MS Project Plan and Cost Benefit Analysis Assignment

Case Study
Part 1 Background eLanguage Plus Ltd

eLanguage Plus Ltd was established in 1985. It is a software development company based in Dublin primarily focussed on the educational sector and delivering software which allows for student centered interactive language learning facilities. The strategic focus of the company is to develop software for the teaching of English, French and German. The English Language product suite has been completed and has been implemented in several large educational establishments abroad.

In December 2016, an account bid to sell the eLanguage software to Halifax Higher Education was successful. You are an employee of eLanguage Plus, and were immediately assigned the role of the Project Manager for the implementation of the software in Halifax. You have the business skills necessary to make this project a success but not necessarily the technical skills to be a ‘hands-on’ manager for the development team. Your career has been centred round the integration of IT and business and evaluating the need for IT systems in organisations. Prior to joining eLanguage Plus Ltd., you had 4 years’ previous experience in this field and 5 years’ previous experience in assistant roles of project management. In 2016 you joined eLanguage Plus Ltd. as a software development project manager but you had limited experience in the field of software development. You took the job so that you could gain an overall understanding of the development of Information Systems in order to further progress your career to board of director level. So far, you found that the role of project manager in a software development organisation requires more business than technical skills – which suits your skill set. In the meantime, you achieved the PMI certification for project management and are considered to be one of the key members of staff in eLanguage Plus Ltd. Your career in eLanguage Plus Ltd to date is that you have implemented one successful small sized implementation project, worth revenue of €0.5 million to eLanguage Plus Ltd and it took 4 months to complete.

Halifax Higher Education

Halifax Higher Education was established in 1967 and is a publically owned higher education institution which specialises in the delivery of English language education to foreign students. Halifax is focussed on delivering high quality education to foreign nationals and has developed a first class reputation as an education provider. In addition to their operation in Halifax, they have a presence in 9 different countries: Malaysia (Kuala Lumpur), China (Hong Kong), Canada

(Montreal), Italy (Naples), France (Lyon), UK (London), US (New Orleans), Mexico (Mexico City) and Spain (Madrid). They are internationally renowned for their unique approach to English Language teaching, specialising in short courses which are highly intensive.

Halifax now intend to expand their business to Ireland with the opening of a new school in Dublin and are working with a local entrepreneur and finance specialist, Dave Murphy, to establish their presence in the Irish market. They have established from previous experience in other locations that their staff cost base is too high to maintain the profitability levels which they require. As a result, they have investigated the use of interactive software which will reduce their dependency on teaching staff by providing online resources which students can use to ‘self-learn’. However, they have never used this approach before at any of their other international operations.

While the discussions on the exact operation in Dublin are continuing, Halifax have established a working relationship with eLanguage Plus to install their software in Dublin with a possible expansion to their other operations around the globe, dependant on the successful implementation of the software in Dublin. The contract between eLanguage Plus Ltd and Halifax is a fixed price as opposed to time and materials contract. The software has to be customised for the specific requirements of the Dublin implementation. The initial proposal for the customisation has been agreed. To date, you, as Project Manager, have not been consulted on any of the details of the negotiation. Halifax has assigned a business IT project manager, based in Dublin, with whom you will liaise, Barry Murphy. Barry’s job is to ensure that you receive the relevant information from Halifax in order to deliver the full system on time. Halifax has told the Chief Operations Officer of eLanguage Plus Ltd that they want to ensure a strong working relationship with eLanguage Plus Ltd for the duration of the project.

Part 2 Risk Assessment

A contract has been signed which includes a financial penalty clause if the project is late due to delays caused by eLanguage Plus Ltd. There is also a financial penalty for poor quality software. The implementation date has been set for April 22nd 2019.

As part of the contract, Halifax had committed to giving you the requirements specifications for the project by the 21st September 2018. Due to circumstances beyond their control, they ran late by 2 working weeks.

There is a resource shortage in eLanguage Plus Ltd and the Chief Operations Officer has assigned you with the minimum number of resources you need to achieve successful delivery. You currently have 2 senior developers and 2 junior programmers on your team. This allocation does not agree with the original contract proposal of 3 senior developers, 2 junior developers and a quality assurance resource. Unfortunately, there is no chance of gaining another experienced project team member at this point in time. You put a request into the eLanguage Plus Ltd. board of directors for further hiring of professional and experienced staff especially in the area of Quality Assurance. You currently do not have a resource to test the system before it goes to the customer.

Business analysis for the project is scheduled to start on September 18th 2018 and the full system is due to go into testing (user acceptance testing) on 22nd March 2019, with the complete implementation scheduled to be completed by 22nd April 2019. This means that the project team have a total of:

• §  approximately 2 months for analysis, starting late September and finishing at the end of November i.e. to ensure that the system meets the customer expectations
• §  approximately 3 months for development, starting December and finishing mid- February
• §  approximately 2 weeks for testing the system before it goes to the customer for their testing

The timescales are tight and you need to review the plans to ensure that you can deliver on time. You doubt if you can deliver the project on time.

The above information is sufficient for you to construct a Risk Register for the project in Excel. Format the Register as shown in the example provided on Moodle.

Part 3 Cost Benefit Analysis

This project will be financed by Dave Murphy, an Irish entrepreneur, with a reputation for innovative but risky investment schemes. Dave wants to see a Cost Benefit Analysis for the project before he commits the funds. To date he has provided you with the information outlined below – no other information is available. Obviously some critical assumptions will have to be made. At the moment his funds on deposit in a Zurich bank and they are earning you 4.2% per annum. Will he invest?

Project Overview

This project involves the development of a Language School aimed primarily at non Irish students. Based on the initial market feasibility study it is envisaged that in its first year of operation this facility could attract up to 600 students from abroad. Anticipated growth in numbers over a five-year period could see the capacity of the school increase by 30%. It is estimated that each student would pay an average of €4500 for the services of the new school. However, one of the key marketing strategies for the operation will be the implementation of a suite of software products, ‘eLanguage Plus’, which, the sponsors believe, will differentiate their product in the marketplace. This software is not cheap. Although final pricing has not been negotiated, it is anticipated that the capital cost will be at least €350,000, with maintenance costs of 12.5% per annum. Implementation costs are estimated to be in the region of €50,000, which will be incurred within six months after purchase of the software. Training is not included in this figure. However, the attraction of this software is that it will reduce the requirement for direct teaching by 50%, since the software allows for the students to ‘self-learn’ with minimal assistance from their teachers. The assumption underlying the staffing for the project is that, with the software in place, 25 full time teachers will be required. One of the key revenue targets for the operation will be to ensure that the staff hired for the school will be in a position to offer consultancy services to other third level institutions in the region. Targeted income per staff member has been set at €12,500. Furthermore, no premises have been obtained for the school as yet although two potential acquisitions are in progress. The first involves the purchase of a plot of land in Stillorgan Co. Dublin for which the sponsors believe it will be possible to obtain planning permission. The estimated cost of the site is in the region of €0.7m. Only initial discussions with the planning authorities have taken place at this stage but informal indications are that the facility will be greatly welcomed in the area. Initial budgets for the build are in the region of €1.5 m. However, an alternative proposal has been muted. Premises have been located near Bray which was built during the boom times and is currently unoccupied. With appropriate refurbishment and kitting out, these premises

would be ideal in terms of its potential for this project and the owner is very keen to rent the premises over a five-year period with an option to extend for a further ten. He has indicated that he is willing to share half of the costs of renovation, which are estimated at €650,000. On the other hand, his opening gambit for the rent is €75,000 per annum which will not commence until the facility has been fully renovated. For either option is envisaged that general maintenance will be in the region of €20000 per annum. Of course, the technology infrastructure for this operation will be significant and cannot be overlooked. Networking, servers and PC’s will all have to be purchased and implemented. Since the operation requires that all students have access to the ‘eLanguage Plus’ software, it is imperative that sufficient PC’s be available at any one point in time to provide this service as needed. Of course, this infrastructure will also have to maintained. It is estimated that the building renovation, installation of the technology infrastructure and implementation of the software will take a year to complete. The operations of the new school will not commence until the entire required infrastructure is in place.

You need to prepare a CBA based on the above information together with any other BUSINESS ASSUMPTIONS which you believe are reasonable.

Part 4 Project Plan

To date, you have prepared and delivered a comprehensive Cost Benefit Analysis and Risk Assessment. The CBA and Risk Assessment have been reviewed and accepted by senior management of both eLanguage Plus and Halifax. Funds are now available to implement the project and a significant source of the investment has been provided by Dave Murphy. However, at this point the project has not been formally established and it is your initial task to prepare and deliver a Project Charter (Project Initiation Document) using the headings defined in the PRINCE2 methodology which is the eLanguage Plus standard methodology.

Halifax has now obtained premises which will be rented for five years in order to establish their presence in the market. The business case for the project has been based on this provision. eLanguage Plus has been selected as the software of choice. However, although the existing building has basic administrative facilities (i.e. desks, chairs and phones etc.), there is still no computing infrastructure in place.

Halifax has commissioned eLanguage Plus to implement the complete project, to include the preparation of an application for change of use of the building to a language school, the sourcing and management of the installation of a major network of 300 pc’s for the use of the student community who will be facilitated in ten special purpose laboratories, commissioning

of the eLanguage Plus software suite and the preparation and delivery of a marketing campaign for the school. Although the latter part of the project is not normally undertaken by eLanguage Plus, it is their intention to outsource the work to a specialised marketing firm (Visionary Marketing) but to maintain overall project management responsibility.

The contract between eLanguage Plus Ltd and Halifax is a fixed price as opposed to time and materials contract. The software has to be customised for the specific requirements of the Dublin implementation. Only the initial outline proposal for the customisation has been agreed and the timescale anticipated for this element of the project is three elapsed months.

Halifax has assigned a business IT project manager, based in Dublin, with whom you will liaise, Barry Murphy. Barry’s job is to ensure that you receive the relevant information from Halifax in order to deliver the full system on time. Halifax has told the Chief Operations Officer of eLanguage Plus Ltd that they want to ensure a strong working relationship with eLanguage Plus Ltd for the duration of the project.

A contract has been signed which includes a financial penalty clause if the project is late due to delays caused by eLanguage Plus Ltd. There is also a financial penalty for poor quality

software. The target for implementation of the system is May 1st 2019.

Following negotiations, you have been assigned two Systems Analysts, three Senior Developers and two Junior Programmers on a full time basis to your team. eLanguage Plus has many other projects in train and this allocation is looked upon jealously by your colleagues. In addition, a Quality Assurance Manager, responsible for the implementation of company-wide quality procedures will be made available on an as needed basis. For the marketing element of the project the eLanguage Marketing Manager is available but only on a very restricted basis.

The formal start date for the project has been set at September 18th 2018. Please note that the company provides Christmas holidays for all staff from December 24th to December 28th inclusive, and that January 1st 2019 is a bank holiday.

Change of use permission for the rented building has yet to be obtained from Fingal County Council. You may proceed on the basis that permission will be granted. However, word of the project has leaked out into the local community and it is anticipated that there will objections from the local residents’ association who fear that the influx of foreign students will cause problems in the area

The most critical element of the PID is the project plan. Company policy is that a reliable WBS (Work Breakdown Structure) be prepared for the project, showing all of the major phases, the milestones in each phase and each of the tasks required to complete the project. In addition, a realistic Gantt chart for the project must be produced in Microsoft Project showing clearly the resources required for each task. The Critical Path for the project needs to be clearly identified. This plan will have to be printed and circulated at the Project Launch meeting.

Each identified task will require an estimate of the amount of time needed for completion and the resources, both material and personnel, which will be required. An explanation of the roles involved and the structure of the Steering Group will be vitally important. It is assumed that some, but not all, of the staff available for this project will be able to work Saturdays, but only until 14:00. Other working days should begin at 09:30 and finish at 17:30 with an hour for lunch. Normal public holidays will apply. You should ensure that your project has no over- allocated resources. You can see that there are going to be quite a few different roles involved in this project. Indeed, you can also see that there are other stakeholders who, although not directly involved in the implementation, will be impacted by its conclusion and may be important to its overall success.