Closure Review

Project Summary:

 Contributors

 

Role

Department

Name

Project Manager (Owner)

 Project Services

D Cruickshank

Programme Manager

 Project Services

 M Franceschi

Business Area Manager  

 

 Card Services

B Croucher

Project Sponsor  

 USD

B MacGregor

Analyst / Developer

Dev TeamS Mackinnon
Senior SupplierIS Apps

D Berry

SACSSACS

C Giles

 Project Review

 The purpose of this section is to identify if the project has remained in scope and met the business objectives agreed in the ToR.  It also highlights any issues with the scheduling of the project.

The high level scope of the project was split into 2 phases to ensure that the critical ODL flag element was delivered independently of the image element of the project.

Phase 1

 1. Enable card services to identify ODL students in the card system

Phase 2

1. Enable ODL students to upload an image on-line via MyEd

2. Enable card services to manage the images that are uploaded (ie accept/reject image) , then proceed with the normal card printing process.

 

Objectives

 Did the project meet the objectives agreed in the ToR?  If not, please indicate why not.

Phase 1

The project met the objective to enable card services to identify ODL students in the card system and appropriate documentation completed as per the TOR

Phase 2

The project did not fully meet the 2 objectives of this phase : the project reached the stage where successful peer testing in the dev environment was completed on the Image Upload and Management functionality. The appropriate Implementation documentation is complete. There were unforeseen complexities in the development which resulted in increased budget and delayed the delivery of the objectives . The decision was made by the Project Sponsor not to progress with user acceptance testing and deployment into live because the developments under phase 2 were not available until well into semester 1 - USD resources were not available at that time and the window for deployment for 12/13 freshers had passed.

 

Deliverables

 Did the project provide the deliverables agreed in the ToR?  If not, please indicate why not.

Phase 1:

  • The ODL flag functionality in the Card System front end application was successfully delivered to Card Services and met the objectives.
  • The requisite documentation has been completed.

Phase 2:

  • The ability to enable ODL students to upload an image on MyEd was successfully implemented and peer tested in the Dev environment but due to complexities during the development, the increased timeline and the agreed budget being used up, the project did not deliver the functionality to the Test and Live environments and perform the respective Integration/UAT testing
  • The ability for Card Services to manage the uploaded images was successfully implemented and peer tested in the Dev environment but due to complexities during the development, the increased timeline and the agreed budget being used up, the project did not deliver the functionality to the Test and Live environments and perform the respective Integration/UAT testing.
  • The requisite Implementation documentation has been completed.
  • The MyEd image upload and the image management application are both in a state where they could be deployed to the Test environment and tested by users.

 

There was a separate Development Services review to understand the unforeseen complexities and the results documented  : DEI006DevelopmentReview v2

The Project Sponsor and Business Lead both acknowledged the effort and commitment of the Project Team in endeavouring to overcome the complexities to meet the deliverables.

 

Scope 

Did the project stay within the original scope?  If not, please indicate why not.

The scope of the build requirements, implementation and delivery for phase 1 were met although the go-live was delayed by a month from the original plan.

The scope of the build requirements for phase 2 were met and the project is ready to move to the Test environment.  At this point, the allocated budget had been used up and the Project Sponsor made the decision to stop rather than increase the budget. This was because the developments under phase 2 were not available until well into semester 1, the USD resources were not available at that time and the window for deployment for12/13 freshers had passed.

 

Schedule

Did the project stay on schedule?  If not, please indicate why not.

The project did not stay on shedule. It was known from the start of the project that the plan was very tight and the timelines were high risk.  The initial plan endeavoured to meet the timelines indicated by Card Services. It was made clear that the timeline could only be met if there were no issues during the delivery of the project.  Unfortunately, each stage of the project encountered unexpected complexities resulting in the schedule being extended.

 

Analysis of Resource Usage:

Staff Usage Estimate: 100 days

Staff Usage Actual: 125 days

Staff Usage Variance: -25%

Other Resource Estimate: days

Other Resource Actual: days

Other Resource Variance: 0%

Explanation for variance:

Despite the Project Team's best efforts to deliver within budget and timelines, there were several complex areas which required greater effort to be resolved than was planned for:

  • The project required development using new technologies which meant that time needed to be spent on learning (eg portlet, samba). The learning effort had not been taken into account in the dev services' estimates. In future, estimates to address learning should be provided and incorporated into the plans.
  • Development of the portlet was more complicated than initially thought.
  • The application could not be published on old MyEd - a capped amount of effort was spent trying to resolve this
  • Transfer of image files using the samba solution proved more complex than initially thought
  • Attaining test data in the Dev environment was more time consuming than initially thought. The plans had accounted for test data in the test environment but not for the dev environment. In future, the effort to provide the appropriate data for peer testing should be included in the estimates to enable more accurate planning.
  • Whilst the high-level requirements remained the same throughout the project some of the more detailed requirements took longer to be confirmed which meant that there were some additional requirements meetings/conversations.  For example:-
    • the point at which student data should be loaded into the card database - during the requirements phase, SACS provided a preferable solution for loading data into the card database at the UF stage - this would have meant a change to the original scope. Unfortunately, due to the pressures on the timeline of  the project a difficult decision was made to omit this from the ODL solution and look at it further when the functionality was opened up to the wider university in a possible future project.
    • which email addresses to be used,
    • the text on some of the student pages changed.

 

Key Learning Points:

Allow contingency for adhoc requirements meetings / conversations.

By the time the requirements were agreed and resources allocated, it was recognised that the timelines were very tight. At this point, the plan could have been broken down into more than 2 phases which may have allowed some of the deliverables to have been delivered in line with the 12/13 freshers' timeline ie a more Agile approach when there is a university driven deadline.

Risks from the use of new technologies should be identified early in a project.  Where such risks are defined, project planning should include methods to address them, which might include early R&D work to investigate feasibility, training in the new technology, or changes in scope.  Methods to support these risk assessment and planning tasks would be beneficial so that staff have guidance and training when undertaking these activities.

During the planning stage, dev services should set out what test data will be needed and ensure that it will be available and this should be incorporated into the plans.

 

 

 

Outstanding issues:

The Phase 2 functionality has been successfully peer tested in the Dev environment and the implementation documentation fully up to date.  This means that the project is in a state where it could be picked up in the future if Card Services choose to.

Project Info

Project
Card Services for Online Distance Learning Student
Code
DEI006
Programme
Z. Distance Education Initiative (DEI) (closed 2012/13)
Project Manager
Donna Cruickshank
Project Sponsor
Bryan MacGregor
Current Stage
Close
Status
Closed
Start Date
13-Feb-2011
Planning Date
n/a
Delivery Date
n/a
Close Date
02-Nov-2012
Programme Priority
1
Overall Priority
Normal
Category
Discretionary