You have been asked to set up a project plan for developing a mobile phone application for London Olympics.
Major tasks include conducting some research into different mobile phone applications. This is required to better understand application areas. The app should provide list of all games, their timetable, which should include location, name of the game, athletes and any suitable information that you think is needed for people who are interested in. App should also include travel information to different locations of games.
App must be downloadable very quickly, this means it must be small in size and be able to connect to remote servers if needed. You will have to work out a strategy to generate some revenue as well, perhaps through adverts and/or a small fee that can be charged for each user for each download.
In developing the app, you have to purchase the required SDK (Software Development Kit) if it is not available as open source software.
Tasks/Deliverables:-
1. Write a two to four-page paper (double-spaced) with your findings about mobile phone apps, their advantages and disadvantages, citing at least two references. You can include a paragraph or two with your personal experience in this area, if applicable.
2. Estimate the time and cost for the entire project and justify with reasons. Which type of estimation do you use and why?
3. Estimate the number of programmers and designers needed to finish the project. Show financial calculations stating how much you would like to reserve for these professionals.
4. Critically analyse how you would estimate the cost of software like the above project.
5. Identify the major tasks to be carried out. You can include as many tasks as you think, will help the user.
6. Identify the order the tasks have to be developed. Can some tasks be done in parallel (at the same time) or serially (one task must finish before the next task starts) and break down the major tasks to the lower levels (as far as work package)?
7. Identify any major risks that could affect the delivery of the project or cause to exceed the project budget, time scale or increase the required resource. Construct a risk assessment table that will rate the impact of each risk that you identify. Use a critical path analysis to assist you in this identification.
10 marks
8. Determine the costs and provide a WBS containing these costs. The WBS should also contain a set of estimates that are mirrored on the WBS and should be capable of 'rolling-up' to demonstrate the overall cost of the project and the individual cost of each sub deliverable.
Create a work breakdown structure (WBS) for the tasks which have tangible outcomes and a process breakdown structure (PBS) for those tasks which are process oriented such as back-up and restore facilities to back up the database and the software development process.
Can you link the two structures, i.e. WBS and PBS so one project manager can manage the project or do you have other suggestions?
9. Develop a project plan using MS Project or other suitable software.
10. Include critical path analysis to demonstrate the beginning to end of the project and identify where problems may be.
11. What direct and indirect costs are involved in the above project? If you have to crash the project duration, how would you achieve this?
12. Prepare a lessons-learned report for what you personally learned from this project and be creative in your response.