Discussion Board

The Unit 2 Discussion Board assignment has 2 parts. Part I defines a scenario that will be discussed by the class. Part II is informational and prepares the class for the group project.

Part I: Scenario

You have been asked to be the project manager for the development of an information technology (IT) project. The system to be developed will allow a large company to coordinate and maintain records of the professional development of its employees. The company has over 30,000 employees who are located in four sites: Florida, Colorado, Illinois, and Texas. The system needs to allow employees to locate and schedule professional development activities that are relevant to their positions. Sophisticated search capabilities are required, and the ability to add scheduled events to the employees' calendars is desired. The system needs to support social networking to allow employees to determine who is attending conferences and events. This will promote fostering relationships and ensure coverage of conferences that are considered of high importance.

Once an activity has been completed, employees will use the system to submit the documentation. The system should support notifications to management personnel whenever their direct reports have submitted documentation. The system should also notify employees if their deadline to complete professional-development requirements is approaching and is not yet satisfied.

Scope creep is a problem with all projects. Using the given scenario, answer the following questions:

• What makes scope creep particularly prevalent in IT projects? What specific IT project management tools can be used to control it?

• What are some possible factors that might cause scope creep in the given scenario?

• How can a project scope management plan help manage the 3 project constraints of time, scope, and cost?

• What is the potential impact of changes to budgets, schedules, and deliverables if changes are allowed to occur after the project is approved?