Explanation to the group Members and how it worked
Risk Management
In the process of risk management the following areas below are looked into as the analysis of the them all sums up in giving a better and risk management process, that help to mitigate the vulnerabilities that can be posed to the various risk areas, hence preventing the threats from striking.
Identification of the Risk
The risk associated with the project were identified as follows: The project may take long than the duration it was planned for; the project may require more resources than what was initially allocated for and some Events that may disrupt the smooth running of the project
Communicate about the risk
This involves communicating the identified risks to all the stakeholders involved so that as a team we set measures in place that can be used to mitigate them, or in case of their occurrence impact posed by them can be minimised as Chorafas D (2013) suggest .The risk identified above are communicated to the all the stake holders involved in the project.
Consider both the Threats and opportunities
Consider both the good and bad members of your project team, bad people in the project team may significant make the project drag, while the good people in the team may make the project progress faster, run better and be more profitable.
Clarification of Ownership issues
Each risk identified is assigned to each risk owner, so that they are responsible when the threats strike cause the risk was not taken are of. The risk owner is a member of the project team who has the responsibility to mitigate the risk on the project.
Ownership also exist in another level, like in cases the risk occurs, someone has to bear the responsibility in terms of the bills
An important side effect of clarifying the ownership of risk effects is that line managers start to pay attention to a project, especially when a lot of money is at stake. The ownership issue is equally important with project opportunities. Fights over (unexpected) revenues can become a long-term pastime of management.
The importance of clarifying effects of ownership of risks is that line managers start to pay more attention to the project so that they save of on a lot of money pumped in the project.
Prioritise the risks
High impact risks that can cause far much bigger losses and gains are giving higher priority. Showstoppers that could derail the project are identified and mitigated in advance. The method mostly used is to consider the likelihood of the risk occurring and the overall effect it will have on the project. This technique should be used consistently whilst focusing on the bigger risk
Analyse the risk:
This involves analysing schedule and cost risks, but this does not exclude other keys aspects of the project as quality of the final project outcome. Cost risk analysis looks into the various costs to be incurred in the project, their unpredictability, opportunities or risk that may affect them. Risk and opportunities being the discrete events that have the possibility of increasing or decreasing the project cost. These are analysed by the probability of occurrence and the gravity of the impact on the project life cycle.
Schedule risk analysis at the time needed to complete the various tasks needed to complete the project, and their interrelationships. Risk and opportunities identified and duration for achieving a specific milestone in the project deliverable is achieved. It more complex to analyse cause of the logical connections between the tasks, which are modelled to come up with the critical path
Plan and Implementing risk responses
The key three main issues here are: risk avoidance, risk acceptance and risk minimisation. Risk avoidance means mitigating the risk encounter completely which could mean doing complete overhaul of the technology that was vulnerable to threats. Minimising risk involves influencing the causes of the risk and reducing the negative outcome associated with it. Finally risk acceptance is better only if it effects on the project is minimal, or the opportunity to influence it may be time consuming, expensive or just too tedious.
Register project risks/Document the project risk
The risks identified are documented to allow those who will be doing the project maintenance to have knowledge of the associated risk. Also for future system expansion this will guide them before attempting to modify the system. Maintaining a risk log enables one to view the progress to avoid forgetting the associated risks; this also goes along informing other team members of the progress. A good risk log must contain descriptions of the risk, elaborate the owners of the risk and also should allow for carrying out of some basic analysis of the risk.
Track risk and the associated task
The risk documentation created above will assist the project manager track all the risk and their associated task. Integrating the risk task to the day to day routine operation is the surest way of getting an easier solution to the risks. Risk task are carried out to generate or analyse risk, implement and select responses as Harrison R et al (1998). Tracking of risk is different from tracking task as it lays more emphasis on the risks current situation, like which ones are more likely to happen and if any of the have had their value changed.
Sustainability issues for the B-Spoke Bikes project
Sustainability is the ability of a project to maintain its operations, services and benefits during its entire projected life time (Matthew 2010). In the implementation of the project, organisation must see to it issues to maintain the project are addressed, as this do continues service improvement
Project sustainability issues
The issues affecting the sustainability of an IT project are as follows:
Logistics dimension/ Continued Operation and Maintenance of project facilities:
This states that the project will only be sustainable if it has received the necessary support both budgetary and institutional support to enable it maintain a required level of the facilities.
Economics Dimension/ Continued flow of net benefits:
It looks into it that has all the benefits and costs under the varying conditions been weighed appropriately and whether the project guarantee an acceptability in its finance and economic level of return (Travis 2010).
Community Dimension/Continued community participation:
Has the project involved the community/staff of the B-Spoke Bike, has their views been factored in, and has it received /maintained a desirable level in of their involvement and they are satisfied that the outcome of the project will ease their day to day work
Equity Dimension/ Equitable Sharing and distribution of the project benefits:
Is the project posed to benefit all the stakeholders involved. Does it incorporate a mechanism to guarantee equitable access to and the distribution of it benefits across all the involved stakeholders?
Environmental Dimension/Maintenance of environmental stability:
Has the project evaluated its implications on the environment so that its negative results on the environment are mitigated or avoided during and after the project life cycle. Hence considering the dimensions elaborated above that are crucial to the sustainability of the project, hence with experience its seen that weakening any of the factors above has the potential of watering down the project in the long run.
Code of Conduct: Ethical Issues
Business ethics ensures that the firm does not water down its longevity and the integrity in the industry it’s competing in. However, ethics tries to address factors that are not measurable but plays vital role in ensuring success now and in the future to come. In any project, ethical issues ranging from favoritism on the part of the subordinates and the project managers must be done away with by ensuring every member of the team is heard. Project managers must ensure all are given equal footing, because those members with high expertise, long history of work or super communication skills can blur valid points that can be raised by the other members of the team. This can not only affect the project progress but also create resentment within some members of the team.
The project manager must come up and supports his project teams whenever the company comes up to force him do something that is unethical. It is also unethical when the project manager who is also paid to do the job goes around delegating the duties to his subordinates or sometimes pushing them to go off the board, then he or she goes ahead to take credit of the work of the others. It is also unethical is the project manager position gives him the opportunity to access sensitive data of the company then he goes ahead to make it available to the competitors or access the works of other teams , so sharing this data and making it available to people it not meant for is unethical.
Expert guidance
Project managers who are certified are offered simple ethics on codes of conducts form the project management institutes that certify them. It stresses that the project managers to practice the ethical behaviors first by accepting the responsibility for the consequences of their decisions. It expects them to respect others, objectively listen to others input and feed back, and being honest in communication. This must support them in practicing fairness and transparency in making decision whilst closing serious conflict of interest.
Project status Honesty
Project managers must be honest in reporting the project status to the senior management and other stakeholders. Being honest in status reporting means able to identify risks, acknowledging their failure to meet deadline and accepting the responsibility of his/her project team actions. They must say the status accurately and not just telling people what they want to hear, whilst realistically proposing the project level of effort even under duress of the senior managers and supervisors to underestimate costs so that to win a given contract.
Staff relationships
Ethical relationship within project staff requires respecting individuals cultural and difference in abilities. Project managers must employ recruitment procedure that lays more emphasis on job related skills with clear job descriptions with measurement criteria whilst adhering to laws against discrimination. Project managers must prevent personal relationship from influencing their decisions on awarding promotions, performance evaluation and layoff procedures. It should allow the employees to report issues of ethical concern without anonymity and set a clear follow up procedure for doing serous investigations and reporting the same to senior managers for action when there are cases of valid ethical violations as Hopkin P (2010) suggests.
Stakeholder Relationship
Project manager must offer the stakeholders (senior managers, customers, clients, the community, and vendors) honest communication regarding the status, cost and the risk of the project. Ethical standard require that the project manager not only to say the truth but also to communicate it in a language understandable by all the stakeholders in the group and incases the problem arise, the project manager should inform the stakeholders as quickly as possible whilst remaining alert on the possible actions to be taken by the stake holders t influence their decision making in manner that is unethical or illegal and interpretable.
Applicability to British Computing Society Code of Conduct
The BCS has set out a list of codes in order to encourage professional and ethical behavior. The full code of conduct can be obtained from http://www.bcs.org/category/6030 The ethical codes of conduct above have applicability to numbers 2, 3 and 4 British Computing Society code of conduct.
1. Public Interest
This section lays out a number of codes and regulations to encourage members to be mindful of safety of the public and the environment around whilst treating everyone with uttermost dignity and respect.
2. Professional Competence and Integrity
It sensors the professionals to uphold professionalism in the execution of their duties by being truthful about your current level of formal qualifications. Open mindedness is crucial so that one can have training plans on an ongoing basis to remain up to date with the latest technology. They should also have deep knowledge of legislation relevant to their field. They are also encouraged to behave in an ethical manner and turn done any malpractices deemed to be unethical
3. Duty to the Relevant Authority
The professional are also encouraged to act in a professional manner to their relevant authority who is usually your employer. So that all times they should act in a professional manner, while care of the interest of the organisation and the employer as long as this interest are compatible to the overall public interest. They are urge to keep that information they have access to confidential as they have been given the access to it by the virtue that they are the project managers and should not expose it to the firms competitors or use the previous works they have access to the disadvantage of those who had done them . They are also advised to accept the responsibility of their actions and the quality of work produced by those working under them.
4. Duty to the Profession
As a member of any given profession group, at all the times, act and uphold to the reputation of that your institution, and do not do anything that can bring the disgrace to that professional body. Also encourage fellow members to continue with their professional development
Legal Issue
The key legal issues that always arise from project management that involved a contact given to another firm to do the software development/ IT project are as follows:
Intellectual property rights in the background and foreground of the project materials
Project team members are often uncertain of who should own the IPR of the materials that was already existing but was incorporated into the tools and the application and which agreements were in place for future use of such a material by the project partners and others. It is also unclear who owns the IPRs materials developed in the lifetime of the project, whether the resulting IPRs will be licensed between the parties involved in the project, or it will be shared. Even though the institutional agreements existed, those actually executing the projects were sometimes unclear on the meaning attached to those agreements, as there existed miscommunication between the two parties.
Intellectual property rights in the data contained in project applications and tools and generated data
Projects members agree on the importance of transcript-oriented learner data, but less importance is tied to whose responsibility to handling and accessing it. It is more on the stewardship of data than who should actually handle it. The issue of ownership of IPRsin customer generated works remains unclear.
Data privacy and confidentiality
Institutions that were involved in projects are always comfortable with their own internal use of learner personal data, but problem arises when sharing data between institutions as some institutions were uncertain about their roles within the project.
Quality assurance
IT project of system development that meets quality assurance is free of errors, and meets the cost design for the project. With mistake avoidance and reworking saves the valuable time, material and effort. Quality assurance provides the mechanism for paying close attention to details that were laid out in the system requirement. Quality assurance involves software testing and implementations. A test data is used and report is generated to see whether the output meets the stipulated conditions in the software requirement documentation.
Security threats and the vulnerability are also analysed; the password policy and the different right granted to different levels of user are also tested whether they apply. Standard users are ensured to have a limited view of the system, while administrators are given higher rights Anderson T (2006).
Maintainability which is the ability of the systems to recovers after failure and down time is also analysed. Backup and failovers server are tested if they are well configures and are working okay. Also if the need be for remote recovery site to be put in place so that in cases of wire and flood that can destroy the disk the data and the application will still be safe from the remote site
Reference
1. Adil Khan. Planning For And Monitoring Of Project Sustainability: A Guideline On Concepts, Issues And Tools.2000. http://www.mande.co.uk/docs/khan.htm
2. Andrew Charlesworth and Anna Home, Centre for IT & Law. Legal Issues raised by selected projects from the JISC MLEs for Lifelong Learning program me: Identifying areas where legal guidance is required
3. Barbara Brown. Ethical Issues in Project Management
4. http://www.ehow.com/info_7877302_ethical-issues-project-management.html
5. Bart Jutte. Risk Management. http://www.projectsmart.co.uk/10-golden-rules-of-project-risk-management.html
6. Matthew J Geiger. Ethics Problems in Project Management. (2010)
7. Vose Software™ 2007. Project risk analysis
8. http://www.vosesoftware.com/ModelRiskHelp/index.htm#Project_risk_analysis/Project_risk_analysis_introduction.htm
9. Travis K. Ostrom. Considering Sustainability Factors in The Development Project Life-Cycle.
2010.http://cee.eng.usf.edu/peacecorps/5%20%20Resources/Theses/Assessment/2010Ostrom.pdf
10. Chorafas D (2013). Quality control applications. Springer pg 29
11. R, Ronald E, Harrison R (1998). Risk assessments ands risk management. Royal society of chemistry.
12. Hopkin P S (2010). Fundamentals of risk management: understanding evaluating and implementing effective. Kogan page.
13. Anderson T (2006). Perspective on strategic risk management. Copenhagen Business School press DK
