The Project Manager Leading an Enhancement Project
You are the Project Manager leading an enhancement project to a key application built by XYZ for one of its clients. The application is a Payment Calculator tool which enables customers to choose vehicles sold by the client, select the options they want, and then calculate prices and payments for purchase by either cash, finance, or lease.
The client has just advised you that they are planning an important national sales event and need the project team to make changes to the Payment Calculator to enable special discounts. The discounts are available only for certain vehicles, and the amount of the discount may vary based on the postal code of the car dealership. The client will be providing a file containing vehicle make/model, postal code, and the discount amount. This discount must be applied when calculating vehicle prices and payments during the sale. The project team needs to develop, test, and enable the discounts live within the Payment Calculator on the client’s website.
Team Resources, Roles, Estimates, and Resource Allocation
The release requires a full Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC) from initiate/plan through development, testing, user acceptance testing, and deployment. The PM has been provided with deliverables, estimates, resources and their capacity allocation for the project release.
Team resources and roles:
|
Resource |
Role |
|
Project Manager |
Manages the project |
|
Solutions Analyst |
Captures client's business requirements and translates them into functional requirements. Supports the project team for any questions. |
|
Architect |
Assesses and defines and changes to the existing project architecture. |
|
Development Lead |
Provides leadership and technical oversight for the Dev team and project |
|
Developer |
Implements required application code changes |
|
QA Team Lead |
Provides leadership and technical oversight for the QA team and project |
|
QA |
Conducts automated and manual quality assurance testing |
Deliverables, estimates and resource assignment:
Requirements
|
Deliverables/ Tasks |
Effort Estimate (hrs) |
Assigned Resource(s) (allocated capacity) |
|
Create BRD |
45 |
Solution Analyst (50%) |
|
Create FRD |
50 |
Solution Analyst (50%) |
|
Development/QA Support |
40 |
Solution Analyst (20%) |
Architecture
|
Deliverables/ Tasks |
Effort Estimate (hrs) |
Assigned Resource(s) (allocated capacity) |
|
Architecture Design |
70 |
Architect (30%) |
Development
|
Deliverables/ Tasks |
Effort Estimate (hrs) |
Assigned Resource(s) (allocated capacity) |
|
Database Design |
50 |
Developer 2 (50%) |
|
ETL |
240 |
Developer 3 (100%) |
|
Data Delivery Web Service 1 |
130 |
Developer 1-offshore (100%) |
|
Data Delivery Web Service 2 |
180 |
Developer 2 (60%), Developer 1-offshore (100%) |
|
Code Review |
20 |
Developer 2 (50%) |
|
Defect Fixes |
80 |
Developer 1-offshore (50%) |
Testing
|
Deliverables/ Tasks |
Effort Estimate (hrs) |
Assigned Resource(s) (allocated capacity) |
|
QA Planning |
10 |
QA 1(30%) |
|
Create Test Cases |
50 |
QA 1(50%) |
|
Test Execution |
150 |
QA 1(50%), QA 2-offshore (100%) |
|
Defects Verification Cycle 1 |
80 |
QA 2-offshore (100%) |
|
Defects Verification Cycle 2 |
50 |
QA 2-offshore (100%) |
The total estimated effort above is 1,245 hrs.
Case Study Assignment
1. Using the Waterfall Methodology (not Agile), create a project plan for the release through a typical SDLC.
- Assume 80% resource efficiency and in case of any resource labeled as offshore assume 60% resource efficiency.
- List all your assumptions of missing information above to be able to complete project schedule.
- Use your assumptions to complete project plan.
- Submit your project schedule in mpp and pdf formats along with your assumptions.
- In case you have no access to MS Project, you may use free open-source Java based ProjectLibre tool: https://www.projectlibre.com/product/projectlibre-open-source
2. Create a 2nd version of your project plan based on version #1 to show schedule impact of removing Developer 2 resource after finishing his Database Design task. Assume that both Developer 1 and Developer 3 have skills to complete remaining Developer 2 tasks.
3. Create a 3rd version of your project plan based on version #2 to show schedule impact of client requested change (Change Request) which will require additional development (40 hrs effort) impacting Data Delivery Web Service 2 deliverable after initial development effort is completed. This will also add 30 hours to test execution task.
4. Provide 3 potential risks to the project with risk level and brief mitigation plan (1-3 sentences per risk).
