IT 499 Bachelor Capstone

Week 4

Adgenda

• Administrative• Review UNIT three • UNIT Four Project• UNIT Five Preview• Project Status• Summary

Administrative

• Seminar– Course is project based, 85% for project, 15% for discussion.

Seminars are not graded.• Project overview:• In this Unit, students conduct a technology or design needs

analysis within an organization in which a problem or need has been identified. They will develop and implement a solution to this problem or need later in the course. Students submit a PowerPoint Presentation containing a summary of identified needs and a preliminary system specification of their proposed solution to meet the identified needs.

• All papers submitted should be in proper APA format.

Week 3 review

• In this Unit, students conduct a technology or design needs analysis within an organization in which a problem or need has been identified. They will develop and implement a solution to this problem or need later in the course. Students submit a PowerPoint Presentation containing a summary of identified needs and a preliminary system specification of their proposed solution to meet the identified needs.

Week Four

• Implementation– In this Unit, students begin work on developing the

solutions that they have proposed and detailed in their System Specification. As a first step, they will write a brief Implementation Plan explaining how the System Specification, Design Specification, or Software Requirements Document will be translated into a working information technology system and what appropriate training is needed for the client's staff to use the new system. The Implementation Plan will be submitted at the end of this Unit.

Implementation Plan

• The Implementation Plan moves the project from design to an installed working system. These sites provide samples and guidelines on developing Implementation Plans.

Automated Software tracking• In most businesses, project management is used to plan and track project

activities, including the time, resources, and budget needed to complete the tasks. One of the most popular means of doing this is to use Microsoft Project. A case study from Microsoft discusses how instituting MS Project helped a global business and IT consulting firm keep work on time and on budget.

• Another approach to project management software is to augment and use existing email and office collaboration software for project tracking tasks. Tracker Software works with Microsoft Exchange email systems using Outlook and Office. Another version of Tracker works with the Lotus Notes email systems.

• Those are just two examples of project tracking software. Want to know how many there are? Do an Internet search on "Project Tracking Software." You will be amazed.

• An excellent analysis of current best practices in private and public sector IT projects is at the Texas Department of Information’s website at http://stevemcconnell.com/ieeesoftware/bp11.htm and in the IEEE newsletter http://stevemcconnell.com/ieeesoftware/bp11.htm.

Seminar• In this week's Seminar, we will discuss the creation of an Implementation

Plan and the development and implementation work you will be doing during the remainder of the course. In preparing for the chat, think about the following questions and how you would answer them in relationship to your particular project:– What elements are generally included in an Implementation Plan? – How does the Implementation Plan move the project from design to deployment? – What examples from the Web Readings websites will be helpful to you in creating your

Implementation Plan? – Do you need additional resources or information to help you in developing the

Implementation Plan or the Capstone Project itself?

UNIT Four Assignment• Prepare a Microsoft Word document outlining your Implementation Plan. Microsoft Excel

and Microsoft Project can be used also if you desire. If you do not use Excel, make sure to put your budget in a Word table format. Below is a generalized template for you to follow. Make sure that all of these items are covered in your paper:– Basic cover page with your name, project name, course, and date.– Title and contact information.– Project background.– Project goals.– Current state, including any potential risks/blocks.– Project timeline (milestones, tasks/deliverables, resources assigned, and dependencies)

- This can be done with Microsoft Project if you wish. – Budget. Normally a budget would be done with Excel. If so, in this case, either cut and

paste over the budget into your paper or embed the spreadsheet in your document. If you do not use Excel, put your budget in a table format in Word.

– Any relevant diagrams/flowcharts (if any at this stage).

Week Five Preview

• Unit 5 focuses on strategies for dealing with unplanned events which result in changes to the development of IT projects. It is a virtual certainty that in any IT project there will be changes which impact the project's development, and strategies must be developed and implemented to ensure project success despite unplanned events. The most common types of changes include:

Week Five Project Preview• Most IT projects do not reach completion without changes occurring

along the way. Many of the changes are not planned, and the project leader must find a way to revise plans, budgets, and resources to compensate for such unplanned changes.

• For this project you must analyze the impact of two unplanned changes on your project, and you must revise the budget and implementation plan to accommodate those changes.

• Read through the scenarios below. For your project, you must choose Scenario A (Budget Cut), and one additional scenario.

Week Five Project Preview• Because this needs to be reviewed by your client, this will be presented in a

PowerPoint presentation for approval by your client. Below is a general template:• Basic cover slide with your name, project name, course, and date.• Project and contact information.• Identify the two changes imposed on your project (Scenario A, and the Scenario you

chose).• Identify the impact of Scenario A.• Identify the impact of Scenario B, C, D, or E.• Show the changes that you will have to make as a result of Scenario A and Scenario

B, C, D, or E.• Show the revised budget. This should show the BEFORE and AFTER budget both

included with the impact and the budget cut. • Show the revised timelines and milestones.• As with previous presentations, you may use more than one slide to present the

information for each item.

Project Status

• Status• Issues• Concerns

Questions

• Summary