ITC505 ICT Project: Case study – Social Media Research Centre

Basic details Including: Title of the project, Name and email of the Project Manager (yourself), Duration of the project, and High level budget

Project Objectives

Clear, concise reasoning for why the project is being performed
Clear, concise definition of what the project activities will entail ( high level scope)
Brief description of primary deliverable(s)
Clear description of the project benefits to the organisation
Recognition and description of any limits that the project will not cover and address

Identify the desired area of impact - Rank the following areas in terms of importance: Strategy / Customer / Financial / Operational / Social

Where, Why and How)

Not: Considered Defined but unclear. Defined Where and How communication will take place. Defined Where (location of the meeting or other interactions), Why and How (method) communication will take place.

Defined Where (clearly and appropriately states the location of the meeting or other interactions), Why(description), How (i.e. physical meeting, email, phone, message group, etc.) communication will take place. Forms / Templates are covered.

e requirements could be research journals, dissertations, thesis, research papers, articles, etc. The results of various works done on social media such as live events, presentations, programmes and projects are displayed for the advantage of the stakeholders only (Walker, 2015).

The reason for the accomplishment of the target i.e. completion of the project is because the said project is completed by achieving the defied advantaged and is done within the same time as allotted to it i.e. 8 months.

MOV - Measurable Organisational Value

Measurable Organisational Value can be understood as an alternative to the return of investment method which is used in evaluating the success of the project by comparing the profits of the project to the costs of the project. The success or failure of the project is measured by evaluating the impact of the project which can be in the financial terms or non-financial terms. The usage of MOV assures that the project maximises the usage of the resources of the company so that the benefits can be produced. The benefits can be in the form of Strategic, customer, operational, social or financial benefits. The success of the current project of web application development can be measured by going through the critical success factors. The benefits produced by the project in terms of different areas are explained below in terms of their importance:

1. Customers: From this project, the customers will be affected the most. They will derive the benefit of getting the readily available information on social media. It will help in completing their projects and education easily from the given information.
2. Operational: The social media research section will improve the operational efficiency of the research centre by developing the Readers lab. The capacity will be increased which will attract more students and more revenue can be generated.
3. Financial: In terms of financial analysis, the revenue of the Social Media Research Centre will improve with the increase in the numbers of members in the library.
4. Social: The society will receive a benefit of the web application. The students and other users will get access to the knowledge which will be provided by the web application of the research centre.
5. Strategy:  The strategy of the social media research centre will be to increase the users and the revenue for the centre ultimately.

These values are identified for the Readers lab

Better: The Readers Lab will have to focus on regular growth and development because the improvement in the quality is important to the clients.

Faster: the clients need more material and data on the web application which can satisfy their research of data. The client wants to increase the efficiency of the Readers Lab.

Matrix for Measurable Organisational Value

• The organisation plans for the increase in the number of customers for the Readers Lab so that the revenue generated through membership fee can be increased.
• The centre plans to expand its market share from 8% to 20% after the execution of the project of web application.
• Another MOV is to improve the quality of the data which is to be uploaded and provided to the population accessing the web application.
• The target is to increase the selling of more scholarly articles than before once the application will be developed.
• The target is to encourage the customers or members to upload more articles than ever before so that the huge pool of resources and knowledge can be created.

Criteria of acceptance

There are some specific factors which help in determining the success or failure of the project. The acceptance crieterias of the project are the deliverables of the project, the due dates of deliverables, milestones and budgets. The project success or failure can also be accepted by considering the time frame and the performance level of the project.

(Thi & Swierczek, 2010)

Assumptions and Constraints

There are some assumptions made while completing the project of web application development. The assumptions are that the proper approvals are taken from the government and all the laws have been complied. The next assumption is that the verification has been done on regular basis which helps in identifying the loopholes, if any. The next assumption is that the designs of the web application areapproved and it is the best deign. The employees have all the knowledge about the project and they are trained. The board of management is together in support of the development of the web application for providing benefits to the business as well as to the society.

There are certain limitations in the process of project management:

There may be conflicts and non-unanimity of thought between different stakeholders regarding the development of project. There may be shortage of time and budget which are given.

Stakeholders involved

The stakeholders are the individuals or groups who are affected by the actions of the business. In return, the business gets affected from the actions of the stakeholders (Elias, 2016).  The below given list includes all those stakeholders who are involved in theprojectmanagement of web application for Social Media Research centre:

Customers: the customers are the ones who purchase the articles and data from the web application. These may be the students or the professors.

Employees: The employees are those who are hired by the organisation for providing their knowledge and skills to the project organisation.  These employees are paid in the form of wages or salaries (Noro, 2012).

Government: The government is the body which regulates the activities of the project. It is government which allows the organisation to carry on the project. The organisation has to comply with all the legal requirements in order to ensure smooth operations of the business.

Sponsors: the sponsors provide funds to the organisation which helps in the completion of the project. In return, the sponsors get marketing through the project. Both are benefitted with each other.

Management: the management is the one which directs the project manager for the requirements of the project. The management discusses about the costs and benefits and communicates the same with the staff (Noro, 2012).

Vendors: the vendors are the suppliers who provide the necessary materials for the completion of the project.

Project manager: the project manager is the one who has all the responsibility to complete the project at the given guidelines and terms. The project manager guides, directs and manages the employees and ensures that the project is completed in the given budget i.e. AUD 50,000.00 and in the given time duration.

Lessons learned

There are some loopholes in the project process which are learned and these should be improved. Like the project process should have a process risk management policy which helps in managing the project at the time of emergencies. This helps in managing the complex situations where the project may fail.

The lessons learned that the contingency plans should also be made so that the project can be managed in the period of difficulties.

Task 2: Prepare communication Plan

Communication Plan can be understood as a roadmap for getting the message to the targeted audience. It helps in determining that what is to be communicated to the target audience and what is to be communicated.

The purpose of the communication plan

The plan of the project is to be communicated to all the stakeholders in order to make them aware of the social media research centre. Communicating the plan of work is an essential part of the undertaken project. There should be a proper planning of the process of communications. It gives us an advantage of reducing the duplication of time and clearing the doubts of the stakeholders if any, which leads to an efficient working strategy.

Communication plan for the development of web application in Social Media Research centre:

(Ziek & Anderson, 2015).

The communication for the project management has different aspects. These aspects includes Who?, What?, When?, Where? and How?

Who?- This refers to the parties who are involved in the communication. It includes the project manager, team mates, sponsors, government and vendors.

What?- this refers to the information which is to be shared with the parties of communication. The information could be about the project plan, project requirements, project design, billing, legal requirements, roles and responsibilities, progress of report, budgets or payments to the employees of the project.

When?- This refers to the frequency of information shared in the project. The information shared on the basis of need and requirements which can be monthly, weekly or daily.

Where?- It depicts the location where the communication could take place. The location can bethe project site, office of the organisation, vendor’s office government office or any other location decided mutually.

How?- This refers to the medium through which communication could take place. The communication in the project could take place with the help of face to face meetings, telephones, emails, video calls or messages. 

Change management

It is the term which defines the broad concept of change within the organisation which may vary differently from organisation to organisation. It I a structured approach which helps in implementing the changes in the organisation or in project smoothly without hassles between the team members and the management. It aims at deriving the benefits of change to all the stakeholders of the project (Levasseur, 2010).  Change cannot be managed without team efforts. When all the parties of the project of web application development at Social Media Research centre are ready to provide cooperation, the changes can be implemented and managed properly. For meeting the changes required, the deadlines will have to be revised as per the requirements and the budgets will also have to be recalculated.  The required changes are explained to the project manager and then to the team because they are ultimate workers. If good and open communication is maintained between the stakeholders, there will be no gaps in managing the changes (Hornstein, 2015).

The project manager is required to motivate the employees for implementing changes. It requires the empowerment of the employees so that the employees can be ready for achieving the new and changed targets. The main focus of the change management is on people that how they move from the current state to the desired state. It requires proper planning and assessment of the changes needed. Once, the requirements are met, change management will be achieved successfully (Hayes, 2014). 

Meeting agenda

There are many meetings held during the process of project and every meeting is held with an agenda. Agenda of the meeting can also be referred to the main objective or aim of the meetings (Burke, 2013).  Following are the agendas of different types of meetings between the parties of project management:

References

Burke, R. (2013). Project management: planning and control techniques. New Jersey, USA.

Elias, A. (2016). Analysing the stakes of stakeholders in research and development project management: A systems approach. R&D Management, 46(4), 749-760.

Hayes, J. (2014). The theory and practice of change management. Palgrave Macmillan.

Hornstein, H. A. (2015). The integration of project management and organizational change management is now a necessity. International Journal of Project Management, 33(2), 291-298.

Kerzner, H., Ebooks Corporation, & EBook Library. (2013). Project Management A Systems Approach to Planning, Scheduling, and Controlling (11th ed.). New York: Wiley.

Levasseur, R. E. (2010). People skills: Ensuring project success—A change management perspective. Interfaces, 40(2), 159-162.

Thi, C., & Swierczek, F. (2010). Critical success factors in project management: Implication from Vietnam. Asia Pacific Business Review, 16(4), 567-589.

Walker, A. (2015). Project management in construction. John Wiley & Sons.

Young, T. L. (2013). Successful project management (Vol. 52). Kogan Page Publishers.

Ziek, P., & Anderson, J. (2015). Communication, dialogue and project management. International Journal of Managing Projects in Business, 8(4), 788-803.