Work Structure

Introduction

Project planning is complex and wide, and therefore it requires an action plan which will guide the whole project to completion. Before coming up with the action plan, Objectives, and Success Criteria need to be made so as to provide a guide (Kelsey 2006).  Quantitative and measurable business objectives, the criteria by which key stakeholders will judge how successful the project is should be defined. In this case they are as follows:

- Attain more efficient working software that will aid in improving service provision with fewer expenses.

- Attain software that is fast, hence, faster operation in the company.

- Attain computers that have a greater memory bold or wider documentation.

- Attain computers of quality, hence, a longer operation period.

- Attain cell phones that are faster and those that allow storage and building on more applications

- Attain software that will not be outdated before the company earns substantial profits.

Deliverables are information that my teams would need to write down and communicate with one another, sometimes within the team, sometimes outside the team. They reflect decisions about features of the project; plans for work that needs to take place (such as test plans); and guiding specifications (such as a software necessities document). For effectiveness, these documents need to pass the right information to the right personnel on any team at the right time (Robert, Donald & Linda 2002).

o   Project organization plan:

• Formation of the managerial committee.
• Employees recruitment
• Training of employees.
• Estimation of effort
• Financial research and analysis and budget making.
• Allocation of recourse
  • Software necessities Specification and description:
• Identification of the company's activities that use the computers.
• Identification of company's software problems.
• Documentation of software requirements that meet the new needs.
• Research on vendors services.
• Job allocation to the most favorable vendor.
  • Software up grading:
• Identification of tools.
• Purchase of the tools.
• Updating the employees on usage of tools and provision of techniques by the vendor.
• Process model documentation and provision.
• Definition of the various procedures.
  • Cell phones purchase:
• Documentation of the company cell phones purposes.
• Specification and description of the phones required.
• Documentation of the whole up grade process.
• Provision of usage techniques.
  • Software and cell phone quality assurance plan this includes the software verification and validation plan and the test design document:
• Testing phone workability and security.
• Testing software workability, efficiency and security.
• Filing the test design document.
• Defect tracking in software.
• Auditing.
  • Risk management plan:
• Analyzing the understanding of the developer on future problems.
• Creating backup software and storage of the old one in case of defect.
• Documentation of software development procedure.
• Evaluating changes in individual risk exposure.
• Documentation of methods used in tracking risks.

Project organization plan

(a)Formation of the managerial committee: This should be made through merging of the managerial crew. They may include:

• Project Manager
• Product Manager
• Technical Lead
• Software Lead
• Financial manager
• Personnel manager
• Hardware Lead
• Architect
• Systems Engineer
• Requirements Analyst
• Software Engineer
• Hardware Engineer
• Test Engineer
• Configuration Management Manager or Coordinator
• Quality Assurance Manager, Coordinator, or Engineer
• Technical Applications Support
• Subject Matter Expert.

(b) Team forming or recruitment of employees: The formation of team is first and essential step because it organizes a group of people and gives them chance to interact with each other and exchange their views. (Kelsey 2006) Team members identify their role and responsibilities as well as find the appropriate path to accomplish the set forth goals. Here the managers play critical role to ensure that these people get used to one another and star working in harmony. In our case we have three hundred and fifty IT employees. For efficiency, it is recommended that ten percent of the home based employees be added into the work force. Out of the remaining home based 4650 employees, 465 will be absorbed to work in the team. The team may consist of auditors, IT experts, financial managers, researchers, messengers and others. The selection of these home based employees should be based on these guidelines:

I.   Academic qualification especially in IT and software engineering.

II.  Experience and working period in the firm or in any other firm of the same type.

III. As a motivational reward, hardworking employees should be absorbed too, going by their merit.

IV.  High reputation employees with no record of bad conduct and errors in their job and outside. This is very important especially because this project is very essential and any mistake will lead to great loss of both time and money.

This job should be delegated to the personnel manager. They should be able to analyze the employees they have in record, peruse their records and chose the most favorable.

(c) After team formation, delegation of work should be carried out. For the work to be done well and in time, the personnel manger should come up with a monitoring system of the progress in the project (Kelsey 2006). A clear follow up table is necessary. An example of such a table is as below:

(d) Training of the employees: not all employees maybe acquainted with the basic requirements of this project. Therefore, it should be considered necessary that all the employees considered for this operation be trained and given the necessary applicable techniques by the vendor.

(e) Effort estimation: Effort research and analysis involves budget making. In our case effort means the amount of person-effort labor that is required to perform the tasks. It can be measured in any units as long as they remain consistent e.g. person-hours or person-months (Robert, Futrell, Donald & Linda 2002). As a manager of the project, my job is to direct the team towards determining the unit measure and make sure that the control staff sticks to it. This job should be delegated to financial planners, auditors and economists under the arms of the financial manager. This will ensure that there is good communication and meaningful comparison. Establishing reliable estimates for project is basically very essential for the success of the project. It should be done immediately after the recruitment of the employees.

(f) Financial research and analysis and budget making:  it is one of the major tasks that need to be done and completed early to ensure success in the project. Making informed financial management decisions requires the right information, the kind of information that an effective Software Measurement Program delivers. Auditors are involved in the process of analyzing the cost of the project, hence, an appropriate estimation (Robert, Futrell, Donald &.Shafer 2002).

(g) Recourse allocation: This involves:

A. Development resources: software and hardware tools required to execute the project i.e. number and size of computers, operating structures, databases, software apparatus needed, network connectivity required, and hold up tools.

B. Test resources: the software and hardware tools required to test the software e.g. software creations, tools for test situation management and test automation, test apparatus, and network connectivity. This  details could appear in the Test Plan

C. Product resources: memory items, disks, and other resources required by the final product. At the end of development and software testing, this product will have its operating environment resources identified so they can be included in the company documentation.

The finance manger should be delegated the work of allocation of resources. He should delegate this work to the economists and financial planners in his finance teams after effort estimation (Robert, Futrell, Donald & Shafer, 2002).

Software necessities Specification and description

(a) Identification of the company's activities and personnel that use the computers: the requirement analyst should come up with a research and activity analysis team. This team is obligated in coming up with all the company's operations that are undertaken using computers. These will aid in identifying whether there is need to increase their number and new requirements of the company's job.

(b) Identification of company's software problems: from the research carried out above, the requirement analyst should be able to come up with a team that will be able to recognize the problems afflicting the company. They will be able to note the services the company is unable to provide with ease because of inefficiency of the software.

(c) Documentation of software requirements that meet the new needs: from the problems noted above, the analyst will be able to identify the software update that should be carried out.

(d) Research on vendors' services: with his team the analyst will go on survey to the vendors' premises and carry out a research on the services that they have to offer and their charging. This way, the company can be able to identify the platform for vendors operation and the appropriateness of their techniques.

(e) Job allocation to the most favorable vendor: from the analysis, the company can be able to choose the most appropriate vendor out of the three. The proposal will be brought forth by the requirement analyst. The allocation will involve informing the vendor the specification of his requirement.

Software up grading

(a) Identification of tools:

Software tools should be identified as: tools for requirements management, design modeling, source code and document version control, compiler, build automation, the hardware, OS, and network environments for development, test, and operation tools.

(b) Configuration Management: the plan should describe the activities and methods used for configuration identification, direction, status accounting, and release management. The configuration management plan should tackle the initial platform of work products, logging and scrutinizing of change requests, change direction board procedures and tracking of changes in advancement. This should be done by the configuration management board that is headed by the Configuration Management Manager. This should be done before buying of any tool in order to avoid accounting errors and wrong estimations.

(c) Purchase of tools: purchase of tools should be done under the finance manager and his team. It should be carried out after actual identification of the most favorable price. It should be done immediately after configuration management planning.

(d) Updating the employees on usage of tools and provision of techniques by the vendor: after buying the tools the employees should be equipped with more techniques on the usage of the tools by the vendor. In most cases this is done during recruitment, but when tools are bought then they should be updated. This should be done immediately to avoid time wastage.

(e) Process model documentation and provision: this is a document provided by the vendor on how he will upgrade the systems. It is a model demonstration that helps the employees to be more acquainted with the process. This should be done immediately after provision of tools.

(f) Definition of the procedure: for the process to bear profits, a detailed procedure should be made to guide all the teams in the software upgrade. This should be developed by the committee. With every team leader participating, a balanced procedure that will aid in fast operation will be developed. This should be done simultaneously with to tools identification.

Cell phones purchase:

(a) Documentation of the company cell phones purposes: the requirement analyst should come up with a research and activity analysis team. This team should come up with all the company's activities that are undertaken using cell phones. These will aid in identifying whether there is need to increase their number and new requirements of the company's job.

(b) Specification and description of the phones required: from the above documentation, the type of phone that should be bought is identified and the purpose that that phone should fulfill. It will also aid in deciding whether there is need to retain some phones or to increase their numbers.

(c) Documentation of the whole up grading process. This may include the type of phones bought and the proposed efficiency. It will aid in tracking any error in future. It should be done when the phones are being bought i.e. simultaneously. This will be done by the analyst team. They will also ensure that the requirements they noted are fully fulfilled.

(d) Provision of usage techniques: Development methodologies, including requirements development practices, design methodologies and notations, documentation standards, and usage techniques should be advanced to the company.

Software and cell phone quality assurance plan this includes the software verification and validation plan and the test design document

(a)    Testing phone workability and security: the test engineer and his group will operate the phones to ensure that the phones are working and they are up to the requirement of the company. This should be done immediately after the phones are bought.

(b)   Filing the test design document: This gives the procedure that will be used in testing the efficiency of the software. It should be detailed and offering a guideline towards the test objective accomplishment. It should be formed as the software upgrade is carried out so that the engineer can observe the way towards the follow up of the installation procedure.

(c)    Testing software workability, efficiency and security: the test engineer will lead his IT test group in verification of the software efficiency and workability as required by the company. This should be done immediately after software update.

(d)   Defect tracking in the software: testing the workability of the computers is not enough. In some at the beginning of usage, the computers should be tested of defects and inaccuracy.

(e)    Auditing: after the above major activities the financial manager should organize his financial planners and auditors towards calculating the expenses in order to ensure that the finances were implemented in the right manner.

Risk management plan

(a)    Analyzing the understanding of the developer on future problems: the vendors understanding of the future problems determines the identification of problems that may occur. If he tends to understand how long the software will serve then he can be trusted on the matter. Some of the developers agree to take on future responsibilities because of lack of understanding. This should be done by requirement analysts while choosing the vendors.

(b)   Creating backup software and storage of the old one in case of defect: at the first moments, the software durability has not been tested. To secure the company from uncertainty, it is good to make up back up files and storage of the previous ongoing. This also ensures continuity of the business even during the breakdown of the new software. It should be done by the IT department before the new software is installed.

(c)    Documentation of software development procedure: the whole procedure should be documented. This aids in tracking any default in the process. It also helps the personnel in the company to carry out the update themselves in case of errors in the near future caused by the company staff. It should be done by the configuration management board at the end of the process.

(d)   Evaluating changes in individual risk exposure: the software may pose new risks to some of the employees, and it is therefore advisable to update employees with the probable risks and cover them against them. These risks should be identified by the configuration management board immediately after installation.

(e)    Documentation of methods used in tracking risks: this board should also come up with procedures of tracking the risks basing their operation on the development procedure document. This will help them to analyze how to track them from the installation procedure it should be done at the same time with the evaluation of risks of exposure.

Due to the complexity of the process, one will have table like this as a schedule. That means the whole process may take 10 months to complete.