Solution Code: 1BBD
This assignment is related to "Case Study assignment" and experts at My Assignment Services AU successfully delivered HD quality work within the given deadline.
Case Background
Willow brook School is a small, private school in the Midwest United States. As an independent systems analyst, you work as an IT consultant, specializing in developing IT solutions for small businesses. You have been contacted by the director, Victoria Owens, to discuss the possibility of setting up an information system to handle some of the school’s administrative and financial tasks. You agree to meet with Victoria and the principal, Kathy Gilliard next week to discuss the school’s need for an information system.
Victoria explains her role as the executive director of the school. She administers the activities of the school in accordance with the mission, vision, and policies established by the Board of Directors. She supports the educational staff and oversees the financial, payroll, and human resources functions for the school. Susan Brown is the vice principal. She is responsible for the after-care program. Michelle Madrid is the administrative assistant reporting to Victoria. There are six part-time after-care teachers, three for the pre-school/kindergarten group, and three for the primary grades. After-care teachers report to Susan Brown. The following activities are undertaken by the school, Admission, Enrolment, Attendance management, Accounts, Transport Management and the Library Database. The school also supports the local charity by selling artefacts and toys made by the students and maintains an online website where people can buy and look at the new toys and crafts made by the students, which is user friendly and has images of the artefacts, toys and crafts. Willowbrook school being a small private school is looking to expand and develop into one of the niche school with a unique selling proposition of having few number of students per class. Use of technology and providing IPADS to students and eliminate the need of notebooks. Michelle, the administrative assistant, in particular is feeling the strain of the increased workload associated with the rapid growth in the student population. The system that she has been using, of spreadsheets and word processing documents, worked well when enrolments were smaller, but now the amount of time spent copying information from one place to another is daunting, and the possibility of errors is increasing. An information system is necessary to cope with the growing administrative workload.
Based on your initial conversation and the work that you prepared, you begin planning to conduct a preliminary investigation. You call Victoria and discuss with her the strategic plan for the school including its mission and vision. You explain to her that planning IT systems and projects requires a similar approach to strategic planning as the school likely took when it initially created its mission, vision, and strategic plan. She begins to ask you questions about the next steps for developing the information system. After discussions it is decided that school would invest $80000.00 and 3 months for developing this system. You have also decided to consider taking inputs on this projects from PWC and Co.PWC and Co have been in the field of administration system for years and have expertise in doing administrative activities for schools and colleges.
Conduct SWOT analysis giving 5 points each for S, W, O, T as per descriptions below to help project managers. Make a table for SWOT analysis.
SWOT Analysis
Basic details Including: Title of the project, Nameand email of the Project Manager(yourself), Duration of the project, and High level budget
Project Objectives
Acceptance Criteria
Assumptions and Constraints
StakeholderList
Lessons Learned
Charter Sign off
Communication Plan Template
Meeting agenda– Gives a brief overview of what the team plans to accomplish in each of its meetings, how it documents goals and objectives for meetings, and defines and assigns actions for the team to accomplish project objectives.
These assignments are solved by our professional case study assignment experts at My Assignment Services AU and the solution are high quality of work as well as 100% plagiarism free. The assignment solution was delivered within 2-3 Days.
Our Assignment Writing Experts are efficient to provide a fresh solution to this question. We are serving more than 10000+ Students in Australia, UK & US by helping them to score HD in their academics. Our Experts are well trained to follow all marking rubrics & referencing style.
It will focus on strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats of the project. It will help in improving the project in accordance with the threats and weaknesses and grab the new opportunities using its strengths. The SWOT analysis of Willow Brook School is as below:
Strengths (S): | Weaknesses (W) : |
|
|
Opportunities (O) : | Threats (T): |
|
|
The project charter may also be termed as the blueprint of a project. It includes all the relevant details such as objectives of the project, acceptance criteria of the project, milestones of the project, major stakeholders of the project, lessons learned, etc. In this way a project charter helps in understanding the relevance of a project along with every minute detail of it (Archibald, 2010).
Basic details :
Title of the project – Developing IT solution for Willow Brook school
Name and email of the project Manager -
Duration of the project – 4 months
High level budget - $80000.00 |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Project objectives:
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Acceptance criteria
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Assumptions and constraints of the project also play an important role in implementation of a project(Mustaro, 2008). The major assumption of this project is that all the staff will get involved in the activity in an effective manner. It is also based on the assumption that new technology will be easily accessible to all the stakeholders. The major constraints of the project include lack of time, non-availability of skilled trainers, cost and scope of the project. These constraints will act as a limitation to the project and it is very necessary to address them. Without addressing these constraints the project will not be successful. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Stakeholders list :
The six major stakeholders of the project are sponsor, vice principle, director, staff, IT consultant and board of directors. |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Lessons learned :
The lessons of a project are usually based on previous experience. It helps in addressing the pitfalls of the project. The previous experience suggests that at the time of launching projects related to information technology it is very important to provide effective training to the staff and also to manage the change creatively. There were instances when staff was not able to manage the new systems and this has affected the performance of the organisations to a very great extent. Thus, the first lesson is to introduce the new technology to everyone and make them acquainted to use that. In this way lack of knowledge about the new technology among staff can affect the project. |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Charter sign-off :
All the stakeholders need to sign the project after going through the project charter and the stakeholders are also free to comment on this. |
The communication plan refers to all the essential activities that are required to be communicated to the stakeholders. Thus, it deals with who, what, when, where, why and how of a project. It is a systematic plan that enables every stakeholder to be aware of the project activities(Holmes, 2014).
Who | What | When | Where | Why | How |
Sponsor | Information about the expenses of the project | Every week | Board office in school | The objective of this meeting is to give quotations to the sponsors and then getting their feedback on that. It will enable the availability of resources and capital to implement the project. | Physical meeting |
Vice Principle | Information about how after-care program will get improved with new technology | Every week | Meeting room in school | This meeting will stress on after –care program. It will help in designing the activity efficiently so that all the after-care staff will report the vice-principle electronically and it will save time as well as the resources. | Physical meeting |
Director | Discussion on school’s administrative and financial tasks | Twice a week | Director’s room in school | This communication aims at discussing the financial and administrative tasks. | Physical meeting |
Staff | Discussion on all the functions such as library, finance, Human resource, admission, enrolment, attendance , etc. | Daily | Conference hall in school | It will enable all the staff members to know about their respective tasks and duties and the changes in their functioning. This is the most important meeting as it will make clear the entire situation of the project to the staff members. | Physical meeting |
IT consultant | Discussion on key resources and available infrastructure | Daily | Meeting room in school | It aims at making it clear the resources that are available and the infrastructure that will be required to make the project implementation successful. | Physical meeting |
Board of directors | Communicating the plan on new project | Twice a month | Board room in school | Each and every detail of the project shall be communicated to the board of directors and their feedback will be taken on all the aspects. | Physical meeting |
Change is a vital element of any project. A number of changes take place at the time of implementation of a project (Treher, 2008).It is very necessary to determine these changes and then communicate them to the stakeholders. The changes in a project can be in terms of schedule, scope, resources, etc. (Nguyen & Fussell, 2013). Hence communication plan on change management includes change decisions and communicating them to stakeholders(Lohikoski, 2016). The probable changes in the project include change in schedule and scope of the project. The communication plan for managing change is as below:
Nature of change | Change decision | Stakeholder affected | Communication mode |
Scope of the project | The project may be limited to only a few functions in an initial level. Some functions such as Human resource and after-care program may not be included in the project due to the lack of resources. | Vice Principle and Staff | Sending email |
Schedule of the project | The schedule of the project may get changed due to unforeseen circumstances or non-completion of any prior activity. | All the stakeholders | Physical meeting |
Meeting | Goals and objectives | Documenting Goals and objectives | Assigning actions |
Meeting 1 | To determine the functions of the school | Analysis of all the activities performed in the school | All the staff shall be required to submit a report on it |
Meeting 2 | To prioritize the functions to be included in the project | Comparison of functions on the basis of their utility | Board of directors will be consulted for this. |
Meeting 3 | Finalizing the project charter | Collection of every minute detail | All the stakeholders shall be assigned some task for project charter. |
Meeting 4 | Implementation | Resource allocation | Feedback |
Meeting 5 | Review and control | Improvement in the project | Lessons learned |
Find Solution for case study assignment by dropping us a mail at help@myassignmentservices.com.au along with the question’s URL. Get in Contact with our experts at My Assignment Services AU and get the solution as per your specification & University requirement.
Trending now
The Student Corner
Subscribe to get updates, offers and assignment tips right in your inbox.
Popular Solutions
Popular Solutions
Request Callback
Doing your Assignment with our resources is simple, take Expert assistance to ensure HD Grades. Here you Go....