Samlple WBS (Work BreakDown Structure)
Below is a sample work breakdown structure for an online attendance management system that I worked on in the past -
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Sample Scope Change during a project and its impacts
Project background: Developer xyz was in the middle of a project that went several scope changes while in UAT. The project is about implementing capability in the current Underwriting software to do pre-issue Medical Underwriting. The project was initiated by client request to modify the software to account for some new insurance product feature. The system was developed according the initial system design which was based on the BRD signed by user.
What caused scope change UAT testing was scheduled one month ago and is done by the Underwriting specialist who is very demanding and an excellent tester. While testing, she started coming up with new scenarios which was not supported by the processing and reporting modules of the system. eg: the system was designed for to underwrite an employee for a single coverage belonging to a specified group of carriers and product types. During testing, she pointed that sometimes, there would be requirement to underwrite a life coverage for the employee and supplemental dependent coverage for the spouse, at the same time to account to for some GI (guaranteed issue) calculations. The new system supported underwriting of one individual at a time, first employee and then spouse. This requirement was not recorded initially since she was not invited during the JAD. If she would have, then this point would have raised and would have included in scope and thus the BRD.
Effect on Project’s conduct and outcomeThe effect was that the situation called for a major design change, that ended in 2 week of extra coding. The project missed its deadline and was allowed extra 5 weeks to account for fixing and testing. The incurred extra cost for the company in terms of time and resources.
Lesson Learned: Involve the end user upfront in the JAD sessions and make sure that he/she signs off the scope.
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Mind Mapping technique to prepare WBS
I would prefer the mind mapping technique to arrive at WBS (work break down structure), due to my liking for problem solving by visualization and modeling techniques. Another reason to like that technique is that it is very much similar to various modeling tools that we use during the System Analysis phase of product development and I have been closely working in this area. I would compare mind mapping method of creating WBS to preparing a context diagram. Just like a context diagram forms the basis for the high level and detail level data flows, a mind map forms the basis for high level and detailed level tasks. One great advantage of mind mapping model is that they account for easy translation to structure and plan since they work similar to translating our thoughts into sensible actions.
I haven’t personally used mind mapping since I haven’t prepared an official WBS on any project. However I sometimes use mind mapping technique for my own scheduling.
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Sample Project Management problem resolution
Project description: Project for xyz that included development, maintenance and enhancements to the official web site and web-based intranet applications that supported integrated work flows within various departments. I was leading a team of team members including developers, web-designer and Mr X.
Communication Issue: During my tenure leading the project, I have encountered situations where I had to study and resolve conflicts that arise from communication issues. There was this team member X, who was very zealous and enthusiast about the job that he does. He was so multifaceted that he was put into parallel tasks such as HTML web page design, customer support and user training. Lately, there were many issues that came up since Mr. X was very aggressive while dealing with people at the client departments, where he was supposed to communicate politely and more responsive to user questions and call for support. This caused severe conflicts and constraints in project progress. There was constant delays in User acceptance tests (UAT) and final user approvals before the product can be delivered and deployed. All in all, this trailed the project hours, increased the operational expenses to work extra hours and delayed the project turnaround time.
How it could be resolved: I would like to use the ‘Confrontation’ method to resolve the issue, which would target at problem resolution and creating a win-win situation for Mr X., project and the project stakeholders. I would see how I could utilize Mr. X’s skills more efficiently in some other area and fill his position with a cheaper resource who will just do UATs and trainings and who can be more patient and understanding while doing the UATs and training. This way, I can satisfy his desire to be aggressive, at the same time offer a solution for the users who expect patience and understanding. We would offer Mr. X a position in project sales team where he has chance to utilize his aggressive nature and his communication skills. This new arrangement of task activities among Mr. X and the new hire will have profound impacts on the project turn around time. The ultimate effect would be – satisfied Mr X. and happy users – thus less conflicts and least project delays.
Note: Actually, this is what happened in real time. I didn’t know what kind of formal conflict resolution I was using to solve the communication issue. But, now I know. Another big indirect impact of applying this conflict resolution was that Mr X., now working in sales team, started bringing in new projects utilizing his sales skills, which was rather unnoticed.
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Information Architecture for a web site – Sample Web site Concept Draft
XYZ Company Web Site Concept Draft
“Becoming industry’s premier outsourcing solution for managed care services”
Overview
For the past decade, xyz.coom (fictitious) has been the major online presence for XYZ Company for serving the online needs of its customers as well as exhibiting its capabilities and services to the industry. XYZ Company’s core strategy is to continue generating revenues from its outsourcing services in the managed care industry, at the same time provide improved services to its customers for their retention. A project on IA strategy was undertaken to look at the existing web site, analyze its current features and functionality, conduct IA research to understand the business context and content requirements, conduct usability testing to identify critical areas of improvement and arrive at a detailed IA strategy which would recommend the targeted information architecture for the improved web site. This article highlights two major strategic points based on which various modifications/changes would be suggested to the existing website.
Key strategic points
IA research has lead to the identification of two major strategic points based on which improvements may be made on the existing website in order to align the site functionality with the business context, content needs and user needs as well as leading to best user experience. Focus is also laid on how overall site services would be improved, leading to effective marketing of XYZ Company’s services. The key strategic points are listed as below –
1. Effective marketing of XYZ Company as the premier outsourcing solution for managed care services
2. Retain existing customers by improved site functionality, thus continue generating revenue
Described in the following sections are the details of what needs to be done to support each strategic point.
1. Effective marketing of XYZ Company as the premier outsourcing solution for managed
care services
The following are the major areas of improvements that could be made to support this strategic point –
1.1. Improvements to the Home Page
Home page is the face of the web site, which determines whether users would be attracted and retained to seek and search information and utilize the site services. The
current home page calls for various improvements as far as content organization, labeling and navigation is concerned.
The Home page should give a holistic view of all the available information and services that the site has to offer, thus enabling the user to easily seek and search for
required information. The current home page has a major drawback that the companyspecific content groups are available inside the ‘About Us’ page. Other content groups such as ‘Contact Us’, ‘Glossary’ is not visible on the first load of the page. Even though we have the links to specific user groups, it is not self-evident what kind of service that a user can expect from each of them.
The home page could be modified in terms of re-organizing the content items into related groups, naming them with clear and precise labels and placing them in visually
identifiable positions to attract attention of users. The following specific improvements are recommended –
1.1.1. Company Logo and tagline
One major step would be to extend the page width with a much more brighter company logo with the tagline. The current tagline is vague, as it does not cover the
complete industry that XYZ Company covers. It might be modified as ‘Providing premier managed care services for 3 million customers’. Tagline is very important to create ata-glance view of XYZ Company intended industry and services.
1.1.2. Content Re-organization, labeling and navigation
Effective content organization is vital to site usability and reaching out effectively to the vast customer base. Following improvements are recommended to effectively
market XYZ Company’s services and capabilities.
1.1.2.1. Organize content hierarchically into following groups and sub groups
o ‘Home’
o ‘About Us’
Mission
Value Proposition
Clients
Company History
Employees
Leadership Team
o ‘Products and Services’
Carrier Services and Solutions
Sales, Marketing, and Distribution Support
Product Administration
Technology and Operations
Voluntary Market Capabilities
Association Programs and Services
Search Products
o ‘Agent’
‘Products/Carriers’
‘Agent Tools’
‘Testimonials’
‘Locate a Provider’
‘My Cases’
‘My Forms’
‘My Profile’
‘My Network’
o ‘Employer’
‘Case Management’
‘Products/Carriers’
‘Quote Request’
‘Testimonials’
‘Locate a Provider’
‘My Cases’
‘My Forms’
‘My Profile’
‘My Network’
o ‘Individual’
‘Benefit Management’
‘Products/Carriers’
‘Quote Request’
‘Testimonials’
‘Locate a Provider’
‘My Cases’
‘My Forms’
‘My Profile’
‘My Network’
o ‘Infocenter’
‘FAQ’
‘Glossary of Terms’
‘Factoids’
o ‘Contact Us’
‘Phone Numbers’
‘Email Us’
‘XYZ Company Locations’
o ‘Careers’
‘Current Openings’
‘Contact HR’
‘HR Policies’
The above organization of content focuses on projecting XYZ Company’s core capabilities, what it has to offer its customers and it’s various targeted audiences. The main content label shall identify the main content group eg: ‘About Us’ and the sub-content labels shall be displayed within the area of the expanded tab or pulled down menu.
1.1.2.2. Implement tab based top navigation system
From the above content groups (as identified in section 1.1.2.1), identify ‘Agent’, ‘Employer’, ‘Employee’ and ‘Individual’ as the audience specific organization scheme
that could be potentially be implemented as tab based top navigation bar, which should be visible at the first glance on the web site. Placing this on the top has great
importance, since it is where user’s line of sight falls first and it is an industry standard. The top navigation bar may be visible only on home page.
Create and display image of XYZ Company corporate building on first page load linked to the ‘Home’ content group. The image can be animated with succeeding animations showing clients list, service highlights, satisfied users etc. Create and display audience specific image animation on the specific tab views of each audience content tab. This may be substituted for the current welcome blurb.
1.2. Implement global navigation system
From the above content groups (as identified in section 1.1.2.1), identify ‘Home’, ‘About Us’, ‘Products and Services’, ‘Infocenter’, ’Careers’, and ‘Contact Us’ as specific
content items for the global navigation system which will be consistent throughout the website. The global navigation system should be prominently placed on the very top of the web page.
1.3. Create global login section
Global member login section is essential which should be visible on a prominent location on the home page (top right part of the page or bottom left is suggested), which
would create the idea that site offers login based/personalized services.
1.4. Create new content groups
Create new content groups such as ‘Testimonials’, ‘News’, ‘Carrier/Product search’ and ‘Member Login’ on prominent locations on home page. Each of these content
groups should be placed within clearly identifiable sections with the identified labels (‘Testimonials’, ‘News’ etc)
2. Retain existing customers by improved site functionality, thus continue generating revenue
The content organization, labeling and navigation as recommended in section 1 will have a direct impact on improved site functionality and would allow users to easily utilize the site services. The following are some of the other specific areas that could be worked on to bring out effective user experience and satisfaction –
2.1. Implement local navigation system
Local navigation is essential to navigate within local content, especially when the user is logged in under a specific audience group or is accessing content within specific
audience group. For example, when user clicks on ‘Agent’ ‘Agent Tools’, he should be taken to a separate web page exclusively for Agent with the global navigation system on the very top and the local navigation system below it, both clearly identified.
The local navigation will be nothing but the sub-content items of the main content group ‘Agent’ as identified in 1.1.2.1, with an additional ‘Logout’ link. Below local
navigation, there will be specific content areas for ‘Agent Tools’. User can navigate to the Home page without logging out (via the ‘Home’ link on global navigation bar) and
can come back to the Agent section via tab based top navigation system.
2.2. Implement breadcrumbs
Breadcrumbs are an essential feature to inform users where they are and thus aid them in easy site navigation. The current website does not have breadcrumb feature and
needs to be implemented. Breadcrumbs can be implemented as, say, ‘Agent Agent Tools’, in between the local navigation and the main page section.
2.3. Making features/objects as self evident as possible
This should be one of the most important focus areas when the site is revamped. Make all content objects and/or features as self evident as possible so that users are not
kept thinking about what it is and how to use it. For example, the current home page has links to various audience specific sections such as ‘insurance agent’, which is not self evident as clickable. Another factor that improves site’s usability is sticking on to standard practices such top navigation system, global navigation system, local navigation system etc.
2.4. Consistent and meaningful label formats
Care should be taken that there is no duplication of content labels and that we follow consistent labeling convention throughout the web site. Labels should communicate
information efficiently and should have consistent fonts properties, noun/action usage and should not take up much of vertical space.
2.5. Common Footer
It is recommended that the footer contain major links from the global navigation such as ‘Home’, ‘Contact Us’ and additional content items such as ‘Privacy Policy’,
Copy right info and company address & phone number. It is advisable that the footer be common to all web pages and is visible without vertical scroll.
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Re-baselining of IT projects – Factors that makes it difficult and some recommendations to address them
Before addressing the question, it would be beneficial if we understand what baselining and re-baselining is. Baselining is the common project management method where we lay down the cost and effort estimates and schedules based on assumptions that we have at hand. Once baseline is created, project plan is laid out based on this baseline. But as projects go ahead, due changes in assumptions, project requirements, due to poor project oversight and other changes, the original cost / effort estimates and schedule does not fall good and calls for modification of the same based on new assumptions. If projects are not re-baselined at this stage, they fail drastically and / or lead to huge cost overrun.
Federal IT projects are not different. The situation is more obvious due to outdated (quickly changing) technology, complex systems, processes & systems, poor project estimation/planning/control mechanisms and lack of expertise to push and pull clean project management practices that leads to weak risk / change management and over and above all – politics. These situations that lead to re-baselining further determine the factors that in turn make it difficult to re-baseline federal IT projects, which include –
1. Need for re-estimation and arriving at revised cost estimation based on detailed work breakdown structureThis is one of the major factors that make re-baselining difficult task and time consuming to get on track especially when agency is dealing with multi-billion projects which are too complex to start with. Greatest concern is to make all assumptions clear and realistic so that re-baselining is avoided in future. Immediate remedial action would be to spend considerable time to figure out what the actual need is and clearly define what individual components of work / task need to be executed to achieve the task. Expert advice should be sought for each major task to determine closest cost, effort and time.
2. Need for re-work on EVM formulas and calculation to adjust new cost and valueEarned Value Management (EVM) is the most widely used and federal standard to measure performance of an IT investment. Re-baselining causes the project team / agency to rebuild EVM formulas based on new cost, effort and value and this involves considerable cost, effort and risk management to ensure that the expected ROI is attained within reasonable time period for changed scenario. Once we arrive at clear work break down structure and have a clear idea of how work / task need to be executed and integrated to achieve the clear goal, EVM analysis and establishment should not be a problem.
3. Lack of credibility on the part of agency to have this oversight and take the responsibility to fix issues and propose the business case for re-baseliningThis issue would keep the agencies from announcing the fact that they have actually overrun the budget and are in grave need to rebaseline. The memorandum from CIO and OMB director urges agencies to announce for help and declare that they need to re-baseline based on an investment’s poor performance. OMB need to ensure that it provides appropriate support for the agencies and that it gives them a chance to correct any issues that would have lead to re-baseline. OMB need to clearly define the expectations that it needs to have in a re-baseline plan and to monitor its progress.
Bibliography
1. usaspending.gov (2010). Federal IT Dashboard. Retrieved on 02nd November from http://it.usaspending.gov/
2. os.doc.gov (2010). US. DoC, Office of CIO – IT Investment Performance Management Policy. Retrieved on 02nd November from http://ocio.os.doc.gov/ITPolicyandPrograms/Policy___Standards/PROD01_004949
3. Whitehouse.gov (2010). Reforming the Federal Government’s Efforts to Manage Information Technology Projects. Retrieved on 02nd November from http://www.whitehouse.gov//sites/default/files/omb/assets/memoranda_2010/m_10-25.pdf
4. Whitehouse.gov (2010). Information Technology Investment Baseline Management Policy. Retrieved on 02nd November from http://www.whitehouse.gov//sites/default/files/omb/assets/memoranda_2010/m10-27.pdf
5. Whitehouse.gov (2010). Immediate Review of Financial Systems IT Projects. Retrieved on 02nd November from http://www.whitehouse.gov//sites/default/files/omb/assets/memoranda_2010/m-10-26.pdf
6. Whitehouse.gov (2010). Sharing Data While Protecting Privacy. Retrieved on 02nd November from http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/omb/memoranda/2011/m11-02.pdf
7. Whitehouse.gov (2010). Pilot Projects for the Partnership Fund for Program Integrity Innovation. Retrieved on 02nd November from http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/omb/memoranda/2011/m11-01.pdf
Article copyright (c) 2010 – 2020 – Deepesh Joseph (deepeshjoseph@yahoo.com)
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Is there a conflict between the support of individual rights and the use of e-government for transformational purposes? Why or why not?
Based on my reflection on E-Governance reference materials and experience, I am concluding that e-government initiatives cannot be truly transformational unless the socio-political environment is favorable and open-minded to bring about highly participatory democracy with high level of citizen involvement through innovative technology usage. Two forces are in play that hinders transformation – narrow mindedness of political powers to establish highly interactive e-government mediums and/or the citizen’s lack of exposure to a particular medium of innovative technology due to its unavailability or fear of attack towards his individual rights of privacy and security. The first force factor is very obvious in the way almost all government setups works. Effect of individual rights on supporting /hindering e-government transformation is rather not very obvious – but could be easily analyzed and a decision point can be reached.
The issue of conflict comes into picture when socio-political setups transform into the 4th stage of ‘Interactive Democracy’ as West coins the ultimate and desired stage of e-government setup. In this stage of e-government setup, there would be high level interaction where lot of personal feedbacks, opinion and other personal information is being exchanged, stored, processed and analyzed that has high potential of being accounted for in variety of decision within the administrative processes. This raises huge privacy and security concerns for common citizens – their personal information being trapped in isles of information systems. Only way to gain confidence in promoting the usage towards transformation would be to implement means to protect privacy and security during information exchange. Again, this would happen only if political system truly focuses on transformation.
Another dimension of individual rights issue is availability of technology for all common citizens to access the e-government services – commonly called digital divide. The more the transformation without proper citizen exposure to technology, the greater would be the digital divide and its effect on this particular dimension of individual right. Political systems should take steps to reduce these divisions and make the public receptive to the new technology so that transformation would have some meaning.
Analyzing the above two dimensions of individual rights, usage of e-government for transformational purposes seems to conflict with individual rights of privacy/security AND right to be exposed to latest technology. The conflict appears to be present not due to voicing citizens, but due to the lack of implementation of appropriate steps at administrative level to handle privacy/security concerns and to reduce digital divide.
Bibliography:
1. West D. M. (2005). Digital Government – Technology and public sector performance. Princeton University Press.
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True Transformation – Is it ever possible in e-government setup?
This is an interesting and very scholastic topic to share and discuss. The basic question being raised is – Are e-government initiatives capable to bring about transformation within the ecosystem (citizens, government agencies and all public administration setup) that it functions and serves? To answer the question, we really need to define what ‘transformation’ are we talking about. From current readings and past, the level of transformation that we are looking at can be defined as – bring a major change in the way citizens interact with the government in such way that all interactions are highly participatory, collaborative, transparent and leading to participatory democracy through interactive models of technology (viz. Internet and Broadband). This transformation does not happen on a rapid basis, but is gradual (secular change as West puts it) and we are potentially in the childhood stages of this transformation through G2C interactive services, but as we see, there are several factors that restrict this transformation and shift the path towards true participatory democracy.
Now, once we have defined what transformation is in e-government context, we need to analyze if transformation in e-government is really meaningful or can be achieved or is there even need to focus on transformational nature of e-government initiatives. The reason behind this concern is the mere fact that technology is shaped by socio-political and economic factors that govern the government and social setup. No matter how innovative the technology is, it is not useful enough to be transformational in nature, unless the e-government ecosystem is free from these inherent constraints to realize the true benefits of technology. One could say financial constraints is the major hurdle for transformation, but apart from this, the main reason for this resistance towards transformational change in political or government system is the mere fear among political/administrative people that their actions will be held accountable if e-government services are made transformational through its virtue of being 100% interactive and responsive with its citizens. Another factor is citizens being masked out of usage/reception of positive usage of a major technology due to battle for power by technology companies and/or digital divide.
The above reasoning of why true transformation (linking back to definition in first paragraph) is hindered in delivering e-government services, I am forced to agree to the fact that e-government initiatives cannot be transformational unless the basic socio-political setup is open minded and is willing to pave way for transformation. Rohr’s point that public administrators should use their discretionary powers to balance their power with individual rights, still holds in most of the government setups and administrators are not so open minded to reach that level of open interaction with its citizens. This is true from what we saw in above paragraph and thus, government initiatives are truly ‘models of limited than transformation change’.
Bibliography:
1. Rohr J. A. (1986). To Run a Constitution – The Legitimacy of the Administrative State. Chapters 1-4, 9-11. University Press of Kansas
2. West D. M. (2005). Digital Government – Technology and public sector performance. Princeton University Press.
3. Shar A.R., Toporkoff S. (2008). Public Technology Institure & ITEMS Internationa
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What measures need to be taken to make sure that offshore outsourcing does not adversely affect American jobs?
Offshore outsourcing is a highly debated topic. It would be nice if we reflect on the reasons that has lead to offshore outsourcing -
1. Highly skilled workforce for cheap labor – As Matt, pointed in his post, most of the developing countries offers education that is highly specialized and with focus on international job economy. Difference in dollars and x currency, leads to a favorable situation for companies
2. Current restrictions and huge backlogs in H1Bs and job based Green Cards – If U.S. doesn’t take necessary steps to provide more opportunities for the highly-skilled workforce to migrate into U.S., companies will continue to outsource.
3. Inadequate number of high-tech workers in U.S. – Research shows that there is about 190,000 unfilled IT jobs in the US today due to a shortage of qualified high-tech workers. Companies resort to outsourcing to fill in immediate gaps in HR.
Now looking at possible recommendations to remedy the situation of U.S. economy getting affected, the following steps may be taken -
1. Focus on STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths) based education – As the article indicates, children should be encouraged to pursue these fields right from their school education. Provide more funding and scholarships to students who pursue these career paths. This will eventually lead to increased pool of highly skilled workers at reasonable rates.
2. Increase the number of immigrant job visas which will reduce outsourcing for skilled labor.
3. Establish legislative measures to regulate outsourcing so that companies are required to fill in certain percentage of U.S. natives, if sufficient skills are available.
My point on shortage of skilled workers was based on close examination of this report from Office of Technology Policy, the Federal agency working to maximize technology’s contribution to America’s economic growth. Hope that makes some sense.
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Where should cyberlaw enforcement be centered?
I appreciate the study conducted by UCSD that it provides some striking insights into operation of scam engines and their origin stations. Based on this research, policies should be devised to regulate ISPs not to provide services for hosting such websites. Enforcing this policy cannot be done from a centralized location. Why don’t we share the knowledge to other research Universities across the world and create action plan to conduct mass study across the world? Thoughts?
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