IT Project Management (ICT405)

IT Project Management (ICT405)

Assessment Type:	Project Management Plan Report (2,000 words)
Weighting:	40%
Due Date:	Week 12 (Based on semester timetable)
Number of Attempt	1 (One)
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Introduction

Today’s world tends to evolve globally with greater speed and digital change, so it is natural to expect that business entities are searching for a way to grow their market share while improving production capacity. This IT Project Management Plan has been well designed to help a successful Australian security company go through one of its critical stages of international expansion and at the same time complete necessary ISO certifications. The project constitutes an important step in the company’s evolution plan, seeking to take the Australian company abroad and build a strong international profile.

The security industry as such a sensitive industry, which plays a crucial role in the current society, has to provide the highest level of services, protect its information, and achieve optimal outcomes in practice. This is why, along with specifying objectives that are connected with increasing the scale of the IT sector in the company, our project is also aimed at obtaining the accreditation of the company to ISO9001 and ISO27001 standards. These two internationally recognized standards will act as proof of the seriousness of the company in implementing quality management and information security hence improving the company’s stand in the global marketplace.

This document contains the following strategic, comprehensive plan as evaluates and addresses the following ten knowledge as PMBOK. In respect of scope management, stakeholder management, risk management, and every other aspect, it has been realized and provided for. The project includes the establishment of a database, secure means of communication, web-based service such as a service provider model, as well as training of staff extensively.

The projected time for the initiative is 12 months, and the total budget for the project is valued at AUD 5,000,000 which is quite an important investment for the company. This plan will not only help the company open new markets for business in the international market but also help the company raise the benchmark for its operations making it one of the leading security services companies in the international market. The organization will\ begin this process of change with this vision, and this project management plan is going to act as our guide (Chow et al, 2021).

Project Scope Management

The extent of this project here is therefore wide and complex hit with key objectives to enable the company to expand internationally and also achieve legal compliance. First and foremost, this project is to create a foundation of the IT infrastructure of the company that would work in overseas locations consolidating the connection between newly opened international branches and the headquarters, located in Australia. This expansion calls for the integration of ISO9001 and ISO27001 to fulfill the company requirements and improve the effectiveness as well as security of the organization.

A part of the project definition is the development of remote and secure communication between the Australian and overseas offices. This is going to involve the application of enhanced security measures such as encrypted connections, VPN technology, and even dedicated connectivity through such features, as leased lines. Also, the project will create a client database and an operations database to minimize the paperwork and facilitate data searches in various centers.

Figure 1 Project Scope Management

(Dharmalingam , 2019)

To effectively manage this extensive scope, a Work Breakdown Structure or WBS has been created as can be evidenced from the following figure. In the WBS, the project is broken down into simpler and more work that can be accomplished, including Project Initiation, Planning, Infrastructure Setup, Software Development, Implementation of ISO Compliance, training and knowledge transfer, Deployment and Go-Live, and finally Project Closure (Almasifar et al, 2021).

Project Schedule Management

The project is expected to last for 12 months and other major activities will indicate significant progress in the project. The project starts in Month 1 and lays the foundation for the much more rigorous activity that is going to follow. The Section 1 and Section 4 requirements are predicted to be set by Month 2 so that the successive phases are grounded on a steady structure. The System Architecture Design gets approval in Month 3; the team then goes ahead with the project with confidence in the new IT ecosystem.

The Core Infrastructure Setup is to be finished by Month 5 as tougher systems and networks need to be put into place to deal with growth. The Software Development phase in which software works such as the establishment of the centralized database, web platform, and mobile application is expected to be completed in the eighth month. The ISO Compliance Implementation is expected to be finished in Month 10 to guarantee that the organization’s system and processes meet the demandant standards and features of ISO9001 & ISO27001. Training of staff is planned to be completed in Month 11 to build up to the highly anticipated Go-Live event in Month 12.

As a measure to guarantee that the project stays on track, the schedule of the project will be reviewed and modified every week by using MS Project. Its flexibility facilitates efficient tracking of all aspects of a project including tasks, the relations between these tasks, and the resources needed. Where there are variances greater than or equal to 5% from this baseline schedule a deeper analysis will ensue. It is a review, the causes of the delay will be identified, the implications of the delay on the other activities and the overall length of the project’s cycle will be evaluated and corrective measures proposed (Kulandaisamy and Abdul-Samand, 2022).

Project Cost Management

It is proposed that the total cost of this broad IT change and globalization process would amount to AUD 5, 000,000. Such a large-scale investment corresponds to the project’s scope, as well as the fact the project is indeed crucial for the company’s future growth as well as for correspondence with the requirements of law. The budget is divided into different areas: Hardware and Infrastructure (AUD 1,000,000), Software Development (AUD 1,500,000), ISO Compliance Implementation (AUD 800,000), Training and Change Management (AUD 400,000), Project Management and Overhead (AUD 800,000), and a Contingency of 10% (AUD 500,000).

Figure 2 Project Cost Management

(ProProfs Project Blog, 2019)

To control these costs to a large extent, an effective cost-control plan will be developed. Expenses will be recorded daily and then compared to the budget for the project that will be set right from the conception of the project. Having chosen variance analysis as the control procedure, the project manager will investigate all the differences between the planned and the actual cost. Besides, for any variation exceeding 10 percent of the planned budget for the project, either above or below, a comprehensive evaluation shall be done. This analysis will endeavor to pinpoint the cause(s) of the variance, determine the degree of its effect on overall project cost, and determine the corrective action to be taken (Alwaly and Alawi, 2020).

Project Quality Management

Maintaining the quality to the highest possible level must be a priority of this project due to its importance to the company and the requirements of the ISO program. The quality management plan focuses on four key objectives that will drive the project's success: implementing ISO9001 and ISO27001, uptime of 99.9% on all critical applications, customer satisfaction of 95% or more, and data integrity of 99.99% in all.

In pursuit of these quality objectives the following quality assurance measures shall be employed throughout the phases of the current project: Continual internal verification and review of processes and systems will be done to update the performance to the ISO standards as well as note areas, which require adjustments. All the deliverables will be subjected to peer review to capitalize on the knowledge of various members of the project team to detect and correct all possible problems that may arise during the development process.

A quality assurance plan will also be used on different aspects of the project to check that all the end products will meet the quality requirements as laid down. User acceptance testing will be carried out on all the software components including internal staff and clients to ensure that the systems provide value and meet the required user expectations. Load and operational ready state tests on the IT infrastructure will be done to be satisfied that it can support expected throughput and downtime (Suwarno and Jaya, 2022).

Project Resource Management

Resource management in this large and multifaceted project is thus important to ensure its effectiveness. The human resources that will be involved in the project implementation include the Project Manager, Business Analysts, System Architects, Software Developers, Database Administrators, Network Engineers Information Security Specialists, QA Testers, Trainers, and ISO Compliance Specialists. These professionals constitute a diverse team that is capable of implementing all the aspects of the project since they possess all the relevant expertise.

It is planned that resource utilization will be controlled flexibly depending on the project schedule and WBS. The specific types of resource loading charts are the essential methods to keep track of potential conflicts of resources in the working plan or over/under allocation in the timeline of a project schedule for the Project Manager. To support team growth and ensure its productivity remains high several activities will be launched, thus; Weekly team meetings aimed at knowledge sharing, Cross-training sessions, performance appraisal, and Team building.

Project Communication Management The Stakeholder communication management plan will capture all the details required by any stakeholder at every stage of the project. They are weekly team meetings, bi-weekly reports to department heads, monthly reports to the Project Sponsor, a monthly newsletter for all project staff, and, lastly, a quarterly board of directors report. Communication and managerial engagement mechanisms will reflect the needs and power of each group in the process and feedback meetings to address their concerns and replenish support for the project (Mora et al, 2021).

Figure 3 Project Resource Management

(ProProfs Project Blog, 2019)

Project Risk Management

Risk management is deemed as one of the most important activities in the framework of the project plan. Some of the risks observed include hardware delivery delay which impacts infrastructure implementation, ISO compliance issues, staff resistance to change, cybersecurity issues during a shift to the new system, and excessive expenses that might occur due to complications that were not foreseen. To manage each of the identified risks, the probability and the impact of each risk identified will be evaluated and the risk that presents a high level of risk will have remedial measures developed.

Project Procurement Management

The procurement approach to achieving the above objective will include the following recommendation: The procurement function should aim at identifying ISO standard hardware and software vendors together with dependable service providers. On this account, it acquires server and networking devices, software licenses for development and security, consulting services for ISO certification, and training services for staff. Communication with the necessary vendors will be carried out regularly and actual and scheduled inspections of the executed works and delivery of products will be conducted to solve the problem of permanent cooperation with key vendors (Buzzetto et al, 2020).

Project Integration Management

A precise change management procedure will be applied to manage all the potential changes to the project scope, time, and cost. All such modifications can be implemented only after an assessment of the impact that it will have, and after being passed in the Project Steering Committee. The project performance will be measured using the EVM where the CPI and SPI will be calculated and analyzed at the project level and the organizational level once a month (Behdinian et al, 2022).

Figure 4 Project Integration Plan

(Team Asana, 2024)

Project Stakeholder Management

The middle managers and employees, technology specialists, overseas associates and clients, regulatory agencies, and ISO assessors are key stakeholders of this project. Each stakeholder group's needs and expectations will be taken into consideration and there will be a stakeholder engagement strategy developed. This would comprise providing routine inputs, participation in major decision-making processes, and responding to issues within the shortest time possible to garner increased support for the project at various stages of its development (Albats et al, 2020).

Conclusion

In conclusion, this IT Project Management Plan contains all the specifications needed to implement the international expansion of the company and gain ISO certifications. With all the ten PMBOK knowledge areas covered, the plan provides an organized approach for performing the project and its management, especially in the areas of risk and stakeholders. These monitoring and control procedures will be put regularly to ensure the project is on the right track as well as check on any predisposing factors to implementation.

References

Chow, T.C., Zailani, S., Rahman, M.K., Qiannan, Z., Bhuiyan, M.A. and Patwary, A.K., 2021. Impact of sustainable project management on project plan and project success of the manufacturing firm: Structural model assessment. Plos one, 16(11), p.e0259819. https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0259819&type=printable

Almasifar, N., Canbolat, T.Ö., Akhavan, M. and González-Lezcano, R.A., 2021. Proposing a new methodology for monument conservation “scope management” by the use of an analytic hierarchy process project management institute system and the cosmos burra charter. Sustainability, 13(23), p.13174. https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/23/13174/pdf

Abdul-Samad, Z. and Kulandaisamy, P.P., 2022. Cost Management for Information and Communication Technology Projects. Journal of Engineering, Project & Production Management, 12(2). https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Patrick-Kulandaisamy/publication/367089776_Cost_Management_for_Information_and_Communication_Technology_Projects/links/63c0db6fef57e61a61137335/Cost-Management-for-Information-and-Communication-Technology-Projects.pdf

Alwaly, K.A. and Alawi, N.A., 2020. Factors affecting the application of project management knowledge guide (PMBOK® GUIDE) in construction projects in Yemen. International Journal of Construction Engineering and Management, 9(3), pp.81-91. https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Nahg-Alawi/publication/343683714_Factors_Affecting_the_Application_of_Project_Management_Knowledge_Guide_PMBOK_R_GUIDE_in_Construction_Projects_in_Yemen/links/5f391a61299bf13404c85dd3/Factors-Affecting-the-Application-of-Project-Management-Knowledge-Guide-PMBOK-R-GUIDE-in-Construction-Projects-in-Yemen.pdf

Suwarno, S. and Jaya, W.S., 2022. Design and Development of Software Project Management System using Scrum. Journal of Informatics and Telecommunication Engineering, 5(2), pp.483-493. https://ojs.uma.ac.id/index.php/jite/article/download/6412/3753

Mora, M., Wang, F., Phillips-Wren, G. and Gómez, J.M., 2021. The role of DMSS analytics tools in software project risk management. Volume II Project Risk Management, Walter de Gruyter GmbH: Berlin, Engemann K and O’Connor R, eds, pp.49-74. https://www.asau.ru/files/pdf/2747066.pdf#page=66

Buzzetto, R.R., Bauli, M.R. and Carvalho, M.M.D., 2020. The key aspects of procurement in project management: investigating the effects of selection criteria, supplier integration and dynamics of acquisitions. Production, 30, p.e20190112. https://www.scielo.br/j/prod/a/5y6BsWpsvpnHR4m7zcZHS8q/?lang=en&title=www.scielo.br

Behdinian, A., Amani, M.A., Aghsami, A. and Jolai, F., 2022. An Integrating Machine Learning Algorithm and Simulation Method for Improving Software Project Management: A Case Study. Journal of Quality Engineering and Production Optimization, 7(1), pp.54-74. https://journals.shahed.ac.ir/article_3542_63eccd265b82f85d1a6665ae4b5fb534.pdf

Albats, E., Alexander, A., Mahdad, M., Miller, K. and Post, G., 2020. Stakeholder management in SME open innovation: interdependences and strategic actions. Journal of Business Research, 119, pp.291-301. https://ore.exeter.ac.uk/repository/bitstream/handle/10871/38123/OI%20in%20SMEs_Accepted%20Version.pdf?sequence=2

Dharmalingam N (2019). An Overview of Project Scope Management - Whizlabs Blog, https://www.whizlabs.com/blog/project-scope-management/.

ProProfs Project Blog. (2019). Cost Management in Project Management: Steps and 4+ Tips, https://www.proprofsproject.com/blog/cost-management-in-project-management/.

Martins, J. (2024). What is Resource Management? A Guide to Getting Started [2024] • Asana, https://asana.com/resources/resource-management-plan. (Martins, 2024)

Team Asana (2024). Budget Proposal Templates: 5 Steps to Secure Funding [2024] • Asana, https://asana.com/resources/project-integration-management.

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