Project Management in A Virtual EnvironmentCoursework Component 1

By Taher Khan, Timothy Lam and Simon Adebowale

Project Title

Development of an Independent Advisory and Information Blog for Commuters in London

Selection of Project

London is a city of 8 million people and has one of the most advanced transport networks in the world, the CheapoLondon Project aims to advise commuters how to save money and time. We aim to achieve this by building an independent non-governmental blog aimed at everyone who lives, commutes or visits London, the blog will research and present information on ways to reduce travel costs and travel time in London.

The main aim is to build a platform using open source technology to bring concerned Londoners from different walks of life to make use of this platform. The blog aims to provide information on cost and time saving techniques from different professional fields and perspectives. The blog will also advise on safety issues and provide a neutral space to resolve disputes between commuters and the transport networks.

Work Packages, Outputs and Activities

The Gantt chart shows the work packages, outputs and activities, it also shows duration of the project and the role allocated to complete each job within a timeframe of the total duration.

Defining Roles

Project manager The role of the project manager is to oversee the whole project and has three senior roles to look after.

Senior Researcher The senior researcher oversees overlooking and conducting research into different issues affecting commuters in London. The role will include obtaining current data from reputable surveying companies and government agencies.

Senior Business Analyst The Business Analyst will assist the senior researcher and the travel and money saving expert in conducting research from data sets.

Travel expert will conduct research and fact finding into commuter issues in London.

Money saving expert This role will see the expert who will ideally have a financial background into to conduct research into money saving techniques while commuting.

Senior Web developer Ideally an expert WordPress developer with good PHP skills, to develop the core of the CheapoLondon blogsite, the senior developer will also setup and look after the domains and server.

Junior Web Developer To assist the senior developer to build the WordPress based blog.

UX designer working closely with the e – learning specialist the UX designer will test the usability of the blog to make it a readable by a wide range of audience.

Graphics&E-Learning specialist To advise and create content suitable for visitors to learn and benefit from information on our blog.

Marketing manager Will oversee the marketing process and apply marketing principles to help the organization become well known.

Social media manager This fulfiller of this role will be head of opening and maintaining social media accounts for CheapoLondon.

Writer The in-house writer role will see the fulfiller writing articles for the website as well as reviewing guest blog pieces.

Bloggers Manager In charge of inviting guest bloggers and reviewing their blog pieces for CheapoLondon blog.

Simon

Bloggers Manager

Taher Khan

Writer

Timothy Lam

Social Media Manager

Timothy Lam

Marketing Manager

Taher Khan

Graphics & E Learning Develoepr

Timothy Lam

Junior Developer

Simon

UX Designer

Taher Khan

Senior Web Developer

Simon

Money Saving Expert

Taher Khan

Travel Expert

Timothy

Business Analyst

Simon

Senior Researcher

Taher Khan

Project Manager

Appropriate Tools Selection

After performing our needs analysis, we decided to split the tools into three sections, project management tools, social media tools and development tools, although their features may overlap we have organized them per our needs.

Project Management Tools

Tool Name Evaluation of Tool Chosen

MS Project MS Project has three broad functions, portfolio management, project management and resource management, it offers various integrated tools and integrates with power bi. This software can help us manage our project especially through its integrated tools and ease of creating Gantt charts as well as other needed charts. The collaboration aspect will also come in handy. The Microsoft Project Management software features a range of features such as project view, project calendar, task, resources and the ability produce Project summary reports. We currently need to produce a Gantt chart to have an overview of our project. MS Project is not open source and will be difficult to access from our home networks which is a downside.

No

The complexity of Microsoft Project is currently not needed at this stage of our project.

Odoo Odoo is an open source that offers a holistic approach to business management in easy website development, productivity tools. Sales tools and operational tools, as part of the productivity package its offers a project management app which is what we need. The project app is based on agile project management techniques, and features four features organize, schedule, plan and analyze, the organize feature is based on to do cards and helps break tasks down into smaller chunks, the schedule offers a similar calendar to google calendar, the plan section offers a tool to create Gannt charts and the analyze gives brief analysis on project status based on updates by individual members. The Odoo website is available free to use online and therefore accessible to all our group members always. Odoo also features a Kanban board.

Yes

Our group has chosen this project management tool as it is free to use and contains the necessary tools we require to carry out this project effectively.

Basecamp Basecamp is another online project management tool and has wealth of features such as campfire for questions, to-do list which allows manager to assign tasks, scheduling tools and cloud storage of docs and files.

No

From the information, we have found, we felt basecamp is more suitable for larger projects with more people involved it is also not free for the long term and if we wanted to continue with this project it will incur costs on us.

Open Project

Open project is yet another open source project management tool which has many rich features, it is free and offers a desktop software, open project is based on a five-step project management process, it features work packages, timelines, time and costs tools, an activity tool and a budgets tool and impressively an internal wiki tool as well as many others.

No

Trello Trello is an effective mobile app to communicate with team members, it is based on to do lists which features as cards. Due to our chosen project management tool having the same feature we decided not to use this app.

No

Slack Slack is a different type of collaborative tool which is primarily used as a replacement for emails in the workplace, it is mainly a messaging app, it categorizes messages into projects, team etc. it also has message archiving and file sharing features and integrates well with another social media.

No - It is only free to try and we feel WhatsApp has all the features we need for our small team.

WhatsApp A direct messaging app which will allow the team to communicate, share files and images. WhatsApp can also be used as a advertising tool as it allows broadcasting massages to up to 200 people at a time.

Yes

Yammer Yammer is owned by Microsoft and seamlessly integrates with Office365, it features a platform for sharing ideas, massaging, files and docs No – Odoo and google

sharing and has connected mobile apps. apps have similar alternatives.

Microsoft Excel

A handy tool to create Gannt charts, we have used Excel to create our Gantt chart. Yes

Google Apps

Google Apps has a plethora of communication and collaboration tools as noted below

Communication Tools

● Gmail● Hangout● Calendar● Google +

Collaboration Tools

● Google Drive● Google Docs● Sheets● Forms● Slides● Sites

https://gsuite.google.com/index.html

Yes - Google Apps will be used to communicate using hangouts, google calendar will be used to send reminders to team members of deadlines and likewise google+ will be part of our social media package. The collaboration tools will be used to create and work on documents, we will also save our documents on google drive for easy access for all members.

SharePoint SharePoint is Microsoft premier collaboration tool, SharePoint is available over the university network. It has a cloud version for a small fee. It allows personal websites for each group member and has brilliant collaboration tools all in one place and acts as a internal company intranet

No - Although SharePoint is a good choice it is currently too

service.

https://support.office.com/en-gb/article/What-is-SharePoint-97b915e6-651b-43b2-827d-fb25777f446f

large for our project and is not needed, also the availability is an issue.

Social Media Tools

Linkedin CheapoLondon will utilize this professional network to let commuters who work in different fields know about this project, Linkedin mainly differs from other social networks as it is themed around networking for professionals and those looking for work.

Yes

We will use Linkedin to let fellow south bankers and professionals know about our project.

Twitter Twitter will be used as part of our social media network to advertise CheapoLondon, twitter allows potential followers to follow us and keep up to date with our blog.

Yes

Wiki Wiki will be to facilitate a knowledge bank for guest bloggers and other users. Yes

Facebook Facebook will be used as part of our social media network to advertise CheapoLondon, allows posting of links, articles, notes and allows followers

Yes

Development Tools

WordPress The content management system will be used to create the core of the CheapoLondon blog. Yes

Adobe Photoshop

Adobe Photoshop will be utilized to make the poster to advertise CheapoLondon. Yes

Adobe Illustrator

Adobe Illustrator will be utilized to create a logo for CheapoLondon. Yes