)All the needed functionalities and features have been identified and covered in the design

Implementation stage completion acceptance criteria (OECD, 2014):

• All the required features have been installed on the website
• The website is able to provide all the required functionalities as identified in the requirement gathering process
• Custom code has been implemented on the website successfully
• All the codes have been tested and corrected for bugs

Project Closure stage acceptance criteria:

• All the details of the project progress have been documented
• Project deliverables have been sufficiently reviewed by the client organization(Bruce & Langdon, 2009)
• Acceptance

The following company representatives have accepted that the project has been successfully completed:

ABC Company		Website Development Contractor
Company name		Company name
Allen Booze		Dale Williams
Full name		Full name
CEO		Project Manager
Title		Title
Signature		Signature
Date		Date

Deliverables

The deliverables of this project include:

• Content management system installed on the new DNS
• A design suggesting features and components for a website
• Plugins installed on the website delivering required functionalities on the website
• Content uploaded on the website including the textual content and the graphics(Langley, 2015)
• Custom codes delivered as per the needs of the company
• Positive testing completed to ensure that there are no bugs in the codes(Dinsmore & Brewin, 2010)
• Team Management

The team would be assigned the responsibilities for taking care of the development of the project involved in various ways into different stages. There are five people in the team of the contractor who would be involved in the development process and these include project management, IT manager, developer, content writer, and graphic designer. The roles and responsibilities of the team members are listed below (DESPA, 2014):

Activities within the scope of the website development include:

Responsibilities of the project manager would include:

• Coordinate with the client to collect the project requirements
• Ensure that project activities are completed within time and within the assigned budget(Leroy, 2012)
• Coordinate with the team members and guide them to ensure smooth completion of work
• Monitor project process and keep a tab on deliverables to ensure they are up to date
• Identify risks on the project and plan contingency and mitigation strategies to deal with them(Heerkens, 2015)

Responsibilities of the IT manager would include:

• Procure licenses for DNS and webspace and ensure that WordPress is installed
• Ensure that the website also has required plugins for security, SEO, and backups updated(EU, 2005)

Responsibilities of the developer would include:

• Identify required plugins and install them with appropriate content added
• Code plugins to add custom functionalities as per project requirements(Liu, 2013).

Responsibilities of the content writer would include:

• Identify needs of the content and write content for the website
• Deliver content as per the design on desired timelines
• Ensure that the content is copy cape tested and is well proofread and edited

Responsibilities of the graphic designer would include:

• Procure graphics and modify them as per the needs of the project
• Create illustrations wherever needed for the website
• Deliver graphics as per the design on desired timelines(Mushtaq, 2016)

A RACI Chart would help identify their responsibilities and accountabilities which would help the project manager ensure that they are all adhering to their part and it would also make it easy for the manager to identify who should be taking first action in case of any risks appearing. The exercise would also ensure that everyone is made responsible for a task is also accountable (EU, 2005).

Project Tasks	Project Sponsor	Project Manager	Website Developer	IT Manager	Content Writer	Graphic Designer
Project Planning	CI	RAC	CI	CI	CI	CI
Scheduling	A	RAC	CI	CI	CI	CI
Budgeting	A	RAC	I	CI	I	I
Initiation	A	RAC	I	I	I	I
Website development	CI	RAC (OECD, 2014)	R	RA (Mushtaq, 2016)	RAC	RAC
Installation	I	CI	RAC	RAC	I	I
Coding	I	CI	RAC	RACI	I	I
Testing	I	CI	RAC	RAC	I	I
Risk Management	CI	RAC	CI	CI	I	I
Resource Management	CI	RAC	CI	CI	I	I
Time Management	CI	RAC	CI	CI	I	I
Project Closure	RA (Oracle, 2009)	RAC	I	I	I	I (Langley, 2015)

Risk Management

Risk management involves identification of risks that can occur on a project and deployment of the response plan to deal with them. Typical responses to any project risk would be avoidance if possible, transfer of the risk to other party, mitigation of risk in the case of occurrence, and ignorance if the risks is unlikely to affect the project in a major way but its resolution can be a significant cost to the company. The choice of the strategy to use and the risks that have to be prioritized would depend on the level of severity these risks present to the project which would be calculated on the basis of their likelihood of occurrence and the potential impact they would have on the project (Oracle, 2009).

The table below identifies some possible risks on the project as well as presents the level of severity and the response plan. The table also identifies the person who would be responsible for ensuring that the appropriate response plan has been taken. With this chart, there would also be a risk registered prepared that will record all these details and would also record the actions actually taken for the risks by the team as the project would progress. This would help the team keep a tab on the risks and ensure that they do not impact the project deliverables much and are well taken care of (GALWAY, 2004).

Risk	Impact	Probability	Ranking	Response	Responsibility
Project going overbudget (Wickboldt, 2011)	Medium	High (Ponnappa, 2014)	6	Mitigate:  Monitor project progress and control costs in case they still escalate, utilize a contingency fund that has to be set aside during budgeting. In case the funds are still insufficient, take approval for additional funds to be given from the project sponsor (Wickboldt, 2011).	Project Manager
Content delivery delays	High	Medium	6	Mitigate: Put a random content and continue with coding and development and replace the content with actual post development (Oracle, 2009)	Developer
Coding errors	High	Medium	6	Mitigate: Conduct thorough tests on the website and correct any identified bugs	Developer
Scope variations	High	Low (SAEO, 2015)		Mitigate:  Incorporate only the changes needed and avoid those costing more without any major benefits to the company (OECD, 2014)	Project Manager
Gaps in communication (Liu, 2013)	Medium	Medium	4	Avoid: Coordinate with the team members to ensure everything is on paper	Project Manager

Project Closure

The project would be marked as completed once all the deliverables have been completed. The project manager would take a review of the project completion and document everything about the project status including the lessons learned. This review would be given to the project owner who would be approving it to mark its completion (Sabyasachi, 2018).

Conclusions

This project is planned for the development of a new website for the ABC company that is into trading business. The company uses online business platforms to promote itself but is now planning too increase its online presence with the development of a website. The project was selected between two options that included trading page development on a business marketplace and a full fledged website development. The website development has been selected as the project too be developed based on eh scoring model that involves views of all the team members of the company.

Activities that are not in the project scope include:

The report presented the project scope which included procurement of DNS and web space, installation of CMS, installation of plugins, customization of pages, development of content and graphics, and testing of the developed codes. The project is assigned to five key members of the third part service provided and they include project manager, IT manager, developer, writer, and graphic designer. A number of risks have been identified such as cost escalation, delays in deliver, and gaps in communication and appropriate plan for responding to them has been presented.

Based on the planning process, certain recommendations can be made for the project manger and the project organization to ensure smooth and successful delivery of the project and these include:

• While developing project scope, all the requirements given by the stakeholders must be considered and thus, it is important that the project manager interviews all major stakeholders of the company to ensure al requirements re sufficiently identified
• The project manager must work to avoid occurring of risks that can have a major impact on the project and should take up those risks on priority for solution that present high level of severity for the project which could be 6 or more.
• The RACI chart and risk management chart must be distributed to the team so that everyone know what is expected from them and when they should act on priority
• The project manager must set aside come contingency amount like 10% of the total project budget and get the same approved by the sponsor at the beginning itself so that in the cases of unavoidable risks and consequences, the contingency amount can be utilized without affecting the outcome of the project much. This would save time and efforts of the project manager who would not need to take additional approvals from the sponsor in case of emergencies.

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