1. XYZ Training Center: Conversion of an Excel System Database
to Internet Based Database
SCRUM - AGILE METHODOLOGY
JANUARY 2011
Rickie Brannon, Robbie Brown, James "Jim" Douglass,
Deborah Obasogie, Elizabeth Tunsrtall
2. Table of Contents
Executive Summary......................................................................................................................................1
Performance Issues ..................................................................................................................................3
Management and Technical Constraints.................................................................................................4
Development Process and Methodology (SDPM).......................................................................................5
Overall Approach to Delivering the Product and Reason for Choice .....................................................5
Phases of SDPM Process ..........................................................................................................................6
Scope.....................................................................................................................................................6
Plan/Launch ..........................................................................................................................................6
Monitor, Control, Close.........................................................................................................................7
Degree of Stakeholder Involvement in the SDPM Process.....................................................................7
Project Estimates..........................................................................................................................................8
Sources of Historical Techniques .............................................................................................................8
Estimation Techniques.............................................................................................................................9
Estimates of Effort, Cost, Duration..........................................................................................................9
Risk Management Strategy........................................................................................................................10
Risk Table................................................................................................................................................12
Discussion of Risks..................................................................................................................................12
Risk Mitigation, Monitoring, and Management Plan ...........................................................................12
Risk Mitigation ....................................................................................................................................13
Risk Monitoring...................................................................................................................................14
Risk Management (contingency plans)...............................................................................................15
Risk Mitigation ....................................................................................................................................15
Risk Monitoring...................................................................................................................................16
Risk Management (contingency plans)...............................................................................................17
Risk Mitigation ....................................................................................................................................17
Risk Monitoring...................................................................................................................................18
Risk Management (contingency plans)...............................................................................................18
Risk Mitigation ....................................................................................................................................18
Risk Monitoring...................................................................................................................................19
Risk Management (contingency plans)...............................................................................................19
Risk Mitigation ....................................................................................................................................19
Risk Monitoring...................................................................................................................................20
Risk Management (contingency plans)...............................................................................................20
Schedule .....................................................................................................................................................22
Project Work Breakdown Structure.......................................................................................................22
Task Network..........................................................................................................................................22
Resource Table .......................................................................................................................................23
Responsibility Matrix .............................................................................................................................24
Major Milestones and Target Dates ......................................................................................................24
Project Resources.......................................................................................................................................24
People.....................................................................................................................................................24
Hardware and Software Required.........................................................................................................25
Special Resources and Tools ..................................................................................................................25
3. Project Organization ..................................................................................................................................25
Team Structure.......................................................................................................................................25
Project Organization Type and Reason for Choice................................................................................26
Project Stakeholders ..............................................................................................................................27
Tracking and Control Mechanisms ............................................................................................................28
Quality Assurance and Control ..............................................................................................................28
Change Management and Control.........................................................................................................28
Project Communications............................................................................................................................29
Internal to the Project............................................................................................................................29
External to the Project ...........................................................................................................................29
Facilities Plan..............................................................................................................................................29
Documentation Plan ..................................................................................................................................30
Test Plan .....................................................................................................................................................32
Trial Plans ...................................................................................................................................................34
Deployment Plans ......................................................................................................................................35
Maintenance and Disaster Recovery.........................................................................................................37
Open Issues and Pending Decisions...........................................................................................................38
Appendix A .................................................................................................................................................39
Appendix B..................................................................................................................................................40
Appendix C..................................................................................................................................................41
Appendix D .................................................................................................................................................42
Appendix E..................................................................................................................................................43
Appendix F..................................................................................................................................................44
Table 1 ........................................................................................................................................................45
4. 1
XYZ Training Center: Conversion of an Excel System Database to Internet Based
Database
Executive Summary
What our team has decided to do for XYZ Training Center is to convert their existing
software database (MS Excel) into an automated, sleeker model using new technology. XYZ
needs a system that will allow them to enroll students, yet provide them capabilities to record
and archive the data automatically. XYZ’s requirements are simple, yet straightforward; they are
looking for a system that facilitates them with their entire enrollment process. Such that
information can be provided to potential students, students can be enrolled, generate reports in
the future to understand what type of class students take and how to access future markets.
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Project Scope and Objective
Statement of Scope
Although XYZ found substantial costs reduction by adopting open source, risk includes
the absence of a formal open source policy in place and additional costs in man hours to support
system. To address this, open source should be as easy to discover, evaluate, deploy, and support
as the proprietary, licensed alternatives.
In Scope
Tracking, historic information and analysis of student data:
a. System should enroll students and track student enrollments.
b. System should keep and access last two years and going forward history. History
information consists of the student, enrollment and course information listed above.
c. System should supply Marketing with the student information for their purposes.
System should provide the following formatted reports:
a. Course offerings (Course Offerings Report).
b. List of students for each class (Enrollment Report).
c. List of all the classes that a student has taken and is registered currently (Grades and
Student History Reports).
Out of Scope
Student payments, financial/accounting, marketing systems.
Company’s vendors.
3 other student performance reports (to be completed in a separate project).
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Major Functions
XYZ is looking to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of student data by 80% within
one year and to expand customer base by 60% by year end. XYZ wishes to improve the current
method of student data traceability and reduce system redundancy; the newly developed software
will update and retrieve student data from a centralized location. Maintaining a centralized
location will increase data efficiency and effectiveness of the data.
As with any business plan/project, risk and or obstacles are unforeseen and can be
difficult to plan for until they actually occur. When transitioning from different model/versions
of software, be aware that training may be essential. You have to ensure that the data will be
compatible and during the transitioning phase, employees are still able to be productive and
operate the system with minor supervision. Training is critical and should be taught hands on
even if the customer feels confident in the software. It’s a simple precautionary method to avoid
loss of business. Considering the competition is another thought to consider when evolving into a
more competitive market/industry sector. XYZ will experience larger than normal volumes of
student data, as this new software will allow for wider markets which addresses student needs
and profiles.
Performance Issues
There is a business need to develop an automated student management system for the
following reasons: solutions will meet cost estimates and schedule constraints, the solution will
meet a specified quality benchmark requirement, and to avoid loss or negative effect on
operations as a result of business interruption, unavailable systems. The timeframe for the
schedule is a major obstacle as solutions will have to integrate within the school’s academic year,
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migration of existing data to database and going live from test environment. Current software
expertise of existing staff and migration of skill sets to new environment requires excellent front
– end analysis of knowledge groups to create criterion referenced training modules. Current
business process (legacy process) to lean automated process creates change process which affects
business and organizational environments. School infrastructure will have to be updated to
support software requirements; easing of the enrollment process for students. Students should be
given “suggested courses” during the registration process based on existing profiles and degree
roadmaps improving student’s effectiveness in managing their education; easing of the recruiting
process for advisors when courting new students. Advisors should easily be able to determine
degree roadmaps and provide accurate timely information to prospects.
Management and Technical Constraints
The risk categories that have been identified for this effort include quality, cost,
competitive and operational, scope and environmental. Anything that can negatively affect the
overall completion of the project outside of our means of time and cost is considered a risk (i.e.
running over/under budget, changing the scope mid-project, not having the appropriate man
power, or once the software is developed, the user not being able to effectively execute the
system in order to continue the flow of business). Loss or negative effect on operations as a
result of business interruption, unavailable systems can affect XYZ’s competitive edge. Training
may need to be rolled out to all potential after the initial testing/deployment phase. This can also
help the developers/programmers catch any glitches prior to final run through. If XYZ doesn’t
employee an IT team to keep the organization current with software updates, avoid database
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corruption, or inaccurate data being transmitted between old and new existing systems as well as
a periodic hardware evaluation, it can have a long term effect on XYZ performance. Refer to
Appendix A for more information.
40-50% of high priority features must be included in release 1.0, 70-90% in release 1.1,
95-100% in release 1.3. 90-93% of user acceptance tests must pass for release 1.0, 94-97% for
release 1.1, 98-100% for release 1.3. Budget overrun is up to 10% acceptable with approval by
Customer and Project Sponsor. Release 1.0 is to be available by 5/6, release 1.1 by 6/13, release
1.3 by 6/17. Maximum team size is 4 developers + 2 testers + specific customer resources.
Development Process and Methodology (SDPM)
Overall Approach to Delivering the Product and Reason for Choice
The best method for this type of project would be the SCRUM model (Iterative SDPM).
The goal is known and clear, while the solution is not. There are a number of risks and issues
that could come to the PM when using this methodology, however, solutions can be discovered
as the project progresses. The customer drives deliverables through interaction via project demos
after the completion of each sprint. New features and functions may be identified at that time and
added to the product backlog to be prioritized by the product owner (Effective Software Project
Management, 2010). The customer defines the functions and features that the team prioritizes
into phases and builds a phase at a time. The process allows the customer to change features to
try and solidify solutions throughout various phases. The SCRUM model is best for situations
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where a variety of skills levels are available and everyone is willing and able to share
information and use lessons learned to improve the overall experiences.
Phases of SDPM Process
Scope
An idea is proposed, and then the functionality list is developed and prioritized, sprint
meetings are held regularly, sprints are conducted, then a demo is presented to the customer for
evaluation. The idea portion of the SCRUM model is a description/idea as part of developing the
scope of the project. The functionality list is presented by the product owner which is considered
the product backlog. The sprint meetings are when the team brainstorm for half of the session, to
clear up any questions or concerns anyone may have regarding the backlog. The second half of
the meeting is actually the developing phases. Lastly, after the sprint has been conducted, the
customer updates any changes to functionality that needs to be addressed at the next sprint
session.
Plan/Launch
Because the SCRUM model has been chosen for this project, this allows the team to be
more flexible and customer oriented. XYZ will meet with the project manager, SME, and the
consultants to provide more details to the scope. These key members will meet to discuss the
necessary project deadline, budget, and necessary hardware and software implementation
process. Also, because this approach allows room for changes, how those changes will be
requested and creating either a scope bank or management reverse. Once all are in agreement,
the project manager will assign the proper resources to the project.
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Monitor, Control, Close
Once the project manager has given the project team the deliverables, implementation of
the project will be completed in accordance to the SCRUM model. The conversion of the
student information will be conducted sections. Once each section is completed, a small demo
will be conducted to ensure that particular section is operating according to XYZ agreed to. As
the project progress, the completed sections will be tested with each other to ensure that once the
conversion is completed finished, the software and hardware will be able to handle the volume of
traffic.
Degree of Stakeholder Involvement in the SDPM Process
The stakeholders for this project include the customer, sponsors, subject matter experts
(SMEs) and developers/programmers, and project manager. Sponsors provide overall direction
on the project. Responsibilities include: approve the project charter and plan; secure Subject
Matter Expert resources for the project; confirm the project’s goals and objectives; keep abreast
of major project activities; make decisions on escalated issues; and assist in the resolution of
roadblocks. Subject Matter Expert provides expertise on a specific subject. Responsibilities
include: maintain up-to-date experience and knowledge on the subject matter; and provide
advice on what is critical to the performance of a project task and what is nice-to-know. Project
Manager leads in the planning and development of the project; manages the project to scope.
Responsibilities include: develop the project plan; identify project deliverables; identify risks and
develop risk management plan; direct the project resources (team members); scope control and
change management; oversee quality assurance of the project management process; maintain all
documentation including the project plan; report and forecast project status; resolve conflicts
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within the project or between cross-functional teams; ensure that the project’s product meets the
store objectives; and communicate project status to stakeholders. Team Member works toward
the deliverables of the project. Responsibilities include: understand the work to be completed;
complete research, data gathering, analysis, and documentation as outlined in the project plan;
inform the project manager of issues, scope changes, and risk and quality concerns; proactively
communicate status; and manage expectations. The customer is the person or department
requesting the project. Responsibilities include: partner with the sponsor or project manager to
create the Project Charter; partner with the project manager to manage the project including the
timeline, work plan, testing, resources, training, and documentation of procedures; work with the
project team to identify the technical approach to be used and the deliverables to be furnished at
the completion of the project; provide a clear definition of the business objective; sign-off on
project deliverables; take ownership of the developed process and software.
Project Estimates
Sources of Historical Techniques
XYZ employees may not be familiar with using Internet based software; however the
many business organizations use Internet based software for their everyday business needs. This
software is very helpful in providing organizations with up dated information. Also, this
software helps eliminate the process of inputting the same information on several different
computers.
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Estimation Techniques
The use of historical data and expert advice is the best approach for this project.
Historical data can be utilize for providing the project team with an updated knowledge of the
prices of parts, services, and the development of the project schedule. Expert advice will be
utilized in conjunction with the development of the project schedule and with informing XYZ
during a scope change requests.
These techniques have been chosen because it allows the project team to remain focus on
the project itself. Also, the experts will serve as an additional support system during any
meetings and throughout the project process.
Estimates of Effort, Cost, Duration
The budget is $750,000 and can be completed anywhere from 18-36 months. The code is
provided by the customer; however, it is a general code which can be provided to several
different vendors at once. A consultant company will help us modify the code to meet XYZ’s
requirements. The cost for consultant fees, software, servers etc are all including in our $750k
budget. The cost for man power, testing, and training is also included in the budget. There will
need to be an excessive amount of hours if the project is split between the 5 team members. The
performance will be done Monday through Friday. Most of the expenses will be the
responsibility of the customer, due to the project being a partial customization/outsourced
initiative. Time, hardware, and cost are variable, as changes is inevitable using a SCRUM model.
There is no prior historical data specific to the exact requirements as been identified with this
effort, however, our PMs are very knowledgeable and experience in software development and
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has generalized costs across the board. Upfront costs (licenses, customization, training, and
implementation) will cost approximately $300,000. The database servers required will cost
approximately $12,000. Microsoft Server 2010 or Linux will cost $7,400. 2 dell web servers
have been priced at $14, 000 (this includes shipment, taxes, and warranty for both servers). The
consultants provided will cost $60,000. The system engineer will cost $50/hour and database
administrator will cost $60/hour, both are variable cost. Also, this project will have a manage
reverse of $100,000.
Risk Management Strategy
XYZ project team identifies risk as the internal and external vulnerabilities associated
with the completion of the scope and deliverables of a project. XYZ seeks to minimize the
impacts of risk through the use of policies, procedures and processes tools which provide the
project team with the guidance to objectively determine risks. The use of tools will guide the
team to analyze, assess and control risks to eliminate, minimize, avoid and or mitigate risks
identified as unacceptable to the successful completion of this project.
The team will populate a preformatted risk register, following ITILv3 practices
(information technology infrastructure library) to provide a comprehensive robust matrix to the
SDPM (software development project management) framework. The matrix will be used as an
on – line dynamic tool which provides a visual and chronological status of all known risks with
read availability to all stakeholders; update responsibility of the aforementioned tool is assigned
to the project manager. The update schedule shall be provided on a weekly basis minimal; unless
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a priority risk is discovered by a stakeholder or project team member whereupon immediate
update is required with data for all known categories of the matrix.
The matrix tool provided below will be the trigger for actions related to the project with
continuous risk management due diligence as the standard.
Risk probability determination is defined through a 100% weighting and scored 1 – 4
with 1 = 0-25% with a dollar impact of $0 - $1600.00, 2 = 26 – 50% with a dollar impact of
$1601 - $400.00, 3 = 51-75% with a dollar impact $4001 - $8000.00 of and 4 = 76 – 100% with
a dollar impact of greater than $8001.00.
The impact values are estimates based on the function of pre response actions and post
response actions.
Proximity denotes the anticipated state the categorized risk event will occur within. The
risk response column falls within two categories threats: avoid, reduce, fallback, transfer, accept
and share and the second category opportunities: enhance, exploit, reject and share. The action
column is functionally aligned with the response column category to state the predetermined
projects teams’ response to mitigate the risk.
The risk Actionee column tracks who has taken on the mitigation task which may be
anyone on the project team and not necessarily the owner of the risk; this is to provide lessons
learned data downstream including providing the project manager with human development
resources data. The final category is the risk status column which provides all stakeholders with
visual information of the state of the risk.
All new risks will be routed to the project manager, with priority level identified in the
routing which will determine the course of action taken by the project manager. A stop light
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priority level system will be used to delineate action levels of consisting of red = immediate,
amber = moderate and green = low to determine impact of the risk on the project. This is a
control measure to ensure concise data is reported to the tool in accordance with the quality
measures agreed upon by the project team. See Appendix A for project’s risk register.
Risk Table
Table 1 lists the indentified risks and their risk level for the project. This information is a
section taken from the project’s risk register in Appendix A.
Discussion of Risks
The five highest priority risks will be the focus risks managed by the project team to
ensure the impact of these selected risks will have a minimum impact upon the outcome of the
project. The risks listed below are the highest priority risks to the project:
1. Selection of ISP provider
2. Current hardware infrastructure for relational database
3. Project timeline
4. Scalability
5. Database corruption
The project team has determined the following strategy will allow XYZ to respond and
anticipate the mandated actionable items required to successfully implement the transference of a
legacy spreadsheet system to an on – line relational database management system.
Risk Mitigation, Monitoring, and Management Plan
1. Selection of an ISP provider
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Risk Mitigation
The SME (subject matter expert) assigned to research IPS providers has finalized the
criteria to determine an ISP provider. The findings have determined a linear selection process
will not obtains the desired results and selection should focus on core system requirements
instead. A determining factor is the overall fit of the vendors’ infrastructure to the firms’
business model and current /future customer requirements for services. The database
management system will require the following infrastructure features to achieve and maintain
operational efficiency to the quality measures set forth by the requirements.
1. Overall strategy of the ISP’s network infrastructure must be owned and maintained by the
provider to reduce the following variables contributing to risks.
a. Reliability
b. Scalability
c. Support
2. Scalability of services
a. Availability of guaranteed bandwidth within geographical domain
b. Hardware/Software to support wireless including VPN
c. Security via hardware/software firewall to external/internal threats
d. Must own network infrastructure within geographical service domain
e. Technical support of IPv4 minimum and upcoming IPv6 address structure
3. Support
a. Datacenter support availability to meet a minimum of FIVE NINES (99.999%)
uptime at site level. Stipulation of less than five minutes of system unavailability
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b. per year. It will be so stipulated the ISP will not be liable for acts of GOD,
however measures will be implemented to minimize impact such as off site data
backup storage.
c. Technical staff supports expertise providing critical services (network
administration, traffic analysis, threat detection at all TCP/IP levels, customer
service, intrusion detection and mitigation processes and so on…)
d. Server consolidation via virtualization to optimize server resources via the VMM
(virtual machine model) to facilitate one server many clients.
Finally the overall business environmental/organizational cultures of the ISP and the firm
will be final selection criteria to ensure a homogeneous atmosphere which mirrors the business
vision and mission of XYZ.
Risk Monitoring
During the final selection process of an ISP the following selected SME personnel from
XYZ will tour the facilities of the finalists; senior technical management, network and database
engineers to provide a first – hand look at the state of the facilities under scrutiny to determine
the ability of the vendor to walk the talk. While on – site the SME team shall address the
criterion the vendors were selected on and not have the visit drive the determining criteria. This
methodology will ensure a parity level from which all vendors have the same onus as per RFP’s
and interaction with the service vendors personnel will provide an indication of working
relationships while viewing how customers are currently served.
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A RFP will be the method to evaluate the perspective bidders with the final determining
document comprised of a RFQ sent to finalists and the aforementioned document along with the
responses to the RFP will define the final criteria for selection.
The RFP shall be written to define the technical and management goals required to
provide services to XYZ with a focus on the business needs including requirements of the
requested service. The RFP/RFQ process define the key business and technical partnership
criteria to support the mission, vision including goals where congruence of the aforementioned
criteria is mission critical for a strong business partnership.
Risk Management (contingency plans)
Selected ISP’s from the initial RFP process will receive a RFQ to provide XYZ
procurement team with the detailed technical and managerial costs associated outlined from the
RFP. A contract will be awarded to the vendors chosen with a secondary vendor selected to
facilitate the schedule, if inadvertent circumstances prevent the primary vendor from an ability to
abide with the agreement. In such case the primary vendor is unable to meet the contractual
agreement and/or services are not being met as expected the customer shall receive an effective
corrective action plan with mutually agreed upon measures.
A non – disclosure agreement shall be provided to all participants of the RFP/RFQ
process to ensure confidentiality and integrity of business processes, practices and procedures.
2. Hardware Requirements
Risk Mitigation
The current hardware present in the system is inadequate to deploy a solution meeting the
output required by the POS for this project of a relational database management system.
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To provide a scalable hardware package that will meet the current and future needs of
XYZ business vision and mission will require a robust server infrastructure capable of scaling to
meet the business needs. The base system minimal requirements will consist of share hosting
with a web server, mail server, a relational database server, a FTP (file transfer protocol) server
connected to third party data storage and a backup server. The XYZ domain will consist of a
primary DNS (domain name server) with a secondary DNS server and a instead of SMS (systems
management server) handling all asset management issues the migration to the use of System
Center Microsoft ® as the dynamic IT management solution leased from the ISP. With the
exponential rate of technological growth including the issues with maintaining asset efficiency
and security, the leasing of the solution is a value added business decision allowing real – time
mitigation of asset and infrastructure integrity.
Risk Monitoring
Asset monitoring will be handled through the software tools of System Center® from
Microsoft to provide the on – line asset management required to monitor the hardware/software
infrastructure environment to provide robust connectivity.
a. Solutions are fully integrated to provide a consistent and comprehensive management
approach.
b. Cross platform integration and interoperability for cross platform environments such
as any open source products.
c. A single process to manage physical and virtual environments utilizing the same
consoles and tools.
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Risk Management (contingency plans)
Asset management will be provided through the software tools of System Center® from
Microsoft to provide the on – line asset management to provide platform solutions which are
knowledge based, can be implemented quickly and provide rapid deployment.
The management of system integrity is based on industry standards ITIL (information
systems infrastructure library) and MOF 4.0 (Microsoft Operations Framework) to provide
proven solutions.
A real – time monitoring system is essential to system resource health with a minimum
of human resource capital required to maintain throughput and integrity. With a service target of
five nines (99.999%) the tools to provide this level of quality of system availability demands the
project team provides a viable solution with a proven track record to achieve the stated target.
3. Project Timeline
Risk Mitigation
The project timeline poses a strong risk stemming from the need to have a functioning
on – line business processes in place during the non – peak season for students and before the
non – automated process can be retired. To mitigate this risk the project team has chosen an
iterative SDPM strategy to provide visual selection of prototype models depicting a proposed
solution. The SDPM strategy provides for interaction with the customer to select a solution that
provides the client with the best business value. The project team has decided the best strategy
to mitigate the timeline is to closely monitor the schedule for variances and utilize root cause
failure analysis of each variance to apply the specified action required to correct the variance.
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Risk Monitoring
Daily monitoring of the schedule along with the selected SDPM strategy will provide for
proactive monitoring of the timeline which allows the project manager a quantitative measure of
variances. The closely monitored plan allows for proactive actions to affect the schedule as
trends are encountered.
Risk Management (contingency plans)
To ensure proper management of this risk the team will adhere to daily reporting at EOS
(end of shift) to provide updated information to track the schedule as it unfolds. The resulting
schedule will be measured against the forecast to determine variances (if any) to provide the
opportunity to make corrective action to maintain schedule timeline and deliverable milestones.
4. Scalability
Risk Mitigation
Technical performance of the system will have a major impact on the business system.
The system designers must provide the system with platform independence and performance
response time baseline criteria to allow the IT manager to:
Analyze and determine bottlenecks
Compare the impact of changes
Determine optimum time of low activity to perform system maintenance
Provide feedback to users of platform support issues
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Risk Monitoring
Microsoft System Center® tools will provide the IT manager real – time monitoring of
physical and virtual system response to determine the root cause of any bottleneck issues facing
the system. These bottleneck issues are not limited to:
CPU symptoms’
Disk transfer symptoms’
Memory error symptoms’
Risk Management (contingency plans)
To perform risk management the project has finalized on the following tools to load as
part of the suite of solutions in Microsoft System Center®:
DMV’s (dynamic management views)
Task Manager
System Monitor
SQL Profiler
The use of these tools in conjunction with the DBMS (database management system)
tools will provide the system designers and testers with a robust environment to ensure
throughput along with quality requirements are met during development including test/deploy.
5. Database Corruption
Risk Mitigation
The database type selected for this project is a RDBMS (relational database management
system) as opposed to a flat – file database. The selection of a relational database over the flat –
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file database was to provide robust system response and to provide a wide range of system query
capability through the use of entity relational cardinality.
The project team has defined a database standard model outlined in the requirements and
adherence to this standard will minimize configuration errors and standardized testing creation
without impact to the overall project schedule.
To ensure database integrity the project team has selected to run automated system
backups with a predetermined time frame to be finalized by the business system owner. The time
frame is to be based on the amount of manual data input the system owner is willing to live with.
The project team recommendation is to have automated backups performed by the system every
hour with drive replication performed and offloaded to a different geographical location. The
strategy is to be compliant with the implementation of a disaster recovery plan which suits the
business mission and vision for the firm.
Risk Monitoring
To provide concise data entry to the database the project team recommends the IT
program manager creates a T – SQL DDL (data definition language) trigger to track the
developers as changes are made to ensure proper backup and recovery, database standards are
being adhered and the environments of dev, test and production are maintained.
Risk Management (contingency plans)
A common issue in the transference of legacy system flat – files occurs from the initial
formatting of the flat – file. Comma delimited files (txt) files as opposed to tab delimited files
(excel) must first be converted to deposit into SQL tables. The use of SQL tools server data
transformation services (DTS) or SQL server import services (SSIS) are wizard type tools
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provided by the SQL suite to facilitate file transfer. If the customer prefers to maintain the
spreadsheet format then a linked server connection can be set by the IT manager to provide
updates to the relational database dynamically through the use of a user interface web page.
The project team has created a manager responsible for escalation of all issues falling
outside of the agreed parameters and the escalation manager must provide project database risks
to the attention of the project manager in accordance to the stoplight policy denoting level
identification.
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Schedule
Project Work Breakdown Structure
The SDPM strategy chosen for the XYZ project is an iterative software development
process congruent with the quadrant 2 project where the goals are clear however the solution is
not clear at the present start of the project.
The selected SDPM (software development project management) strategy will make use
of agile methodology using SCRUM as the delivery methodology. The traditional role of project
manager will be denoted as the SCRUM master and each SME will fill the role of project
manager for their perspective feature.
As consistent with this project teams’ strategy a tool to manage the project has been
selected by the project team planning committee. The selection is to use the Agile planning tools
available in Microsoft Visual Studio Team System 2010®. The use of a software planning tool
enables the team to present communication in a manner familiar not only to the team but all of
the stakeholders within the project environment. The stakeholders are very familiar with
spreadsheets and VSTS (visual studio team system) software which has a formatted excel
workbook look to the data entry fields and the reporting.
Appendix B depicts the Scrum WBS and all SDPM phases consisting of scope, plan,
launch, monitor & control and deploy (close).
Task Network
Once the WBS is completed a task network can be drawn, with durations and percentage
of completion assigned to all phases of the project. Appendix C depicts the task network for the
project.
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The task network is important because it will help the project manager to work out the
most efficient sequence of events needed to complete the project. This activity network, is a
graphic representation of the task flow for the project and will be used as a mechanism through
which task sequence and dependencies are input to an automated project scheduling tool. The
concurrent nature of software engineering activities leads to a number of important scheduling
requirements. Because parallel tasks occur asynchronously, the planner must determine inter-task
dependencies to ensure continuous progress toward completion. In addition, the project manager
should be aware of those tasks that lie on the critical path.
Timeline Chart (Gantt Chart)
Appendices D, E and F depicts the project plan.
Resource Table
Resource Name Type
SCRUM Master Work
Database Architect Work
IT Manager PM – Test Work
IT Manager PM – Development Work
IT Manager PM – Programming Work
Project Sponsor – Business Analyst Work
Customer 1 – Business Analyst Work
Customer 2 – Business Analyst Work
ISP Provider Work
Web Servers Material
Computers Material
Kuali Software Material
Database Software (PostgreSQL 8.4) Material
Database Server Material
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Responsibility Matrix
Work Resource Responsible
Planning SCRUM Master
Requirements SCRUM Master/IT Project Manager
Analysis IT Project Manager
Development IT PM – DEV /Database Architect
System Design IT PM – DEV/TEST/PROG/Database Architect
System Integration IT PM – TEST/PROG/Database Architect
System Test IT PM – TEST/ Database Architect
System Demonstration SCRUM Master
System Deployment IT PM – DEV/TEST/PROG
Documentation IT PM – DEV/TEST/PROG/Database Architect
Project close and post implementation review SCRUM Master/ IT PM –
DEV/TEST/PROG/Database Architect
Major Milestones and Target Dates
Requirements 02/21/2011
Iteration Backlog 05/16/2011
Product Release Backlog 06/13/2011
Test Functionality 06/15/2011
Demonstrate Functionality 06/17/2011
Project Resources
People
Team Chemistry is the vital ingredient for this project to remain on task, on/under budget,
and completed at the projected deadline. For this to be accomplished, the project team
responsible will have to be highly skilled and technically educated in their respective roles and
responsibilities. Strong leadership is the cement that will ensure this house is built properly. The
project manager chosen will be one that posses highly above average communication skills. This
is important when working with co-workers that are highly skilled. Since experts only listen to
themselves a project consultant will also be hired. To oversee the infrastructure and
implementation of XYZ a database administrator and system engineer will also be hired.
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Hardware and Software Required
Since technology is changing at the blink of an eye, it has been determined that using
open source software is best. This type of software will allow for XYZ to make changes after
the project has been completed. The software will be obtained from Kuali Company. They were
chosen because they have a respectful reputation with several other top colleges and universities.
XYZ will also need to choose an Internet Service Provider. All computers will have to be
updated to have the necessary system requirements for the software. Web servers will utilize as
information backup system to data storage (1 primary and 1 secondary).
Special Resources and Tools
After successful implementation of the data conversion, XYZ will need to train their
employees on how to properly use and manage thru the software system. Also, a written
instructions and/or a web demonstration will have to be provide for current and future students
on how to enroll for classes with the new software.
Project Organization
Team Structure
The project team DNA only focus will be on the completion of upgrading the system for
XYZ. The project team will consist of a project manager, Subject Matter Expert (SME),
consultants, 2 software developers/programmers, 4 testers, 1 system engineer, and 1 database
administrator. The project manager will have complete authority and responsibility for the
successful completion of this project. The software system developers/programmers are
responsible for ensuring proper data migration from excel based system to the preferred internet
based Kuali software. They will also oversee the data migration, they will make sure all
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information is 100% transferred and any new information can be properly entered and saved with
the new software. They will also have to write the source code for the data migration. The SME
will be providing the expert knowledge in software data migration. He/she will oversee that
software information is being converted with the highest level of quality. The testers are the
quality control personnel. After each section of source code is written and implemented, the
testers will conduct real-time testing to determine how the software and hardware handle the
required volume of traffic. Also, they will make sure that each section is having an appropriate
conversation and proper teamwork with all the other sections. The system engineer is
responsible for the hardware and infrastructure of XYZ. Once the ISP has been chosen, the
system engineer will test the wireless connection throughout the building and LAN. The
database administrator will oversee the software developers/programmers. He/she will monitor
their progress to ensure everything is on schedule. The consultants are merely the ghost of the
project. They offer no true responsibilities toward the project only to provide the project
manager will adequate project updates. During meetings with the customer and sponsor, the
consultants will provide as an extra supporting voice for the project manager.
Project Organization Type and Reason for Choice
Due to the constricted time frame of this project, the project team will be project
organizational. The employees selected will be those are highly qualified from within the
organization and will be completely focused on the project. This project type was selected
because it gives the best opportunity for project completion at the requested due date. Also, with
the customer still uncertain on areas of the project, this form puts us in the best position to adapt
to any changes quickly.
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Project Stakeholders
The primary stakeholder is XYZ Training Center; other stakeholders are project manager,
Subject Matter Expert, and the project team as well as Kuali Company. Other stakeholders are
the student’s of XYZ Training Center.
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Tracking and Control Mechanisms
Quality Assurance and Control
No project can be fully completed if the quality is not at the highest level of standards.
As stated earlier, the testers will be responsible maintaining the above average industry standards
of quality. After software phase is completed, quality testing will be conducted before the next
phase starts. A detailed description of all testing procedures can be reviewed in the testing
documentation. Once the completed project is finished, an overall quality testing will be
conducted and a demo will be done for XYZ Training Center. Upon approval from XYZ, one
final quality testing will be done before the official project due date.
Change Management and Control
It is understandable the change is inevitable. Procedures will be implemented for both the
project team and the customer in regards to requesting any changes toward the project (with the
understanding that any changes may/may not affect the overall progress of the project).
Whenever the customer deems the need to change the scope of the project, a formal written
request will be given to the project manager. The project manager will review the request and
analyze the risks that could (this will be discuss with the project team). Once the risks are
determined, the project manager will explain the risk to the customer before asking the customer
to sign off on the requested changes. Whenever the project team notices a change that needs to
be made with the project, he/she is required to provide fully detailed documentation of the
change, how will it benefit the project, and the risks associated with the change. Those changes
will be given to the project manager, who will discuss them with the customer for final approval.
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Once any/all approvals properly documented and signed, the project manager will issue the
copies of the documentation to the customer and upper management for record keeping.
Project Communications
Internal to the Project
Effective and efficient open communication plays a vital role toward the success of this
project. To prevent any unknown variables from putting an unnecessary halt to the progression
of the project, weekly project status meetings will be required. During said meetings, all project
input and area of responsibility on the project. Even though the team members will have weekly
reports, the project manager will be encouraged to periodically monitor the project and make
suggestions whenever needed (without hindering the progress of the project).
External to the Project
The customer’s presence may be requested during the weekly project team meetings. It
will be asked of the customer that during the meetings to only listens to the status that the project
team and address any concerns with the project manager in private. Those concerns will be
handled either with the project manager and those employees overseeing that particular portion
and discussed in the next meeting.
Facilities Plan
The purpose of this section is to provide an overview of both physical and environmental
requirements to house the database servers. The database servers have power requirements
regarding voltage, power redundancy, and surge protection. These requirements are already in
place in the existing data centers to be used in this implementation.
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The servers will be required to have access to the corporate network. This will be
attained by connectivity to core network switches and routing tables on network routers.
There are also additional requirements related to the physical security of the servers.
Like any other information technology piece of equipment, these server are required to be placed
in a secure location only attainable by those individuals requiring access to the actual hardware.
This section does not consider software authentication and security. The existing data centers
meet the physical security requirements in terms of reader access and security cameras.
The final requirement for the facilities plan is related to the environmental requirements
of the database servers. Climate control is already in place in the existing data centers. The
addition of the database servers will not have an impact on the overall climate in the data centers.
The existing AC units and humidity control is sufficient for this deployment.
Documentation Plan
Documentation provides appropriate communication about all system changes. Graphic
User Interface (GUI), infrastructure and technology changes are unavoidable. The
Documentation plan keeps track of these changes and is critical in maintaining the business value
that the system is intended to generate.
Kuali documentation will be revised and supplemented for GIU's implementation to
include customizations for GIU, including changes to accommodate GIU's business practices.
Documentation will be provided for creation, content, network configuration, and hosting
services which provide options for buying dedicated servers, high availability configurations,
extended back-ups of database and files and ability to maintain hot back-ups. However, if
hosting package does not deliver as expected, documentation will be essential when finding a
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better solution to meet our business needs and ensuring that GIU will continue to perform up to
expectations no matter what browser is used. In addition to content management, documentation
of network infrastructure, software, support functions and supplier agreements will be vital if a
new supplier is required.
Functional and technical documentation, downloadable digital user guides will also be
provided by Kuali to assist in utilizing and maintaining system after implementation.
Configuration management documentation is needed to identify the initial base lining of work,
logging and analysis of change requests, change control board procedures, tracking of changes in
progress, and procedures for notifying concerned parties when baselines are established and
changed. A change management documentation process should also be introduced to monitor
changes that will impact project’s schedule, cost, objective, and customer satisfaction.
A process improvement documentation process will be established based on lessons
learned, customer’s satisfaction level and whether the project provided XYZ with the anticipated
benefits. The focus is to learn from the experience in order to improve performance on future
projects. The documenting of budgeted vs. actual in both costs and schedule will also help with
XYZ evaluate these variances.
Missing, shortage of and excessive document jeopardize the project’s success; lengthen
project timeline and results in higher costs. Focus on value added processes such as change and
configuration management, GUI documentation and process improvement to gain the most value
from the document.
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Test Plan
The test plan documents test strategy taken by the project team to ensure that our product
developed is of high quality in relation to what the customer has requested. It defines the scope,
approach to be taken, and the schedule of testing as well as identifies the test items for the entire
testing process and the personnel responsible for the different activities of testing. The tools and
staff that will be performing the testing should also be briefly introduced here.
It is important to complete the plan early in the project and manage it carefully to ensure
on time, within budget project delivery and to communicate test results. To increase its utility in
achieving the goals of the project, the test team will meet once every two weeks to evaluate
progress to date and to identify error trends and problems as early as possible. Measures and
metrics information will be by the test team during all testing phases. This information will be
provided on a biweekly basis to the test manager, project team and sponsor.
The test strategy consists of a series of different tests that will fully exercise the system.
The primary purpose of these tests is to uncover the systems limitations and measure its full
capabilities. The System tests will focus on the behavior of the system. User scenarios will be
executed against the system as well as screen mapping and error message testing. Overall, the
system tests will test the integrated system and verify that it meets the requirements defined in
the requirements document. Performance test will be conducted to ensure that the system’s
response time meet the user expectations and does not exceed the specified performance criteria.
During these tests, response times will be measured under heavy stress and/or volume. Security
tests will determine how secure the system is. The tests will verify that unauthorized user access
to confidential data is prevented. A suite of automated tests will be developed to test the basic
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functionality of the system and perform regression testing on areas of the systems that
previously had critical/major defects. The tool will also assist us by executing user scenarios
thereby emulating several users. We will subject the system to high input conditions and a high
volume of data during the peak times. The system will be stress tested using twice (5000 users)
the number of expected users. Recovery tests will force the system to fail in a various ways and
verify the recovery is properly performed. It is vitally important that all data is recovered after a
system failure and no corruption of the data occurred. Once the system is ready for
implementation, the customer will perform User Acceptance Testing. The purpose of these tests
is to confirm that the system is developed according to the specified user requirements and is
ready for operational use (Software Quality Assurance Tester, n.d.).
Automated testing is an enhancement to manual testing and such tools have difficulty
recognizing some custom controls features within the application. Therefore, it is unreasonable
to expect that 100% of the tests on the project can be automated. Because of this, manual testing
will be performed.
While every attempt is made to focus on testing, realize that testing does not stand alone.
It is intimately dependent on the development activity and therefore draws heavily on the
development practices. An increased portion of the testing will be on the developer, before it
reaches a formal team of testers.
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Trial Plans
The trial plan for this database project is imply to get the users affected by all aspects of
the new design familiar with it and comfortable working with the new platform. In this trial
plan, end users of the database will be required to learn the appropriate tactics for accessing the
data required. This will include teaching where the data is kept, how it is accessed, how it is
updated, and what to do if there are problems.
For this trial plan, each department should designate a user to be the primary point of
contact for that department. These users will learn the basics of the new database system in
terms of what has been mentioned above and in terms of simple queries.
The trail plan should include software users, engineers required to maintain the database
servers, and DB administrators.
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Deployment Plans
The Deployment Plan defines how software will be implemented into a production
environment. It includes the deployment strategy, training requirements and operational
readiness checks followed by the project team. A detailed schedule of events for the installation
is prepared. Responsibility is assigned for each activity. The activities included in this schedule
will be used to refine the project schedule. Tables will be prepared documenting the software
units to be installed, data structure files to be created, start-up files to be installed, user accounts
and security assignments, and configuration file changes to be made on each client and server
node (Toolbox, n.d.). User training is required as part of the deployment and is conducted by
Kuali.
The deployment of the new system is a substantial milestone in the delivery of the
project. Successful deployment is one with minimal disruptions to the production processes. To
increase its utility in achieving this goal of the project, strategy includes both pilot and
production deployments. In addition to helping you to evaluate the compatibility and stability of
new system, the pilot will be used for performance planning and capacity testing, training users
and support staff, testing new security policies and documenting deployment or administration
procedures.
According to TechRepublic (n.d.), the pilot will consist of rolling out the new system to a
select group of users at XYZ. The focus is to have enough users involved to give you an accurate
assessment of how the full deployment will tell when the time comes. Users participating in the
pilot also need to be knowledgeable enough that they can communicate errors or problems to you
in a meaningful way. The next step is to do some training on the new system. Create and
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distribute documentation or a quick reference guide for the users. This documentation will be
designed to walk the users through various procedures. The documentation should be written in
as easy to follow of a manner as possible, and include lots of screenshots. One of the best ways
to reduce the number of "how do I" calls is to provide users with good training and good
documentation.
Provide the users with the name and phone number of a contact person whose job it will
be to dispatch help for issues related to the new system. Since some of the program participants
will invariably call the help desk anyway, it is important to inform the helpdesk staff that calls
related to the new system should be forwarded to the designated point of contact of whom has a
good working knowledge of the system that is being deployed.
The environment will mimic the production environment, network servers, operating
systems on high-end PCs, administrative policies. We will configure the test servers by restoring
backups of the production servers to them. This ensures that the pilot is an exact match of the
production servers. The new system is installed and running correctly.
The next phase will be handled by the application developer and the database
administrator. They need to ensure the web site and the database is fully integrated with the
open source system. All user training should be done, roles understood, outstanding issues
resolved, plan communicated to primary stakeholders and a roll out plan completed, before the
deployment is complete. There will be check points during each phase to ensure the installment
of all components. This should be reflected in a schedule.
The process of the deployment will be exactly like that of the pilot with the exception of
the audience, it opens the all of XYZ and installation will proceed according to the roll out plan.
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The end of deployment marks the beginning of application support which would address the On-
going Support Plan. Application support and application alerting and monitoring procedures in
the vent of application outages will be covered in separate documents.
Because software projects have a tendency to be delivered late and over budget, training
and documentation are skipped. This is a common pitfall during deployment and a risk to the
project. Lack of employee training and poor documentation tracking will result in significantly
higher maintenance and support costs for the system.
Although XYZ found substantial costs reduction by adopting open source, risk includes
the absence of a formal open source policy in place and additional costs in man hours to support
system. To address this, open source should be as easy to discover, evaluate, deploy, and support
as the proprietary, licensed alternatives.
Maintenance and Disaster Recovery
In order to ensure the new database platform is being maintained and is accessible at all
times, this section will address the maintenance plan and disaster recovery tasks associated with
this deployment.
Server maintenance will be completed by the software and hardware engineers
responsible for the database servers. Maintenance will include security patching and OS
patching as required by the manufacturer. Overall the servers should be self-reliant and require
little maintenance. However, issues are bound to arise and the responsible individuals listed
above will be responsible for all software and hardware issues.
The other issue of maintenance is the amount of data on the servers and the amount of
data required to be kept. Each database server will keep data for 14 days. After this threshold is
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reached, any data older than 14 days will be sent to a data warehouse and will no longer be
retrievable on the servers. If end users require data in the data warehouse, the DB administrators
will be required to retrieve this data.
The database servers will house an exorbitant amount of data. If a server goes down or
loses network connectivity, end user will still need to pull expected data. To ensure this
capability, two database servers will be deployed at separate data centers. The servers will run in
an active/active state meaning both servers are capable of executing queries. When data is
updated, the data will be updated on the primary database server and then synched to the
secondary server. This will ensure that if one server or data center is down, accurate data will
still be attainable by end users.
The data on these database servers will also be backed up each day. This will enable data
to be accurate even in the case where either server or both data centers go offline. The backup
file will be accessible on the primary database servers once the servers and/or data centers are
available.
Open Issues and Pending Decisions
To have the technical and administrative staff maintain and support customized modules
may be intensive on-going and long term costs. Watch and monitor costs and schedule carefully.
Move forward with having a formal OSS policy in place.
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