6.2 JWD Consulting's Project Management

	This section provides a discussion on a case study demonstrating how an IT organization can develop its own software development methodology guided by the PMBOK standard.
	A detailed description of the case study is provided in the course's textbook

(Joseph Phillips, Information technology Project Management, Fourth Edition, 2006)

Project Background

		JWD (Job Well Done) Consultant is a firm which provides consulting services for organizations to help them in managing information technology projects.
		JWD wanted to have an exemplary process to manage its own projects.
		The CEO believed that this could be achieved by making some of their project management information and services accessible by internal consultants and external customers on their Intranet site to help them manage projects more efficiently.
		This would increase revenue through bringing in more business and reduce internal costs.

Project Initiating

The initiating process in this case study defines a new project to develop an Intranet application that allows consultants and customers to access project management resources.

6.2 JWD Consulting's Project Management

Outputs of the initiation process group were reviewed to match the projects needs. Initiation processes, as identified by JWD, included:

			Assigning a project manger.
			Identifying stakeholders.
			Writing a business case for the project.
			Preparing a project charter (as part of the project integration management knowledge area).

The Initiation process group Outputs included:

			Project manager assigned.
			Key stakeholders identified.
			Business case completed.
			Project charter completed and signed.

Project initiation documents

Business Case, which included the following information

Business objective

6.2 JWD Consulting's Project Management

			Current situation and problem/opportunity statement
			Critical assumptions and constraints
			Analysis of options and recommendation
			Preliminary project requirements
			Budget estimate and financial analysis
			Schedule estimate
			Potential risks
			Project Charter signed by key stakeholders.

Project Planning

		Planning processes involved the nine knowledge areas and consumed a fair amount of time and effort, as it acted as a guide for the executing the project.
		Planning processes, as identified by JWD, included:

			Holding a project kick-off meeting
			Developing a team contract whom members will be comfortable to sign.

6.2 JWD Consulting's Project Management

			Developing the scope statement.
			Developing a work breakdown structure (WBS)
			Preparing project schedule and cost baseline
			Identifying Potential risks.

Planning process group Outputs included:

			A team contract (to view full document see chapter 3 of the textbook, pp 99).
			A project scope statement (to view the full draft version document see chapter 3 of the textbook, pp 101- pp 103).
			A work breakdown structure (WBS).
			A project schedule, in the form of a Gantt chart with all dependencies and resources entered.
			A list of prioritized risks (to view full list see chapter 3 of the textbook, pp 106).

Project Execution

		At this stage, all the work required to introduce the new software was carried out.
		The project manager at JWD worked closely with all the team members to ensure that the team was producing the desired deliverables.

6.2 JWD Consulting's Project Management

Processes in this stage included:

			Managing the project team, e.g. a team member has been agreed to attend the minimal time in team meetings to focus more on some issue related to the project development. Thus, productivity can be enhanced in this way.
			Approaching potential software suppliers for helping in the "Ask the Expert" feature for the Intranet site.

			Preparing milestone reports (prepared using word processing software (To view full document see chapter 3 of the textbook, pp 108- 109)
			Reviewing the estimated initial budget.

The Execution process group Outputs included:

			Deliverables.
			Preventive actions.
			Corrective actions.
			Implemented changes (to view detailed processes and outputs see chapter 3 of the textbook, pp106-107).

6.2 JWD Consulting's Project Management

Project Monitoring and Planning

		Monitoring and controlling was carried out through all the process groups of this project.
		Changes made to the project scope, schedule and budget has caused updates in the project management plan and correction actions were issued whenever required.

Processes involved included:

			Monitoring the progress of the project's work through submitting a weekly project status reports by the project's team. These reports explained what was done and what was going well and what wasn't. This helped in identifying problem areas (to view weekly status report sample see chapter 3 of the textbook, pp 113).
			Submitting the actual hours worked by each team member on a specific task on a weekly basis, using a project management software.
			Analyzing the critical path using Microsoft project 2007 to easily update the team members' task information.
			Monitoring deviation from plan.
			Carrying out correction actions to match progress with plan.

6.2 JWD Consulting's Project Management

Monitoring and Controlling process group Outputs included:

			Recommended corrective actions.
			Recommended preventive actions.
			The requested changes (to view the all group processes and outputs see chapter 3 of the textbook, pp112).

Project Closing

Closing processes involved:

			Bringing the project to an end.
			Gaining stakeholder and customer acceptance on the final product.
			Verifying that all deliverables are complete.
			Providing a transition plan to provide for a smooth transition of the new system into the firm's organization.
			Preparing a final report, final presentation, contract files and lessons-learned report (to see full document see chapter 3 of the textbook, pp. 115-116).
			Preparing a project closure lunch.