Reference no: EM133154569
You have been assigned to be the project manager for the facility, equipment, and business system upgrade of a call center. This requires
- moving all existing call center stations to a newer, larger facility;
- installing and testing a high-speed, high-capacity Wi-Fi network in the new facility;
- upgrading workstations so that they include wireless capability;
- installing a new call center management software; and
- converting a legacy proprietary business system with a customer relationship management (CRM) application to a new business system.
In this project scenario, time is of the essence. The project sponsor requires that the project take no longer than 6 months to complete. Further, the budget is constrained so that the number of people assigned to the project is very limited and includes the following:
Outside consultants: 2
Project manager: 1
Business system project lead: 1
Business system implementation team: 3
Wireless system project lead: 1
Wireless system implementation team: 3
Relocation project lead: 1
Relocation team: 2
Workstation project lead: 1
Workstation upgrade team: 2
Outside contractors: Up to five multidisciplinary contractors are allowed in the budget.
Note: The wireless system project lead and the workstation project lead are the same person. Two of the three-member wireless system implementation team overlap with the workstation team. This means that only four resources are available for the wireless system implementation and workstation upgrade (not counting the possible use of contractors). The total resources available to the project include 14 people plus 5 contractors.
Background
MobileGo is a small company that sells prepaid mobile phones in selected markets. Its primary sales and service channel is carried out over the internet and by phone. Sales and service has been supported with a team of 36 customer service representatives in a small building. Customers, accounts, and all business functions have traditionally been managed by a proprietary software application using in-house servers that was contracted out early in the founding of the company. All workstations currently connect to the internet and the internal servers supporting the legacy business system and office applications. This is a problem because the company had to move workstations to different parts of the building as the company has grown (thereby making network wiring out of control). The company has grown 150% over the last 5 years and as a result, the systems, the building, and the overall infrastructure have become outgrown. The company has therefore recognized the need to move to a new location and upgrade workstations and systems. The immediate need is to expand from 36 stations to 50 with the plan to triple that number within the next 3 years. The immediate challenges are little funding and few people to spare for this set of initiatives. With multiple activities occurring at once and severe constraints on schedule and resources, it is acknowledged that this is a highly complex project.
- Example of a table of the activities, and identify logical relationships by identifying predecessors.
- Estimate activity durations using three-point estimates.
- PERT schedule, and identify the project critical path.
- Using the breakfast schedule spreadsheet as a guide model your schedule using Monte Carlo analysis (10 trial runs minimum).