Identifying Factors Affecting African Australian Family Unit in Victoria

Australia is a multicultural country, made up of people from different cultural backgrounds. As migration has become part of human existence, people tend to migrate to settle in foreign countries for different reasons and Africans are not left out in this development. Australia is said to have a high number of African immigrants. This group consist of people from 54 African countries who live in Victoria (Australia), each with different religion, tribes, colonial backgrounds, education systems and ethnicities. The African Australians have different modes of arrival, i.e. they come in as refugees, students or skilled migrants. It is important to note that migrating and adapting to a new culture can have adverse effect on the migrant’s family bond if not properly handled and addressed. This study will focus on identifying the factors affecting the African Australian family unit in Victoria and to suggest a computer-based system to help resolve the identified issues.

This study will uncover the major causes of conflict among the African immigrants in Victoria which might affect the family bond. Some of these issues can be as a result of the cultural differences in Australia which is quite different from that of Africans.

The weakening of the family bond among the Africans in Victoria is usually connected to the Value constructs in Australia in terms of relationships, gender roles, freedom and rights. Etc. However, adapting to the value system in Australia can affect the family bond. This can lead to several issues such as family violence, generational gap, unemployment and so on. These problems listed will be discussed further in this project with the supporting literatures. 

The Stakeholders for this project are listed in the table below:

Stakeholder’s Role Save Time On Research and Writing Hire a Pro to Write You a 100% Plagiarism-Free Paper. Get My Paper	Stakeholder’s Name	Responsibilities
Client	Dr.Apollo S Nsubuga-Kyobe	A person who’s needs and requirements to ensure that receive a final project
Community members	African Australian Community in Victoria	The members are the people of the communities.
Project manager	Vinodh Landa	The head of the project and gives plans for project, leads project in a correct way.

The overall goal of this project is to recommend a mobile application that will help strengthen the relationship of African families living in Victoria

Project Objectives:

• To improve the relationship between individual family members.
• To expose the potential cause of conflict among the African Australian families in Victoria.
• To suggest ways of preventing the modes of arrival of immigrants from influencing their behaviours and relationship with their family members.
• To recommend an application which will connect and educate the African families
• To understand the value systems of Australians and Africans.
• To analyse the major issues affecting the relationship among family members.         .

The project is to recommend a computer-based system to help strengthen the African Australian families in Victoria. In order, to achieve this, the problems affecting the families will be identified, then from the analysis of the problem the project team will discover the best system for the client. This system will be designed to educate and reconnect the families together. The duration for the project is six months. The project team will not develop the proposed system. The project WBS is listed below:

Level 1	Level 2	Level 3
1. Application for strengthening the African Australian Families	1.1 Initiation	1.1.1 Determine Project Team 1.1.2 Requirement Analysis  1.1.3 Develop Project Charter 1.1.4 Deliverable: Submit Project Charter 1.1.5 Client and Supervisor Reviews Project Charter 1.1.6 Project Charter Approved
1.2 Planning	1.2.1 Project Team Kick-off Meeting 1.2.2 Develop Project plan 1.2.3 Confirm client’s Requirement
1.3 Execution	1.3.1 Confirm and Validate client requirements 1.3.2 Identify the problems 1.3.3 Literature review 1.3.4 Conduct Research 1.3.5 Recommend the best application 1.3.6 Design of the software
1.4 Control	1.4.1 Project Status meeting 1.4.2 Risk Management 1.4.3 Change Management 1.4.4 Update project management plan
1.5 Closeout	1.5.1 Submission of final report 1.5.2 Document Lessons learned

Functional Requirements

• This web application will educate the African community on the factors affecting the family unit such as gender related issues and so on.
• The web application can be used as a platform of incident report for the law enforcement agency.
• The application will help the people of the communities to gain knowledge about the cross-cultural differences.
• The system takes inputs from people and will provide information, practices and region-specific data of all 54 countries in Africa.
• The web application will connect job seekers to employers
• The application will be used by researchers as a platform for research.

Non-Functional Requirements

• The web application will possess visualization capabilities.
• The web app. will have different languages so users who are non-English speakers can easily understand the content.
• The application will be user friendly to allow easy access for users.
• For security purposes, the system will use encryption to ensure a secure storage of data.

Product

A web based application to be used by African Australians to improve families, social and cultural integration by enabling close interaction, sharing, and providing a portal where members can air their problems, take part in surveys and discussions, and even seek skills for socio-economic empowerment

Major Causes of Conflict among African Immigrants in Victoria

Technical feasibility

The proposed system will be a database driven web based application accessible using multiple devices, including mobiles, computers, and laptops from any location; the proposed system will be hosted in the cloud to ensure availability and scaling in case there are many user requests

Social feasibility

After undertaking the detailed interviews with potential users and administrators of the system, the project team will be able to understand user requirements and gauge its acceptance to ensure it will be acceptable to all users

Economic feasibility

The proposed solution will have positive benefits as they will enhance social integration among African Australian families and enhance cultural and economic integration to improve family life for this minority group; these benefits far outweigh any financial outlay needed to develop the system

Market research

This to be established from the interviews and the nature of challenges faced by African Australian families make it a viable solution

Strengths Bring African Australian families together Web based application can be accessed from any location Views stored in a central database	Weaknesses A new application that will need time to be widely accepted Has not been developed before in Australia
Opportunities Advertising and promotion Advertising revenue	Threats Apathy from intended target audience Lack of IT skills to use the solution appropriately

 

Data Collection

The solution will be developed with the objectives in mind; these objectives are the deliverables for the project. One of the biggest challenges in executing software projects is the tendency for failure with IT projects failing at alarming rates, despite the availability of modern project management methodologies and techniques. According to Ismail (2018), just 29% of IT projects are successful, based on a Standish Group chaos report; the report also states that 19% of all IT projects are considered utter failures. As such, a suitable project management methodology will be implemented to reflect the needs and objectives/ deliverables for the project.  One reason IT projects fail is because project managers and project teams fail to fully understand the needs and requirements of the client (West, 2018). As such, this project will devote a lot of resources to identify and fully understand the needs and requirements of the users (Kumar, 2009); these will include the African Australian families as well as the owners of the application that will work with its interface on a regular basis. To solicit the user requirements, the project team will, during the initial planning phase, use a qualitative approach to identify, classify, and document the user requirements for the system. Specifically, the qualitative research approach will be done through the administration of semi-structured interview questions.  

The qualitative research is an exploratory primary research method in which semi-structured interview questions will be used to get detailed responses and insights from the respondents (Kalra, Pathak & Jena, 2013). The respondents will be identified using targeted random methods, where Australian African persons will be identified from social media and in social circles and requested to participate in the survey, with their rights and the purposes of the survey clearly indicated to them (Bolderston, 2012). The stakeholders, including the owner of the project (sponsor) as well as intended users will also be interviewed using semi structured open ended interview questions (Jamshed, 2014). The use of semi structured open ended interview questions will allow the researcher to clarify questions to the respondents, and ask for clarifications in order to get deeper insights on how the system should work and justify the need for its development (McIntosh & Morse, 2015).  The responses will be recorded digitally and notes taken as the interviews proceed (the respondents permission to record interview sessions will be sought). Before undertaking the interview, the questions will be sent to the recipients so they can familiarize and prepare responses; this will ensure the validity and reliability of the collected data as data reliability and validity are core principles in successful research initiatives (Lazar, Feng & Hochheiser, 2010).  

Stakeholders

Data Analysis

After the data has been collected, following scientific principles of undertaking qualitative research, the NVivo ^TM software application (found at https://www.qsrinternational.com/nvivo/what-is-nvivo) will be used to interest the data from the recordings and the scribbled survey responses information. From the analysis, patterns will be decoded on the requirements of the user (Suter, 2012) and used in designing the web based application to strengthen African Australian families.  During development, depending on the development methodology such as Agile (XP or SCRUM), the user requirements will be refined if new requirements not captured during the qualitative research interviews are identified as the system is incrementally developed and tested (Kniberg, 2012)

Communication Plan

The manner, method, and timing of communication during project implementation is criti8cal in the ultimate successful delivery of a project; 80% of all activities involved in project management involves communication; communication of progress, user requirements, changes, and reporting (Rajkumar, 2010). Further, having identified the project stakeholders, a suitable communications plan is needed to effectively manage the stakeholders and ensure the project gets the necessary support from these stakeholders (Bruce, 2015). Below is the communications plan for the project;

Person/ Entity	Role/ Title	Frequency	Channel/ Format	Notes
Dr.Apollo S Nsubuga-Kyobe	Client/ Executive Project Sponsor	Weekly	E-mail for status reports Project reports (hard/ soft copy) Face to face meetings	Prefers constant communication Highly engaging and a stickler for details
Project manager	Responsible for achieving project objectives	Daily	Face to face	With team members to get feedback and develop system
Project Team members	Development of a functional web based system	Daily	Face to face communication (SCRUM meetings/ review meetings) E-mail to share progress and ideas Through Project management software for daily input	Constant communication to be encouraged
		Weekly	Face to face	Product testing and SPRINT reviews
African Australian Community in Victoria	Community members	Weekly	Face to face communication (interviews) Social media to gauge their feelings and continue unearthing other hidden requirements for the system	To be handled sensitively Build rapport at the earliest opportunity
		Monthly	Input as system is developed (during testing)

 

While projects are usually well planned with detailed activities and WBS, changes are inevitable during execution and these must be managed appropriately to ensure the project objectives are met (Wanner, 2013). This plan defines the roles and activities aimed at managing and controlling change during the execution of the project at the control stage of the project. The changes in the project are measured against the project’s baseline: the project baseline refers to a detailed description of the scope, schedule, budget, and plans for the management of risk, quality, change, and issues (Rowley, 2013). During the stages of project execution and control, a single or more revised baseline for the project may be required.  The general approach will entail;

• Identifying the driving constraint for the project and its importance determine since when a change to a project is required, the constraint must be given priority consideration.
• The types of changes to be made are then determined and this must be tasked and then appropriately approved
• The volume and probability of the change to the project objectives/ deliverables are then estimated and expressed in terms of project constraints that include the project scope, schedule, budget, and quality

The change management plan described below will then be used for managing change in the project;

Version Number	Date of Issue	Author(s)	Brief Description of Change
1A	June 15th 2018	Vinodh Landa	Change the solution platform from mobile based to web based

Acknowledgement of project constraints:

The application should have high availability and accessibility through out

Change request form

Project Name	Development of A Project for Strengthening African Families,
Project Manager		Organization Name
Requested by	Dr.Apollo S Nsubuga-Kyobe	Organization Name
Submitted by	Vinodh Landa	Date of Request	15th June 2018
Evaluated by	Vinodh Landa, Dr.Apollo S Nsubuga-Kyobe,	Date Evaluation	19th June 2018
Decided by	Vinodh Landa	Date Decided	25th June 2018
Change Request Number	CR/SAF/001
Change Title	Change the application from mobile based to web based
Change Request Details
Description	The initial plan was to develop a mobile based application; however this needs to be changed to a web based application
Justification	A web based application will enable more features and functionality to be included and create a round the clock available application
Cause	Functionality, effectiveness
Priority	High

Evaluation
Scope	Change the platform for the application
Schedule	First priority to be changed before execution plan is developed
Cost	NIL, minimal
Quality	High
Risk	Minimum
Project management	Project Manager
Evaluator’s priority	Minimum
Alternatives and recommendation	Have a web based solution, rather than a mobile based solution, but which can be accessed from the web using a mobile device
Implementation Options	Change of scope
Decision/Rationale	Change to a web based/ cloud architecture based solution
Approved	YES
On hold
Denied
Signatures

Change log

Change #

Date Submitted

Change Title

Requested by

Requestor’s priority

Summary Description

Cost impact

Schedule impact

Overall impact

Status

Status date

Evaluator

Evaluator’s priority

Priority

CR/SAF/001

15th June 2018

Change application platform

PM

High

Change solution to be web based from mobile based

Nil

Minimal

Minimum

Done

Oct 2 2018

PM

High

High

The risk management plan is the document that will be used to identify risks that can affect the project, estimate their impacts, and define responses to these risks and an accompanying risk matrix.  The risk management plan will adopt a strategy unique to each risk to avoid the risk, mitigate/ control risk, accept the risk, or transfer the risk (Mc Manus, 2016) Based on the project objectives and the nature of the project, the risk management plan is described in the table below;

Risk #	Risk	Description	Likelihood	Impact	Mitigation	Contingency
1	Under budgeting	Budgeting way below the actual project requirements	Very high	Very high	Accurate estimation(using supplier quotes), benchmarking	Allow large contingency budget like 15% of total estimates
2	Poor planning and scheduling	Scheduling too many tasks when the time is not sufficient	Very High	Very High	Thorough planning Use suitable agile development method	Crashing techniques
3	Employee/ team turnover or inadequate skills	High employee turnover or less than qualified staff resulting in delays and increased costs	High	Very High	Thorough recruitment plan where technical skills are tested Use professional sites such as LinkedIn to source employees	Have staff multi task Crash
4	Failure to meet customer needs	The user requirements are not met or just partially met resulting objectives not being met	High	Very high	Detailed user requirement analysis Use suitable agile methodology like XP or SCRUM to enable incremental development	Frequent testing and correction
5	Project abandonment	Executive sponsor abandons project mid-way	Medium	Very High	Effective stakeholder management and communication	Strategy meetings with executive sponsor

Project Objectives

Version
Date
Signed

Only major risks are considered and the risk management plan will have the document updated regularly. The risk management plan is a document with a risk manager and versions

Risk matrix

Impact	Likelihood
	Very low	Low	Moderate	High	Very High
Very High				3,4	1, 2
High
Moderate					5
Low
	Very Low

The aim is to have software devoid of bugs and other performance degrading features; this will be attained through a series of deliberate actions, starting with the development methodology and performance metrics. The application will be developed iteratively using SCRUM/ XP agile methods where incremental development will be done and then tested to remove any problems before the next development phase. This will ensure the final product has as few problems as possible. The zero defect approach will be used to ensure quality, with the system expected to have at least 99% availability, and that performance cannot degrade / slow by more than 10% even at maximum load (high number of requests to database). The maintenance program will ensure the application is updated regularly to work seamlessly with all web browsers and operating systems. TQM will be used during development using the elements of root cause analysis, customer centric development, active participation of users, process oriented development, continuous improvement (Agile development), and internal and external assessment of application (Kerzner, 2009).

The gap analysis for the project was done to justify its development and present a case as to why it is a feasible project; this is supported in the feasibility plan. At present, the requirement analysis has been done as well as the development of data and process modeling which has been used to generate a user interface diagram to illustrate how the system will work from the front end. A preliminary analysis of the user interface shows that theoretically, the application will be easy to learn and sue as it has been developed based on principals of UX design. A SWOT analysis for the web based application has also been undertaken, as part of the feasibility study process

At this point, the problem necessitating the application has been evaluated, user requirements have been gathered, and stakeholders identified, the functional and nonfunctional requirements identified, and a project plan developed. The project plan includes quality control, risk management, change management plan, and the research methodologies have been defined with deliverables. The project planning phase is complete and the next step is project execution phase

References

Bolderston, A. (2012). Conducting a Research Interview. Journal Of Medical Imaging  And Radiation Services, 43(1). doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jmir.2011.12.002

Bruce, R. (2015). Effective Communication in Project Management | TeamGantt.

Retrieved from https://www.teamgantt.com/blog/why-communication-is-important-in-project-management Ismail, N. (2018). Why IT projects continue to fail at an alarming rate. Retrieved from https://www.information-age.com/projects-continue-fail-alarming-rate-123470803/

Jamshed, S. (2014). Qualitative research method-interviewing and observation.Journal Of Basic And Clinical Pharmacy, 5(4), 87. doi: 10.4103/0976-0105.141942

Kalra, S., Pathak, V., & Jena, B. (2013). Qualitative research. Perspectives In  Clinical Research, 4(3), 192. doi: 10.4103/2229-3485.115389

Kalra, S., Pathak, V., & Jena, B. (2013). Qualitative research. Perspectives In  Clinical Research, 4(3), 192. doi: 10.4103/2229-3485.115389

Kerzner (2009). Project Management: A Systems Approach To Planning, Scheduling, And Controlling 10E With Case Studies 3E Set (2nd ed.). Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons.

Kniberg, H. (2012). Scrum and XP from the trenches (2nd ed.). Hoboken, NJ: John  Wiley and Sons.

Kumar, V. (2009). Delivering successful projects–every time. Retrieved from https://www.pmi.org/learning/library/delivering-successful-projects-every-time-6822

Lazar, J., Feng, J., & Hochheiser, H. (2010). Research methods in human-computer  interaction (1st ed.). Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons.

Mc manus, J. (2016). Risk management in software development projects (2nd ed.). [Place of publication not identified]: ROUTLEDGE.

McIntosh, M., & Morse, J. (2015). Situating and Constructing Diversity in Semi- Structured Interviews. Global Qualitative Nursing Research, 2, 233339361559767. doi: 10.1177/2333393615597674

Rajkumar, S. (2010). Art of communication in project management. Retrieved from https://www.pmi.org/learning/library/effective-communication-better-project-management-6480 Rowley, J. (2013). 5th Edition PMBOK® Guide—Chapter 4: Change Management

Plan. Retrieved from https://4squareviews.com/2013/02/28/5th-edition-pmbok-guide-chapter-4-change-management-plan/Suter, W. (2012). Introduction to educational research. Los Angeles, CA: SAGE.

Wanner, M. (2013). Integrated change management. Retrieved from  https://www.pmi.org/learning/library/integrated-change-management-5954

West, C. (2018). Four Common Reasons Why Projects Fail. Retrieved from https://www.projectinsight.net/white-papers/four-common-reasons-why-projects-fail