Project Scope

This course uses a so-called "authentic assessment" instead of a final exam. The purpose of the authentic assessment is to assess your learning by doing. You will demonstrate project management by completing a large team project over the course of the semester, including its project documentation and the Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) (based on the project’s scope), and its schedule.

The authentic assessment consists of a class project, the Integrated Team Project, which is comprised of the components of project planning (class deliverables) spread out over the course of the semester in the approximate order they would be completed in a real world project. Critical thinking, creativity and problem-solving techniques will be used as the team goes through the project planning and execution exercises.

In addition, there are two team projects that are not a component of the Authentic Assessment.

Because this course uses an authentic assessment, there is no final exam.

Business and IT professionals and/or project managers are involved with the development and management of a variety of small- and large-scale projects. They are often required to prepare documentation and guidelines associated with these projects.

There will be a semester-long team project (the Integrated Team Project – the ITP) with multiple individual and group deliverables due weekly throughout the semester to coincide with the topics covered in the textbook and weekly Conferences. This assessment will reinforce the lessons learned from the professional IT project management environment and will use the application tools employed in that environment, such as Microsoft Project and Microsoft Office (Word, Excel, and PowerPoint). Students are expected to apply critical thinking, creativity, and problem-solving techniques as the team goes through the project planning and execution exercises.

The purpose of the ITP is to give each classmate the opportunity to apply many of the project-management techniques to a practical project. This includes both the hard skills of project management (developing project schedules, using MS Project, etc.) and the soft skills of managing and participating on a project team.

The course-long ITP project is the hands-on, real-world practical application part of the course. The experience students gain by accomplishing these weekly assignments is experience that often is directly applied in the student’s professional life.

Like any good project, our classroom ITP project is too large and too complex for one person (or even a small team) to do in one week as one assignment. Therefore, the ITP is assigned in smaller, step-by-step pieces each week of the course. Each piece concentrates on one (or a small number of) aspect of project management such as project initiation, project task scheduling, risk management, and so forth. The resulting "output" of each piece is a class deliverable (and is submitted for grading as an assignment). The process of producing each deliverable involves one or more team tasks.

The entire project builds to the final Consolidated Project Plan that brings all the assignments together so that the student is able to “see” and manage the project as a whole, rather than individual pieces.

Each project deliverable will be specifically assigned, with a due date, in the weekly CONTENT area of our LEO Classroom. The full set of requirements and specifics plus the grading rubrics of each weekly ITP assignment are contained within this document. The Content area only includes a brief discussion of the assignment.

Note that the technical IT work of executing or implementing the project will not be done in this class, only the project management planning work. For instance, if the project is to develop a Web site, then we will not be doing any Web development, but will be developing project management tasks, documents and deliverables to plan the development of a Web site.

It is a good idea to check ahead weekly for the projects and deliverables due in the next few weeks to get a feel for what lies ahead. There is a project or deliverable due every week, and some of them are more extensive and difficult than others. It is a good idea to start the projects a week or two in advance so that there is plenty of time to work with your team on them.

Because it will be difficult to form your own teams online with students scattered around the world, the instructor will assign students to teams. Each team member is responsible to his/her own team; the degree of the team’s success is dependent on the efforts contributed by ALL team members.

The instructor will serve in the roles of client/customer, bill-payer, and executive sponsor for the ITP project. When decisions need to be made by stakeholders, they must be submitted to the instructor, who will make the final decision. The buck stops here. The teams will need to work with the client/customer to define and refine the project requirements.

In order to accomplish any IT project, the project team must include a project manager and other PM-related roles for managing the IT project. The project team must include IT-related roles such as software developer, system analyst, network engineer, installer, and so forth. Without these types of roles, no IT project can succeed.

Our ITP assignments include the fictional work of a real project management team to manage the IT project given in the scenario. For the ITP assignments, team member Joe might be the network engineer, team member Jabari might be the software specialist, and team member Corinne might be the project manager. If there are not enough students on the team, then these fictional roles may include fictional names to round-out the functional needs of the project team. For example, your project team might need 12 people to accomplish all of the project effort, but your class team only includes 5 members. Those other 7 project team members would be fictional functional members of the project team. And the ITP fictional team roles would not change from week to week.

The team areas will include a private discussion area and team lockers to facilitate communications and collaboration while working on assignments. UMUC provides Google+ tools (such as Google Chat and Hang-Out) that may be used for team exchanges. Other collaboration tools may be used by the team to hold live meetings and discussions. Please be aware that if a question arises regarding the timeliness or quality of team members’ contributions, the instructor will ask for evidence of the alleged non-contributing team members participation and contribution.

As is the case with business organizations in the Twenty-First Century, our class is a GLOBAL environment. We have students all around the world so the team must work with teammates in other geographic and time zones. Asynchronous communication is one solution, but the team should work with EACH member to build communication channels that work for ALL team members. The instructor will silently monitor the LEO Groups and discussions, and may chime in if necessary to keep the team on track, answer questions specifically directed to the instructor, or help avoid problems.

Though we hope to keep the teams as stable as possible, students dropping or adding the course will affect team membership. Students may be re-assigned to different teams if it is necessary to re-balance the teams in cases such as these; but we will try not to do this as it is very disruptive for all members of both groups. These, unfortunately, are all too common real-world experiences.

Team effort and member contributions are important in this course. The METHOD of reviewing and grading contributing and non-contributing team members is provided below.

The grades for each deliverable will include components based on: (a) the content and quality of the documents delivered; (b) the format of the documents (where applicable); and (c) individual contribution to the work of the team deliverable.

The team is responsible for managing itself.  Among other things, this means that the TEAM determines whose names go on the cover page for each assignment.  If one team member does not participate and/or contribute in a timely manner (based on the TEAM’s schedule), the team is EMPOWERED to omit that name from the deliverable, thereby indicating the team’s joint assessment that the omitted team member did not contribute and should not earn a grade on that assignment.  In other words, omitted team members earn a zero on the assignment. 

Important note to the team members -- Please do NOT include the names of teammates who submit nothing to the team’s efforts on the Cover Sheet of team assignments.   Some members of the team might think they are being kind by including names of teammates who did not contribute, but this is unfair to the teammates who did contribute in a timely manner. There may be situations when the team agrees to give a teammate a break to deal with a life event, but normally, only those who contribute should be included for credit, please! If the team agrees to allow one member a bit of an easy week to deal with a family emergency, that person should willingly contribute twice as much the following week to EARN the credit for the previous week.

It is VERY important that ONLY students/team members who do contribute quality work in a timely manner should receive credit for the assignment. If these assignments were individual assignments and a teammate did not submit, that teammate would not receive a grade.  It should be the SAME in these team efforts.  This is a very real-world experience, as not all members of our teams are willing to fulfill their agreements and/or responsibilities.

Here's how that works:  I will expect members of the team to notify any and all omitted teammates (with a copy to me), informing the omitted persons that they will not be included on the deliverable assignment. This email should be sent before the assignment is posted for grading, or shortly afterwards. The omitted persons can protest to me, with a copy to ALL teammates.  My final determination will be based on the activity in the LEO GROUP area and any evidence that the omitted student provides that he/she did, in fact, contribute on time (based on the team’s weekly schedule) and the contribution met the requirements as set forth by the team.

Each assignment is new and fresh and is assessed "de novo".  Omitting a team member's name holds for only one assignment at a time, not for the entire semester.  So team members who contribute to the next assignment are automatically reinstated and earn a grade – unless they are also omitted from that following assignment's title page.  However, it must be re-assessed separately for each assignment.

How this generally works out in practice is that if someone is not contributing, then the rest of the team needs to step up team efforts to fill in and complete the work.  If team members do not, then it would be an incomplete assignment that is submitted, and it would earn a low team grade.  In other words, everyone would be penalized.  However, if the teammates fill in and complete the work, then the team will earn a higher team base score because the assignment is complete.  In that case, only the team members who didn't contribute would be penalized.

It also requires that you be honest about assessing contributions of individual teammates. 

First, the LEO Group area is for your use in the team and not for submitting assignments for grading.  Team members should use the Group area to work on documents together.  That is, you can post them and can each edit them and re-post. LEO's Help guide should have details on how to use Groups.

Before posting MS Word documents in your LEO Group for collaboration, please turn on "Track Changes" for your own team's use. (In MS Word, use the Review tab on the Ribbon, then the Track Changes button.) This will not only make it easier for you to determine the changes, additions, etc., that your team members have made, but will even help track who made which changes.

Please turn off "Track Changes" when you submit your final document for grading.

Where and how to submit ITP assignments for grading:  Who should submit the team assignments?   The team leader for the assignment that week.  If the team has a different team leader for each assignment, then that team leader will hold the responsibility for posting the group assignment before the due date and time. The team leader should submit the team assignments in the Assignments area. Please consider a contingency plan within the team so that a second person is identified to post the assignment if the team leader has not done so ten minutes before the time the assignment is due. This will save the team from posting late assignments if the team leader has a schedule conflict or sudden emergency.

Please note: EVERY assignment is to include an APA-format cover sheet. Include your team name in the FILE name… this is also true for Individual assignments – please include your name in the file name! All Microsoft Project assignments have a required Word document designed to respond to the assignment questions, etc. Please place your cover sheet on the Word Document.

PLEASE NOTE: IT IS THE TEAM’S RESPONSIBILITY TO ASSURE THE ASSIGNMENT IS POSTED ON TIME. EVERY MEMBER OF THE TEAM WILL SUFFER IF ASSIGNMENTS ARE POSTED LATE!

If the team submits more than one project deliverable, then the instructor will grade the posting closest to (but before) the time the assignment is due. If there are multiple postings, late postings will not be graded.

In addition to posting in the Assignments area, please post the team assignments in the SHARED LEARNING ENVIRONMENT discussions included in each week’s Content.

Our class is an OPEN AND SHARED LEARNING ENVIRONMENT and teams and team members are STRONGLY ENCOURAGED TO LOOK at the other teams' efforts in the SHARED LEARNING Discussion areas and TO IMPROVE their own projects as they see what the other teams doing.

Individual assignments are to be submitted in the Assignments area no later than the due date and time. Please refer to the LATE ASSIGNMENT policy in the class Syllabus.

Specific grading rubrics for each deliverable are posted along with the ITP project deliverable assignments. A narrative of the grading criteria is provided in the full requirements and details of each assignment. Please be sure to read the rubrics, as they are a guide to how you will be graded.

The requirements for each of the assignments describe "satisfactory" or "minimum required" performance. Superior or outstanding scores require additional work and additional elements, some of which is described in the rubrics. Performing additional work and including additional elements beyond what is described in the assignments and the rubrics results in better grades.

Please review the grading criteria in the class syllabus. You will notice that C-level (satisfactory) work is described as “good.” A-level work is considered “outstanding.” Outstanding work is effort well above that required to meet the basic requirements. Please be sure to refer to the assignment’s grading rubric when working on your assignments. A-level work meets all the assignment requirements and goes well beyond the requirements stated in this document.

The following discussion addresses the description and requirements of the weekly integrated team project assignments.

Imagine that your team works for a company that specializes in the design, development and installation of information technology (IT) systems. Your company has been asked to prepare a project plan to install an IT system for a specific client as described below. Because of your company’s experience, the client has selected your company to plan, perform and manage this project.

Your project assignment will be to prepare the project plan to install an IT system needed for the client. This will be done incrementally throughout the course of this class. The scope (defined in the class reading material) of the project will be identified in the ITP Project Charter (ITP-1 assignment). The project description is deliberately generalized in order to allow your team the opportunity to use creative thinking and decision skills to develop the specifics of what the client needs (hardware? software? PCs? servers? networking? cabling? wireless? application systems? Web sites? Cloud storage? what?) and the scope (how much, how many, how, and for whom?) and extent thereof. In other words, the requirements provided to you are vague and will need to be defined and refined by the project team working with the client. By not providing a preconceived system, the team has room for ingenuity in planning the design and implementation of the IT system.

To keep the project manageable and doable in a limited-duration class, the magnitude and scope of the project must be such that it will require a project management team of 3 to 6 team members. Less than this, then you have scoped it too small; if it is more than double that, then you have scoped it too large.

Note: Even if your class team has fewer than 6, your project management team will include 3 - 6 people, real and/or fictional.

Remember that you are not to do the hands-on technical IT work of the project in this class or as part of this ITP, but are to build a project plan that demonstrates the company’s ability to plan, manage and control the project of designing and installing the IT system for this client.

Your team has been asked to prepare a project plan to install an IT system in a local bakery. Mamma Mia has been the primary baker and bakery owner since its opening 15 years ago. The bakery is one of a dozen shops in a strip mall in an up-and-coming part of town. The bakery is a walk-up-and-order configuration with no seating space. Because the bakery has become more successful over the years, Mamma Mia has decided that the time is right to expand the bakery into the next store, which is now vacant, and she has signed a contract for the two stores to be connected and remodeled. This space will more than double the size of the current bakery. With this added-on/extra space, Mamma Mia would like to offer her customers sandwiches and bakery items, as well as café-type seating. At the moment, the bakery employs 1 other baker and 2 persons who wait on the customers at the counter. All paperwork, bookkeeping, ordering supplies, hiring and firing, and keeping track of inventory is done by Mamma. When the expansion construction is complete, Mamma Mia anticipates hiring 4 additional people full time – 2 food-service certified sandwich makers, 1 more baker, and 1 more counter server. She also intends to hire 1 person to track inventory and order supplies, and 1 person to manage the bookkeeping, bill paying, and finance parts of the business.

Because the bakery is now a small operation, all business is done by telephone and with paper documents. There is one cash register and all bakery goods are purchased with cash or check. To coincide with the construction/expansion effort, Mamma would like to have an IT system installed for point-of-sale, inventory, bookkeeping, purposes. Mamma would like the system to “connect” to her suppliers, the health department for food services, and other business relationships. She would also like a website so that she has an Internet presence and so her customers can make advance orders for pick-up. Related to that, she would like the system to be able to process debit and credit cards.

Mamma Mia has identified $100,000 to provide an IT system that will be modern, easy to use/employee and customer friendly, and will make her bakery and sandwich shop more efficient. The cost estimate is just that – an estimate.[footnoteRef:2] [2: For this project all estimates will be considered a Rough Order of Magnitude (ROM). A ROM is an estimate of a project’s Level of Effort (LOE) and cost for completion. According to PMBOK, the Rough Oder of Magnitude (ROM) is a cost range between -50% to +50%. In other words, at the project completion, when the final cost is calculated, the initial ROM should have been between -50% to +505 of the actual cost.]

Mamma has very little experience working with computers and IT systems. She feels a bit “old fashioned” but she is willing to learn and wants to be sure that her employees learn, too, how to work with the IT system. Mamma is your point of contact and the person you will be working with as you “fill-in” and finalize the requirements for the IT system, and then move to the design and implementation of the IT system. This means you will have a need to define and explain terms as you work with her.

As you begin to plan the ITP project, keep in mind that until now the client has had little or no IT system and has had no IT staff. In addition, there is no networking, LAN, or Internet installed, and no productivity software or other applications. You may assume that Internet connectivity is available in the area, however (whether via ISP or satellite or whatever). Mamma Mia is the major stakeholder and your point of contact for this proposal. Your instructor will fill the role of Mamma and the major stakeholder. So all questions for the client should be directed to your class instructor. Your team may consider clarifying the requirements, including the available funding, through Private Message email interviews with Mamma Mia.

For those not intimately familiar with food services, please consider the complex government regulatory requirements and electronic finance requirements for e-banking, e-ordering, and e-commerce to deal with. You may need to address some basic privacy requirements regarding the employees of the bakery.

Other things were omitted in order to both minimize the length of the assignment document so that you do not bite off more than you can chew, and to be realistic. In real world project management, it is very typical for the clients to be experts in their own business areas but have little knowledge of IT or especially of projects. Consequently they have little understanding of what kinds of information are needed to do a project, and especially of what levels of detail are needed. They also have little knowledge of technical IT details that may be important for an IT project but aren't their field of expertise. The clients often genuinely do not know what they want or need. They do not know what IT can and cannot do for them, so they do not know what to ask for or what's reasonable or unreasonable to request. They also speak a different language than we do. The result is that their requests are often quite vague from our point of view (even on the occasions that they seem specific from their point of view). This will be the case with Mamma Mia!

So what happens? The project team must ask. The project team has to spend a lot of time eliciting requirements, assumptions, constraints, business rules, and so forth; especially requirements. This is usually iterative, takes a lot of time, and continues (though hopefully decreasing) throughout the project. I'll try to reduce the iterative and incremental nature a bit in order to speed things up a bit for this class. Nevertheless, we intentionally want the project management experience to be realistic, so there are a lot of open ended things in the project scenario that the teams will simply have to ask about.

Who does the team ask? The client, of course. In this ITP class project, the professor serves in the role of instructor and also in the roles of the client, project sponsor, and functional business stakeholders. So when you need more information than you are given -- which will occur, especially during the project charter and WBS phases – do not guess, please ask!

The remainder of the requirements and instructions apply to all ITP deliverables, both individual and team assignments.

The files submitted should be named as follows:

· Team name, Project Deliverable number, Project Deliverable title. For example: "TEAM 7 Projecteers - ITP-1 - Charter.doc" for team assignments; or “John Doe -ITP-5” for individual assignments.

· ALL group deliverables must have a cover page that includes contributing team members’ names.

Individual assignments are to be submitted in the Assignments Folder for each student. I frequently download assignments for grading and it HELPS me your name is in the file name so I know exactly whose paper I am grading.

Submit team assignments in the Assignments Folder as specified under "Submission of the Project Deliverables for Grading", above.

ALL of the assignments for this class must be provided in the APA style format, which means and includes the following:

· APA style cover page For All Assignments.

· Use Microsoft Word for text documents. If you do not have Microsoft Word, "Save As" a word document in Word .doc or .docx format.

· Use Microsoft Project for project documents. Use Microsoft Excel for assignments that specify Excel. Use Microsoft PowerPoint for the presentation.

· The following requirements apply to all submitted documents in this class:

· Use Page Setup to configure Word documents.

· Use 1" margins top, bottom, left and right sides.

· Use Times New Roman size 12; or Arial, or Verdana size 10.

· Use appropriate headings and subheadings.

· The first word of each new paragraph should be indented.

· For documents that are longer than one page, number each page in the bottom right corner. The title page should never be numbered.

· Default size limit: If a page limit or number of words are not specified in the instructions for an ITP deliverable then the document should not exceed 5-6 pages. If a page limit or number of words is specified in the instructions for an ITP deliverable, then that size specification has precedence and supersedes this default size.

All deliverables for this class must have a cover page including assignments created in Excel or Microsoft Project. Use an un-numbered title page as the first page of the document. Add optional graphics if you wish, as long as it is professional looking. In the center of the page, in this order, double spaced, put:

· The name or number of the team

· The name or acronym of the project itself

· IFSM 438: Project Management

· Title and number of the project deliverable assignment

· A list of the contributing team members and their current individual roles on this particular deliverable assignment, with the Team Leader listed first. Note: If in the judgment of the team, a particular member did not contribute to a particular deliverable or contributed minimally, then the non-contributing team members should not be listed on the title page.

For example:

Team 7, "The Projecteers"

Automation of Acme Organization Project

IFSM 438: Project Management

ITP-1 Project Deliverable– Project Charter

Chris Pimbock Team Leader

Jamie Lopez Documentation Specialist

Terry Johnson Research

Ronnie Smythe-Jones Editor and Submitter

You may add optional clip art or graphics if desired. Clip art is not required and will not earn any additional points.

Nothing else needs to be added to the title/cover page. Remember, the title page is not a separate document. It is the first (unnumbered) page of your document and does not count in the number of page requirements.

For ALL assignments (individual AND team), include a 1-page Executive Summary that summarizes the purpose of the document, the problem statement or need for the project, the solution or approach (a high level description of the IT system, which might include a graphic), and the scope, cost and schedule of the project. The Executive Summary should be consistent through the semester with the same basic information plus improvements, additions and/or changes as determined by the assignment(s). ALL assignment questions should be answered in a way that provides the reader with enough background and information to understand the answers.

Unless otherwise noted, the written deliverables (as opposed to the MS Project deliverables) will be graded in part on format and writing quality. The majority will be based on project management content and project management quality. (Specific points and proportions are specified in the grading criteria for each assignment, below.) This means that the quality of writing is worth as much as one quarter to one third of the grade for the assignment. Please notice that there is a STRONG incentive for ALL team members to carefully proofread team documents before submitting. This incentive will continue through the semester.

Writing quality includes considerations such as, but not limited to:

· Grammar, Verb Tenses, Pronoun Use, Spelling, Punctuation, and Writing Competency.

· Spelling. Remember to spell-check, and then to proofread. Better yet, have a friend or colleague read it before submitting it. Read it out loud to yourself. It’s amazing how many mistakes we find when we read out loud. This is because we are forced to slow down and LOOK at the words.

· In a professional paper one does not use contractions ("doesn't", "don't", etc.) and one does not use the personal "you" or "your".

· Use the impersonal as I have in the previous sentence. It is more business-like than saying, "Also in a professional paper you do not use contractions."

· In a professional or academic paper in the US, companies and organizations should be referred to as “it” not “they.” (It may be different in Britain, but we are an American university.)

· Use references -- in APA format – (in text citations and Reference pages) even if you have all the information in your head. References add credibility to your work; provide sources for the reader to find more information and lend academic credence. References show the professor that members of the team did above and beyond what was required in order to produce a high quality deliverable. Please remember that blogs and “pedia” type sources are NOT credible.

· Write at the "almost graduated" level-at this point in an academic career, written works should reflect the level of education achieved. Barebones or barely adequate type answers will earn barely adequate type grades.

In preparation for the course-long ITP project, there is a relatively short team process project (TPP-1) before the first ITP deliverable (ITP-1). The TPP-1 and (in part) the TPP-2 projects are about our classroom and team processes and assignments, not about the ITP project. The TPP-1 is about thinking through and planning how the team will manage the weekly gradable assignments; a good plan for coming together and working as a team on a weekly basis will allow you to succeed in the team projects of this course. In other words, TPP-1 is HOW you and your team will work from week-to-week. For each week, what needs to be done, who needs to do what, and when does it need to be done for the team to submit the assignment on time.

The purpose of TPP-1 is simply to get your team working together and figuring out how you will work together throughout the semester to accomplish the project deliverables (ITP-1 through ITP-5) throughout the course. The reason for doing this is so that you do not "wing it" or muddle through it, but actually think through in advance a plan to ensure that your team will successfully meet each of the project deadlines.

Full requirements for both the TPP and the ITP assignments are provided in the classroom.