Earned Value Management (EVM)

Project Performance (Section 2)

Patrick B. Magee

Professor Jeffery Pullen

Project Estimation and Budgeting

November 14, 2014

Project Summary

Introduction

Our medium business organization needs a telecommunication system that is flexible and that can adapt easily to the particular business’s growing needs. The phone system must be in such a way that it offers the exact qualities and features that the business needs, not only today but also in future. By having such a system, the business will have gotten a cost-effective solution that can cater for all the enterprise branch locations. The medium sized business needs a system, which can for instance be configured with various communication endpoints. The telecommunication system has to be unified and must have contact centers as well as related services that are linked together. The goal of having such an upgraded phone telecommunication is to ensure that there is improved customer service, efficiency, collaboration and competitiveness (Mueller, 2004).

The project objectives

The objective of this project is to install new and upgrade the existing company telephone system so that the system can:

1. Offer easy-to-use features that can ensure that any missed call does not transform into a missed business opportunity.

2. Quickly transfer calls to users’ mobile if they are away from the office.

3. Set the users’ voicemail using professional messaging.

4. Check emails, missed calls and call history using an on screen logging system.

Project Description

One of the ways of upgrading the mobile system is by creating an IP Office. This application is built from scratch specifically for medium-sized businesses. It is used for delivering communication capabilities that huge organizations are used to. It does this duty with elegant simplicity and it is very easy to use. With this phone system, the growing enterprises can be in a position of differentiating themselves from competitors via enhanced employee productivity, improved customer service and lower costs. Three IP office editions are tailored to meet the business needs of the medium sized company. These are advanced, preferred and essential edition. For the Essential Edition, the costs are down but this application has the key communication capabilities. With the preferred Edition, the company will be in a position of gaining ten times the voice messaging ability that Essential Edition offers. Besides, this application will also enable the company to handle many calls at the same time. On the other hand, the advanced edition will ensure that efficiencies and productivity is maximized. The preferred or advanced editions will make it possible for the company to give the individual workers the communication tools needed by them to perform at their best. The cost to be incurred as far as this application is concerned is that of subscribing for the edition and paying for the company that will create the IP Office (Bryant, Madsen & Meggelen, 2013).

Another way of upgrading the phone system in the medium sized company is by using business communications manager. This application is award winning convergence system for medium and small business phone systems. This application is ideal for the medium sized business because it helps it in streamlining its internal operations, improving its remote communications, increasing employee productivity, reducing costs and enhancing customer service. The Business communications manager offers a common browser based management platform capable of delivering unified communications capabilities, reliable and proven voice processing features and extensive range of business telephony applications that are feature-rich. The costs to be incurred here are those needed for the installation of the application.

The other application that will be required by this medium sized company will be the software communications system. This application will work in conjunction with the IP office phone system. It will help in enabling the medium sized company to deliver unified and powerful communications applications meant for improving the employee productivity, mobility and collaboration while reducing the cost of communications. Some of the functions that are delivered using this application include the unifying of messaging, meeting conferencing needs, offering video conferencing, and such solutions as advanced soft phones and personal auto attendant. The application also has such capabilities as follow me/finds me. With this application, employee can customize and control their applications with just few easy clicks. The costs to be incurred here are those needed for the installation of the application (Meggelen & Bryant, 2011).

The other application that will be used by the medium sized company in upgrading its phone system is called Call Manager Mobile. This application is a unified communications client application that gives the users the power of taking their office calls as well as instant messages on their phones, mobile phones as if they were at their office desks. It offers the users with broadcast messaging, group and single instant messaging, which include multiple simultaneous and enhanced presence information. It also helps in offering single-number reach for both outgoing and incoming calls. Therefore, users are only required to provide their office numbers in making or receiving calls on multiple endpoint devices. This application can also be integrated with IP mobility so that users can be empowered to access such advanced system calling features as call record, call transfer and direct-extension dialing. With Call Manager Mobile, users can still be able to received and make phone calls while accessing their voice mail of their phone devices. The costs to be incurred here are those needed for the installation of the application (Bryant, Madsen & Meggelen, 2013).

The last application that will be used for upgrading the phone system of the company is called IP Mobility. This is an application that will make it possible for the mobile device to serve as an extension of the office desk phone since it will provide a single-number reach to the phone user. The ability of providing a single number reach is important since it makes it possible to use the mobile device interchangeably with the office phone in making and receiving calls. It is also possible to set such presence status as “out of office” and “busy” in the phone so that the users can be able to designate the handling of incoming calls. With this application, the user can also be able to easily access the phone’s key voice messaging functionality while also managing the administration of the voice mailbox without the need of dialing into the voice mail system and navigating voice commands or key presses. The costs to be incurred here are those needed for the installation of the application (Meggelen & Bryant, 2011).

Projected Cost and Resources

The projected budget and resources are based on the past project. In the past, many companies have done the project of upgrading the business telephone system and most companies installed the same features as those identified in this company. Therefore, the projected budget will be as follows.

Source of Project Cost
	PROJECT TASKS	LABOR COST ($)	MATERIAL COST ($)	TOTAL PER TASK
PROJECT DESIGN	Developing Functional Specifications	$1,000.00	$1,000.00	$2,000.00
	Developing System Architecture	$1,500.00	$2,000.00	$3,500.00
	Developing Preliminary Design Specification	$1,000.00	$1,000.00	$2,000.00
	Developing Detailed Design Specifications	$1,200.00	$1,500.00	$2,700.00
	Developing Acceptance Test Plan	$800.00	$1,000.00	$1,800.00
	Subtotal	$5,500.00	$6,500.00	$12,000.00
PROJECT DEVELOPMENT	Developing Components	$1,200.00	$1,800.00	$3,000.00
	Procuring Software	$750.00	$800.00	$1,550.00
	Procuring Hardware	$700.00	$800.00	$1,500.00
	Developing Acceptance Test Package	$1,000.00	$1,200.00	$2,200.00
	Performing Unit/Integration Test	$1,600.00	$2,000.00	$3,600.00
	Subtotal	$5,250.00	$6,600.00	$11,850.00
PROJECT DELIVERY	Installing System	$1,500.00	$2,000.00	$3,500.00
	Training Customers	$1,200.00	$500.00	$1,700.00
	Performing Acceptance Test	$1,000.00	$600.00	$1,600.00
	Performing Post Project Review	$800.00	$700.00	$1,500.00
	Providing Warranty Support	$700.00	$500.00	$1,200.00
	Archiving Materials	$400.00	$500.00	$900.00
	Subtotal	$5,600.00	$4,800.00	$10,400.00
PROJECT MANAGEMENT	Customer Progress Reports/Meetings	$600.00	$500.00	$1,100.00
	Internal Status Reports/Meetings	$500.00	$450.00	$950.00
	Third-Party Vendor Interface	$1,000.00	$600.00	$1,600.00
	Internal Departments interface	$1,000.00	$700.00	$1,700.00
	Quality Assurance	$700.00	$500.00	$1,200.00
	Configuration Management	$400.00	$500.00	$900.00
	Overall Project Management	$700.00	$500.00	$1,200.00
	Subtotal	$4,900.00	$3,750.00	$8,650.00
Subtotals		$21,250.00	$21,650.00	$42,900.00
Risk (Contingency)	$3,000.00	$4,000.00	$7,000.00
Total (Scheduled)		$24,250.00	$25,650.00	$49,900.00

4. Create a responsibility assignment matrix (RAM) for your project, and justify your response

Responsibility Matrix

Task	Project Manager	Task Leader A	Task Leader B	Task Leader C	IT consultant
Project Design	A	R	I	I	C
Project Development	A	I	R	I	C
Project Delivery	A	1	I	R	C
Project Management	R	I	I	I	C

Legend: R=Responsible, A=Accountable, C=Consulted, I=Informed

Justification

Teamwork and leadership will be embraced fully as far as the responsibility matrix is concerned. This means that the project will be divided into four main tasks under which there will be many subtasks. Four leaders will oversee the main tasks. Each leader will have his or her own team. The team leaders who oversee the different main tasks will be responsible for appointing some members in their teams to be in charge of the different subtasks. Since the whole project is an IT related project, an IT consultant will be hired to offer consultancy services in each stage.

From the network schedule, the project duration is very clear. What is also clear is the tasks on the critical path. The relationships between tasks in terms of the finish and start times is clear in the network diagram. Some of the activities on the critical path include the tasks of developing functional specifications, developing system architecture, developing preliminary design specifications, developing detailed design specifications, developing acceptance test plan, developing components, procuring hardware, developing acceptance test package, performing unit/integration test, installing system, performing acceptance test, performing post project review, providing warranty support, archiving materials, and project management.

The total float in any given project has an association with the critical path in the network diagram. If the network diagram of a project has 5 non-critical paths, the total float values will be 5. The total float of this project will be the combined free float values of all tasks in a path. The total float refers to the schedule flexibility. The total float of all noncritical activities is important for the computation of an activity’s critical path drag. In order to reduce the float in the project, I will consider adjusting the order of the “finish-start” dates into “start-start” version so that the total float value is reduced. The non critical activities include procuring software, training customers, customer progress reports, internal status reports, third-party vendor interface, internal department interface, quality assurance and configuration management. The total float values for these tasks is 36 days.

The two practices identified in this case for managing project schedule include keeping the schedules simple, managing, and updating the project schedules weekly. In order to keep the project schedules simple, deliverables are used for assigning task names. The tasks names are made to be descriptive nouns not verbs. In terms of managing and updating the project schedules weekly, one has to ser status data each week. Any unfinished task is pushed up to status date (Mueller, 2004).

References:

Meggelen, M. J., & Bryant, L. R. (2011). Asterisk: The Definitive Guide. Sebastopol, CA: O'Reilly & Associates.

Bryant, R., Madsen, L., & Meggelen, J. V. (2013). Asterisk TM: The definitive guide.

Mueller, S. (2004). Upgrading and repairing PCs. Indianapolis, IN: Que.