Essay DQ 1-1: Reread Case Study #2, E-Commerce for a Small Supermarket, on page 31 of your textbook. Pretend you are a consultant helping Matt and Grace. Describe in an essay the tasks their project will entail in each of the four (4) phases of the project life cycle. (50 points) (A 2-page response is required.) CASE STUDY 2 If possible, have your team contribute a few hours to the project. Through this process, you will be helping someone in need and learning about a real-world project at the same time. Prepare a report summarizing the project and what you learned from this experience. E-Commerce for a Small Supermarket Matt and Grace own a small supermarket in a rural town with a large and grow- ing elderly population. Because of their remote location, they don’t have any competition from the large chain stores. A small private liberal arts college, with about 1,500 students, is also located in the town. “I think we need a website for our store,” Matt tells Grace. “Why?” asks Grace. “Everybody has one. It’s the wave of the future,” responds Matt. “I’m still not clear, Matt. What would be on our website?” Grace asks. “Well, for one thing we could have a picture of our market with me and you standing in front of it,” says Matt. “What else?” asks Grace. Matt answers, “Ah, maybe people could look up stuff and order it through the website. Yeah, those college kids would think that’s great; they’re into using com- puters all the time. That will increase our business. They’ll buy food from our store rather than the pizza and burgers they always eat or get delivered from Sam’s Sub Shop. And those people who live in the senior citizens’ apartments would use it, too. I heard they’re teaching them how to use computers. And maybe we can even set up a delivery service.” “Hold on,” says Grace. “Those college students get pizza and subs from Sam’s at all hours of the night, long after we’re closed. And I think the senior citizens enjoy getting out. They have a van that brings some of them here each day to shop, and they really don’t buy much anyway. And how will they pay for what they order through the website? I’m all for keeping up with things, but I’m not sure this makes sense for our little supermarket, Matt. What would we be trying to accomplish with a website?” “I just explained it to you, Grace. It’s the way all businesses are going. We either keep up with things or we’ll be out of business,” replies Matt. “Does this have anything to do with that Chamber of Commerce meeting you went to in Big Falls last week, where you said they had some consultant talking about e-business or something?” asks Grace. “Yeah, maybe,” Matt says. “I think I’ll give him a call and tell him to stop by and tell him what I want.” “How much is all this going to cost us, Matt?” asks Grace. “I think we need to think about this some more. You know we are probably going to have to pave the parking lot this summer.” Matt answers, “Don’t worry. It’ll all work out. Trust me. Our business will increase so much, it’ll pay for itself in no time. Besides, it can’t cost that much; this consultant probably does these kinds of projects all the time.”
Essay DQ 1-2: Design an RFP (request for proposal) to meet Matt and Grace’s needs and concerns. (50 points) (A 2-page response is required.)
Essay Activity 2-03: Activity 2: Just Right Company – WBS and Responsibility Matrix (100 points)
Congratulations! Have It Your Way Company has awarded The Just Right Company a new contract worth $250,000, and you have been chosen the sole project manager!
Have It Your Way is a fast-food restaurant company with thousands of franchise organizations all around the country. They desperately need you and Just Right Company to develop their latest software application to run on their local store computers. This important application will help them become more efficient at inventory/supply management and billing functions, which, in the long term, will enable Have It Your Way to continue to meet Wall Street financial quarterly projections, as well as investor expectations.
The following are project particulars, which will be used throughout this and Lesson 4’s activity.
1. Project Start Date: January 3, 2007
2. Cost: Whatever it takes to complete the project, but keep in mind that your billing revenue cannot exceed $250,000, and you need to make a profit on this contract!
3. Overhead Charges: The rates that The Just Right Company’s internal accounting department charges to your contract are as follows. a. Eighteen percent (18%) of the billing revenue is charged for any and all lab and testing facilities. b. Twenty percent (20%) of the billing revenue is charged to your staff members.
4. Project Team Members: You are the Project Manager. The rest of your team is listed below.
Primary Support Activity Responsibility Responsibility Development Dan Mike, Bill Support Bill Sal Deployment David Sal Design Dan Mark Training David Jen Documentation Mark Jen Testing Amy Jon, Bill
5. All necessary lab and testing facilities are available to your team during this 120-day period.
Your Activity responses should be both grammatically and mechanically correct, and formatted in the same fashion as the Activity itself. If there is a Part A, your response should identify a Part A, etc. In addition, you must appropriately cite all resources used in your response and document in a bibliography using APA style. (A WBS and matrix are required.)
Part A Create a work breakdown structure (WBS) similar to the one found on page 117 of the text. Research and include at least two (2) logical subdivisions for each Activity’s Support Responsibility team members.
Part B Create a responsibility matrix, similar to the one found on page 128 of the text. Use each of the names listed under Support Responsibility as a “Primary” for one of your subdivisions and as Support for the other subdivision.
Note: You may use MS Word (organizational chart function, tables, textboxes, etc,) or Excel to develop your WBS and responsibility (relationship) matrix for submission.
Essay DQ 3-04: Discuss at least 10 common features of project management information systems. In your opinion, which of these are the most important? (50 points) (A 2-page response is required.)
Essay DQ 3-05: Discuss how the Internet can facilitate project communications. (50 points) (A 2-page response is required.)
Essay Activity 4-06: Activity 4: Agile Project Management (100 points)
Describe the agile project management for a project where a Scrum master is facilitating the Scrum development process for a software development project. Include the following:
Part A A description of agile project management.
Part B The roles of the participants involved in the scrum approach.
Part C A description of the six steps in the agile project management process.
Essay DQ 5-07: Describe what needs to be done to manage risk on a project. When should this be done? How can a risk assessment matrix help in this process? What risks for a project have the highest priority? Does the priority for a risk change as the project progresses? (50 points) (A 2-page response is required.)
Essay DQ 5-08: What is resource leveling with a project plan? Discuss the internal post project evaluation process and the two types of meetings involved. What are some ways you can obtain feedback from a customer after a project has been completed? How would you use this information? (50 points) (A 2-page response is required.)
Essay Activity 6-09: Activity 6: Project Conflict and Problem Solving (100 points)
Part A Project conflict is inevitable.
1. Outline the seven (7) sources of conflict that can arise during a project.
2. Discuss the five (5) approaches that people typically use to deal with conflict.
3. Is conflict always bad? Explain.
Part B Problem Solving
1. Write a short summary about the “Nine-Step Approach to Problem Solving.”
2. If you were the project manager for a virtual team, explain whether your approach would change if a problem arose between the virtual team members. If it would change, explain why and how it would change. If not, explain why not.
(100 points) (A 4-page response is required.)
