ITECH 7401 Leadership in IT Project Management

An electronic copy of a case study will be available from your tutor or course lecturer (alternatively your team may wish to propose their own project—please get permission from your lecturer before proceeding with this).Ideally the business case should contain details of the following:
introduction and description of project background
description of project objectives (including link to organisational mission statement)
description of the current situation (including a SWOT analysis)
outline of problem/opportunity statement
details of critical assumptions and constraints
an analysis of options and recommendations
financial analysis (npv, roi and payback figures)
preliminary project requirements (project preliminary scope)
budget estimate (cost model and baseline)

The report discusses the project proposal of Golden Golf Club, which is planning to develop a smart phone app optimized for iphone and Android devices. This app will allow the golfers, tourists and golf enthusiastic to subscribe and pay for accessing the database that includes golfing tips and detailed explanation of golfing approaches. The approach proposed to develop this app is waterfall model (Balaji & Murugaiyan, 2012). The report thoroughly describes the background of the project, project objectives, the strength, weakness, opportunity and threats of the project and problem statement. A project manager is chosen for the project. The budget, schedule estimate and the risks associated with the project are elaborated in the following paragraphs.

The Cobden Golf club is a premier community facility in Corangamite Shire. Recently the club purchased more lands to set about a transition to 18 golf hole form 9 holes. The Cobden Club is however promoted via community website, community notice boards and advertising in the local newspaper, which has a limited reach. Adam Scott the pro golfer wishes to reach a wider market and thus planning to create a mobile app dedicated for the club. This report focuses on the business plan of this project.

Sports Software Inc. has applied for a tender to develop the app for the club with all the specifications set by the club. This project has been made a priority by the CEO due to its utmost importance. The specified project is expected to make a ROI of 28% at least. The time allocated for the developing the app is not more than three months with a budget of $105,000 and therefore the project becomes a top priority for the company. The time frame of the project cannot be altered or increased and therefore, Royce’s waterfall model of project development approach is chosen for this project (Model, 2015).

The objectives identified for the project are listed below (Kerzner, 2013)-

1) The app will allow the golfers, tourists and golf enthusiast to subscribe and pay for accessing the database. This would be beneficial for the Club in business point of view and the tourist as well in learning different golfing strategies and tips.

2) The project is expected to make an ROI of 28%

3) The app will enable the users in booking individual or group golfing clinics and lessons.

4) The reader should be able to subscribe and access the newsletter and the know about the upcoming events with the help of the app.

5) The app should also contain charts detailing the course and green. Videos should be present as well that will display all modern golfing techniques.

6) The app should contain a feedback path, which will allow the user to rank the Cobden Golf Club in terms of quality and services.

Current Situation (SWOT Analysis)

Cobden Golf Club provides a wonderful club experience and atmosphere for patrons of all ages. The club recently purchased more set of land to set a transition of about 18 hole layout. The club thus needs a wide advertising strategy to reach wider audience. The SWOT analysis of the Cobden Golf Club is elaborated in the following paragraphs-

Strength

The strengths of Cobden Golf Course are listed below-

1) Beautiful and well-maintained course

2) Good Equipment including golf carts

3) Friendly atmosphere

4) Loyal membership

5) Lowest membership cost of the area

6) Excellent reputation

Weakness

The weaknesses of Cobden Golf Course are listed below-

1) Less promotion and advertising

2) Lack of participation in tournaments

3) Membership is aging and there are not enough golfers

4) Not enough outreach

5) High green fees and cart fees

6) Less business income

Opportunity

The opportunities of Cobden golf Club is listed below-

1) Green fees can be lowered to encourage participation

2) Subscription fee of the app can be lowed to engage more users

3) GPS can be installed in the golf carts to prevent misuse

4) Advertising can be improved using a Smartphone app

5) Training session can be arranged for tournament volunteer

6) All the publications and the newsletter should be accompanied small advertisement.

7) Incentives can be offered to the visitors to increase the engagement.

8) Participation fees can be reduced considerably if the app is successfully implemented

9) The member should get discounted rates on carts. This will increase the number of members.

10) Gaining wider audience with proper advertising of the features and advantages offered in the golf club.

Threats

The threats associated with the Cobden Golf club is listed below-

1) Cost of membership is high, which can work against the club

2) With the increasing in the size of the track and golf course with addition of 8 more holes, the cost of maintenance and supplies also increases.

3) Absence of Infrastructure funding

4) Considerable downturn in tourism and economy

5) Old equipments breakdown

6) Huge competition with the other area of activities

Problem Statement

The director of the Cobden Golf Club has decided to built and implement a Smartphone app in order to reach a wider market, which includes the great ocean road tourists. The app will help to promote the club and will help in growth of membership, clubroom facility hire and other services, which includes golfing lessons, mentoring, membership and sales of golfing apparels in their pro store (Burke, 2013). The proposed project will increase the business opportunities of the project and will also help the club in reaching wider audience and attract more tourists. This will furthermore help in decreasing the membership cost of the Club, and will therefore help in attracting more members.

From the above picture, it can be seen that ROI is almost 28% as estimated by the club and the breakeven is occurring between year 2 and 3.

Project Scope and Requirements

The scope of the project is development of an app optimized for iphone and Android devices. The allocated schedule for the app is 3 months. The development and implementation of the app should therefore take not more than 12 weeks and the allocated budget should not undergo revision (Schwalbe, 2015).  

The requirements of the project includes, appointed of a well-experienced project manager and an efficient product development team. Waterfall project approach is to be chosen in order to complete the project within schedule time. The task requires a complete project plan along with a proper feasibility study for initiating the project (Martinelli & Milosevic, 2016).

Budget Estimate---Cost Model and baseline

The Cost Model of the proposed project is elaborated in following table-

The baseline set in a date 30.01.2018 is shown in the following table-

The estimated Schedule of the project is mentioned in following table-

The work Breakdown Structure of the project is listed below

Potential Risks

The risks identified for the project are listed below (Artto & Kahkonen, 2013)-

1) Financial Risk- The club may face a huge financial risk if the project is not able to be implemented in the schedule time.

2) Changing requirements- If the requirements of the project changes while the implementation of the project, the project may suffer considerable time loss and loss of capital as well.

3) Incomplete requirements – having clear requirements of the project is essential for implementing a project in Waterfall approach. This is because in waterfall methodology, the whole project is divided into a number of phases and initiation of each phase depends on the completion of the previous phase. Therefore, change in requirements in one phase may result in considerable delay in other phase and ultimately the whole project.

4) Scope risk- This risk includes integration issues, hardware and software defects and change in dependencies (Thamhain, 2013).

List of prioritized risks are elaborated in the following table-

Conclusion

Therefore, from the above discussion, it can be concluded that, the project that deals with the implementation of a Smartphone app has a very clear scope and requirement. The project is set to be completed within 3 months and an experienced project manager is appointed for the project. The report elaborates the business plan of the project, which includes financial analysis and budget estimation. The report identifies the associated risk in the project, which is needed to be eliminated with a proper risk management plan. The successful implementation of the project will increase the business profit of the organization and will help the organization in reaching wider audience. Therefore, the project is feasible to be implement and the initiation of the project should be done as soon as possible.

References

Artto, K. A., & Kahkonen, K. (2013). Managing risks in projects. Routledge.

Balaji, S., & Murugaiyan, M. S. (2012). Waterfall vs. V-Model vs. Agile: A comparative study on SDLC. International Journal of Information Technology and Business Management, 2(1), 26-30.

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

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

Martinelli, R. J., & Milosevic, D. Z. (2016). Project management toolbox: tools and techniques for the practicing project manager. John Wiley & Sons.

Model, W. (2015). Waterfall model. Luettavissa: http://www. waterfall-model. com/. Luettu, 3.

Schwalbe, K. (2015). Information technology project management. Cengage Learning.

Thamhain, H. (2013). Managing risks in complex projects. Project Management Journal, 44(2), 20-35.