CC2005 Project Planning and Management

Individual Assignment – Spring Semester, 2012/13

CC2005 Assignment Scenario 1 Date: 13/2/13

In this assignment you are asked to develop plans for a financial system to organise

the accounts for Tina Salmon, who runs the “Kipper Thai” oriental fish restaurant

based in Barnet, with another branch in Stratford. The restaurants attract diners in

the London area, and also offers a take away service; some customers have accounts for

entertaining business clients. Tina Salmon has a number of suppliers, and sometimes

switches between suppliers for certain ingredients if a discount is available. The

restaurant prides itself on using fresh ingredients, and will buy imported fresh goods

rather than frozen produce, although this does sometimes mean extra paperwork (e.g.

calculating the cost at the appropriate exchange rate). Tina Salmon needs to maintain

financial records for a variety of reasons:

Legal requirements (for taxation and audit purposes)

Customer accounts

Order and invoice management

Calculating menu pricing (there are different rates for eat in or take away)

Testing different supplier discount options

Sales reports

Inventory control

The calculation of staff wages is carried out separately, but could be a future project.

You have been appointed as the Project Manager responsible for organising Tina

Salmon’s financial system. This system should be up and running by the end of the June

2014. The following constraints are set:

Overall budget of between £25,000 and £80,000

The project start date is 10th

October 2013.

Tina Salmon has allowed a wide range for the overall budget of the project, as Tina is

willing to pay more for a more flexible and sophisticated system, which could be

enhanced and extended to deal with other aspects of the business in the future.

At no additional cost to the project you have a small office with telephone, fax, computer,

email and internet access. You have one member of support staff. Any additional staff

and resources required must be fully and realistically costed within the overall budget.

You will be asked a range of written questions in week 6 relating to your project

plans, requiring answers in a specific format. You may wish to keep a logbook for

your own use, but this is not part of the assessment. Note that this assignment

requires project planning; you are not asked to implement your proposals.

You must decide how you are going to plan and organise this project. You should

consider the following issues:

Identification of key stakeholders and their needs

The scope of the project

Planning and organising activities (work breakdown structure)

Legal/regulatory constraints (data protection, for example)

Equipment requirements, and hire or purchase

CC2005 Project Planning and Management

Individual Assignment – Spring Semester, 2012/13

CC2005 Assignment Scenario 2 Date: 13/2/13

Software requirements

Contingency plans (for equipment, for example)

Cost-benefit analysis (against the objectives of the project)

Identification of external and internal factors affecting the project

Identification of constraints that apply to your project.

SMART objectives for the project addressing:

What is the purpose of Tina Salmon’s financial system?

How will the success of Tina Salmon’s financial system be measured?

You should develop project plans, including:

A Gantt chart for scheduled work broken down into suitable work

packages, activities and tasks (which will include activities running in

parallel)

Resource plans detailing how all resources have been allocated and costed

Identification of the activities to be carried out, and the dependencies that

exist between these activities

Identification of any potential risks, the assessment of those risks, and how

you would manage them throughout the life cycle of the project

Time and staffing needed for the systems development life cycle

Time and staffing required for end-user training

Time and staffing required for data entry

You may assume that requirements analysis could take up to 5 weeks, then design and

development could take up to 8 weeks, and up to 4 weeks would be required for testing

and debugging the system. You may find you do not need as long as this for your

project; these times are given as guidelines, but should not be exceeded. You will also

need to schedule all other activities involved in your project.

You will not be able to answer all the questions surrounding the project, but you should

consider how you would solve problems. For example, you might not know whether

contracts will be necessary, but you can schedule time to meet a solicitor or adviser.

You should also prepare a brief summary of the main features of your project, explaining

the merits of your proposal, and consider issues which lie outside the scope of your

project. You should also consider possibilities for further work arising from this project.

Final Deadline

The deadline for the submission of your solutions to the report questions issued in week 6

is 10th

May 2013. You may submit your work earlier than this if you wish to do so.

You should hand in your assignment to the Undergraduate Office. A header sheet should

be attached to your submission. Your assignment must be in the format and sequence

specified on the question sheet. Do not include computer disks in your submission, and

do not submit your work by email.