Social Media Research Centre-Application Development

Title of the Project

Social Media Research Centre – Application Development

Details of the Project Manager

Name of the Project Manager: PrMr

Email Address of the Project Manager: PrMr@smrc.com

Project Duration

The duration of the project will be a maximum of 8 Months.

High Level Project Budget

The allocated budget for the execution and completion of the project activities will be AUD 50,000.

The setting up of the social media research centre along with the development of its application will be comprised of several project activities. The cost categories that will be involved will include the ones associated with application design and development, cost of the project resources, tool costs along with testing and closure costs (Focacci, 2011).

Project Objectives

The application that will be developed for social media research centre will be done in the form of a web portal which will be a web site. The project would aim at development of the web site as per the expectations of the research students and staff members such as professors, guides and mentors. The web site shall allow all of the users to take complete advantage of the information that will be put across by the web site under several research areas and research topics (Mallery, 2011).

High Level Scope of the Project

• Ability to allow the end users with the ability to access research details such as research information, topics, past work done and likewise on a single platform.
• Ability to allow the end users to gain entry to the web site by allowing them to log in to the same.
• The application shall be comprised of the updated research details at all times.
• The application for social media research centre shall be composed of the system qualities such as reliability, supportability, adaptability and performance.

Project Deliverables

• Project Charter: A detailed report focusing upon the details of the initiation phase such as high level scope of the project, key assumptions, limitations, constraints and Measurable Organization value (MOV)
• Communication Plan: A detailed report on the communication methods and techniques that will be followed during the project timeline (Cho, 2016)
• Project Plan: A detailed planning document focusing upon the information covered in the planning phase such as resource management, risk management, scope management, time and cost management.
• Application Code: It would be the source code of the application that is the web site for social media research centre
• Application Design: It would be the design aspects of the application that is the web site for social media research centre
• Defect Report: This report will list out the defects that will be detected during the testing phase and will include the defect name, defect description, defect status and priority.
• Completion Report: This deliverable will mark the end of the project and it will elaborate all the activities that will be completed in the project.

Benefits of the Project to the Organization

There will be numerous benefits of the project for the organization as the customer base of the same will grow with the services offered by the application that will be developed during the project. The application will offer qualities such as availability and usability which will enhance the performance and the same will also allow the organization to gain a competitive edge in the market (Dutot, 2016).

Limitations

There are some of the areas and tasks that will not come under project responsibilities and activities. Any of the tasks related with third-party dealings and supplier or vendor negotiations, contract management and likewise will not be included. Also, the project lifecycle will not include the activities around advertising and marketing.

Measurable Organizational Value: MOV

Impacted Areas

• Organization – The most impacted area will be the organization itself as it will be able to generate new values in the market and will also become capable of providing enhanced services to the customers.
• Customer – The next most impacted area will be the customers as they will be able to experience services of better quality.
• Social – The impact on the social aspects will also be quite significant as there will be numerous entities that will be associated with the project and the organization such as external vendors, suppliers, partners and many more.
• Financial – Financial aspect will also have an impact as the costs will come down in the areas of operation and resources.
• Strategy – Adaptation of the automated systems will also impact the strategy that would be followed in the organization.

Values

MOV Metric

Acceptance Criteria of the Project

• The deliverables that will be provided in the project will be provided on the following dates.
• Project Charter: 2^nd May 2017
• Communication Plan: 1^st June 2017
• Project Plan: 1^st June 2017
• Application Design: 112^th July 2017
• Application Code: 11^th September 2017
• Defect Report: 17^th October 2017
• Completion Report:1^st December 2017
• The entire project has to be completed in a period of eight months.
• The entire project activities shall be finished under the budget of AUD 50,000.

Assumptions & Constraints of the Project

• The entire project has to be completed in a period of eight months.
• The entire project activities shall be finished under the budget of AUD 50,000.
• Availability of the resources will be in accordance with the required effort with resource availability as 45 hours per week.
• Project Sponsor will provide the specifications and requirements along with the funds for the project.

Stakeholder List

• Project Owner/Sponsor
• Partners of the Project
• Research Students and Staff
• Project Manager
• System Developer
• System Designer
• Application Tester
• Implementation Engineer
• Technical Analyst

Lessons Learned

There have been instances in the past that the similar projects have not been able to achieve their business objectives due to occurrences associated with a number of project risks in terms of the time, cost and resources. Such occurrences have had severe negative impacts on the projects and have also impacted their delivery and completion (Nelson, 2005).

There will be measures that will be taken in this case in order to make sure that the risks, deviations and delays may be prevented and avoided at every stage. One of the major steps that will be taken towards it would be testing of the project activities all throughout the lifecycle of the project which is otherwise included after the development phase. Also, there will be evaluations that will be carried out by the management and technical experts to make sure that the progress is being made as per the specified techniques and methods (Maravilhas, 2016).

Charter Sign Off

The sign on the project charter will be provided by the sponsor of the project

Name:

Signature:

Communication Plan

Purpose of the Plan

The primary purpose of the plan will be to come up with approach and strategies in association with internal and external communication so that an integrated framework of human and non-human resources is formed for the success of the project. The plan would contribute in the removal of ambiguities and enhancement of understanding of the resources.  

Stakeholders Identification

Project Sponsor/Owner

The communications with the Project Sponsor will be enhanced as the sponsor will be made available with the status report of the project on a weekly basis. This report will be sent by the Project Manger and it will comprise of the project status, list of defects and overall progress made during the week. Also, there will be discussions in the form of weekly meetings with the sponsor on the progress and other details (Williams, & Lewis, 2008).

Project Resources

The resources of the project will be the prime entities that will be involved with the project and the success of the project will also depend upon these resources. There will be modes of communication that will be provided for internal discussions and external discussions to the project resources.

Partners

The primary discussion and passage of information to the partners of the organization and the project will be provided by the sponsor. The major discussions will take place with the representative of the internal resources as the Project Manager.

End Users

The end users will be made available with the end product in the form of a developed web application and alerts will be created upon the completion of the same (Papulova, 2016).

Information Sharing

Communication will be essential for sharing the information as well as the information will flow between the internal as well as external entities. The internal project resources will be provided with the shared information associated with the various aspects of the project such as specifications, cost, schedule, tracking of resources, guidelines, methodologies and likewise.

The external entities will be mainly interested in the project progress and the status along with the main defects that will be encountered.

Information Exchange - Frequency

• The status of the project will be communicated with exchange of the status reports internally and externally. The internal exchange will be done daily and the external exchange will be done weekly.
• Information on the progress, conflicts and disputes will be exchanged internally through team meetings and team discussions that will take place daily in the morning. External meetings will occur between Project Manager and Project Sponsor at the end of the week.
• There may also be occurrence of risks or priority work during the project which will be discussed and exchanged with immediate meetings.

Information Exchange – Location

External communication will take place with sponsor and partners over the emails, tele-conferencing mediums and the files will be shared by placing them on the SharePoint location.

Internal communications will take place through emails, phone conversations and audio or video conferencing as well.

Purpose of Communication

The primary purpose of project communications will be to come up with approach and strategies in association with internal and external communication so that an integrated framework of human and non-human resources is formed for the success of the project. Communication activities would contribute in the removal of ambiguities and enhancement of understanding of the resources (Wilson, 2004).

Communication Mechanism

There are several mechanisms that can be used in the project for enhancement of the communication platforms. Internal communications will be completed with the aid of modes such as emails, phones and teleconferencing mediums with in-person meetings in the organization meeting rooms.

The external communication mechanisms that will be used will include teleconferencing and emails.

Change Management

There may be a number of changes that may come up during the project lifecycle at any of the project stages. It is often observed that these changes lead to a lot of re-work and involvement of too many resources during the project. It is therefore essential to come up with the methodologies and preparation efforts to handle these changes with perfection and with the ability to incorporate them with ease.

The change management approach that will be followed in this project will include the phased and step by step approach. The changes will be defined in the form of change request document approved by the project owner or sponsor. The document will describe the change and its requirement along with the resources that will be required in the same. The resource allocation will then be performed followed by implementation of the changes (Brady, 2008).

Meeting Agenda

Meetings will be essential during the project lifecycle and will have significance internally as well as externally.

These meeting that will be conducted internally and externally will have the following agenda:

• The meetings shall be conducted in order to understand the project progress along with the status of the project.
• The meetings shall aim at the resolution of the conflicts and disputes associated with the project.
• The meeting shall aim at the problem solving and decision making abilities along with the creation of new concepts and ideas.
• The meetings shall involve active participation from the project resources and shall be facilitated by the Project Manager.
• The meetings shall include the use of polite tone even in discussion and explanation of the associated project conflict or any matter of dispute.
• The meetings shall be conducted as per the ethical and professional codes of conduct.
• The meetings shall be conducted in order to enhance the project quality along with that of the activities involved in the project.

References

Brady, M. (2008). Analysis of a public sector organizational unit using strategic and operational analysis tools. Knowledge And Process Management, 15(2), 140-149. https://dx.doi.org/10.1002/kpm.305

Cho, S. (2016). Raising Seoul's global competitiveness: developing key performance indicators. Journal Of Public Affairs. https://dx.doi.org/10.1002/pa.1628

Dutot, V. (2016). Social media and business intelligence: defining and understanding social media intelligence. Journal Of Decision Systems, 25(3), 191-192. https://dx.doi.org/10.1080/12460125.2016.1187704

Focacci, A. (2011). Corporate Social Responsibility performance assessment by using a linear combination of key indicators. International Journal Of Business Governance And Ethics, 6(2), 183. https://dx.doi.org/10.1504/ijbge.2011.039968

Mallery, M. (2011). Project Management Portal (PMP) from the University of Washington Information Technology Wiki - https://wiki.cac.washington.edu/display/pmportal/Project+Management+Portal. Technical Services Quarterly, 28(3), 365-367. https://dx.doi.org/10.1080/07317131.2011.574546

Maravilhas, S. (2016). Social Media Intelligence for Business. International Journal Of Organizational And Collective Intelligence, 6(4), 19-44. https://dx.doi.org/10.4018/ijoci.2016100102

Nelson, J. (2005). Corporate governance practices, CEO characteristics and firm performance. Journal Of Corporate Finance, 11(1-2), 197-228. https://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jcorpfin.2003.07.001

Papulova, Z. (2016). Role of Strategic Analysis in Strategic Decision-Making. Procedia Economics And Finance, 39, 571-579. https://dx.doi.org/10.1016/s2212-5671(16)30301-x

Williams, W., & Lewis, D. (2008). Strategic management tools and public sector management. Public Management Review, 10(5), 653-671. https://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14719030802264382

Wilson, A. (2004). How process defines performance management. International Journal Of Productivity And Performance Management, 53(3), 261-267. https://dx.doi.org/10.1108/17410400410523792