Group Project:
Background Information:
This group project concerns project selection, the development of a business case, a scope statement, a work breakdown structure and project plan for potential projects. As part of the concepts learned on this course, several methods for project selections were considered including financial analysis of projects. The processes of project scope management have also been considered. The purpose of this project is to apply the concepts learned in the course in a realistic case study scenario.
Instructions for Completing the Project:
Project Brief:
Manage Your Health, Inc. (MYH) is an international company that provides a variety of health care services across the globe. MYH has more than 20,000 full-time employees and more than 5,000 part-time employees. MYH recently updated its strategic plan, and key goals include reducing internal costs, increasing cross-selling of products, and exploiting new Web-based technologies to help employees, customers, and suppliers work together to improve the development and delivery of its health care products and services. Below are some ideas the Information Technology department has developed for supporting these strategic goals:
1. Recreation and Wellness Intranet Project: Provide an application on the current intranet to help employees improve their health. A recent study found that MYH, lnc. pays 20 percent more than the industry average for employee health care premiums, primarily due to the poor health of its employees. You believe that this application will help improve employee health within one year of its rollout so that you can negotiate lower health insurance premiums, providing net savings of at least AED 120/employee/year for full-time employees over the next four years. This application would include the following capabilities:
• Allow employees to register for company-sponsored recreational programs, such as soccer, softball, bowling, jogging, walking, and other sports.
• Allow employees to register for company-sponsored classes and programs to help them manage their weight, reduce stress, stop smoking, and manage other health-related issues.
• Track data on employee involvement in these recreational and health- management programs.
• Offer incentives for people to join the programs and do well in them (e.g., incentives for achieving weight goals, winning sports team competitions, etc.).
2. Health Coverage Costs Business Model: Develop an application to track employee health care expenses and company health care costs. Health care premiums continue to increase, and the company has changed insurance carriers several times in the past ten years. This application should allow business modeling of various scenarios as well as tracking and analyzing current and past employee health care expenses and company health care costs. This application must be secure and run on the current intranet so several managers and analysts could access it and download selective data for further analysis. The new application must also import data from the current systems that track employee expenses submitted to the company and the company’s costs to the insurance provider. You believe that having this data will help you revise policies concerning employee contributions to health care premiums and help you negotiate for lower premiums with insurance companies. You estimate that this application would save your company about AED 80/employee/year for full-time employees over the next four years and cost about AED 400,000 to develop.
3. Cross-Selling System: Develop an application to improve cross-selling to current customers. The current sales management system has separate sections for major product/service categories and different sales reps based on those products and services. You see great opportunities to increase sales to current customers by providing them discounts when they purchase multiple products/services. You estimate that this system would increase profits by AED 4 million each year for the next three years and cost about AED 3.2 million each year for development and maintenance.
4. Web-Enhanced Communications System: Develop a Web-based application to improve development and delivery of products and services. There are currently several incompatible systems related to the development and delivery of products and services to customers. This application would allow customers and suppliers to provide suggestions, enter orders, view the status and history of orders, and use electronic commerce capabilities to purchase and sell their products. You estimate that this system would save your company about AED 8 million each year for three years after implementation. You estimate it will take one year and AED 12 million to develop and require 20 percent of development costs each year to maintain.
Tasks
1. Prepare a weighted scoring model using the template provided to evaluate these four projects. Develop at least four criteria, assign weights to each criterion, assign scores, and then calculate the weighted scores. Print the spreadsheet and bar chart with the results. Describe this weighted scoring model and what the results show.