Assignment -

Course Objectives

This assessment task relates to the following course objectives:
- Identify traditional and agile approaches and lifecycles for managing information technology projects;
- Employ a systems thinking approach to identify critical roles and stakeholders in information technology projects;
- Explain the basic components of a project management plan and its importance in improving the success of information technology projects;
- Adopt a project management framework to write a project management plan, for a simulated real world contemporary information technology project;
- Apply the process groups model to manage information technology projects of various complexities and scales;
- Demonstrate decision-making processes to solve a range of information technology project issues;
- Classify and discuss current issues in information technology project management;
- Value the importance of effective communication to solve problems on information technology projects; and
- Value the significance of software quality in it projects.

Overview
As stated by Schwalbe (2014) a project management plan (PMP) is a document used to coordinate all project planning documents and helps to guide a project's execution and control. She also states that a good PMP is vital to the coordination and integration of information across project management knowledge areas and across the organisation.

In this assignment, you will work in teams of 2-3 people to produce a PMP, a description of updates to the PMP and related documents and a record of your experiences working in the team. The teams will be assigned by your lecturer and will be based on your tutorial/laboratory classes. There will be time allocated in the tutorial/laboratory to work on this assignment. One team member is to be elected the project manager for the duration of the project. Teams are expected to meet regularly - at least once a week - and prepare a PMP based on the IT project case study on page 7. They are then expected to provide descriptions of changes to that PMP and related deliverables based on the sequence of events described in the case study. Teams should use their own initiative regarding the scheduling of all deliverables. Teams will NOT be required to produce ‘product related deliverables' as part of this assignment. The focus is primarily on ‘project management related deliverables'. However if an event would trigger a change to the product deliverables, it may be of assistance to the reader if you include information about that change. Finally over the course of the assignment, individuals are expected to record information about team meetings, their work and contributions and the contributions of others as well as reflect on their learning about project management through the completion of the assignment.

Requirements
Deliverables for this assessment are divided into three areas, a) Team PMP Deliverables; b) Team Project Update Descriptions Report; and c) Individual Report Deliverables. Following are detailed requirements of each.

Team PMP Deliverables:
It is recommended teams use the structure as suggested by Schwalbe (2014) as a guide for preparing and creating their PMP. PMP section headings include:
- Introduction
- Organisation
- Management and Technical approaches
- Work to Perform
- Schedule
- Budget

It is recommended that teams understand the inputs to the PMP and include reference to ancillary plans and deliverables from other knowledge areas (see Schwalbe (2014)).
You may use Microsoft Project or other tools to plan the project and include screen shots in your report.
A quality team PMP will demonstrate a synthesis of plan content, templates and ideas acquired from project management professionals and academic authors with details from the case study provided.

Team Project Update Descriptions Report
Each team needs to produce a report describing what needs to be done at each of the time points identified in the case study:
- Two weeks after project commencement;
- One month after project commencement;
- Four and a half months after project commencement; and
- Six months after project commencement

The report may be included as an Addendum to the baseline PMP and is to include for each time point:
- Description of the situation;
- Description of response to the situation;
- Summary of actions to be undertaken including:
o Processes followed/executed;
o Activities completed;
o Deliverables altered/produced;

Individual Report Deliverables:

Each student should submit a separate, individual report of approximately 800-1000 words including the following sections:
- Statement of Contribution
This statement should provide:
o a clear description of all roles and responsibilities taken on by the student;
o a table describing all project and assignment team deliverables created/altered by the student. The table should include:
o Deliverable Name;
o Description;
o Purpose; and
o Estimate (elapsed and expended) of how long each took to complete.

- Weekly Assignment Status Reports
Individual weekly status reports should be completed by each student, and submitted to team project managers' in team meetings. Copies of each student's weekly status reports should also be included with their individual report. A Status Report - ITECH2250_Weekly_Assignment3_status_report - accompanies this assignment document on Moodle.

- Peer Review of Assignment
A confidential statement estimating each team member's:
o contribution percentage (all team member values should total to 100%);
o justification of contribution percentage given;
o meetings attended;
o weekly status reports submitted;
o any issues and how they were dealt with.

- Project Management Lessons Learned in Assignment
A reflective statement documenting project management lessons learned whilst working on the assignment, including technical and non-technical lessons.

These lessons should include those aspects which worked particularly well, and also those which were problematic. Lessons Learned template - ITECH2250_PM_lessons_learned_in_Assignment3_report.doc - accompanies this assignment document on Moodle.

Attachment:- PMP Development.rar