SSE674Project4-Journal2

=Journal Entries =

=Week of 9 Aug=

We are prepared to close out risk N-01. The network team did an analysis of the current capabilities and researched companies that provided networking services that we were looking for. In the first year of operation it will be in our best interests to contract these services out to a company set up to handle the requirement we are looking for. We will consider this risk closed and add it to the program review after the project is in operation.

Our engineering team has made a successful contact at Dapple to get the information they need. They received several current models and are in the process of organizing and coming up with a standardized maintenance plan that covers the different components. They are also setting up contacts to get the repairable components in stock and have a year’s supply to get us started out.

The software engineering department is in full swing in defining the program requirements. It is working with the engineering group to develop the maintenance guide so they can properly automate it.

Team Status

=Week of 30 August=

In our project review we looked over the risk that are identified and see that there is no real progress on any of the major risks. We have one item that is closed out that we identified at the management meeting. Progress is slow with the repair guides; to date none of them are complete. We are focusing on the structure of the document and the usability aspect. Once we get one guide complete we will be in a better position to finish the remaining guides.

Management Meeting Status

Our software engineering project is in the same state. Without the completed repair guide we are unable to complete the requirements for that process. We don’t want to start the database design until we have an approved repair program design document. I suggested to the software team that they should do some preliminary design work on the database so when we get the approved repair program design document we can refine the preliminary structure. The software engineering lead is taking the suggestion under consideration.

Our network team is coordinating with our network service provider to get our server to sync up with each other. Our IT leads are setting up procedures to connect the local server to the network service provider machine. At this point there are no firm procedures, but progress is being made.

=Week of 20 September=

Two months in the project and we don’t have a lot accomplished. Our repair guide keeps going through several changes and we can’t seem to agree upon a final format. It looks like P-01 risk is turning out to be a real critical item. This risk drives the entire repair process and if it fails the whole project will be affected. The software team is taking what they have gotten so far from the engineering team and are drafting the design. Although we don’t want to commit to a design without a finalized guide, we are trying to think ahead and be prepared to move forward as quickly as possible.

=Week of 4 October=

We had another risk management review and it got a little heated. The engineering team is not happy about being “pushed” into a final version of the repair guide and wants some more time to complete it. However, the project manager told them they must finalize the guide so we can move on to other aspects of the project. The repair guide is central to our operation model and it needs to be done right, but at this point we don’t need to nitpick over semantics. It needs to be finalized at this point. At this point we are the ones holding ourselves up, so the project manager is displaying some of his leadership qualities and is making some tough decisions.

There is some good news at least. The network team has ironed out the synchronization issue with the network service provider and we feel confident we can close that risk out. We now have procedures to set up our local servers with the network service provider. This will gives us the storage and flexibility we were looking for. So consider N-02 completed and we are that much closer to the end.

Team Status

=Week of 1 November=

Our third risk management review and things seem to be going smoothly. Engineering is well on their way with two of seven guides complete. The software engineering is ready to submit their final design document which we will jump on to get approved. Once that is done we can start the database design. The database design should go quickly since we have done a lot of the preliminary work completed already.

The network team is also finalizing their network outage plan and is ready to submit a draft. It looks like things are running according to plan.

Management Meeting Status

=Week of 29 November=

Another closed item, N-03 is now complete. Our network risks are now handled and completed with no issues. We are putting notes in the program review document we are working on to review these documents annually.

The engineering and software development teams are in full swing. The database design is near completion and once approve we will have another item to check off the list.

Team Status

Management Meeting Status

=Week of 13 December=

We are making progress! We are closing S-01 after doing a final review of the database design. This puts us in a good position right before the holiday season. We are ready to start coding and our software department is moving along with great progress.

Our engineering team is also making strides and we have another repair guide completed. We need to make sure our progress on the repair guides speeds up because we are coming close to our 31 January deadline. I have every confidence that the team will pull it together and get the completed products on time.

Team Status

Management Meeting Status

=Week of 31 January=

We hit our first major setback. We had planned on having all of the guides done by the end of the January. Our reasoning was we would have all of our engineers in one location to do all of the repair documentation as a team. The risk action plan discusses that we need to have the plans completed and what the impact will be if we do not have them done. We did not anticipate such differencing of methodologies among the team, so this has caused us to take corrective action on the matter. The progress has slowed down to a standstill due to the level of detail and repair philosophies. We are trying to give the team more direction on how to proceed but it is a difficult undertaking.

The timeline is set because next week, February 7th we are splitting our personnel up to set up the other repair facilities. We are doing the facility setup now so our personnel will have the opportunity to have a smooth transition to the new location. We are confident that the facility setup will go smoothly because we hired an outside firm to coordinate the move. Our software team is staying in place so they continue to make progress and are on their way to getting the application completed by the deadline.

We are making some tough decisions on how everything will be laid out and have to adjust our deadline to accommodate the location change. Our risk scenario doesn’t cover the current situation so we have to modify the scope of the risk to deal with this situation. We are going to add another risk to the list so we can track the progress.

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