Willowbrook School is a small private school that has retained your services as a systems analyst to assist in the development of a new information system for the school's administrative needs.

Background

In the previous chapter, you prepared a memo detailing your plans for Willowbrook's preliminary investigation for the school's director, Victoria Owens. You sit down with Victoria to discuss your memo and the preliminary investigation. During your discussion she asks you about how you plan to control costs and make a quality system within a reasonable timeframe. You begin to explain to her the concepts of project management and how they are used in developing an information system.

Project Management

You tell Victoria that project management involves managing the cost of the project, staying on its time schedule, and keeping it within the scope that is defined for the project. The first step begins with listing all of the tasks that are required to complete a project. You explain to her that in the case of Willowbrook School:

• The first thing to do is develop a plan, part of which we are doing right now.
• In the next step, we will spend a few weeks on the analysis phase of development.
  • In the first part of this phase we will determine the requirements for the new system, which involves conducting interviews, documentation reviews, surveys, and other research.
  • The next step is to model the data and processes of the new system based on our research.
  • After the data and processes are modeled, we will decide if we are going to purchase or build the new system in-house.
• After the analysis phase is completed, we will begin the system design phase.
  • This phase of the project includes the user interface; screens that users will work with and reports that are generated from the system.
  • The next step in this phase is data design where we will work with components of the data that is flowing through the system.
  • The final step of this phase is designing the system architecture. This will largely be based on whether we decide to purchase a system from a third party, outsource the system to a cloud service, or build the new system ourselves.
• The next phase of the new system will be implementation where we will install the hardware, software, and train the users.
  • The implementation phase will include the "go live", which will be a date where the new system will start and the old system will stop.
• The final phase will be ongoing support and maintenance of the new system.

You go on to explain to Victoria that for project management, all of these major tasks and more specific, detailed tasks go into a chart that is used to create a work breakdown structure (WBS). You describe to her the main types of WBS - Gantt charts and PERT charts and how they are used. You offer to show her the WBS charts you will create for Willowbrook's project.

At the end of your discussion, Victoria tells you that it is clear that project management techniques will be needed for Willowbrook's new system and she tells you she is excited to see the Gantt and PERT charts for the project.

After your meeting you sit down to set up the project management for Willowbrook's new information system by organizing the tasks to be done, creating a WBS, and identifying the critical path for the project.

Tasks

1. Create a list of tasks that need to be completed for the new information system based on the information given in the case. Organize your list by estimating how long it will take to complete each task, and list each task's predecessor task or tasks. Use Figures 3-25 and 3-30 from the text as examples.
2. Using the task list you developed, create a Gantt chart using software such as Microsoft Project or GanttProject.
3. Create a PERT chart (called a network diagram in Microsoft Project) based on your task list. How is the PERT chart different from the Gantt chart? What advantages or disadvantages do you see in each? Which do you prefer and why?
4. Identify the critical path for the project. Explain how the critical path is determined. How will you use the critical path as the project manager for Willowbrook School?