SECTION A: ECA Report

The Objective of this ECA

To provide an opportunity for the students to apply the materials learnt in the course and to develop/sharpen the necessary technical skills and knowledge on project management.

Please note that:
i. The details of this project are fictional. Any resemblance to the real-life situation is purely coincidental.
ii. As information is given throughout the case, you are advised to read the entire ECA document before working on the report.
iii. Students who simply reproduce the course materials without relating to the ECA case will be given low or no mark.
iv. Students should not include the questions in the report

PROJECT CASE: Implementing a Class Management Portal

Background
Continual Technology Training (CTT) is a technology learning centre found by Dr Alan Hong. CTT provides short technical courses mainly to adults working in Singapore science and technology sectors. CTT was started three years ago at Happy World Plaza with one classroom and Dr Hong was the only trainer. The courses conducted, such as Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning, equip learners with the latest technical knowledge which they can apply in
their works. Due to the promotion of life-long learning by the government, and the need to upgrades one’s skills in the workplaces, CTT’s business grows rapidly. It has expanded to three classrooms with six staff.

Currently, most of the CTT student administration is done in fragmented manners using a simple Microsoft Access database. Course materials are distributed to students through emails. Dr Hong feels that CTT shall improve the efficiency of its operations through Information Technology (IT). He has decided to launch a Class Management Portal (CMP) Project to implement a web-based system that will perform all student administration and some course management functions. He is glad to know that CTT can apply funding for CMP Project under the Productivity Solutions Grant (PSG) which is administered by the statuary board, Enterprise Singapore (ES).

Section 1: Managing the Project Team

Question 1

(a) Assume you are CTT’s Operations Manager. On 1 June 2020, the CEO, Dr Hong appointed you as the Project Manager for the Class Management Portal (CMP) Project. He briefed you on his expectations: The project will start on 1 July 2020. The portal must be launched by 17 Sep 2020 for use by CTT’s most popular Machine Learning Course on the next working day. The CMP system shall have all the basic student administration functions (e.g., class registration and payment) and as many course management functions (e.g., posting of course materials, online forum, quiz, etc.) as possible. Enterprise Singapore will fund most of the project after performing an audit. The project team should be financially prudent but reasonable expenses with good justifications will be approved.

You must assess the priority of the project and construct a project priority matrix based on the CEO’s direction.

(b) You have decided to outsource the software development to an educational software development company, named School Online (SOL) Pte Ltd. The other project members are sourced internally. Within a month, you shall form a project team with the following members:
i. Yourself: CTT’s Operations Manager cum CMP Project Manager.
ii. Mr Tan Eng Yeow: a software developer seconded from SOL.
iii. Ms Siti: CTT’s newly recruited IT Engineer.
iv. Dr Rajan Chandra: CTT’s Machine Learning course developer.

Differentiate two (2) advantages and two (2) disadvantages to CTT in outsourcing the software development to SOL. For each disadvantage, discuss one (1) best practice to minimise its likelihood of occurring.

Section 2: Developing a Project Plan

You conducted a pre-project discussion with your team members. The team worked out the project activities and preliminary details as shown in Table 1.

Table 1: Activities List for Class Management Portal (CMP) Project

Note: * You must use your surname instead of “PM” in the MS Project Resource Sheet and Column.

A budgetary costing would have to be reported for approval. The unit costings are shown in Tables 2 to 4. You must enter them into the Resource Sheet in MS Project (View->Resource Sheet):

Notes on the costs:
1. All costs stated are in Singapore Dollars. The Computer system was quoted by a supplier in US dollars and converted by the project team to Singapore dollars using the exchange rate on 1 June 2020.
2. The standard rates for project members in Table 2 and for Ad-hoc Admin Staff and Temp Engineer in Table 4 are for working during office-hours (9 a.m. to 5 p.m.) on normal weekdays. All resource usages are 100% loading. After-office hours, Saturday, Sunday, Public Holiday (PH) and Holiday-In-Lieu rates are two times of the standard rates.
3. All project members’ costs involved in this project shall be treated as variable costs automatically calculated by MS Project based on the rates in Table 2 and the number of days each staff works on the project.
4. The ad-hoc Admin Staff internally sourced from CTT can be deployed to help in CMP Project’s administrative tasks, by pulling her out from her daily works. The Temp Engineer, to be contracted from an outsourcing company, can be deployed to help in the IT works. These deployments will only be activated when necessary and added to the related activity as Work Type Cost-per-use resources. The cost can be manually calculated based on the hourly rate and the actual duration needed.
5. The project will be funded by Enterprise Singapore (ES) after an audit. For accountability and building rapport, only the Project Manager can liaise with ES.

Notes on using MS Project for Q2 & Q3:
1. The project schedule is based on a 5-day workweek. Each day has 8 working hours (9 a.m. to 5 p.m.). No work will be performed after office hours, on Saturday, Sunday and public holidays, holiday-in-lieu unless otherwise stated or when you deem necessary. Do not change any durations, predecessor relationships or the resource’s assignments unless you can justify with good reasons to do so.
2. The relevant public holidays which may fall into the project period are Hari Raya Haji on 31 July 2020, National Day on 9 Aug 2020 and Deepavali on 14 Nov 2020. If a Public Holiday falls on Sunday, the next day (Monday) will be a Holiday-in-lieu. There will be no Holiday-in-lieu for Public Holiday on Saturday. You must mark in MS Project all Public Holidays and Holiday-in-lieu as Non-Working Days. (Project-> Change Working Time)
3. Click View->Gantt Chart (Leftmost icon)->More View->Resource Sheet to enter the name, type and cost of each resource item into the Resource Sheet.
4. Click View->Gantt Chart Gantt Chart, then View->Table->Entry to enter the Task Name, Duration, Predecessors and Resource in the Gantt Chart Entry Table View. Do not change the order of the activities (you are not required to rearrange the list into a Work Breakdown Structure).

Set Activity 1 as the higher-level activity by highlighting all activities before and right indent them to the second level.

Then Click Project -> Project Information -> Set Start Date as dictated by CEO.

Right-click on Activity 18 (Launch CMP System) to access its Information; Under Advanced Tab, set Constraint Type as “Finish No Later Than”, set Constraint Date as the date dictated by CEO.
5. To see all resource conflicts, select all task, right-click to choose Auto-Schedule, then Resource Tab ->Clear Leveling. Observe any resource conflicts.
6. Diagrams, charts, tables, graphs and relevant project outputs may be shown as images. These must be appropriately formatted and presented so that they are legible and can be comfortably viewed.

Question 2
You believe that one of the most efficient ways to prepare your project planning is by using Microsoft Project. Hence, you shall carry out the following steps:
(a) Construct in a single diagram the project plan (after Clear Leveling) which shows the columns for Information (i), Task Name, Duration, Start Date, Finish Date, Predecessors, Resource Names and the Gantt Chart.

Identify the Project Completion Date (Activity 1). Explain any resource conflicts and the activities involved.

(b) Demonstrate the ability to develop a project cost by preparing an MS Project cost table or cost report (after Clear Leveling). Evaluate the total project cost.

(c) Select MS Project to resolve each conflict without sacrificing other priorities. You may use the Automatic Resource Leveling feature, but you must explain what the Leveling operation has done and the effect on the tasks and schedule.
Note: To Level Resource, do the followings:
Clicking Resource-> Leveling Option -> Tick the radio buttons “Automatic” and
“Level Entire Project”, then uncheck all boxes below. Then click “Level All”. Click “Skip All” for tasks that cannot be levelled.

(d) For the conflict that cannot be resolved through MS Project’s Resource Leveling in Part (c), formulate two options to accelerate the project completion when resources are not constrained. You must bear in mind that the project core team has been formed, the members’ pace cannot be quickened further, and the task cannot be transferred to other members who have different skills.
Examine the impact on the cost for each option, then choose the lower-cost option. Explain any changes you make to MS Project to implement this option.

Section 3: Monitoring a Project Progress and Closing Project

Question 3
While you are applying for a grant from Enterprise Singapore (ES), ES recommends that an additional CMP Mobile Apps module be developed rather than designing a pure web-based CMP System, due to the prevalence of smartphone usages. CTT’s management likes ES’s idea. After negotiation with SOL, it needs three more days for developing the software (Activity 5)
and the cost would increase accordingly. This change also affects some other activities’ work scopes, although there are no impacts on the duration and costs.
(a) Examine any impacts on the schedule and the cost due to adding the CMP Mobile Apps module.
As Project Manager, you must exercise a best-practise method to manage the change. Appraise four (4) important accomplishments by examining the processes that need to be carried and the items affected due to the change to add the Mobile Apps module.

Two more unforeseen issues occurred during the project implementation period:
1. The distance from the telecom access point to the data room was underestimated. This caused an increase in the network cables cost by $700. However, there was no change to the duration to lay network cables.
2. Due to the appreciation of US dollars, the cost of the computer system increased by 6%.

(b) Compose in a single diagram the Tracking Gantt Chart view of MS Project with Information (i), Task Model, Task Name, Duration, Predecessor, Start Date and Finish Date columns shown. State the project completion date.

(c) Formulate the Cost Performance Index (CPI) and compute the CPI. Operate MS Project to obtain a cost report or table with CPI to verify your computation. Determine the final total project cost and interpret the CPI.

(d) Evaluate whether the project has met the objectives set by the CEO. Conclude if the project is considered a success.

SECTION B

The Management of Continual Technology Training (CTT) requests you, the Project Manager for Class Management Portal (CMP) Project, to make a presentation one week after the project completion. You shall address the following items:
1. What are the objectives and priorities of the project?
2. Are there changes in schedule and what are the contributing events?
3. Is there a cost overrun and what are the contributors to the cost overruns if any?
4. Lessons learnt and suggestions for future projects.

Prepare a video recording of the presentation of at least 3 minutes but not exceeding 6 minutes. There are two methods for ECA video assignment submission; either Record Media or Upload Media. For Upload Media, please note that your file size should be no more than 500MB and the format is in .mp4.

SECTION C

Prepare a set of PowerPoint presentation upon which the video presentation is based. Please note that the PowerPoint must be converted to PDF before submission to SUSS (Canvas).