BACKGROUND TO THE PROJECT
In this day of increased Internet use, a website appears the most potent way to sell a company to its customers. This project involves building a website which will sell a new software services company. Many people find that they require services in their homes, offices and schools but do not know whom to trust with their computers. Despite the relatively large numbers of users, most of them do not understand the complex working processes involved and, therefore, require help when they are in trouble. Many processes rely on computers and, therefore, in case of problems or inadequacies, many remain desperate for solutions. This is the need that the company will attempt to meet, through the design and launch of a website.
PROJECT OBJECTIVES
The biggest objective of the website is the reach it has. It can be accessed anywhere in the world, thus breaking through geographical and language barriers. This is helpful in expanding the business both locally and internationally. Another objective of the project is to save on advertisement costs.
A website provides a cheaper and more convenient alternative than print advertising. It is flexible because one can change the content easily, and still guarantee the same audience gets the message. Print advertising is rigid and requires a lot of funds to place in newspapers.
The website may be used to generate revenue for the company. A website is a forum for acquiring information not only about one’s company but potentially other businesses. One can lease or sell advertising sections to organizations and companies and gather revenue for the space. Most websites offer space to companies, which offer complimentary services to their own.
The website should provide convenience to both customers and management of the company. It is an easy place to refer customers and potential investors to get information about the company. A website shows what the company stands for and offers personalized services to the customers.
It is a form of one on one communication between customers and the company without the use of many sales representatives. It improves the credibility of the company when people search for the appropriate company to handle their problems. Good online services can foster the
use of the Internet as a viral marketing tool. Links and pages in social media sites can improve visibility.
The website offers value and credibility to the physical presence of the company. One can publish a map on the website to show users the exact location of the company making it easy for them to access their services.
The website is a cheap means of conducting market research. Through statistics from polls and visitor surveys, one can find out what aspects of the business customers like, and this can lead to an improvement in the business ways. It is also a two way marketing tool as it has mechanisms for taking in and putting into consideration the views, complaints and suggestions of the customers.
TIMEFRAME
Timeframe involved in the launch of a new website involves the time for both the building and design of the website and the launch ceremony. When building the website, one needs costly expert advice and input. One needs to make important decisions when building the website like the domain name registration, the web design hosting service and testing to ensure the website is ready. One can also market the website on secondary sites and in print media. The launch ceremony involves decisions on whom to invite, the number of people, the length of the ceremony and the
general organization. The launch also needs publicity since this can promote the website. Overall, planning and building of the website takes approximately three weeks. The launch ceremony also takes the same amount of time, with the invitations, securing the venue and a reputable catering company to handle it.
BUDGET
The costs involved in the website building involve the hiring of a web designer to handle the complex design of the website. Other costs involve registration, acquiring the services of a web hosting service and publicity. Advertisement is through online, print and other media. For the launch ceremony, the costs involved include advertisements, invitations, hiring a catering company and hiring a venue.
Web design launch ceremony
Web designer 100 venue 200
Web hosting service provider 150 invitations 50
Advertisements 100 catering company 200
Emails and surveys 200
Miscellaneous 300
Total 850 450
Costs in Pounds
3 POJECT ATTRIBUTES
A project should have clear goals and objectives. These objectives should be consistent with the goals and objectives of the company. A project should have an aspect of the business that necessitates and justifies its existence. The objectives of this project are clearly listed in the beginning of the project brief. They include increasing revenue and the reach of the company. The website also seeks to improve the accessibility and the credibility of the company. Another objective is to reduce the cost of popularizing the company and conducting market research. The company sees an opportunity in Internet marketing and,
therefore, plans to take advantage of the available market. It also capitalizes on the fact that many people use computers and, therefore, need software maintenance. The project should take care not to deviate from the objectives throughout the implementation.
A project must have a well-documented list of base requirements. This begins with the steps involved in design and implementation of the project, the timeframe and the budget. This project has identified all the steps necessary in building and materializing the website. It also has an estimate of the time required to fulfill these requirements. The time and budget are in two categories, the time and cost involved in planning for and building the website, and the time and cost in organizing a launch ceremony. One has to decide whom to invite; the offline advertisement strategy and the publicity a person needs for the success of their project. This project has a comprehensive plan for all the base requirements and any miscellaneous issues that may arise.
A good project should have a strong theme of user involvement. The company has to determine whether the project they are undertaking is satisfactory enough by their clientele. The user involvement strategy is clearly defined in the project objectives section. The project is a means of conducting market research cheaply. This market research involves the use of information from polls and surveys on the website to know the thoughts of the customers. Another objective of the website allows a two channel communication link between customers and the company and the customers where they communicate their thoughts directly.
Project Components
Component 1: ORGANISATION
This is a concrete plan detailing the methods and means to carry out the project and its timelines. (Ogle S. 2010)
Benefits: Organisation is a key component for management of any project as it was in the project. It ensured that I always stayed on track and enabled me focus on my set priorities. It enabled me balance the different aspects of the project and ensure allocation of adequate time for each. Project timelines have milestones that gauge and access my project with time.
Component 2: DECISIVENESS
This is the capability of carrying out effective judgement through the entire course of the project.
Benefits: Decisiveness had numerous benefits identified during carrying out of the project. It enabled me say no to variants during the course of the project in order to prevent it from derailing and time wastage. It also enabled me decide on the best of the choices I would meet as I carried out the project. I picked those that helped me meet the highest quality of the project.
Component 3: THE END GOAL
The project should have achieved a purpose upon its completion. This purpose is the end goal.
Benefits: This is a crucial component of the management of the project. Being a determination of the purpose of the project, it enabled me not to lose focus through the project in its entirety. The end goal enables putting of one’s full effort into the project, maintains the passion for the project and acts as a driving force for the realisation of its success. (Ogle S. 2010)
Reference:
Ogle S. 2010 7 fundamental components’ of project management, retrieved from www.seanogle.com/…./project-management-components
Project Manager Skills
Lead the Project:
To lead, I developed a strong team with diverse talents. Then I convened a meeting for goal setting and objective definition. For instance, the main objective would be to ensure the website was accessible worldwide regardless of topographical and linguistic barriers. Team players took their respective roles. Additionally, I led by example through follow-up on my responsibilities as stipulated on the plan. In doing so, all members felt confident in my leaderships. As a result, I influenced a positive attitude towards all team members. Trust is also a great attribute for the success of art project. Consequently, the website designed was convenient and user-friendly. In addition, the website provides tailored information for customers. Lastly, I ensured motivation among all members through encouragement and involvement.
However, there still exists room for improvement. Mostly, we forgot to upload website information early enough. Therefore, time management is an area I would like to improve. This would be possible by creating a focused yet comfortable attitude in the team.
Manage the Project:
For management, the approach used is the event chain model. This model takes into account uncertainties. Furthermore, it is a schedule set-up analysis system focused on identifying and managing events and processes that affect project progression. Consequently, the method enabled mitigation of negative impacts. For example, designing a website requires a web designer, registration fees and publicity. All these require financial investment. Following the dynamic nature of the financial world, it was necessary to estimate costs, as well as make contingency plans. The approach was guided by the following principles: probability, chain events, critical events, event follow-up and visualization.
Nevertheless, given an opportunity at a project like this, I would borrow concepts from other management approaches. For instance, the traditional management approach would serve well in ensuring reliability. This approach has been through testing overtime. Therefore, it offers more predictability in terms of outcomes. Additionally, the critical chain management approach would facilitate dealing with resource shortage situations. Therefore, the approach would enhance the prioritization process. Finally, I would improve flexibility in management by providing allowances for adjustments. For instance, for a single advert on the website, I would require several final workable ideas. Therefore, if one idea became irrelevant or insensitive due to the dynamism of society, another would suffice.
Project Communication:
Communication is an essential element in accomplishment. Good communication facilitates consultation and definition of spatial and temporal aspects of activities. Consequently, I had to choose the best avenues for giving directions. For instance, at initiation of the project, e-mails and oral messages sufficed. For instance, during goals setting, the mood was informal. However, as the website became functional, written documents were used to emphasize the importance of the tasks. For instance, banking and investment advert requires insight and proper presentation, so as not to be taken lightly. Therefore, while running a banking advert, we had to obtain written documents, study them and provide legitimate information on the website.
However, given another opportunity to manage the project, I would emphasize on inter-personal consultations. Rather than everybody relying on the leader for idea conceptualization, I would promote creativity among all players. Moreover, complex advertisements require good linkage between actions performed by different individuals. Therefore, strong inter-personal association would improve connectivity between different tasks in producing an advert. In doing so, the material would be available worldwide in time resulting in more hits for the site.
Project Team
Team Organisation Chart
Team Description
This paper will discuss the website building project and some of the major aspects of the project. The project scope includes the activities identified by the project team as required to the project and other circumstances that can affect the delivery of the project. The project team will show the scope of the project which included the project objectives, the scope of works, some constraints, assumptions, exclusions, related projects and risk management. The project team consisted of Web designer, Web hosting service provider, Advertisers, and the programming manager.
The project team undertook the task to make a website that would be accessible from anywhere in the world, be a profitable business for the parties involved in order to expand the business both locally and internationally. For the project team to realize this goal, the project team took into account the necessary project objectives, scope of the project, assumptions, exclusions, constraints, considered other related project, and management of risk for the project.
Project objectives set for the toy airplane project were: to design, develop, and produce a website that would transcend geographical and language barriers, save on advertisement costs, and expand the business both locally and internationally.
In the project scope management, the demands and expectations of the stakeholders: the advertisers, management, and the developers were cheaper, more flexible, and more convenient than print advertising.
The project assumptions are factors about the website building project considered as certain, true, or real and include the conditions expected to exist in order for the project to become a success. The website building project assumptions include the ready clientele for the advertising opportunities, cheap web designing and web hosting costs, and potential market.
Project constraints are the factors restricting or controlling the delivery of the website building project, although the project constraints in a way were manageable. They include constraints such as time, fixed budget, and limited resources.
Related project, also known as project dependencies, which are aspects on which the website building project is dependent on include the web launch ceremony. As such there was a need to outsource some services and a venue for the web launch ceremony. As such, there were additional costs involved for invitations and advertisements, hiring a venue and hiring a catering company.
In the risk management of the website project, there were no foreseeable threats to the success of the project since the team had done market research as to the challenges and the risks to anticipate. The only slight challenge the project faced was working with a small budget.
For the project team, the implementation phase started with the web designers coming up with the design, followed by presenting the designs to some of the advertisers, and the program manager. The project manager and the advertisers reviewed the proposed web design to determine whether the design presented would be satisfactory enough for their potential clientele. After the go ahead from the advertisers and the program director, next was to present the website design to the Web hosting service provider to be set up. At this juncture, the website building project had met all of its goals. It had remained consistent with its goals and objectives set forth, and the project had the business aspect that necessitated and fully justified its existence.
After the website was fully functional, it was time to launch it. The project team then hosted the planned web launch ceremony. The web launching ceremony was a success and received a favourable response from the potential investors and the target market.
Business Case
Executive Summary
There are three options that have been looked at before addressing inefficient working practices among the students from our company. The three problems are; there is large volume of paperwork that requires to be processed. This paper work is seen to contribute to the high costs in the company (Brannock, 2004). These costs result from more records that are made on the purchased parts. The other problem that is faced by the company is based on several errors that are encountered while ordering for new parts. Replacement of heaters requires specific materials. Once there is an error during the supply, the purchased parts end up being waste (Brannock, 2004). The last problem that contributes to the case is that at some times engineers turn up at customer’s premises carrying with them the wrong parts. As a result, the heaters cannot be fixed until new appointments are made (Brannock, 2004). This is seen to waste the engineer’s time and resources. Rescheduling of the appointments made by the engineer is seen to contribute to massive losses to the company. This recommendation is aimed at developing a software and hardware that will offer solutions to these shortcomings of manual ordering.
Reasons
Considering that the company faces numerous challenges, it is important that the company device a new and a more reliable method that would be used in the purchase these new parts. As highlighted earlier, the company faces challenges that are attached to costs (Brannock, 2004). The overall problems that the company faces are contribute to a high percent of the costs that it incurs. As a result, it is important that the company device this method to deal with the challenges resulting from insufficiency of workers (Brannock, 2004).
Expected Benefits
The anticipated project will not only have qualitative value in terms of the services that are offered to the clients but should also have some quantitative benefit to the company. Its quantitative measure will be in terms of the amount saved while using this project.
• The company will be able to save around £60000 per year. This will be achieved through reducing paperwork.
• Costs incurred through the number of wrong parts purchased, which amount to £40000 per year will be reduced through this project.
• Other costs that are incurred through rescheduling of the engineer’s appointments which amount to £180000 per year will be reduced.
Expected Dis-benefits
Once the project is put into practice, there will never be cases of overtime. This is a disadvantage to the staff as they will not receive the overtime salary. Furthermore, it can be approached that it will reduce the staff’s morale of working during overtimes (Brannock, 2004).
Timescale
Implementation of this project requires a period of 12 months. With the allocated time, the company will have purchased the required materials that will be used in the implementation and as well hired the required staff. Benefits from this project will take a year later after the solution is implemented.
Costs
The overall project, which will offer solutions to the current problems that the company is facing will also have its costs during the implementation (Brannock, 2004). These costs are the overall project’s cost, which is composed of hardware (£40000) and software (£150 000). In addition, there are the operational costs that will be incurred. These costs are anticipated to be used to pay the workers. It will amount to (£20 000 per year). Operational costs also incorporate the maintenance costs that will be incurred after the implementation (Brannock, 2004).
Major Risks
Since the Heat Engineer Company’s staff is not experienced in using software while specifying the requirement, they could end up purchasing the wrong software (Brannock, 2004). Hence, a wrong delivery will be made. Therefore, some anticipated benefits from the project will not be met.
POWER INTEREST
The entire web building project encompasses the efforts of an empowered team. Individuals with noble responsibility like project managers have power vested in them. He has high interest in the project, and that explains why he monitors the modus operand of interested people. This are the people with low power like the scribes and the team leaders in order to satisfy the project cycles. The web designer relatively has low interests and low power but ought to be sufficiently informed. The high powered people like nongovernmental organization and supporters like politicians have relatively low interest in the alleged project. The family members of individuals fully engrossed in project activities need to be kept with just sufficient information as they have no vested interests and power.
It is instructive to realize that messages need to be passed to the right participants in the project for concise achievement of project aims. Consequently, there arises a need to use various communication tools to keep the participants, scribes and the stake holders informed. The website can give an overview of your project, its aims, outcomes and contacts of the partners. Particularly, the log in Intra net can be the best for keeping every partner informed besides giving an overview of responsibilities and effectuation of the project.
Apart from a website, project events create a remarkable interest to the group stakeholders. Conferences, discussion on a round table a trip or a briefing can immensely capture such project interests. Participating in events and sharing your views with opinion formers, nongovernmental organizations and business leaders will effectively endorse my project. The latter will be like ambassadors for my project and will forward the core messages during their public speeches.
Project leaders ought to look ahead before handling a project in order to prepare for unexpected needs. They are resource allocators to initiate the project and coordinate them with up to standard procedures. I would integrate project work into simpler structures and thereafter conducting meetings in order to show the dire need to meet structural units’ objectives. Human resources like team leaders and scribes would be allocated duties. Regular team meetings (e.g. every six days) would be held for decision making, sharing gathered information and monitoring the progress of the project. It is at this juncture that the participants should take their lead roles in presentation. Being the project leader, everyone expects me to lead in major tasks and functional decision of the project, until close down apart from handling linguistic and social-psychological issues that might crop up.
It is a requisite skill for me to manage the life cycle of the entire website building project. This calls for planning the achievement of lifecycle steps. After assigning various roles to pros, there arises a need to depend heavily on skills and experience of various individuals. It is equally vital to inform the noncore project members of their expectations in relation to their deliverables. In the execution stage, it is procedural that I should submit the status of the project to project board and the stakeholders.
Hiring a web designer in order to handle intricate design of the website would be one of my sole responsibilities. I this realized during my technical feasibility study. Sequel to that need, I had a chance to hire a colleague whom I believed had an accomplished rapport. Nevertheless, she acted out of personality and seemingly incompetent as if she would be waiting for my instructions. Consequently, I honestly told her that her expertise would be crucial, and the whole web building project would be entirely relying on her skills and guidance. Her response was immediate as she then showed confidence and ready to work attitude like an empowered resource.
A communication plan covering objectives creates the backbone of the entire project.
A workmanlike project manager will maintain a steadfast communication with those directly affected by the project and its upshots. This also entails reporting progress and emerging issues to the stakeholders and the project board. They will thereafter submit the worked on the project to the party that will deliver results
Risk matrix.
Introduction.
In this era, internet is the principal advertising outlet due to its increased popularity among people. This popularity can be attributed to the ease of access from home, schools or offices without having to move. Moreover, the world, as we know it today, has become a global village connected by the internet. Consequently, marketers have taken advantage of online advertising to promote the sale of their services and products. However, marketing through the web involves a lot of risk taking.
Risks.
First is the financial risk. Its main concern is whether a customer pays for the product and services provided. Furthermore, customers may be hesitant to purchase something online due to the possibility of the service being a scam (Yardley, 2005). Moreover, even with a prepayment model, there is a difficulty in keeping up with order payments in the wake of increased subscriptions. Secondly, operational risk evaluates advertiser’s punctuality. In doing so, the customers would be satisfied and the website gains popularity. However, as the website popularity increases, the number of orders rises. Consequently, the advertiser may be unable to fulfill all this orders in real time resulting in disgruntled customers. In addition, increased website traffic may affect the efficiency and accessibility of the website, resulting in a sales plunge (Yardley, 2005).
Another risk is the reputational risk. The website gains a reputation by delivering goods in time, as well as offering speedy and efficient services. However, having built a reputation, the website has to maintain the quality of services over the long-term.
According to Wagley (2013), there is the risk of criminals using the website to track the purchasing habits of customers. Though the website will demand customers’ personal details, criminals can still use the purchasing details to identify their targets. Consequently, the website faces the risk of become a potential crime haven.
Moreover, we expect the website to occur in price discrimination among customers. The current status of the market is a base to the value of the service (Granick, 2007). This situation is likely to anger customers who purchased the products at a higher cost. Finally, due to the attractive nature of adverts, some customers may purchase items in an irrational manner. Consequently, the site may be viewed as manipulative and mis-guiding.
Risk mapping and reporting.
High Financial risk Reputational risk
Medium Operational risk
Low Crime Price discrimination
High Medium Low
Impact Risk Probability
Mitigation Measures.
With regard to the observed risks, pro-active measures must be used so as to avoid the occurrence of mentioned scenarios. For instance, when dealing with new clients, the management must ensure obligatory deposit for orders before delivery. Furthermore, the website must require the registration of a working contact line for all customers (Wagley, 2013). The website should also be regularly updated and maintained. This will ensure the website remains efficient and timely to the customer needs. With regard to reputational risks, the website should seek regular feedback from consumers. This would enable the website remain competitive and relevant to customers’ needs. Finally, the website needs to put up firewalls preventing the access of customer information so as to deter criminals (Wagley, 2013).
Conclusion.
As a result of increased internet usage, online advertising business has been on the rise. However, the business faces a number of risks threatening its integrity. Therefore, mitigation measures must be placed in place for the purpose of facilitating trust in the website project. Therefore, mitigation measures must be put in place for the purpose of facilitating trust in the website project.
References
Granick, J. (2007). Online Advertising: So Good, Yet So Bad for Us. Retrieved 22nd June, 2013 from http://www.wired.com/politics/law/commentary/circuitcourt/2007/05/circuitcourt_0509
Wagley, J. (2013). Security management: New Targeted Advertising Risks. Retrieved 22nd June, 2013 from http://www.securitymanagement.com/article/new-targeted-advertising-risks-008460
Yardley, G. (2005). Online product management: Risk in online advertising. Retrieved 22nd June, 2013 from http://yardley.ca/2005/12/12/risk-in-online-advertising/
