I need help expanding my 1200 word essay anwsering the questions at the bottom.

Question

I need help expanding my 1200 word essay anwsering the questions at the bottom.

In 1999, the ABC Department of the Federal Government reviewed its Year 2000 Date Turnover Computer Risks and found that its outdated computer systems for managing public clients needed replacing. A business case was prepared for funding the replacement while at the same time implementing some improvements. The total budget requested was $2.3 million.

In view of a shortage of funds around at the time, government did not approve this amount. Only $1.5 million was authorized. However, the ABC Department accepted this amount after they decided that they could maybe do the work for around the $1.5 m.

Accordingly, a project was scoped and planned, with specific milestones for implementing the hardware and, subsequently the software, across 87 sites within its jurisdiction. A final completion date of 30th June 2001 was projected. The original business case had loosely identified some risks to the project that were also included in the project plan. A project steering committee was established, with the department chief (CEO) as the sponsor, and representation by influential managers with differing outcome needs to suit their particular work environment. The project commenced in July 1999.

In view of the shortfall on its original budget request, the committee decided not to employ a project manager. Instead it assigned this responsibility to its Finance Manager, who would undertake the work along with his normal duties.

A Company, called "Amazing Software" was contracted to supply the software and assist in the implementation. This company recognized the marketing opportunities of this project, as the ABC Department was its biggest client in the region. As a result, they offered, free of charge, many more features that were not in the original scope, provided the department allowed them to be, in essence a research and development (R&D) site. This would assist Amazing Software to more readily sell their products elsewhere around the world, while providing the ABC Department with additional functionality and benefits.

Initially, the steering committee met regularly, but as new versions of the resulting software were being implemented regularly, meetings became less frequent and Amazing Software were left to do more and more of the day to day management of the new version implementations.

These new versions were developed after consultation with the various individual managers to accommodate requested new features with little consultation amongst all of the managers. All the ABC Department and steering committee had to do was to identify problems with the software and to make the system testers available for new versions. However, the effect was an unanticipated overhead for the department.

Sometime after the original project was scoped and commenced, both the original CEO and finance manager had been moved out of the department and new officers have been appointed.

At this time, the new CEO has been advised that about $185,000 more is needed for the project, which is not in his current budget. The original project has not been signed off, indeed, it is evident that it has not been completed. The new CEO of the department is not sure of the original scope of the project, what aspects have been implemented, nor what has been spent for which parts. There do not seem to be any reliable reports available as to original scope, scope changes, schedule or budget.

The CEO is concerned that the project has become more of a career than a project, with version 16.5 of the client management system now being tested with yet more features. In addition, there are some past software problems that are still outstanding. Nevertheless, Amazing Software have promised that problems will be fixed in the next version ... .

You are a senior consultant with PM Done Right (PMDR), a competent project management consulting company. The CEO has called you in for advice. The information is brief, but this is all the information that he and the new finance manager are able to provide. The CEO's mandate to you is to:

Report your assessment of the current project status.

Compare your assessment with sound project management practices.

Identify the reasons for the scope creep and how to fix the issues.

Recommend steps to bring the project to a close.

Recommend improvements to the ABC Department's future project management practices.

If a very similar project had to be done again, what attributes and/or skill sets would you recommend in selecting a project manager?

What other advice might you give to the CEO?

Assesment on current project status:

·         First of all this is a complex project with high impact on the software industry therefore all the project roles should be well defined

·         In practical there are confusion about the roles and responsibilities

·         Secondly, the inital strage of any project needs planning, background checking and data collection

·         The initital strage is not structured properly as an exampe the project objectives are chsnging with client pressure which is not desirable

·         The project budget is not defined with schedule which can destroy the overall information flow in the project life cycle

·         Past software issues are disturbing the project development cycle

·         The project management cycle is in confusion as the aims are not completed

Explanation / Answer

The assesment of the current project status is given below:

1) The current project status doesn't looks in the good state, it seems that project has gone off track.
2) The original CEO as well as the finance manager has moved out from this project, now the new CEO will have to understand the project from the begining.
3) Currenlty in the project we are facing various software as well as hardware related issues.
4) We also have challenges regarding managing the work done by Amazing software.

Now if we compare this above given assesment to the sound project management practices then we found following wrong things in our project management. And these wrong things are listed below:

1) Intially we have agreeded upon working on the project with $1.5 m without doing any feasiability study and the requirement analysis.
2) We have not asses the complexity of the project.
3) The role and responsabilites are not very well defined in the project.
4) The project budget was not sufficient but still we agreed upon the project development.
5) Work done by amazing software was not watched carefully, and now there are various bugs coming from the work done by amazing software.

The reasons for the scope creep are given below:

1) Poor planning of the project.
2) Assesment of budget allocated is not done.
3) Roles and responsabilites are not well defined.

For fixing the issue we can do following things:

1) new CEO need to get the background knowledge as soon as possible.
2) Do re assesment of the budget allocated.
3) Do proper replanning of the project.

The steps to bring the project to a close are given below:

1) Reassesment of the budget avaialbe should be done.
2) Re planning required on the bases of budget left with us.
3) Re planning of work left should also be done.
4) Deadlines should be made to complete the work

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