This Assessment are to be completed using the Virtucon & Globex Scenario.
After your team agreed on a team name and identified all of the contact details of your team members, address the following points and present them in a professional looking document:
Learning cycles give structure to your team meetings and accountability for when you and your team work outside of the meeting schedule.
Firstly, prior to your next meeting, assign roles to the team. There should only be two central roles – the organiser and the scribe:
• Organiser – organises the meeting by writing down the team’s ideas and then distributes them to the team for feedback.
• Scribe – documents the ideas and action points going forward.
Note: Roles should be rotated for each meeting and assigned so that everyone on the team has equal responsibility.
As a team, brainstorm and identify all stakeholders to the project. Then individually, develop an appropriate communication plan.
Write a brief reflection of no more than 300 words of your team work experience in this subject. To guide your reflection you should address the following questions:
Part 1
Project name: I-Crop Project Management
Team Name: HiTech IT Group
|
First Name
|
Last Name
|
Mobile
|
Email
|
Project description: Background and overview of the project with brief description
Presently, there exists many vendors providing Information Technology (IT) solutions, for example, Amazon and oracle. Therefore, implementing recent technologies in companies such as cloud computing has become much easy (Gong, Liu, Zhang, Chen & Gong, 2010). For instance, concerning Globex corporation, most of its IT solutions has been implemented by Virtucon company. Hence, it has contracted Virtucon to develop an online platform – I-Crop. Globex is situated in Riverina Region of NSW. Besides, it has 3 locations Albury, Griffith and Wagga Wagga. It deals with buying of grains from customers as well as growing. Its main reason of developing a platform is to bring growers and buyers together. Recently, it has opened new office at Orange aiming at providing better services in Central West. Moreover, it has described explicitly several transactions that the proposed platform need to facilitate, for instance, offers and bids. Regarding transaction types, the platform should be able to support pay on delivery, which allows payment after delivering of grains to buyers and cash transactions. Furthermore, information sources consist of the following; price and grain silo site information. In addition, system can be accessed freely as a mobile phone application or web browser. My team that is made up of 4 individuals has been tasked with developing proposed platform. Therefore, the main purpose of this paper is to describe entire steps involved in development of proposed online platform; including costs incurred.
|
Skills & knowledge inventory
|
Member 1
|
|
<Leadership skills, project management skills, knowledge in high level programming languages, for example, java and C, knowledge in web programming, knowledge in configuration of devices, knowledge in designing applications (Claro et al., 2012)>
|
|
Member 2
|
|
<Writing skills, empathy skills, designing skills, knowledge in methods of gathering data such as questionnaire and observation, knowledge in drawing diagrammatic representations such as UML (Claro et al., 2012)>
|
|
Member3
|
|
<Listening skills, writing skills, decision making skills, knowledge in web programming, knowledge in designing software such as AutoCAD, knowledge in high level languages such as java (Eisenberg, Johnson & Berkowitz, 2010)>
|
|
Member4
|
|
<technical skills, evaluation skills, knowledge in devices configuration, knowledge in data storage, knowledge in software testing, knowledge in risk management, knowledge in system maintenance (Eisenberg et al., 2010)>
|
|
Roles and Responsibilities
|
Member 1
|
|
<Monitoring entire processes involved such as data collection, design and testing, leading other team members to carry on with their tasks effectively, ensuring hassle-free co-ordination between team members (Whatley, 2012)>
|
|
Member 2
|
|
<Listing all activities involved while developing application, sketching all diagrammatic representation of system requirements and functionality especially UML diagrams, ensuring that activities are completed within a specified time (Whatley, 2012)>
|
|
Member3
|
|
<Listing all completed tasks in conjunction with tasks to be performed at a specified time, involved in all design processes such as defining requirements, preliminary and actual designs using software such as AutoCAD, coding using programming languages such as C# (Whatley, 2012)>
|
|
Member4
|
|
<Involved in both verification and validation, therefore, making sure that developed system has met all customer requirements, ensuring that necessary change has been incorporated incase customer has requested for the same (Whatley, 2012)>
|
|
Team communications
|
Week-5
|
|
9am-6pm. Motel 24.
|
|
Week-6
|
|
3pm-10pm. Globe Apartments.
|
|
Week-7
|
|
8am-4pm. Albury Manor House.
|
|
|
Communication and sharing methods; google hangouts and team viewer (Cochrane & Keegan, 2012).
|
|
Team rules & expectations (team values, code of ethics, rules & expectations)
|
|
|
|
Team values
|
<Empathy, better decision making, integrity, teamwork, knowledge sharing, dependability, efficiency, respect, motivation (Warren & Lucas, 2016)>
|
|
Code of ethics
|
<Understanding system requirement, delete flawed data, develop high quality system, consider public interest, inform customer in case there are some difficulties in implementing some requirements, reject bribery, assigning duties basing on competence, being responsible for any defects (Warren & Lucas, 2016)>
|
|
Rules and expectations
|
<Team members should be consistent, thus delivering quality work, team members are required to inform project manager of their absence in any meeting, all members must be consulted before anything is approved, all members must take responsibility in case there are some errors in delivered work, all team members are required to participate actively in all processes (Warren & Lucas, 2016)>
|
|
|
previous experience as team
|
Member1
|
From my previous experience, teamwork helps members to develop problem solving skills. However, unequal involvement is a major problem I’ve encountered while working as a team.
|
|
member
|
|
|
|
Member 2
|
From my previous experience, teamwork helps members in developing skills in their areas of study as work is allocated basing on skills. On the other hand, team work encourages laziness as some members depend on others.
|
|
Member 3
|
From my previous experience, teamwork enhances learning as information can be shared among members. However, it encourages rivalry as some members may try to outshine others.
|
|
Member 4
|
From my previous experience, teamwork results in new ideas as members tries to find new ways of solving problems encountered. However, it results in blaming game in case some problems arise, thus leading to conflicts.
|
|
Signatures
|
Member1
|
<>
|
|
Member2
|
<>
|
|
Member3
|
<>
|
|
Member4
|
<>
|
|
Week-5
|
Organiser
|
Scribe
|
|
|
What should be done?
Estimating total costs using several methods, for example, pricing to win and estimation by analogy, determining requirements of proposed application (Abrahamsson, Salo, Ronkainen & Warsta, 2017).
|
What was done?
Total costs for project development was approximated to about 3000 U.S. dollars, requirements were documented, which formed a basis of specification, drawing of several diagrams; use cases and class diagrams regarding system functionality, thus enhancing easy understanding about the application.
|
|
Week-6
|
Organiser
|
Scribe
|
|
|
What should be done?
Coding of proposed system, which consists of both designing and coding concurrently using designing software and high-level programming languages, for example, AutoCAD and C# respectively (Abrahamsson et al., 2017).
|
What was done?
Application was developed in accordance with requirement documentation that was created in week 5. Also, object-oriented approaches such as analysis and design were used to enhance easy accommodation of necessary changes.
|
|
Week-7
|
Organiser
|
Scribe
|
|
|
What should be done?
Configuration of system developed in week 5; including connecting it to the database that we developed using MySQL, testing functionality of developed application (Abrahamsson et al., 2017).
|
What was done?
Configuration of devices, testing configured application, hence ensuring that it is satisfying customer needs and has met specification.
|
Stakeholders to the project
|
Stakeholder name
|
Information to be shared
|
Frequency of information exchange
|
Location of information exchange
|
Purpose of communication
|
Mechanism
(hard copy,
PDF, PPT,
DOC)
|
|
Who
|
what
|
when
|
Where
|
Why
|
How
|
|
System user both internal and external such as IT personnel and grain buyers respectively (Abelein, Sharp & Paech, 2013).
|
Software requirements
|
Held meetings
weekly.
|
Motel 24
|
Ensuring that developed application can solve problem at hand, ensuring that interphase is simple, thus easing understanding
|
DOC
|
|
System designers (Abelein, Sharp & Paech, 2013).
|
System architectural designs
|
Held meetings after every two weeks
|
The Houston Wagga
|
Ensuring that application is designed basing on specification, ensuring that best architectural patterns such as client-server architecture has been used.
|
PPT
|
|
Security administrators (Wallach & Scholz, 2012).
|
System security
|
Held meetings monthly
|
Globe Apartments
|
Ensuring that recent technologies in data security such as VPN has been integrated correctly, thus enhancing overall security of the system.
|
PDF
|
|
Support team (Wallach & Scholz, 2012).
|
Maintenance
|
Held a meeting after two months
|
Victoria hotel
|
Ensuring that system developed can be maintained easily, therefore; reducing maintenance costs.
|
PPT
|
Reflection
Leadership Qualities to Successfully Lead a Project
Leadership skills consists of character traits of a team leader that can enable him to successfully lead a project. It’s essential in project management (Sunindijo, 2015). I’ve lead several teams previously and afterwards, identified crucial leadership skills, for instance, communication skills are vital as it enables project manager to issue directives clearly. Also, a project manager should have organizational skills, therefore; planning activities and strategies (Sunindijo, 2015). Apart from organizational skills, decision-making skills is equally important as it enhances better ways on which problems can be solved. Besides, a project manager should be able to put himself in other people’s shoe, thus empathy is also vital. Moreover, a project manager should have trust and be confident that his/her team can deliver quality work, hence confidence is also a necessity of a good project manager. In addition, perseverance is also essential as it creates stress-free working environment and better solutions to overcome obstacles (Skulmoski & Hartman, 2010).
Other than leadership skills, I’ve also identified some methods and techniques that can enable a project manager to lead a project successfully, for instance, planning of activities is important as it forms basis to which project management methodology can be used (Balaji & Murugaiyan, 2012). Therefore, it’s a necessity for a project manager to understand existing methods and techniques used in system development. For instance, the following are some of the common methods used; agile and waterfall methodologies, which can be differentiated with the ways on which activities are organized. Agile method enables different activities to take place concurrently, for example, requirements collection and design. It is guided with different principles such as accommodating change and small releases (Balaji & Murugaiyan, 2012). On the contrary, waterfall method involves determining all requirements that are required before starting design process. Other methods include; scrum and lean.
Conclusion
Concluding, working as a team has some advantages and disadvantages as evidenced from previous experience of members involved in development of I-Crop, for instance, some of its advantages consist of the following; enhancing creativity as new ideas for solving problems are developed as well as learning. On the other hand, some of its disadvantages include the following; blaming game and laziness. Regarding I-Crop project, I encountered several problems, for example, poor communication skills and incompetence. However, I applied different leadership skills and project management methodologies that resulted in leading I-Crop project successfully. Some of the skills and methods include organizational skills and agile method respectively.
References
Abelein, U., Sharp, H., & Paech, B. (2013). Does involving users in software development really influence system success? IEEE software, 30(6), 17-23.
Abrahamsson, P., Salo, O., Ronkainen, J., & Warsta, J. (2017). Agile software development methods: Review and analysis. arXiv preprint arXiv:1709.08439.
Balaji, S., & Murugaiyan, M. S. (2012). Waterfall vs. V-Model vs. Agile: A comparative study on SDLC. International Journal of Information Technology and Business Management, 2(1), 26-30.
Claro, M., Preiss, D. D., San MartíN, E., Jara, I., Hinostroza, J. E., Valenzuela, S., & Nussbaum, M. (2012). Assessment of 21st century ICT skills in Chile: Test design and results from high school level students. Computers & Education, 59(3), 1042-1053.
Cochrane, T., & Keegan, H. (2012). New global learning cultures: interdisciplinarity through networked technologies. AoIR Selected Papers of Internet Research, 2.
Eisenberg, M., Johnson, D., & Berkowitz, B. (2010). Information, communications, and technology (ICT) skills curriculum based on the Big6 skills approach to information problem-solving. Library Media Connection, 28(6), 24-27.
Gong, C., Liu, J., Zhang, Q., Chen, H., & Gong, Z. (2010, September). The characteristics of cloud computing. In Parallel Processing Workshops (ICPPW), 2010 39th International Conference on (pp. 275-279). IEEE.
Skulmoski, G. J., & Hartman, F. T. (2010). Information systems project manager soft competencies: A project-phase investigation. Project Management Journal, 41(1), 61-80.
Sunindijo, R. Y. (2015). Project manager skills for improving project management. International Journal of Business Performance Management, 16(1), 67-83.
Wallach, D., & Scholz, S. C. (2012). User-centered design: why and how to put users first in software development. In Software for people (pp. 11-38). Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg.
Whatley, J. (2012). Evaluation of a team project-based learning module for developing employability skills. Issues in Informing Science and Information technology 9(2012), 75-92.
Warren, M., & Lucas, R. (2016). Ethics and ICT: Why all the fuss? Journal of Information, Communication and Ethics in Society, 14(2), 167-169.
