PROJECT CHARTER

Project Title	Software for Metric-to-Standard Conversions
Project Manager	David Chaves, ac.sevahc|divad#ac.sevahc|divad
version 1.00 - October 2nd, 2006

Project Objectives

Design, develop and deploy a new desktop software tool for metric-to-standard measure systems conversions at “500-Engineers Inc.”

Scope Limitations

These objectives do not belong to this project:

• Software to run on desktop computers older than 3 years

Approach

• Business analysts and user-interface specialists will write down user stories and requirements with help from expert end-users
• Software developers will use eXtreme Programming with expert end-users available on-site during development
• Electronic conferences and digital video will provide massive end-user self-training
• IT Infrastructure Department will distribute remotely all software and training tools
• Customer/technical support specialists will provide limited technical support for a few weeks after this product has been completely distributed

PRELIMINARY SCOPE STATEMENT

Project Justification

“500-Engineers Inc.” is a consulting firm that employees highly-specialized engineers to design industrial products. These engineers are very expensive and it is important to use their time wisely. This company receives specifications on metric and standard measure systems, but it produces all designs in standard measures

This project will develop an easy-to-use desktop software instead of buying specialized hardware for each engineering desk, because:

• New hardware tools could introduce ergonomic problems that impact engineer's performance, while software requires no physical space and impose less usability trade-offs
• Software assets are cheaper to maintain, track and discard
• No additional expenses will be incurred when new engineers are hired

Scope Definition

The final goal is to provide a easy and quick software tool to convert metric-to-standard measures to each engineer at “500-Engineers Inc.”

The final delivery will be transferred to the IT Infrastructure Department when this project is terminated

This project will finish when a critical mass of 30% of engineers are using this tool without additional help, and this tools is available at 100% of engineering computers

PROJECT MANAGEMENT PLAN

Scope Management Plan

PROJECT SCOPE STATEMENT

Product Characteristics and Requirements:

• The conversion software should be easy to use for junior and senior engineers
• A training video file should be available on-line from the “About” dialog: new engineers should be able to train themselves
• Extensive user documentation should be available from the “Help” dialog, including examples, how-to's, faq's, quick references and hyper link to a self-serve wiki/forum/dashboard website for technical support
• The software should be easy to install, re-install and support remotely from the centralized IT Infrastructure Department
• This project should maximize use of open source components: free of license costs
• The conversion software should run in Linux/X11 workstations connected via high-speed to the corporate intranet, which are the present configuration for all engineering computers

Summary of Project Deliverables

Project Management-related deliverables:

• Project charter, project scope statement, status reports, final project report, lessons-learned report, and any other document required to manage this project

Product-related deliverables:

• Desktop conversion software running on all engineering computers
• Training digital video and extensive end-user documentation: no training and technical support personnel will be assigned after this project is closed out, even for new hires
• Technical-support self-serve website with wiki/forum/dashboard open-source applications customized with all project deliverables
• Full backup before new conversion software is installed: able to roll-back if something goes wrong
• Monthly usage surveys: need to know when critical mass of 30% usage is achieved, to formally close down this project

Project Success Criteria

The final cost would be below the price of buying 500 new hardware calculators for all engineering desks

Work Breakdown Structure

1. Project Management
   1. Initiating
      1. Project charter
      2. Preliminary scope statement
   2. Planning
      1. Project scope statement and WBS
      2. Schedule and Cost baseline
      3. Identify and prioritize risks
      4. Procurement baseline
   3. Monitoring and control
      1. Status report
   4. Closing
      1. Final project report
      2. Lessons learned report
2. Requirements and software design
   1. Requirements
      1. User stories
      2. Management and environmental requirements
      3. Expert end-user selection
   2. Software design
      1. Screen/menu/dialog/user interaction design
      2. Printout/report layouts and formats
3. Conversion software development
   1. Conversion software coding and debugging
   2. Conversion testing scripts
   3. Conversion testing results
4. Training and end-user documentation
   1. Training digital video files
   2. End-user documentation
   3. Preliminary technical support database
   4. Technical support self-serve website
5. Software deployment
   1. Full backup of engineering computers
   2. Upgrade target infrastructure software
   3. Software's remote installation/distribution
   4. Quick testing of final installation
6. Post-deployment infrastructure
   1. Customer support phone line
   2. Live video conference for training
   3. Weekly satisfaction/usage surveys

Resources and Assumptions

Lessons learned report

Description:

• Project management processes according PMBOK.

Resources:

• Project manager with computer,
• Open-source tools equivalent to MS Office and MS Project

User stories

Description:

• The end-user requirements will be written as short user stories, according to eXtreme programming methodology

Resources:

• Business analyst with computer

Assumptions:

• Business analysts and designers need no training on Agile Modeling tools, and they know how to write good user stories

Management and environmental requirements

Description:

• There are conditions not represented in the user stories, which are required by managers and corporate processes

Resources:

• Project manager

Assumptions:

• Only one conversion software application will be needed to satisfy all engineers with minimum personalization
• All engineers can speak/read/write Canadian English: no language localization is required

Expert end-user selection

Description:

• The eXtreme programming methodology requires intense participation of end-users to approve partial developments and clarify requirements to software developers.
• Functional managers should select these expert end-users and later assign them to this project. These end-users will be required on-site sometimes, but the majority of the time they will participate via email or phone calls

Resources:

• Functional manager, to select expert end-users

Assumptions:

• There are really expert end-users, who know all the end-user requirements and can recognize quickly if the design is right or wrong, and who are available during the complete project execution to bless the deliverables

Screen/menu/dialog/user interaction design

Description:

• Screen and user interaction design.
• All the designs will be hand-written on paper or on the white board, then they will be photographed or scanned for permanent storage

Resources:

• User interface designer with computer
• Software developer with computer
• Expert end-users available on-site
• White board, markers, paper, big meeting room

Printout/report layouts and formats

Description:

• Reports and print-outs layout design

Resources:

• Business analyst with computer
• Software developer with computer
• Expert end-users available via email

Conversion software coding and debugging

Description:

• Software coding and debugging!
• This task must be performed in parallel to Software Design, in one-day or one-week interactions

Resources:

• Two software developers for peer-programming
• High-end computers for software development
• Software development office
• User interface designer available via email
• Expert end-users available via email

Assumptions:

• Software developers need no additional training on eXtreme Programming
• Developers have experience using open source tools, and there is no need to buy proprietary development tools
• All target computers can execute the same executable files

Conversion testing scripts

Description:

• There must be a test script for every user story and requirement.
• Some tests can be executed by the computer (unit-test and regression-test scripts), but others need to be performed human testers (QA)

Resources:

• Software developer with computer
• Business analyst with computer
• Expert end-users available via email

Conversion testing results

Description:

• Execution of test scripts, as user stories are being coded

Resources:

• Tester (QA)
• Software developer available via phone or email
• Expert end-users available via email

Training digital video files

Description:

• Instead of provide classroom training to end-users, this project will record and distribute a training session in video

Resources:

• Training specialist to write presentation script
• Presenter with excellent public speaking skills
• Video camera, lights set, meeting room for recording
• IT Infrastructure help to transfer video into digital files
• Expert end-user available via email or on-site

Assumptions:

• All end-user computers already have multimedia tools to play digital video files and live video conferences
• It is not necessary to change/upgrade any hardware or search for alternative multimedia software to support training and end-user support

Preliminary technical support database

Description:

• The customer support phone-line will need a preliminary technical support database

Resources:

• Documentation specialist with website editing knowledge

Technical support self-serve website

Description:

• A wiki/forum/dashboard website is needed to provide self-serve technical support to end-users during the complete software life time

Resources:

• IT Infrastructure help to setup this website
• Software developer to customize software
• Documentation specialist to beautify website
• Expert end-user available via email

Assumptions:

• The IT Infrastructure has experience setting up open-source wiki/forum/dashboard website software, which will be initialized with conversion software, documentation and training materials
• The end-users themselves will quickly be able to maintain this website

Full backup of engineering computers

Description:

• All the engineering desktop computers need backup, in order to rollback the new software installation if something goes wrong

Resources:

• Administrators from IT Infrastructure Department
• IT Infrastructure manager
• Tape storage, tape drives, temporary hard drivers
• Network backup software

Assumptions:

• The IT Infrastructure Department has experience and resources to backup all target computers without disturbing end-users
• All computers are connected to corporate intranet at high-speed
• There is a centralized administration of users/groups/emails/web servers/file systems/peripherals

Upgrade target infrastructure software

Description:

• It is sometimes needed to upgrade infrastructure software on the end-user computers, like multimedia, web browsing, email client or operating system software

Resources:

• Administrators from IT Infrastructure Department
• IT Infrastructure manager

Software's remote installation/distribution

Resources:

• Administrators from IT Infrastructure Department
• Software developer available via telephone

Quick testing of final installation

Resources:

• Expert end-users
• Personnel from IT Infrastructure Department

Customer support phone line

Description:

• The customer support phone-line provides first level end-user support, using the preliminary technical support database and the technical support self-serve website

Resources:

• Customer/technical support specialist
• Computer, phone line with earphones

Live video conference for training

Resources:

• Training specialist to write presentation script
• Presenter with good public speaking skills
• Video camera, lights set, meeting room for recording
• IT Infrastructure help to connect video camera to intranet
• Expert end-user available on-line

Weekly satisfaction/usage surveys

Description:

• A weekly survey will be randomly emailed to monitor how many engineers are using the conversion software in a daily basis without additional help, and the results will be included in the self-serve wiki/forum/dashboard website

Resources:

• Survey software — probably an open-source tool from sourceforge.net
• Complete end-user email's file
• Software developer to setup and customize survey software
• Project manager, to publish and distribute results

Assumptions:

• This survey will be applied only for a few weeks, because the conversion software should be very user-friendly and easy to use

RISK MANAGEMENT PLAN

Methodology

To be defined

Roles and Responsibilities

To be defined

Budget and Schedule

To be defined

Risk Categories

To be defined

Risk Identification Techniques

Technique 1: Consult Reference Material about Risks on Software Projects

According to http://www.csm.ornl.gov/workshops/DOE_SciDAC/post.ppt, page 20: Tom DeMarco lists five major risks for software projects:

1. Uncertain or rapidly changing Requirements, Goals and Deliverables: Almost always fatal
2. Inadequate resources or schedule to meet the requirements
3. Institutional turmoil, including lack of management support for code project team, rapid turnover, unstable computing environment, etc.
4. Inadequate reserve and allowance for requirements creep and scope changes
5. Poor Team performance.

To these we add two:

1. Inadequate support by stakeholder groups that need to supply essential modules, etc.
2. Problem is too hard to be solved within existing constraints.''

Technique 2: Root Analysis on Resource and Assumptions

From each resource and task identified in the Work Breakdown Structure, we ask several times “Why?”, starting with “Why this task could not be completed?”

Risk Registry

To be defined