Information And Communication Technology Projects: A Comprehensive Management Essay.

Project Management Plan for Maximillian Mobile Technologies

Discuss about the Information and Communication Technology Projects.

Maximillian mobile technology is a company that specializes in the designing and implementation of mobile and computer applications. The company has for years been recognized as one of the most reputable companies in the industry when it comes to providing high end and user friendly applications/ software.

Due to so, the company has been hired by a business organization to design a multiplatform application that will support both mobile and computer operating systems. This is intended to help in the improvement of the company’s operations for both the clients and the employees. In other words, the application/ software will support use by clients who wish to purchase the business products, make review, and payments and on the other hand allowing the employees to manage their work schedules, storing of important information, payment tracking and communication management among other uses. This will be powered by secure login system i.e., customer login and staff login.

In so doing, the company expects to improve on its efficiency by reducing the loads needed for the management of customer demands and employee information

The project management plan id designed for Maximillian mobile technologies, for the development and execution of an application that supports a multi-user system interphase. It involves a logical flow, from project scope, stakeholder analysis, communication plans, risk management plan and ethical issues. Furthermore, there is use of management software, project deployment plan, project signoff, review and recommendations. In other words, it encompasses a comprehensive management basics applications for networking

By the end of the project, different deliverables are expected among which should include a multi-platform application that will support both computer systems and mobile gadgets. In other words, the application should be able to run in mobile gadgets such as android operating systems, iPhone OS, iPad, and kindle OS among others. On the other hand, it should be able to support mainly windows operating systems alongside others. It software will therefore be able to support;

• internet access
• Automated reporting regarding client complaints
• GPS user detection
• Secure end user communication among employees and administrators
• Web based server support
• Scheduling and reminder enabled system

For the project to attain success, the project manager will ensure the procurement of the required materials and essentials. In is absolutely of no doubt that before any project execution begins/ commences, the requirements for project executions are acquired. In this project, the requirements encompass both software and hardware. The requirements will include but limited to;

• Latest designer software applications
• High end and modern computers
• Mobile devices for testing
• Reliable power source
• Highly qualified technicians (software designers)
• Cloud based servers
• Backup storage systems
• Network adapters and internet cables

With the aim of reducing the total time to be spent in undertaking the project of developing an internet enabled application by Maximillian technology, there will be an inclusion of project crashing. Primarily, project crashing can be understood as the process of shortening the length or duration of a project under execution or implementation. It is also absolute that, as the company embarks on project crashing, there will be a reduction in the total cost of the project as compared to the initially expected required amount for the project completion. Nevertheless, we should note that project crashing may even be more costly as it requires more resources than the normal planned quantity [2].  It is however important to note that as the company initiates in project crashing, there will be a critical analysis and evaluation of the activities that will be foregone. This will be aiming at ensuring the expected quality deliverables are achieved. In other words, as the project activities are shortened to save time and cost, efforts will be streamlined towards avoiding compromising quality of the final output.

Project Requirements

Undertaking of project crashing involves making a critical decision, which is directly related to the trade-off theory. Making of a choice of the activity to be foregone during the project execution [3].

The project stakeholders may typically be referred to as the individuals, parties or organizations who may in any way affect the designing, planning, execution and success of the project it is also important to note that the individuals or organizations who may be affected by the project implementation and activities also form part of the stakeholders of the project. In this regard therefore, the project has internal and external stakeholders. In reference to the current research study, it is important for the project implementer to focus on both categories of the stakeholders rather than just focusing on the internal stakeholders. Although the degree of influence of the internal stakeholders may be critically high, it is equally important to note that failure to adhere to the certain external stakeholders may lead to a failure [3].

 In case in reference is that the project will consider partnering with an internet provider company to help in ensuring the best user experience of the software/ application that is to be designed. The internal stakeholders will therefore include;

As highlighted earlier, external stakeholders are those parties, individuals or organizations who may have an influence or may be influenced by the execution of the project. To a larger extent, the external stakeholders do not have direct link to the project operation. However, their impact are usually indirect. For the case of the project, the external will include the external consultants, external auditors, the network testers, and the responsible legal authorities in line with security and privacy patents [4].

To ensure a well-coordinated flow of project management activities, there will be a well-established and definite modes of communication. According to research, it has been proved beyond reasonable doubt that when running a project management activity, it is important to ensure an effective communication among the involved parties. This is because it has been evidenced that the success of projects highly depends on the effectiveness of communication among and within the stakeholders. In other words, communication breakdown has been registered as one of the main causes of project management failures and thus, highly vital to ensure its effectiveness [5]. Different communication channels and options will be used in different contexts and with different groups of stakeholders depending on their effectiveness in delivering the intended information to the required party. As it in many different project management activities, the communication will make use of different communication strategies among which will include face to face interaction with the project team members, messaging, phone calls, video conferencing, and emailing among others. In other words, communication management will help in achieving the following objectives;

• Identification of the interests and powers of various stakeholders and citing possible ways of integrating them to achieve a common goal as a team
• Enabling timely transfer of communication between or among stakeholders to help in the minimization of delay and breakage in information transfer
• Sharing/ exchanging of ideas, making inquiries and consultation in reference to the risk control strategies among the different project team members.
• Creating reminders and raising awareness of the responsibilities assigned to different team member with in the project
• Communicating of updates and schedule changes in regard to the project changes
• Sharing points of differences and divergences within the team and effectively making adjustments

Work Based Breakdown

When conducting a project management activity, it is absolute that there are risks involved. One of the scholars stated that, for every activity that is undertaken there is no one hundred percent certainty for its success.  The mobile application project will therefore lay down a well-defined plan for the mitigation of the likely and possible risks. Risk management plan is important as it helps in stopping, reducing and transferring of risks that come in during the execution of the project. As the project team members undertake this, forecasts are made according to the types of activities/ subprojects to be executed. In the analysis of the risk plan, there will be an engagement of the internal and external project contexts [5]. This encompasses stakeholders, the procurement process and linage, the intervention from external stakeholders for example the government, the available financial resources, expected feedback from the clients, and sensitivity of achieving the project success. Ensuring a dependable and reliable risk management, the team will conduct a review of related projects so as to examine the types of challenges faced, the time period and how it was handled. Therefore, the whole risk management plan will be broken down into phases and which reflect the following

• Risk identification; identifying of the likely risks that may occur
• Risk analysis; this entails a critical review of the risks, including their impact in the project
• Risk control; after analyzing the risks, possible control measures will be put fourth by the team players
• Risk evaluation; this is intended to examine the types of risks. It is closely related, and moves hand in hand with risk control.
• Risk treatment; furthermore, the treatment of different risks with in the project management is dependent on its impacts and controllability. As highlighted earlier, risks may be stopped, reduced, transferred or accepted depending on its type and impact on the project.
• Risk monitoring and review; as the project risks are forecasted, there is will always be a well-defined schedule for making of reviews and adjustments in regard to the project progress.
• And finally, as the project closes, the risk management will also be terminated

As the project is being undertaken, it is highly probable that there will be need to observe the prevailing codes of ethic in relation to the pre-existing laws and codes of ethics.  Usually, before an individual’s engages in the use of any software application, they tend to be curious about the confidentiality of their personal data which they enter into the system. It is therefore of high importance that the that the clients or the general users of the end output of the project be assured that there information will not in any way be used for other purposes apart from the business dealings within the organization. In addition, the compliance of the project management execution with the post formulated laws governing the ICT of the country is also important. As the projects undertakes on the proposed activity, the project manager together with team will have conduct a review of the yet to execute procedure to determine if it solely complies. Otherwise, it may lead to project termination before its completion [5].

Furthermore, there may arise safety issues on the side of project team players. Working in a computer related environment have been related to certain illness which among other, have included eye effect, general body pains and wrist failures. Much as the project is being undertaken, there will be consideration of the employees engaged in the project, this will be through provision of equipment that may help in reducing related effects such as providing well designed seats to ensure good sitting postures and regulating light among others. Consultancy loyalty has also been identified as one of the potential ethical issues that may arise. Basing on the fact Maximillian mobile technology limited is a reputable company, the hired consultancy firm may not vividly express and review the effectiveness of the company output. This may be regarded as effect of reputability of a business organization [6].

Stakeholders and Their Responsibilities

As the project nears its completion, the deployment process is one of the most important aspects that Maximillian mobile technology limited will undertake to ensure that there is effective output of the expected software. This encompasses many different process and procedures. In other words, the processes involved are executed in phases. From a lay man’s understanding, software deployment is the process of testing, reviewing and making of final adjustments of the software so that it can finally be put into use or handed over to the project owners. Among the several activities involved in deployment; it will include the following;

Release; this will occur immediately after the completion of the development process. In most circumstances, it is more vivid to refer to this process as part of the development phase. This is because it encompasses testing and making adjustments in reference to the feedback received by the testing parties. It implies that during this phase, the software will still be under development as it is subject to adjustments. The phase involves determining the assembly requirements and other resources needed for the software to run effectively and optimistically in a particular defined context [7].

Installation and activation phase; subsequently after the release phase is complete, the installation phase will follow, which encompasses running of short commands, scripts and the required services needed for the execution of the software. Alongside the commands, configuration of the system requirements and determining the system usability.

Deactivation and uninstallation process; this is the process of uninstalling or shutting down any already installed application. Just as other phases, there will be trial uninstallation to determine its ability in installing and installing from the system. This will be important in determining the software’s ability to integrate an update or simply uninstalling and reinstalling when there is need for an update

Updates and Built in updates; this is the process of absolutely or partly removing part of the software and replacing it with a newer version. In this phase, the developers will determine if the application can automatically execute this process or it requires manual assistance. Some applications have an automated execution process integrated in the application that permits an automatic update. In this essence, the project executors will aim at having a complete automated system that will permit such integration for updates.

Version tracking; this is streamlined towards allowing the users to find and install the latest updates of the software. This may be part of the software catalogue store versions and is important in determining each software package available the in the system. For the case of mobile applications like the android operating system, the team will aim at having a standardized tracker and installer for the application (Xia, & Mao, 2016, p.1680).

Internal Stakeholders and Their Responsibilities/Interests

Adaptation; this marks the final phase of the deployment process. It a process in where the software system can be modified for adaptability to different user interphase. This tests for the software ability in multi-switching of environment and operating systems. Furthermore, it also caters for the network adjustment abilities for example how it works in strong and weak networks. This may precisely be referred to as optimization ability [7]

This marks the final closing phase of the project management process.  It is in this phase that all the project management team players/ members come together to hand over their deliverable to the project manager and the manager hands it over to the final client/ organization. in accordance to the codes of project management, this phase marks a successful project and therefore implies that it is in this phase Maximillian mobiles technology limited will hand over to the business organization. During this phase, a party may also be organized to celebrate the successful completion of the assigned project [8]

After all the project activities have been executed and implemented, there will be a review of the whole process involved in the project. This will be right from the project initiation to its completion. This is aimed at identifying the project strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. In so doing, further adjustments will be made in compliance to the management report. This will be undertaken by the project manager to help in in other future projects. In other words, the report compiled by the project manager works as a point of reference, of how to undertake, mitigate and execute related projects with minimal pitfalls. Furthermore, a report will be submitted to the project owners/ organization to help them in also for future reference [8].

As a result of the review, it is absolute that the weaknesses and strengths of the project have been identified and hence, recommendations will be made basing on the results of the review. Recommendations regarding risk mitigation, ethical issues, communication and general project executions are made.

References

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