Introduction
Project management is a systematic organization of tasks to be performed. While drafting a project management program, it is important to take into consideration the objectives and goals of the project. Project management usually takes into consideration the budget, time, and scope of the project, without these considerations being put in place the project can’t succeed. Project management is done to produce certain output but not only complete a certain activity within a specific time. There are various methods of performing project management and they are: agile, phased approaches, interactive and incremental. Projects should be done using the general project metrics which entails the following: scope, risk, budget, quality, resources, and schedule (Fleming, 1996).
Discussion
The total cost of this project is estimated to be $140,000 and will take a total of 180 days. This project will take different phases before its completion and the cost of the project has been broken down to focus on a specific phase. To come up with an appropriate work breakdown structure the management has decided to highlight the phases and their costs as follows:
- Project Administration: This is a stage where the company’s administration marshals up funds and resources. This is the most important phase since it is the initial phase of the project because the project manager focuses on the plan of the project. The cost of this phase is approximated to be $20,000.
- Analysis: Analysis of a project is done before its initialization. Project analysis comprises the cost evaluation, time, and labor required to see through the project. While performing project analysis it is important to start with critical path analysis. This type of analysis helps the management to determine the most important activities and the sequence in which they are to be performed. After evaluating the critical activities then the cycle path analysis can be done. This is a procedure that determines the total time the project will take including the delays. Finally, gap analysis is done, which determines the duration to leave before performing the future task from the current one (Fleming, 1996). The cost of this project analysis is $35, 337; this amount signifies the importance of this phase. A wrong analysis can lead to stalling of a project or even collapsing of the project.
- Design: This is the layout of the project, this layout comprises the functions and operations of the project. The design of a project should be detailed to include process diagrams, business rules, screen layouts, and other important documentation. Many companies are using up-to-date technology to come up with very impressive and accurate designs and this makes the phase more costly. The management has allocated $24,462 for design in this project.
- Build or Coding: After designing the layout of the project codes must be put into place for easier access to the information. The coding methods will be determined by the developer but there are two most used methods, which are modular and subsystem code programming (Dennis, 2000). Before the code is integrated it must be tested to get a proper sequence. Since code integration is not a big task even though it requires expertise, the allocation of the same is $17,703.
- Conversion: This phase has been allocated $15,224.This is done to convert all the integrated systems into a single system. Conversion simplifies the workload and makes the system easy to interpret.
- Testing: To check the performance of the system and also the codes tests must be performed. The tests are done on the unit, user acceptance, and system. The tests which are performed are as follows: performance testing, automation testing, regression testing, system testing, data set testing, integration testing, black and white box testing, and unit testing. The amount of money allocated for this procedure is $13,794.
- Close-out: After all the phases have been concluded the project is now ready for implementation. This is the finalizing phase which formally closes the project (Dennis, 2000). This phase has been allocated $13,420.The close-out phase includes the documentation of the files by the administration.
The detailed task is very important for project management because it enables the managers to determine the cost and time frame of the project thus making an appropriate budget for the project (Cummings, 2006). While describing the tasks in a project, it is important to take note of sequencing to follow a certain process. Sequencing enables the implementation team of a project to determine whether there are dependent activities that can be completed in parallel to save time and minimize cost.
Earned value reporting is the reporting of the amount of money that could have been spent on the project; this procedure measures the performance of reporting. Such an evaluation helps the project team members to relate to the other types of cost analysis (Cummings, 2006).
References
- Cummings, H., (2006). Management Information Systems for the Information Age. Toronto, McGraw-Hill Ryerson
- Dennis, A., (2000). Systems Analysis and Design: An Applied Approach. New York: John Wiley.
- Fleming, Q. W., (1996). Earned Value Project Management. Newtown Square, PA: Project Management Institute.