Project Selection For Widget 'R Us Sustainability

Alternatives for Achieving Organizational Goals

(Table 5: Binder 2016)

Widget ‘R Us (WRU) is a firm known having expertise in manufacturing and designing of widget.  Globalization has changed the market scenario where the demands for developing widgets have increased significantly.  WRU has been lagging behind and has been unable to keep up with the change in demand in the market. The market has become dynamic and the company products are slow to respond and the competitors have developed innovative products. The organization has been unable to take counter measures and forecast the change in product specifications.  The organization is also facing internal issues as well where the internal communication is poor. The majority of the information goes to the higher authorities that have authority on the specific information. The team work between departments is worse and each department blames other department for problem faced by WRU. Therefore, the organization will have to develop a project in order to mitigate the internal issues and the technical issues faced by the organization.  

The current approaches, existing products, technologies are relevant to the new products as the organizational approaches are inadequate and they lack in innovation and technology. The organization has been known for their low cost servings and in order to improve their operational efficiency the organization will have to use the new approaches and technologies used by rival companies (Schwalbe  2015). The organization requires drastic change in their organizational policy and their product specifications so present approaches, existing products and technologies in the market are a key to maintaining organizational sustainability.

Criteria	Weight	Project 1		Project 2		Project 3
		raw	weighted	raw	weighted	raw	weighted
Relevancy to organizations objectives	30%	95	28.5	95	28.5	55	16.5
Well developed Internal support	15%	75	11.25	85	12.75	45	6.75
Potential market(large)	10%	40	4	95	9.5	55	5.5
Relevancy and realism of technology	10%	30	3	85	8.5	50	5
Can be implemented in six months	5%	25	1.25	30	1.5	50	2.5
Addresses the organizational issues	25%	40	10	60	15	50	12.5
Low level of risk	10%	20	2	20	2	50	5
Weighted project scores	100%	60		77.75		53.75

(Table 1: Summerville, Uzsoy and Gaytán 2015)

In this current business case, there are three alternatives to achieving the goals of the organization and managing their sustainability.

Objective	To develop widgets that are at par with the products offered by the competitors and mitigate the internal structural and communicational issues
Alternatives	Description
#Project 1: To outsource the technology services to meet the client needs and hire new workforce.	According to the first project, the organization will outsource their technological requirements in areas they are lacking and make drastic changes to the exiting workforce all levels.
#Project 2: To invest in superior technology, talent management and organizational structure to bring about a drastic change	The organization will make investment in technology to develop widgets that are superior to the products offered by the market competitors and restructure the organization to develop better communication and efficiency.
#Project 3: To form merger with rival company to manage the sustainability of WRU	The organization will form a merger with other rival companies in order to increase the availability of their resources.

Table 2

The project selection matrix has been instrumental in evaluating the alternative options in this business case.  The evaluation shows that project 2 is the appropriate project as the weighted score is highest in the project. The different criteria that are essential for the success and sustainability are set as the parameters of evaluation. The factors are relevancy to organizations objectives well developed Internal support, potential market(large), relevancy and realism of technology,  implementation in six months, addresses the organizational issues and  low level of risk which are key to gaining competitive advantage. The weight has been provided as per the importance of each of the criteria and rankings have been provided based on the ability of the project to address those criteria on a scale of 1-100. The cumulative weighted score of the projects are used to determine the project that is most appropriate for mitigating the issues faced by the organization.

Project Selection Matrix

The project selection matrix has been developed and the weighted score model has been used to calculate the feasibility of each of the projects. The results show that the project 2 has the highest weighted score so it is the project having maximum effectiveness in the organizational context.

This project will be developed to bring about transformational changes to the operations and products of Widget ‘R U (WRU).

The mission of the project is development widgets that are technologically superior in the market and restructuring of the organization to prevent loss of information and better management of the organization.

The project objectives consist of outcomes and results of the study. The objectives of the project are as follows:

• Developing technologically advanced widgets at low cost
• Restricting of the organization to increase the effectiveness of the management

The project requirements will consist of the specifications of the new organizational structure and the specifications of the new technologically advanced widget. The requirements of the project are as follows:

• Developing an flat hierarchical structure
• Increasing the  implementation speed
• Improving the communication level with the organization
• Develop packaging format for the new widget
• Develop configuration document for the new widget
• Develop Application programming interface for the widget
• Improve the user experience and standardize the few aspects of the user agents
• Develop effective security options along with digital signatures

Task Name	Duration	Start	Finish
Project plan	190 days	Tue 5/8/18	Mon 1/28/19
1.0 Project initiation	7 days	Tue 5/8/18	Wed 5/16/18
2.0 Change management	91 days	Thu 5/17/18	Thu 9/20/18
3.0 Preliminary design	31 days	Thu 5/17/18	Thu 6/28/18
4.0 Detailed Design	50 days	Fri 6/29/18	Thu 9/6/18
5.0 Configuration and Prototype development	37 days	Fri 9/7/18	Mon 10/29/18
6.0 Testing phase	35 days	Tue 10/30/18	Mon 12/17/18
7.0 Final product development	30 days	Tue 12/18/18	Mon 1/28/19

(Table 3: Kerzner and Kerzner 2017) 

The key performance indicators are the tools and techniques used to measure the performance of the project (Nicholas and Steyn 2017). The measurement and tracking of the key performance indicators are critical in order to evaluate the progress and deviation from the actual requirement. The key performance indicators in the project are as follows:

• Cycle time: The time taken for completion of each of the tasks in the project is essential for understanding the duration needed.
• Schedule Adjustments:  The number of adjustments made to the project schedule and finish date of the overall project.
• Budget Variance: The budget prepared in the project plan is the estimated budget and the actual budget in general varies. Therefore, baselines are set which will measure the variance from the projected budget.
• Quality metrics: This consists of measuring the different quality aspects of the products including the quality and errors of the products. The consumer feedback and their satisfaction regarding the product will also be evaluated.
• Returns:  The cost benefit analysis of the project and the actual returns from the project will have to be tallied to identify the return from the project.

The feasibility study of the project can be understood by evaluating the current capabilities of the organization in respect to the project. WRU is capable of investing the amount required for the project and the benefit obtained from the project is also high as it will help in reaching the desired target. The project has its own weaknesses and strengths but the project is realistic in nature and the organizational capabilities are well suited to the current project needs. The time span of the project and the cost of the project are within the organizational capabilities and weighted scoring model has shown that this project is appropriate for the organization and will facilitate in mitigating the issues faced by Widget ‘R U (WRU).

The strengths of the project are as follows:

• The project is addressing all the issues by Widget ‘R U (WRU)
• The project will transform the organizational activities and product to provided sustainability in the market
• The project will be completed within a affordable budget of the organization
• The project will establish better management of human resources within the organization

The weaknesses of the project are as follows:

• The widget will be developed according to the current consumer trends and market trends which can change at any point of time making the product redundant
• The project is not focused on innovation and product upgradation has not been taken into account

The project will require approval from the project owner, sponsor and the project board where they approve the requirement based on the requirements of the consumers. The project manager will also provide approval for proceeding with each of the phases of the tasks and the team manager will provide approvals for proceeding with each of the tasks.

Feasibility Study

The project assumptions are as follows:

• Project owner, sponsor and board has given approval of all the requirements of the project
• The other departments have been made aware of the purpose of the project so that the other departments and teams can align their work in respect to the project
• The code of conduct of the regulatory bodies will be taken into account before proceeding with the task
• The other departments will cooperate with the work that has to be done is case of additional help is required
• The software will be developed by taking into all the current market specifications

The constraints in the current project are as follows:

• The project has a time constraint of 200 days
• The project has a budget constraint of $45,000.00
• The project board has set a human resource constraint of 15 people
• The project will have to comply with the applications of Prince 2 in project management
• The widget requirements cannot be changed after the fourth phase of the project so the project team and the board will have to clear about the requirement of the project so that timeline can be maintained

The possible improvements in project are as follows:

• The goals of the project scan be made more realistic and accurate
• The resources can be harmonized in a better way
• The project scope can be made broader and address other grey areas if the budget is increased
• The organization can hire better talents for ensuring the success  of the project
• There are possible improvements in the field of fund seeking

Role	Responsibilities
Project manager	The project manager will monitor and approve the requirement of the project
project sponsor	The project sponsor will invest funds into the project
Project board	The project board will consist of the internal stakeholders of the organization that will assess the success of the project and will approve the requirements for the project.
Software Engineer	The software engineer will develop  the product
Software developer	The software developer will also take part in product development
Testing engineer	The testing engineer will test the products to find the irregularities in the project
Team manager	The team manager will manage the overall project team
Human resource manager	The human resource manager will implement the human resource policies and manage the workforce of the organization

(Table 4: Eskerod and Jepsen 2016)

The project will develop effective communication plan which will be essential for developing team work and team bonding (Harrison and Lock 2017). Moreover, this will prevent delay in approval and supply of essential components for the project.

Task Name	Duration	Start	Finish
1.5 Milestone 1: Project charter developed	0 days	Wed 5/16/18	Wed 5/16/18
2.9 Milestone 2: Change management achieved	0 days	Thu 9/20/18	Thu 9/20/18
3.9 Milestone 3: Design completed	0 days	Thu 6/28/18	Thu 6/28/18
4.8 Milestone 4: Widget developed	0 days	Thu 9/6/18	Thu 9/6/18
5.4 Milestone 5: Widget configured	0 days	Mon 10/29/18	Mon 10/29/18
6.4 Milestone 6: Product Tested	0 days	Mon 12/17/18	Mon 12/17/18
7.2 Milestone 7: Final Product developed	0 days	Mon 1/28/19	Mon 1/28/19

Task Name	Duration	Start	Finish
Project plan	190 days	Tue 5/8/18	Mon 1/28/19
1.0 Project initiation	7 days	Tue 5/8/18	Wed 5/16/18
1.1 Identify the project objectives	1 day	Tue 5/8/18	Tue 5/8/18
1.2 Discuss the project policies and specifications	2 days	Wed 5/9/18	Thu 5/10/18
1.3 Document policies and requirements	2 days	Fri 5/11/18	Mon 5/14/18
1.4 Deploy the project document	2 days	Tue 5/15/18	Wed 5/16/18
1.5 Milestone 1: Project charter developed	0 days	Wed 5/16/18	Wed 5/16/18
2.0 Change management	91 days	Thu 5/17/18	Thu 9/20/18
2.1 Identification of organizational loopholes	3 days	Thu 5/17/18	Mon 5/21/18
2.2 Restructuring the organizational hierarchy	15 days	Tue 5/22/18	Mon 6/11/18
2.3 Implement team bonding sessions	20 days	Tue 6/12/18	Mon 7/9/18
2.4 Ensure employee engagement	25 days	Tue 7/10/18	Mon 8/13/18
2.5 Revamp the performance management policies	20 days	Tue 8/14/18	Mon 9/10/18
2.6 Evaluate the new structure	5 days	Tue 9/11/18	Mon 9/17/18
2.7 Discuss with the stakeholders	2 days	Tue 9/18/18	Wed 9/19/18
2.8 Make the necessary changes if required	1 day	Thu 9/20/18	Thu 9/20/18
2.9 Milestone 2: Change management achieved	0 days	Thu 9/20/18	Thu 9/20/18
3.0 Preliminary design	31 days	Thu 5/17/18	Thu 6/28/18
3.1 Accessibility	2 days	Thu 5/17/18	Fri 5/18/18
3.2 Compatibility with other standards	2 days	Mon 5/21/18	Tue 5/22/18
3.2 Best industry practice	2 days	Wed 5/23/18	Thu 5/24/18
3.3 Ease of authoring	4 days	Fri 5/25/18	Wed 5/30/18
3.4 Localization and Internationalization	3 days	Thu 5/31/18	Mon 6/4/18
3.5 interoperability	7 days	Tue 6/5/18	Wed 6/13/18
3.6 longevity	3 days	Thu 6/14/18	Mon 6/18/18
3.7 security	5 days	Tue 6/19/18	Mon 6/25/18
3.8 Web and offline Distribution	3 days	Tue 6/26/18	Thu 6/28/18
3.9 Milestone 3: Design completed	0 days	Thu 6/28/18	Thu 6/28/18
4.0 Detailed Design	50 days	Fri 6/29/18	Thu 9/6/18
4.1 Packaging format	6 days	Fri 6/29/18	Fri 7/6/18
4.2 Media Type and File extension	4 days	Mon 7/9/18	Thu 7/12/18
4.3 resource names and addressing schemes	7 days	Fri 7/13/18	Mon 7/23/18
4.4 Widget meta data	6 days	Tue 7/24/18	Tue 7/31/18
4.5 Automated bootstrap	8 days	Wed 8/1/18	Fri 8/10/18
4.6 Widget API	9 days	Mon 8/13/18	Thu 8/23/18
4.7 Other functional requirements	10 days	Fri 8/24/18	Thu 9/6/18
4.8 Milestone 4: Widget developed	0 days	Thu 9/6/18	Thu 9/6/18
5.0 Configuration and Prototype development	37 days	Fri 9/7/18	Mon 10/29/18
5.1 Develop prototype	20 days	Fri 9/7/18	Thu 10/4/18
5.2 Identify specified user requirements	2 days	Fri 10/5/18	Mon 10/8/18
5.3 Configure as per user requirements	15 days	Tue 10/9/18	Mon 10/29/18
5.4 Milestone 5: Widget configured	0 days	Mon 10/29/18	Mon 10/29/18
6.0 Testing phase	35 days	Tue 10/30/18	Mon 12/17/18
6.1 Evaluate the performance of the prototype	18 days	Tue 10/30/18	Thu 11/22/18
6.2 identify irregularities	7 days	Fri 11/23/18	Mon 12/3/18
6.3 Make changes	10 days	Tue 12/4/18	Mon 12/17/18
6.4 Milestone 6: Product Tested	0 days	Mon 12/17/18	Mon 12/17/18
7.0 Final product development	30 days	Tue 12/18/18	Mon 1/28/19
7.1 Develop product	30 days	Tue 12/18/18	Mon 1/28/19
7.2 Milestone 7: Final Product developed	0 days	Mon 1/28/19	Mon 1/28/19

(Table 6: Kerzner 2018)

Task Name	Resource Names	Cost	Total Slack
Project plan		$39,528.00	0 days
1.0 Project initiation		$1,024.00	0 days
1.5 Milestone 1: Project charter developed		$0.00	0 days
2.0 Change management		$9,472.00	92 days
2.1 Identification of organizational loopholes	Human resource manager	$240.00	92 days
2.2 Restructuring the organizational hierarchy	Human resource manager, Project Manager	$2,640.00	92 days
2.3 Implement team bonding sessions	Human resource manager	$1,600.00	92 days
2.4 Ensure employee engagement	Human resource manager	$2,000.00	92 days
2.5 Revamp the performance management policies	Human resource manager	$1,600.00	92 days
2.6 Evaluate the new structure	Project Manager	$480.00	92 days
2.7 Discuss with the stakeholders	Human resource manager, Project Board, Project Manager	$832.00	92 days
2.8 Make the necessary changes if required	Human resource manager	$80.00	92 days
2.9 Milestone 2: Change management achieved		$0.00	92 days
3.0 Preliminary design		$2,976.00	0 days
3.1 Accessibility	Software developer, Software Engineer	$192.00	0 days
3.2 Compatibility with other standards	Software developer, Software Engineer	$192.00	0 days
3.2 Best industry practice	Software developer, Software Engineer	$192.00	0 days
3.3 Ease of authoring	Software developer, Software Engineer	$384.00	0 days
3.4 Localization and Internationalization	Software developer, Software Engineer	$288.00	0 days
3.5 interoperability	Software developer, Software Engineer	$672.00	0 days
3.6 longevity	Software developer, Software Engineer	$288.00	0 days
3.7 security	Software developer, Software Engineer	$480.00	0 days
3.8 Web and offline Distribution	Software developer, Software Engineer	$288.00	0 days
3.9 Milestone 3: Design completed		$0.00	0 days
4.0 Detailed Design		$9,256.00	0 days
4.1 Packaging format	Software developer, Software Engineer, Team Manager	$960.00	0 days
4.2 Media Type and File extension	Software developer, Software Engineer, Team Manager	$640.00	0 days
4.3 resource names and addressing schemes	Software developer, Software Engineer, Team Manager	$1,120.00	0 days
4.4 Widget meta data	Project Manager, Software developer, Software Engineer, Team Manager	$1,536.00	0 days
4.5 Automated bootstrap	Software developer, Software Engineer, Team Manager, Testing Engineer	$1,600.00	0 days
4.6 Widget API	Software developer, Software Engineer, Team Manager, Testing Engineer	$1,800.00	0 days
4.7 Other functional requirements	Software developer, Software Engineer, Team Manager	$1,600.00	0 days
4.8 Milestone 4: Widget developed		$0.00	0 days
5.0 Configuration and Prototype development		$6,520.00	0 days
5.1 Develop prototype	Software developer, Software Engineer, Team Manager	$3,200.00	0 days
5.2 Identify specified user requirements	Software developer, Software Engineer, Team Manager	$320.00	0 days
5.3 Configure as per user requirements	Software developer, Software Engineer, Team Manager, Testing Engineer	$3,000.00	0 days
5.4 Milestone 5: Widget configured		$0.00	0 days
6.0 Testing phase		$1,400.00	0 days
6.1 Evaluate the performance of the prototype	Testing Engineer	$720.00	0 days
6.2 identify irregularities	Testing Engineer	$280.00	0 days
6.3 Make changes	Testing Engineer	$400.00	0 days
6.4 Milestone 6: Product Tested		$0.00	0 days
7.0 Final product development		$8,880.00	0 days
7.1 Develop product	Project Manager, Software developer, Software Engineer, Team Manager, Testing Engineer	$8,880.00	0 days
7.2 Milestone 7: Final Product developed		$0.00	0 days

(Table 7: Fuller et al .2017)

This is the projected budget and real life prices have been taken into consideration. However, there are other complexities and processes which are involved in a ICT project which has not been taken into account in the report. The project will have to set baseline budget for each of the task so that budget limit can be controlled.

Policy/Directive/Standard/etc	Reference	Comment
Cost benefit analysis	Project management plan	The project will conduct the cost benefit analysis for identifying the feasibility of the study and will control the cost to gain profit.
Benchmarking	Scope Creep	The scope creep is a common phenomenon in IT projects so industry benchmarks will have to be set to measure the quality of the product.
Communication plan	Meetings	The communication plan will ensure that there is proper understanding between the team so that time is not wasted
Cost of quality	Quality metrics	The quality metric will measure the features of the software to identify the difference between the desired and the actual result
Timeline	Baseline time	The timeframe of the project is an important factor for the feasibility and sustainability of the organization.  The time frame will have to be measure on a regular basis for keep the project in track.

(Table 8: Martinelli and Milosevic 2016)

Type of risk	Risk Description	Probability			Impact			Risk reduction Strategy	Contingency Plan
		High	Medium	Low	Performance	Cost	Time
Internal	Scope creep	yes			yes	yes	yes	The software will have to be tested in all phases. Moreover, the changes in the requirement cannot be made after the third phase and all the changes have to be made before that.	The project manager can use agile methodology in place of waterfall model. This will enable to add and change requirements till the last phase of the project.
Internal	Delay in time frame due to poor team work		yes				yes	The project manager will have to develop an effective communication plan which would enhance communication in both ways.	The project manager will have to  develop a buffer time for each of the activities so that unexpected hindrance has minimum effect on the project.
Internal	Delay in the testing phase		yes		yes			The testing phase will be delayed if there are lot of irregularities in the product quality has to be monitored and maintained at all phases	The use of agile methodology will solve the issue as the changes can be made in the next phase of the project.

(Table 9: Tomanek and Juricek 2015)

The make or buy analysis of the project shows that product development is more feasible than product outsourcing. The organization is known for their cheap services and outsourcing of the products will drastically increase the cost of their products. The cost of outsourcing the project to developing countries could have been beneficial for large scale and medium organizations (Battista et al. 2017). However, as WRU is a medium scale organization it would not be problematic for the organization to outsource the product. Therefore, outsourcing the development of their widget could provide them with the best possible result in the current situation.

Conclusion 

Thus, it can be concluded from the report that effective project management plan has been developed which will be used for restricting of the organization and developing a Widget that is equivalent to the products offered to the market. The project schedule, deliverables, milestones, risks and quality control metrics have been defined in the report.

References

Battista, F., Camacho, Y.M., Hernández, S., Bensaid, S., Herrmann, A., Krause, H., Trimis, D. and Fino, D., 2017. LCA evaluation for the hydrogen production from biogas through the innovative BioRobur project concept. International Journal of Hydrogen Energy, 42(19), pp.14030-14043.

Binder, J., 2016. Global project management: communication, collaboration and management across borders. Routledge.

Eskerod, P. and Jepsen, A.L., 2016. Project stakeholder management. Routledge.

Fuller, M.A., Valacich, J.S., George, J.F. and Schneider, C., 2017. Information Systems Project Management: A Process and Team Approach, Edition 1.1. Prospect Press.

Harrison, F. and Lock, D., 2017. Advanced project management: a structured approach. Routledge.

Kerzner, H. and Kerzner, H.R., 2017. Project management: a systems approach to planning, scheduling, and controlling. John Wiley & Sons.

Kerzner, H., 2018. Project management best practices: Achieving global excellence. John Wiley & Sons.

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

Nicholas, J.M. and Steyn, H., 2017. Project management for engineering, business and technology. Taylor & Francis.

Schwalbe, K., 2015. Information technology project management. Cengage Learning.

Summerville, N., Uzsoy, R. and Gaytán, J., 2015. A random keys genetic algorithm for a bicriterion project selection and scheduling problem. International Journal of Planning and Scheduling, 2(2), pp.110-133.

Tomanek, M. and Juricek, J., 2015. Project risk management model based on PRINCE2 and SCRUM frameworks. arXiv preprint arXiv:1502.03595.