32541 Project Management Spring 2011 Workshop Instructions

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UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY, SYDNEY Faculty of Engineering and Information Technology

32541 Project Management Spring 2011 Project Workshops
1.0 Goal of Workshops `

The goal of the workshops is to prepare components of a project plan based upon the National E-Health Transition Authority (NEHTA) Apps development case study. 2.0 Workshop/Brainstorming/Meeting Facilitation The workshop sessions will give students experiences in the elicitation, brainstorming and decision making activities that normally occur in any form of Project Management. Most organisations call these sessions workshops as distinct from meetings. A meeting is run by a chairperson and is generally decision oriented with everybody expected to have read the meeting papers and make decisions. A workshop has one or more facilitators, who are generally not domain experts, but whose job it is to make the workshop a success (i.e. to move the project, organisation, people forward). Workshops are exploratory sessions. That is ideas are generated (i.e. brainstorming), requirements are elicited, consensus gained, tasks allocated, etc. Obviously decisions are also made, but in general they are different to a meeting. 3.0 Overview of Workshops The following series of workshop exercises allows students to come to grips with the components of the Project Management process. Each workshop builds on the work of the previous workshop and all students are expected to produce documentation each week and come prepared to each workshop. Teams consisting of approximately four students (depending on final subject class size) will be formed in each tutorial. Students can form teams or the lecturer/tutor may assign students teams. Once formed, team composition cannot be changed. The exercise and tutorials will extend over nine weeks as follows: Week No 3 4 5 6 7 9 10 11 12 Workshop Group Formation & Group Activity Brainstorm the Project Scope Brainstorm the Project WBS Brainstorm the Project Tasks Brainstorm the Project Risks Brainstorm the Time Estimation of the Project Tasks Network Diagrams Brainstorm the Project Task Schedule / Sequence to produce an Activity on Node Diagram Brainstorm Project Monitoring and Control

During the tutorial timeslot:

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2.

One (1) hour will be dedicated to brainstorming the assignment topic. Each group will use this time to derive a group solution which will be submitted to the tutor at the end of the tutorial. In the last half (1/2) all groups can put forward their ideas, solutions etc.

Each week one group in each tutorial will be assigned to document the output from the brainstorming session (using the appropriate template provided in UTS Online). This output should be of sufficient quality so that all students can use it as the basis for the next workshop and must be submitted electronically by 6pm on the Tuesday the workshop into the appropriate discussion forum in UTS Online.

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Each student must be prepared for every workshop by having two paper copies of their work for that workshop (one copy will be handed in at the start of the tutorial). Therefore all students will have the information and the ability to participate in the workshop, the first goal of project management Communication. At the end of this exercise, students will have a set of documents that form the basis of a project, and can use the experience gained in producing these documents in assignments, exams, real life etc. The outcomes of this exercise will be the following: 1. 2. A A A A bounded project scope plan showing the high-level tasks with time estimates project schedule showing the sequence of tasks Risk Register

3.

4.

5.0 Communication The aim of this project is to produce a high-level plan that is feasible. Thus to emphasize the importance of communication for all that are involved in a project, UTS Online will be used to disseminate the group reports. The reports from each tutorial will placed into the appropriate forum on the Discussion Board page within UTS Online. All reports will be publicly accessible so every student may read every other tutorials output. Reports can be revised and the revised copies uploaded to UTS Online with appropriate version numbers. 6.0 Benefits The benefits include: 1. 2. 3. 4. Experience working in a team each week (all projects are undertaken by teams) Have a chance to put forward your ideas The chance to obtain a very good participation mark Improve your own class participation skills

7.0 Costs By not participating or not attending you cannot expect to obtain participation marks. Hence some of the costs (that is no participation marks) from this exercise may be: 1. Not attending a meeting (tutorial) without adequate reason: Obviously you cannot obtain any participation marks Not participating in producing the groups output. Not having a copy of your thoughts on that weeks topic area. Not participating in the your groups discussion Not contributing to the project workbook.

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3. 4.

5.

9.0 Assessment There are 10 marks awarded for the workshops. This mark will be based on: 1. 2. 3. Attendance Preparation Work Workshop Output

10. NEHTA Case Study Introduction The purpose of the tutorial exercise is to take a current realistic business problem and come up with an IT solution. Background The NEHTA, http://www.nehta.gov.au, has been tasked with providing a Personally Controlled Electronic Health Record (PCEHR) to all individuals in NSW. A PCEHR is a secure electronic record of a persons medical history (NEHTA, 2010). The PCEHR will consolidate information from different health providers, including pharmacists, GPs, lab results, etc in one solid consolidated view.

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The purpose is to provide one single view so that better decisions regarding health and treatment advice can be made. It is also storage of a persons health record in one location so that if a person changes GPs, their medical history is not lost (NEHTA, 2010). It will also allow history and double-checking of prescription drugs, so that conflicting prescriptions can be caught and checked. Business Problem People are going to want to access their health information on their phones, therefore a Phone Application (App) will have to be developed. Tutorial exercise Over the upcoming weeks students will be defining: Scope, WBS, Tasks, Risks, Duration, Schedule, and Monitoring and Control for an App that solves the business problem. The business problem is loosely defined. It will the students job to narrow the scope down to something realistic manageable. The tutor is there to provide guidance, but will not be making any of the decisions or research. 11. Bibliography National e-Health Transition Authority 2010, What is PCEHR?, National e-Health Transition Authority, viewed 30 June 2011 <http://www.nehta.gov.au/ehealth-implementation/whatis-a-pcher>

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