Weaknesses

The project team has competent members who have expertise and skills in web application development. The members have web development experience and suited for the roles assigned. The project tasks align with the budget allocated and can be delivered in time. Staff members and project sponsor are involved in the project which enhances their contribution that is critical to delivery of quality deliverables. The project is estimated to reduce marketing costs by 50% and increases sales by 30%.

Weakness

The project quality relies on quality attributes which are not well-defined. The team members are using SCRUM methodology to develop the web application. However, the team lacks a ScrumMaster who can effectively implement the methodology. The Schedule allocated is rigid hence the team may not meet project deadlines if there are additional requirements.

Opportunities

The project can leverage industry trends of SEO to optimize the web application to make it more visible to the target audience. Competitors without a web application lack a competitive advantage and can be outwitted by the company with this project. The company has an IT department which can be leveraged to enhance training program.

Threats

Making the web application accessible on the internet and intranet may create security challenges which can adversely affect the company. The company has allocated a small budget for the application which may not cover changes that may occur during the project. 

Project Charter

Title	Web Application Project
Project Manager’s Name	Student’s Name
Email
Project Duration	8 Months

High Level Budget

The budget covers all the resources required to complete the project milestones. Key resources needed in the project include labor, IDE and design tools, website hosting platform, and training program.

Expenses	Costs
Labor	$35,500
IDE and design tools	$3,500
Hosting platform	$1,500
Training program	$2,500
Miscellaneous	$7,000
Total Costs	$50,000

Project Objectives

The primary objective of the web application is to enable the company to establish a web presence and improve the company’s efforts to market its services. The application enables the company to post information about its services which increases its visibility to consumers. As a part of its marketing strategy, the web application spreads brand awareness to potential customers who include institutions within the company’s area of operations.

The project seeks to build a web application that can be leveraged the company to promote its brand and improve brand perception among the target consumers. The project deliverable will provide a platform that can be leveraged by the company to organize and update project information. The application is also expected to improve engagement within the company by providing user accounts which members can use to post their information.

Project Activities

The key activities in this project include:

• Stakeholder meeting
• Requirement gathering
• Requirement analysis
• Project scope definition
• Task allocation
• User Interface Design
• Database schema definition
• HTML coding
• Back-end coding
• Cross-browser compatibility testing
• Security testing
• Web application hosting
• Staff training

Deliverables

In-scope deliverables

The deliverables that will be delivered in this project include:

• A responsive web application accessible on the internet and intranet
• Login and Registration module
• User accounts and admin portal
• Secure web application with defense mechanisms against SQL injection and XSS attacks.
• Documentation
• Usable and intuitive interface
• Blog integrated in the application
• Social media feed

Out-of scope deliverables

The project will not deliver the following deliverables:

• Video embedding functionality
• Audio podcasts
• Image/Video gallery
• Usability report
• Comments section

Project Benefits

The project will develop a web application that will be an asset to the company’s marketing strategy. The web application will enable the company to increase its visibility to the target audience and provide information about the company and its services. This is essential in spreading company awareness and building a positive brand perception. The web application can also enable the company to showcase its portfolio of projects which is instrumental in illustrating the company’s expertise in its field and its credibility.

Opportunities

Measurable Organizational Value

The key desired area of impact for this project is Customer. The value of the project can be determined by the capability of the web application to attract customers potential and increases sales made by the company. The project prioritizes the desired area of impact as follows:  

• Customer
• Financial
• Social
• Strategy
• Operations

The projects seeks to reduce marketing costs incurred by enhancing the company’s capability to acquire customers at low costs. With high sales conversion rate and low customer acquisition costs, the company can build its customer base while reducing operation costs.

The metric for evaluating project value includes the following elements:

• Marketing costs:  Decreasing marketing costs implies that the web application has enabled to attract customers at less costs (Scaglione, 2009).
• Customer growth: Increasing customer base implies that the web application has enabled the company to attract to more potential customers.
• Web traffic:  An increase in web traffic indicates that the web application has increased the company’s visibility to the target audience.
• Sales: Increasing sales shows that the web application has increased sales conversion rate as many customers are buying the company’s service.
• Brand perception. Improved perception of the brand indicates that the web application has enhanced the company’s image (Berger, 2007).  

Acceptance Criteria

The criteria considered in accepting the project involves the following:

• Project delivered within the time scheduled
• Project milestones within the budget allocated
• Project deliverable meets the project requirements defied
• Project sponsor satisfied with the deliverable
• Web application is responsive and cross-browser compatible
• The web application enhances productivity

Delivery Date

Deliverable	Due Date
Stakeholder discussion report	April 21st 2017
Requirements analysis report	April 23rd 2017
Project scope document	April 29th 2017
Website template design	May 27th 2017
HTML template	June 25th 2017
Functionality code completed completion	October 24th 2017
Testing reports	November 23rd 2017
Staff training program	January 8th 2018
Deployed website	Feb 8th 2018

Assumptions and constraints

The assumptions made in this project include:

• Project stakeholders will be available during project
• Team members will participate in meetings
• Sufficient budget
• Quality standards established
• Staff members will participate in the training program
• Competent project team members

The constraints in this project include:

• Additional budget to support project changes (Kerzner, 2013)
• Rigid project schedule
• Limited staff available   

Stakeholder List

Some of the project stakeholders that will be involved in the decision-making process in this project include:

• Project Sponsor
• Project manager
• Database designer
• UI/UX expert
• Back-end developer
• End users

Lessons Learned

Project issues detected have to be resolved to mitigate effects of risks and ensure that the project is successfully completed.  Some of the issues that can be encountered include inadequate budget, missing project requirements, etc. (Slevin, 2007). Without adequate budget, some project tasks may not be executed and the quality of the project may be affected (McManus, 2008). Missing project requirements implies that the project scope is incomplete and project deliverables will not meet the expectations (Leach, 2014).

Project execution may be adversely affected by some issues such as unexpected changes, additional requirements, project team turnover, etc. (Burke, 2013). If these issues are not addressed, they cause project delays or project failure in extreme cases. The team members may also encounter some minor issues such as task reallocation which have small impacts on the project.

Charter Sign Off

Owner

Name: David Wright

Signature:

Date: 19^th April 2017

Comments:

Project Manager

Name: Sonia Reed

Signature:

Date: 19^th April 2017

Comments:

UI/UX Expert

Name: Peter Pedro

Signature:

Date: 19^th April 2017 

Communication Plan

Plan Purpose

The objective of the communication plan is to guide the team when communicate with each other during the project, identify the communication tools to be used, types of messages to be sent, and level of engagement between stakeholders. The plan is developed by determining the role of stakeholders in the communication process, the messages to be communicated and their purpose, media to be leveraged to pass messages, and frequency of communication (Heagney, 2016).

The plan defines the scope of the communication, the protocols that have to be observed, and the appropriate tools that have to be leveraged to facilitate communication. The purpose of the messages communicated is identified to determine its significance to the project (Gido, 2014). Additionally, the communication plan identifies the stakeholders in the communication process and the frequency of sending messages.

Background

Key project-related events

The projects various events that require project stakeholders to communicate with each other. The events include requirement analysis, project scope definition, task allocation, budget allocation, and developing project schedule. These project events determine the project milestones and objectives, allocate project tasks to each team member, develop schedule for all project activities, and define the budget constraints and resources for project tasks. The events are paramount in creating a framework for executing the project. The framework defines the objectives of the project that team members have to focus on achieving and how the project will be executed. In these events, team members have to communicate with each other to make effective decisions.

Threats

Stakeholder issues

The stakeholders in this project seek to regularly engage with each other during the project which is crucial in the decision making process. The stakeholders in this project include project sponsor, project manager, project team (UI/UX expert, database designer, back-end developer), and end-users. Each stakeholder plays different roles as assigned by the project manager.

These roles can be performed effectively when the stakeholders communicate with each other. Project sponsor seeks to know the progress of the report and any issues that need to be resolved. Project manager is required to regularly communicate with the project sponsor to continuously provide information on the project status. Project team has to communicate with project manager to provide information on various issues encountered that need to be addressed. Communication between team members and project team enable the stakeholders to collaborate in resolving the issues identified to mitigate the risks posed to the project. Additionally, end users communicate with the project manager to provide results on the tests conducted to evaluate the security and cross-browser compatibility of the web application.

Project impacts

Communication is a key component of the project that will influence the decision making process and project execution. A communication plan can allow the team members to gain an insight into the roles they play in the project. The plan defines the communication tools to be used which allows the team to use effective communication media to engage with each other. This key in improving collaboration in the team which facilitates project activities. Additionally, the communication plan is expected to forge relationships among project stakeholders and support decision making process.

Stakeholder	Recipient	Message	Frequency	Location	Purpose	Communication Tool
Project Sponsor	Project Manager	Project status	Weekly	Company	Evaluate project progress	Meeting
Project Manager	Project Team	Project issues	Daily	Project site	Evaluate project issues encountered	Meeting
Project Team	End users	Testing tools	At the end of testing phase	Project site	Identify testing tools	Email
Project Manager	End users	Test results	At the end of testing phase	Project site	Analyze the test results	Email

 Change management

Change management strategy in this project requires project stakeholders to be involved. When a change arises, the project manager will develop a plan that will be used to evaluate the change. The project manager will communicate with the stakeholders including project sponsor to inform them about the change and the plan established (Kristensson, 2008). Stakeholders will focus on assessing the impacts of the change (Turner, 2014).

The team will identify the implications of the change on project schedule and resources before making a decision. If the change adversely affects the project timeline and budget, it will postponed until a solution is found. When a decision is made, the team will create a change management plan which outlines the change implementation process. The team will use the plan to take actions to implement the change agreed on (Anderson, 2011).  The project stakeholders will evaluate implementation of the change to identify issues that may be undermining the process. Remedial actions will be developed and implemented to resolve the issues affecting the change and ensure the proposed change is implemented.

Meeting

Key issues affecting the project will be discussed in the project meetings. The project manager will discuss with the team before setting up the meeting (Crawford, 2007). During the meeting, various issues encountered in the project are raised by the members and discussed. Some of the issues raised can include project scope, project budget, additional requirements, and project quality issues. The stakeholders will discuss the issues and prioritize them based on their impacts on the project (Griffith?Cooper, 2007).

Top issues will be included as part of the meeting agenda. The agenda will define key topics that the stakeholders will discuss and decisions that will be made (Moe, 2010). As the leader, the project manager will guide the discussion, document the objectives discussed in the meeting, and determine whether they are achieved. The project manager will also focus on limiting the discussion to the topics in the meeting agenda to enhance the efficiency of the meeting (Adams, 2007).

During the meeting, stakeholders will develop solutions targeting the issues raised by team members. Decisions will be made based on the feasibility of a solution. Solutions that have positive implications for the project will be selected and implemented to resolve particular project issues. Team members will be selected based on their skills to implement the solutions developed.

References

Adams, T., Means, J. A., & Spivey, M. (2007). The project meeting facilitator: facilitation skills to make the most of project meetings. John Wiley & Sons.

Anderson, D., & Anderson, L. A. (2010). Beyond change management: How to achieve breakthrough results through conscious change leadership. John Wiley & Sons.

Berger, J., Draganska, M., & Simonson, I. (2007). The influence of product variety on brand perception and choice. Marketing Science, 26(4), 460-472.

Burke, R. (2013). Project management: planning and control techniques. New Jersey, USA.

Crawford, J. K. (2007). Project management maturity model (p. 75). Boca Raton, FL: Auerbach Publications.

Gido, J., & Clements, J. (2014). Successful project management. Nelson Education.

Griffith?Cooper, B., & King, K. (2007). The partnership between project management and organizational change: Integrating change management with change leadership. Performance Improvement, 46(1), 14-20.

Heagney, J. (2016). Fundamentals of project management. AMACOM Div American Mgmt Assn.

Kerzner, H. (2013). Project management: a systems approach to planning, scheduling, and controlling. John Wiley & Sons.

Kristensson, P., Matthing, J., & Johansson, N. (2008). Key strategies for the successful involvement of customers in the co-creation of new technology-based services. International journal of service industry management, 19(4), 474-491.

Leach, L. P. (2014). Critical chain project management. Artech House.

McManus, J., & Wood-Harper, T. (2008). A study in project failure. British Computer Society< https://www. bcs. org/server. php.

Moe, N. B., Dingsøyr, T., & Dybå, T. (2010). A teamwork model for understanding an agile team: A case study of a Scrum project. Information and Software Technology, 52(5), 480-491.

Scaglione, M., Schegg, R., & Murphy, J. (2009). Website adoption and sales performance in Valais’ hospitality industry. Technovation, 29(9), 625-631.

Slevin, D. P., & Pinto, J. K. (2007). An overview of behavioral issues in project management. The Wiley guide to project organization & project management competencies, 1-19.

Turner, J. R. (2014). The handbook of project-based management (Vol. 92). New York, NY: McGraw-hill.