• 1. Look over the scope statement (PE Figure 4-1). If you were an employee at Petrie’s Electronics, would you want to work on this project? Why or why not?
I think I would because it seems like a great project. It will benefit the company greatly and be a fun and easy project. There is a great team to back it up as well.
• 2. If you were part of the management team at Petrie’s Electronics, would you approve the project outlined in the scope statement in PE Figure 4-1? What changes, if any, need to be made to the document?
I would approve this. It has great information about the project and everyone backing it up. It shows what the purpose of the project is and it would benefit the company. There would be a good return on investment if the project works out.
• 3. Identify a preliminary set of tangible and intangible costs you think would occur for this project and the system it describes. What intangible benefits do you anticipate for the system?
The cost would include labor supplies and training. The labor would be to make the software. It would not be easy making a new program from nothing. Also the training the employees have to go though would increase the cost. They would need to get paid for the time they put into the training.
• 4. What do you consider to be the risks of the project as you currently understand it? Is this a low-, medium-, or high-risk project? Justify your answer. Assuming you were part of Jim’s team, would you have any particular risks?
One risk would be managements chance to stop the project. This is a low risk because it is approved and management would not want to lose the money put in so far. Another is failure of the customers appreciating the new program. This is a medium risk because it is not sure how they would resound to it. Most customers like reward programs but there is always a risk.
• 5. If you were assigned to help Jim with this project, how would you utilize the concept of incremental commitment in the design of the baseline project plan?

• • 6. If you were assigned to Jim’s team for this project, when in the project schedule (in what phase or after which activities are completed) do you think you could develop an economic analysis of the proposed system? What economic feasibility factors do you think would be relevant?

I think the right time for an economic analysis is after the production of the system. Once the system is in place, you could take a look and see how people are reacting to it and how much return customers you get back. This can show you the cost of making the software verses how many return.

• • 7. If you were assigned to Jim’s team for this project, what activities would you conduct in order to prepare the details for the baseline project plan? Explain the purpose of each activity and show a timeline or schedule for these activities.

I think this can be done in planning. There should always be a baseline when creating a project. This would be the goal that you are trying to reach in order to consider this successful. Without this, you would not know when this is improving verse a failure.

• • 8. In Question 4, you analyzed the risks associated with this project. Once deployed, what are the potential operational risks of the proposed system? How do you factor operational risks into a systems development plan?
One risk is that employees might not understand and will not enroll people correctly. One way to overcome this is to make the program user friendly. Make it easy so the employees could understand it.