Assignment

There are various ways of forecasting the schedule and cost of a project. You know that the forecasting techniques that you use and their accuracy will affect the CIO's perspective on your work. Your CIO would now like for you to address the following issues in a presentation for the various staff members involved in the project:

• What are the advantages of inflating a project based on PERT estimating or incorporating risk?
• What are the disadvantages of inflating a project based on PERT estimating or incorporating risk?
• How does this technique compare with estimating or forecasting techniques you have used in the past?

Your organization has just completed the Initiation Process for implementing an Email System Upgrade. It was identified in a recent meeting with management leaders from the Sales, Consulting and IT departments that the current email system is causing significant amount of business interruptions and must be updated immediately. You have been assigned the role of project manager to develop the project schedule and budget. As project manager, you are responsible for implementing and enforcing the project schedule and its estimates, expected costs, and the techniques and methods that will be chosen to execute and control the project. The project is being initiated with the following initial project scope in mind:

• There are five email systems currently being used across twelve departments and offices. These will be replaced and consolidated into one email system.

• New Email Standards and Protocols will be established and training provided to all departments.

• All 2000 current email users will be converted to the new system, and 500 new users that did not have email before will be added.

• Users will have both LAN and remote access to email.

• Help desk and support infrastructure will be set-up to accommodate the new system.

• Equipment will be salvaged.

User PCs will be upgraded to accommodate the new email system.