ITEC640 FINAL EXAM

Business Case

Ebenezer Foch and his wife, Esmerelda, immigrated to the United States from Lower Slovenia in 1921, settling in Muncie Indiana. Foch had been a talented plumber in the old country; he quickly found work at the AAA Plumbing Supply Company. Nine years later, with his life savings and a small loan from the Second National Bank of Muncie, Foch was able to purchase the AAA Plumbing Supply Company from its owner, who had decided to retire. The Fochs had five children. One by one each child left home, starting his or her own franchise of the AAA Plumbing Supply Company in a different city.

Over the years the AAA Plumbing Supply Company and its franchises proved quite successful. There are now a total of twenty-three offices across the United States. Each has its own IT department, servers, and network attached storage (NAS). All use the same business applications: Accounts Payable, Accounts Receivable, General Ledger, Inventory Management, as well as their own customer-facing website.

Ralph Foch, Ebenezer Foch’s grandson, is currently CEO of AAA Plumbing Supply Company, Inc. Mary Wilcox, AAA’s Chief Technical Officer (CTO), has proposed to Foch that they centralize IT by developing a private cloud. Her proposal is to buy commercial blade servers, racks, and NAS from the Acme Computer Company. Zenith Software will be responsible for porting the current business applications to the private cloud. Argos Data Centers, Inc. will upgrade the physical facility to ensure adequate cooling, power, and physical security. The private cloud will be operated and maintained by the AAA Plumbing Supply Company IT department. Foch agrees to the plan, proving that (1) operations will not be disrupted, and (2) work will be completed in 18 months. Mary Wilcox will be the Project Manager.

Assignment 1: Stakeholders(10 points) -

List 5 stakeholders for this project.

Stakeholder 1:

Stakeholder 2:

Stakeholder 3:

Stakeholder 4:

Stakeholder 5:

Assignment 3: Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) (20 points)

Develop a WBS for this Project. DO NOT DEVELOP A GANTT CHART. All I want to see is a task decomposition. See Marchewka p. 160, Figure 6.3 for an example. Insert your WBS below.

<insert WBS here>

Assignment 6: Outsourcing (20 points)

List five potential mistakes AAA may make in outsourcing parts of this project. Explain how they can mitigate or avoid each mistake (2-3 sentences).

1. Mistake: _____________________________________________

Mitigate/Avoid: _____________________________________________

2. Mistake: _____________________________________________

Mitigate/Avoid: _____________________________________________

3. Mistake: _____________________________________________

Mitigate/Avoid: _____________________________________________

4. Mistake: _____________________________________________

Mitigate/Avoid: _____________________________________________

5. Mistake: _____________________________________________

Mitigate/Avoid: _____________________________________________

Figure 6.3 provides an example of a WBS with the details shown for only the testing phase of the project. As you can see, the WBS implements the concept of a work package for the project, phase, deliverable, task/activity, and milestone components that were illustrated inFigure 6.1. This particular WBS follows an outline format with a commonly used decimal numbering system that allows for continuing levels of detail.¹ If a software package is used to create the WBS, signs in front of each item can either hide or show the details. For example, clicking on “?6.2 Test Results Report” would roll up the details of this work package into “+6.2 Test Results Report.” Similarly, clicking on any item with a “+” in front of it would expand that item to show the details associated with it.

The skills to develop a useful WBS generally evolve over time with practice and experience. Everyone, experienced or not, should keep in mind the following points when developing a WBS.

Figure 6.3 Work Breakdown Structure