CASE 1: MANAGE YOUR HEALTH 

Part 1: Project Integration Management

Manage Your Health, Inc. (MYH) is a Fortune 500 company that provides a variety of healthcare services across the globe. MYH has more than 20,000 full-time employees and more than 5,000 part-time employees. MYH recently updated its strategic plan; key goals include reducing internal costs, increasing cross-selling of products, and exploiting new Web-based technologies to help employees, customers, and suppliers work together to improve the development and delivery of healthcare products and services. Below are some ideas the IT department has developed for supporting these strategic goals:

1.      Recreation and Wellness Intranet Project: Provide an application on the current intranet to help employees improve their health. A recent study found that MYH, Inc. pays 20 percent more than the industry average for employee healthcare premiums, primarily due to the poor health of its employees. You believe that this application will help improve employee health within one year of its rollout so that you can negotiate lower health insurance premiums, providing net savings of at least $30/employee/year for full-time employees over the next four years. This application would include the following capabilities:

• Allow employees to register for company-sponsored recreational programs, such as soccer, softball, bowling, jogging, and walking.
• Allow employees to register for company-sponsored classes and programs to help them manage their weight, reduce stress, stop smoking, and manage other health-related issues.
• Track data on employee involvement in these recreational and health-management programs.
• Offer incentives for people to join the programs and do well in them (e.g., incentives for achieving weight goals, winning sports team competitions, etc.).

2.      Health Coverage Costs Business Model: Develop an application to track employee healthcare expenses and company healthcare costs. Healthcare premiums continue to increase, and the company has changed insurance carriers several times in the past

10 years. This application should allow business modeling of various scenarios as well as tracking and analyzing current and past employee healthcare expenses and company healthcare costs. This application must be secure and run on the current intranet so several managers and analysts can access it and download selected data for further analysis. The new application must also import data from the current systems that track employee expenses submitted to the company and the company's costs to the insurance provider. You believe that having this data will help you revise policies concerning employee contributions to healthcare premiums and help you negotiate for lower premiums with insurance companies. You estimate that this application would save your company about $20/employee/year for full-time employees over the next four years and cost about $100,000 to develop.

3.      Cross-Selling System: Develop an application to improve cross-selling to current customers. The current sales management system has separate sections for major product and service categories and different sales reps based on those products and services. You see great opportunities to increase sales to current customers by providing discounts when they purchase multiple products and services. You estimate that this system would increase profits by $1 million each year for the next three years and cost about $800,000 each year for development and maintenance.

4.      Web-Enhanced Communications System: Develop a Web-based application to improve development and delivery of products and services. There are currently several incompatible systems related to the development and delivery of products and services to customers. This application would allow customers and suppliers to provide suggestions, enter orders, view the status and history of orders, and use electronic commerce capabilities to purchase and sell their products. You estimate that this system would save your company about $2 million each year for three years after implementation. You estimate that the system will take one year and $3 million to develop and require 20 percent of development costs each year to maintain.

Tasks

1.      Summarize each of the proposed projects in the Running Case section using a simple table format suitable for presentation to top management. Include the name of each project, identify how each one supports business strategies, assess the potential financial benefits and other benefits of each project, and provide your initial assessment of the value of each project. Write your results in a one- to two-page memo to top management, including appropriate back-up information and calculations.

2.      Evaluate the four projects in the Running Case section by preparing a weighted scoring model using the template provided on the companion Web site for this text. Develop at least four criteria, assign weights to each criterion, assign scores, and then calculate the weighted scores. Print the spreadsheet and bar chart with the results. Also write a one-page paper that describes this weighted scoring model and the results.

3.      Prepare a business case for the recreation and wellness intranet project. Assume that the project will take six months to complete and cost about $200,000. Use the business case template provided on the companion Web site for this text.

4.      Prepare a project charter for the recreation and wellness intranet project. Assume that the project will take six months to complete and cost about $200,000. Use the project charter template provided in this text and the sample project charter provided in Table 4-1 as guides.

5.      Prepare a change request for the recreation and wellness intranet project, using the template provided on the companion Web site for this text. Be creative when making up information.

Part 2: Project Scope Management

Managers at Manage Your Health, Inc. (MYH) selected Tony Prince as the project manager for the Recreation and Wellness Intranet Project. The schedule goal is six months, and the budget is $200,000. Tony has previous project management and systems analysis experience within the company, and he is an avid sports enthusiast. Tony was starting to put the project team together. He knew he would have to develop a survey to solicit input from all employees about the new system and make sure it was user-friendly.

Recall from Chapter 4 that this system would include the following capabilities:

• Allow employees to register for company-sponsored recreational programs, such as soccer, softball, bowling, jogging, and walking.
• Allow employees to register for company-sponsored classes and programs to help them manage their weight, reduce stress, stop smoking, and manage other health-related issues.
• Track data on employee involvement in these recreational and health-management programs.
• Offer incentives for people to join the programs and do well in them (e.g., incentives for achieving weight goals, winning sports team competitions, etc.).

Assume that MYH would not need to purchase any additional hardware or software for the project.

Tasks

1.      Document your approach for collecting requirements for the project described in the Running Case section. Include at least five requirements in a requirements traceability matrix.

2.      Develop a first version of a project scope statement for the project. Use the template provided on the companion Web site for this text and the example in Chapter 3 as guides. Be as specific as possible in describing product characteristics and requirements, as well as all of the project's deliverables. Be sure to include testing and training as part of the project scope.

3.      Develop a work breakdown structure for the project. Break down the work to Level 3 or Level 4, as appropriate. Use the template on the companion Web site and samples in this text as guides. Print the WBS in list form. Be sure the WBS is based on the project charter (created for the Chapter 4 Running Case), the project scope statement created in Task 2, and other relevant information.

4.      Use the WBS you developed in Task 3 to begin creating a Gantt chart using your choice of software. Do not enter any durations or dependencies. Print the resulting Gantt chart on one page, and be sure to display the entire Task Name column.

5.      Develop a strategy for scope validation and change control for this project. Write a short paper summarizing key points of the strategy.

Part 3: Project Time Management

Tony Prince is the project manager for the Recreation and Wellness Intranet Project. Team members include you, a programmer/analyst and aspiring project manager; Patrick, a network specialist; Nancy, a business analyst; and Bonnie, another programmer/analyst. Other people are supporting the project from other departments, including Yusaff from human resources and Cassandra from finance. Assume that these are the only people who can be assigned and charged to work on project activities. Recall that your schedule and cost goals are to complete the project in six months for under $200,000.

Tasks

1.      Review the WBS and Gantt chart you created for Tasks 3 and 4 in Chapter 5. Propose three to five additional activities that would help you estimate resources and durations. Write a one-page paper describing these new activities.

2.      Identify at least eight milestones for the Recreation and Wellness Intranet Project. Write a short paper describing each milestone using the SMART criteria. Discuss how determining these milestones might add activities or tasks to the Gantt chart. Remember that milestones normally have no duration, so you must have tasks that will lead to completing the milestone.

3.      Using the Gantt chart you created for Task 4 in Chapter 5 and the new activities and milestones you proposed in Tasks 1 and 2 above, create a new Gantt chart using Project 2013. Estimate the task durations and enter dependencies as appropriate. Remember that your schedule goal for the project is six months. Print the Gantt chart and network diagram, each on one page.

4.      Write a short paper summarizing how you would assign people to each activity from Tasks 1, 2, and 3. Include a table or matrix listing how many hours each person would work on each task. These resource assignments should make sense given the duration estimates made in Task 3 above. Remember that duration estimates are not the same as effort estimates because they include elapsed time.

Part 4: Project Cost Management

Tony Prince and his team are working on the Recreation and Wellness Intranet Project. They have been asked to refine the existing cost estimate for the project so they can evaluate supplier bids and have a solid cost baseline for evaluating project performance. Recall that your schedule and cost goals are to complete the project in six months for under $200,000.

Tasks

1.       Prepare and print a one-page cost model for the project described in the Running Case, similar to the model provided in Figure 7-2. Use the following WBS, and be sure to document your assumptions in preparing the cost model. Assume a labor rate of $100/hour for the project manager and $60/hour for other project team members. Assume that none of the work is outsourced, labor costs for users are not included, and there are no additional hardware costs. The total estimate should be $200,000.

1.       Project management

2.       Requirements definition

3.       Web site design

3.1     Registration for recreational programs

3.2     Registration for classes and programs

3.3     Tracking system

3.4     Incentive system

4.       Web site development

4.1     Registration for recreational programs

4.2     Registration for classes and programs

4.3     Tracking system

4.4     Incentive system

5.       Testing

6.       Training, rollout, and support

2.       Using the cost model you created in Task 1, prepare a cost baseline by allocating the costs by WBS for each month of the project.

3.       Assume that you have completed three months of the project. The BAC was $200,000 for this six-month project. You can also make the following assumptions:

PV = $120,000

EV = $100,000

AC = $90,000

a.       What is the cost variance, schedule variance, cost performance index (CPI), and schedule performance index (SPI) for the project?

b.      How is the project doing? Is it ahead of schedule or behind schedule? Is it under bud get or over budget?

c.       Use the CPI to calculate the estimate at completion (EAC) for this project. Is the project performing better or worse than planned?

d.      Use the SPI to estimate how long it will take to finish this project.

e.      Sketch an earned value chart using the preceding information. See Figure 7-5 as a guide.

Part 5: Project Quality Management

The Recreation and Wellness Intranet Project team is working hard to ensure that the new system they develop meets expectations. The team has a detailed scope statement, but the project manager, Tony Prince, wants to make sure they're not forgetting requirements that might affect how people view the quality of the project. He knows that the project's sponsor and other senior managers are most concerned with getting people to use the system, improve their health, and reduce healthcare costs. Users want the system to be user-friendly, informative, fun to use, and fast.

Tasks

1.       Develop a list of quality standards or requirements related to meeting the stakeholder expectations described in the Running Case. Also provide a brief description of each requirement. For example, a requirement might be that 90 percent of employees have logged into the system within two weeks after the system rolls out.

2.       Based on the list created for Task 1, determine how you will measure progress on meeting the requirements. For example, you might have employees log into the system as part of the training program and track who attends the training. You could also build a feature into the system to track usage by user name, department, and other criteria.

3.       After analyzing survey information, you decide to create a Pareto chart to see which types of recreational programs and company-sponsored classes generated the most interest. First, create a spreadsheet in Excel using the data in the following table. List the most frequently requested programs or classes first. Use the Excel template called pareto_chart.xls on the text's companion Web site and check your entries so the resulting chart looks similar to the one in Figure 8-7. See the companion Web site for help in creating Pareto charts.

Part 6: Project Human Resource Management

Several people working on the Recreation and Wellness Intranet Project are confused about their responsibilities for the testing portion of the project. Recall that the team members include you, a programmer/analyst and aspiring project manager; Patrick, a network specialist; Nancy, a business analyst; and Bonnie, another programmer/analyst. Tony Prince is the project manager, and he has been working closely with managers in other departments to make sure everyone knows what's going on with the project.

1.       Prepare a responsibility assignment matrix based on the following information: The main tasks for testing include writing a test plan, unit testing, integration testing for each of the main system modules (registration, tracking, and incentives), system testing, and user acceptance testing. In addition to the project team members, a team of user representatives is available to help with testing, and Tony has also hired an outside consulting firm to help as needed. Prepare a RACI chart to help clarify roles and responsibilities for these testing tasks. Document key assumptions you make in preparing the chart.

2.       The employees of the outside consulting firm and the user representatives have asked you to create a resource histogram to show how many people you think the project will need for testing, and to show when testing will occur. Assume that the consulting firm has junior and senior testers and that the user group has workers and managers. You estimate that you'll need the involvement of both groups in testing over a period of six weeks. Assume that you'll need one senior tester for all six weeks, two junior testers for the last four weeks, two user-group workers for the first week, four user-group workers for the last three weeks, and two user-group managers for the last two weeks. Create a resource histogram like the one in Figure 9-6 based on this information.

3.       One of the issues in Tony's issue log is the ability to work effectively with the user group during testing. According to MBTI classifications, Tony knows that several of his project team members are very introverted and strong thinking types, while several members of the user group are very extroverted and strong feeling types. Write a one-page paper that describes options for resolving this issue.

Part 7: Project Communications Management

Several issues have arisen on the Recreation and Wellness Intranet Project. The person from the HR department who was supporting the project left the company, and now the team needs more support from that group. A member of the user group that supports the project is extremely vocal and hard to work with, and other users can hardly get a word in at meetings. The project manager, Tony, is getting weekly status reports from all of his team members, but many of them do not address obvious challenges that people are facing. The team is having difficulty deciding how to communicate various project reports and documents and where to store all of the information being generated. Recall that the team members include you, a programmer/analyst and aspiring project manager; Patrick, a network specialist; Nancy, a business analyst; and Bonnie, another programmer/analyst.

1.       Prepare a partial communications management plan to address some of the challenges mentioned in the previous paragraph.

2.       Prepare a template and sample of a good weekly progress report that could be used for this project. Include a list of tips to help team members provide information on these reports.

3.       Write a one-page paper describing two suggested approaches to communicating with the hard-to-work-with user.

Part 8: Project Risk Management

Tony and his team identified some risks during the first month of the Recreation and Wellness Intranet Project. However, all they did was document the risks in a list. They never ranked the risks or developed any response strategies. Because the project has had several problems, such as key team members leaving the company, users being uncooperative, and team members not providing good status information, Tony has decided to be more proactive in managing risks. He also wants to address positive risks as well as negative risks.

1.       Create a risk register for the project, using Table 11-5 and the data after it as a guide. Identify six potential risks, including risks related to the problems described in the previous paragraph. Include negative and positive risks.

2.       Plot the six risks on a probability/impact matrix, using Figure 11-5 as a guide. Also assign a numeric value for the probability and impact of each risk on meeting the main project objective. Use a scale of 1 to 10 in assigning the values, with 1 representing the lowest values. For a simple risk factor calculation, multiply the probability score and the impact score. Add a column called Risk Score to your risk register to the right of the impact column. Enter the new data in the risk register. Write your rationale for how you determined the scores for one of the negative risks and one of the positive risks.

3.       Develop a response strategy for one of the negative risks and one of the positive risks. Enter the information in the risk register. Also write a separate paragraph describing what specific tasks would be required to implement the strategy. Include time and cost estimates for each strategy as well.

Part 9: Project Procurement Management

Senior management at Manage Your Health, Inc. (MYH) decided that it would be best to outsource employee training on the Recreation and Wellness system, which will be rolled out soon. MYH also wants to outsource the incentive program designed to motivate employees to use the system and improve their health. MYH feels that the right outside company could get people excited about the system and provide a good incentive program. As part of the seller selection process, MYH will require interviews and samples of similar work to be presented to a review team. Recall that MYH has more than 20,000 full-time employees and more than 5,000 part-time employees. Assume that the work would involve several instructor-led training sessions, developing a training video that employees could view from the company's intranet site, developing a training manual for the courses that anyone can download from the intranet site, developing an incentive program for using the system and improving health, creating surveys to assess the training and incentive programs, and developing monthly presentations and reports on the work completed. The initial contract would last one year, with annual renewal options.

1.       Suppose that your team has discussed management's request. You agree that it makes sense to have another organization manage the incentive program for this new application, but you do not think it makes sense to outsource the training. Your company has extensive experience doing internal training. You also know that your staff will have to support the system, so you want to develop the training to minimize future support calls. Write a one-page memo to senior management stating why you think the training should be done in-house.

2.       Assume that the source selection criteria for evaluating proposals are as follows:

• Management approach, 15%
• Technical approach, 15%
• Past performance, 20%
• Price, 20%
• Interview results and samples, 30%

Using Figure 12-5 and the weighted scoring model template as guides, create a spreadsheet that could be used to enter ratings and calculate scores for each criterion and total weighted scores for three proposals. Enter scores for Proposal 1 as 80, 90, 70, 90, and 80, respectively. Enter scores for Proposal 2 as 90, 50, 95, 80, and 95. Enter scores for Proposal 3 as 60, 90, 90, 80, and 65. Add a paragraph to the spreadsheet that summarizes the results and your recommendation. Print your results on one page.

3.       Draft potential clauses that you could include in the contract to provide incentives to the seller based on MYH achieving its main goal of improving employee health and lowering healthcare premiums as a result of this project. Be creative in your response, and document your ideas in a one-page paper. 

Part 10: Project Stakeholder Management

Recall from previous chapters that the following people are involved in the Manage Your Health, Inc. (MYH) Recreation and Wellness system:

• Tony Prince, the project manager
• Hillary, the project sponsor
• You and Bonnie, programmer/analysts in the IT department
• Patrick, a network specialist in IT
• Nancy, a business analyst in IT
• Gayle, the sponsor and VP of human resources
• Yusaff, a human resources specialist
• Cassandra, a finance specialist
• Supplier A, who was hired to handle training on the new system and manage an incentives program
• 20,000 full-time employees and 5,000 part-time employees, all of whom are potential users of the new system

1.       Prepare a stakeholder register using the preceding information. Make up other information as needed.

2.       Create a stakeholder management strategy for the project, focusing on members who are not on the project team, such as Hillary, Gayle, the lead person from Supplier A, and a vocal member of a user group testing the new system. Be creative in developing potential management strategies.

3.       Prepare an issue log for the project. Include past issues discussed in prior chapters, such as Yusaff leaving the company, a difficult and vocal member of the user group, and unproductive meetings. Make up three additional potential issues.