Scenario:
As a newly assigned project manager for the Ohio Department of Human Services, you are excited about working with technology projects throughout the state. The Ohio Department of Human Services' (ODHS) Office of Network Support (ONS) is responsible for managing the network and software applications for over 15,000 state and county agency employees throughout Ohio's 88 counties. The office coordinates software upgrades and network modifications from an operations center located in the capital, Columbus, with assistance from local technology employees in each of the county seats.
The position is not without its challenges, however. The network infrastructure throughout the state ranges from high quality, high-bandwidth connections in major population centers to older, partially working connections in the poorer, more regional counties. Additionally, budget and resources are a constant issue, with a high turnover rate among existing employees and an emphasis on outsourcing the labor force to several vendors to accomplish the myriad of support and project tasks. Your initial assignment is to examine the viability and costs associated with upgrading the existing e-mail, with the objective of developing the implementation project for the organization. ODHS had adopted the e-mail software called Globalupgrades (a Worldviewupgrades product) as its e-mail standard in 1994 and executed minor upgrades since then. However, the latest version of Globalupgrades, Version 9.0, contains significant enhancements desired by the ODHS user base, and the existing Version 7.0's support will be phased out in the next year by Worldviewupgrades. The Worldviewupgrades sales representatives have been offering discounts for a Version 9.0 license, but the costs are approximately 20% more than previous licenses. Additionally, several other e-mail product vendors are lobbying state officials for business, some of them offering significant incentives. Generally, these products are viewed as less robust than Globalupgrades, but there are some segments of the user community that are supportive of these other options.
You are reviewing the existing documentation on the current state of the e-mail system, including license agreements and the Worldviewupgrades Globalupgrades 9.0 preliminary proposal. You are also examining the staffing structure and developing ideas on how to accomplish this task.You will need to brief the ONS Director on your planned approach to completing this effort.
Review the Scenario (listed above)and the addenda items detailed below. ODHS selected the Worldview Globalcom product for implementation in the E-mail Upgrade Project.
Create a 3 to 5 pages:
The project was accomplished in 14,960 hours versus the planned 12,000 hours, at a total cost of 1.56M versus the planned 1.25M over a ten month (versus nine month planned) schedule.
The Worldview vendor team had five key deliverables in the project, one of which was delivered 30 days late and another 10 days early.
The Ohio Department of Corrections, as a result of watching this effort, is deploying the Globalcom product for their organization.
Users report that they are very happy with the new e-mail system.
Mahoning County's infrastructure was too old to support the new e-mail system; they are being migrated next month as a separate project.
The Worldview contract was completed within established cost.
The Globalcom product's spam filter requires a different network configuration than is currently in place for the network.
The project team suffered from a 20% turnover rate during the life of this project, and exit interviews reveal salary was the overall cause.
Develop a Lessons Learned document for the Worldview project with these specific action items:
Create a 3 to 5 pages:
Write three project success criteria that would have been included in the charter-you may use or reference the project objectives you wrote in Unit One. Explain your criteria.
Using the addenda items detailed above in addition to information you creatively develop, write your lessons learned based on the criteria and the three components of cost, schedule, and performance (you may use these as individual sections of your paper). Note, not all the addenda items may even be pertinent.
Answer the following in a summarizing, final page:
Was the project a success? Why or why not?
If not, were portions of the project a success, and what was the impact of those success areas on the overall determination of project success?