Project Management - Soul Data Recovery & IT Solution Ltd - Case Study Example

Project Management xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Case Study for a PID for a Digital Forensic Project xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Name xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Lecturer xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Date Submitted Contents Contents 2 1.0.Introduction 3 2.0.Business Case Background 4 3.0.Project Goals 5 4.0.Project Scope, Roles, Responsibilities and Control 5 4.0.1. Scope 5 4.0.2. Roles and Responsibilities 5 5.0.Introduction 6 5.0.1. Purpose for the document 6 5.0.2. Background 6 5.0.3. Objectives 7 6.0.Scope, interfaces and exclusion 7 7.0.Deliverables 8 8.0.Constraints 9 9.0.Assumptions 10 10.0.Business benefits 10 11.0.Risk management 11 12.0.Project organizational structure 11 References 13 1.0. Introduction Evidently, to SMEs management, project management literature seems to be complex, overwhelming or downright inapplicable in their business environments. However, with the current global business competitive environment, SMEs are redefining and refocusing their project management in order to handle their performance growth and improvement on service and goods delivery being produced. Project management in SMEs is considered to be an added value in that these enterprises have the agility and ability to gradually bring ability to adapt change. It is therefore important that through the use of project management intelligence to be scaled so as to fit to requirements displayed in SMEs to develop a competitive advantage. Within SMEs, project management is defined as the art and science of organizing components displayed in a project whether it’s a project in developing new product, launch of new service, marketing campaign. Its main basic are described in five main basics namely; definition, planning, execution, control and closure. These basic determines what project management is within SMEs. It is for this reason that this study focuses on analyzing Soul Data Recovery & IT Solution Ltd whereby a PID will be developed. The developed PID is aimed at satisfying customers’ needs in response to the case study. Key issues and requirements will be evaluated to ensure there is successful implementation. Further, project deliverables, scope, roles and responsibility controlled will be identified as well as assumptions, risks, contingencies, constraints and legal aspects will be analyzed. 2.0. Business Case Background Soul Data Recovery & IT Solution Ltd trades as an SME under its CEO Mr. Manos Llewelly. Its core function within a business which is largely involved in providing IT and network services, data recovery and support to institutions, schools and business across Wales. There is a great opportunity for this SME to expand its business into a more lucrative arena of expert witness support and digital forensic. Being an SME, the business is involved in sponsorship mainly from GO Wales and other businesses which have foresees its ability to employ twenty five people within its environs. The business has widely reorganize its employees to meet up its objectives whereby it has incorporates legal advisors, network and IT support, instillation custom build team, personal assistant and customer liaison officer (Garber, 2001). Due to its ability to trade successfully, the business has been able to establish a national database of satisfied customers. However, there have been complains on the business from its clients regarding misappropriation of digital data which is due to non conformance of company policies, internet and social media misuse, bulling and harassment, inappropriate websites and images via company infrastructures calling for drastic measures to be taken with immediate effect. It is from such reputation that the business needs to come up with a plan which will foresee expansion of the business by way of initialization of digital forensic departments as well as offering new services that are not currently on offer. 3.0. Project Goals In order to develop Soul Data Recovery & IT Solution Ltd project goals it is important to understand their current business set up. The business is a medium size located in the outskirts of Cardiff City Centre. Being in the outskirt of Cardiff City and its desire to expand, the business projects goals are; Using project management to know its key business drivers especially within Cardiff City Centre Recruit people that have required skills to meet customer satisfaction by way of outlining key issues and requirements needed for successful project implementation Development of simple templates that will establish project plan in a definable and consistent manner. Largely using designed project management scorecards to measures effectiveness of Souls expansion project 4.0. Project Scope, Roles, Responsibilities and Control 4.0.1. Scope The project scope entails identifying what is needed within the business to ensure customer needs are met. Further, complains raised by customers need to be refurbished so as to foresee the expansion of the business to greater heights ensuring that this Welsh small medium enterprise remain the leading trading business (Carrier, 2002). 4.0.2. Roles and Responsibilities Being a small and medium size enterprise, the business need not to recruit external individuals to carry put the projects. Within the twenty five employees, roles will be divided according to each individual job description so as to fit into the expansion project. The CEO will head the project where he will initiate the program whereas the other employees will be involved in giving the project manager who is also the CEO feedbacks. The network & IT support and installation & custom-build team will be used effectively to provide information systems to facilitate the successful implementation of the project (Carrier, 2002). 5.0. Introduction 5.0.1. Purpose for the document The sole purpose for the Project Initiation Document (PID) is to elaborate the rationale of the establishment of the digital forensic project. The PID will strive to address the aim of the project, why the project wants to achieve the set objectives, the strategies that will be utilized, the human resource and manpower that will be involved and when the project is to be implemented. Upon its approval, the baseline of the project will be provided by the PID. This document will be referred to upon making any major decisions in relation to the project. The PID will also be vital in the projects evaluation process (Carrier, 2002). 5.0.2. Background The internet is one of the pivotal features of the computer software. Most of the cases in the law courts have witnessed an upward increase in the number of cases that involve the recovery of financial data and messages. The loss of digital data in court ordered productions have been effected through the adoption and creation of detection tools that are intentionally created to thwart these processes. Thus the need to establish a project that will not only aid in the identification and detection of lost digital data but also in presenting the acquired data confidentially with reports that are comprehensive, depositions, litigation support, court testimony and graphical exhibits. The project will strive to collaborate with its clients and engage through the project scope costs and planning. Each of the work plans are to be crafted and drafted with precision as well as maintaining its quality through the employment of tight performance standards (Holley, 2000). 5.0.3. Objectives The project purposes to; Offer electronic enterprise discovery for its clients Provide digital state of the art forensic examination for legal action testimony and support Applications for the analysis of software forensics Provide CCTV and imagery forensic analysis Provide investigation for the misuse of information systems Provision of professional digital forensic clinical training Provision of intrusion detection and survivability of the digital security systems 6.0. Scope, interfaces and exclusion The project will initially target the clients in the various learning institutions that benefit from the IT services in Wales and gradually progress too the rest of the parts as we address the gaps and pitfalls that will exist in the process. The project will develop a website where the clients will place their digital forensic investigations and protection requests. The sites will be easy to access for the clients but will however have a detection to allow it monitor the persons who log in and their activities. The payment system for these services will be via credit card details that will only be known by the financial department heads. The site will also be a chance for the project to market its products and have it acquire more clients and form a competitive advantage. In addition, the site will also aid in the gauging and monitoring the progress of the project as the project as the persons visiting the site will respond to short questions that are aimed at identifying the strengths and weaknesses in the project strategies (Holley, 2000). 7.0. Deliverables The digital data discovery will entail the mining of data from all the systems. This will include desk tops, peripheral devices and servers. The services will also entail the recovery of data that will have been deleted or hidden either through stenography or encryption technique processes. This will involve the discovery of data electronically for the purposes of civil litigation or investigation. The data collection will be recreated in order to identify the whole picture of the transaction and process through which it was lost. The data recovery will also be able to have the persons who accessed the data be identified through the utilization of the CCTV placed in the strategic points of the clients premises. If the data was accessed trough external means, the data recovery will be able to identify the location and the serial numbers of the computer or electronic device that was used in decoding the information. The serial number will be able to lead the firm to the owner of the used gadget and be able to issue warrants of arrest in collaboration with the police department (Bill, 2004). The project will be able to provide ethical, unbiased, and scientific professional practices in ensuring the data of the clients is safely retrieved, investigated and stored in reported cases of alleged misuse of data. The project is able to offer these services through the use of digital recovery principles which include; documentation of the history of the history that has been created, making of the exact copy of all the contained data on the media while at the same time protecting it from any changes, retrieval of data that had been lost or deleted, term searching to check for any existence of programs, key words, cryptographic stenography or markers and finally reporting. The project through its staff has the expertise in the searching for information through and using all digital devices (Farmer, 2005). These include; phones, PDAs, Ipads, USB keys and many others. The firm will also be able to apply the software analysis to determine the structure, origin, style, form, code uniqueness, grammatical and spelling or syntactic errors in the retrieved documents. The software analysis is able to identify the characteristics of the data and point out the changes that occurred on it. The experience in the analysis of data is varied and not limited to Pascal basic, C/ C++ Visual Basics, Java MATLAB, controller logic and PERL Shell Scripts. Through the analysis, the firm will be able to identify the authorship of the data, identify the hacking process used in addition to the virus infections on the data. In addition, the analysis process will be able to have the project provide the clients with the product liability and identify the existing algorithmic errors on the retrieved data. The firm sill in addition provides services for its clients that are geared towards the identification of the misuse of the data systems and order investigations in to this. The firm will also be able to offer services in relation to intrusion detection and system survivability (Carrier, 2003). 8.0. Constraints The initial limit for the budget $10,000 has already been allocated to the project. The budgetary allocations will carter for both the internal and external expenditures. 9.0. Assumptions No internet connections will be made will be made to our internal Information Technology systems The main budgetary allocation will be enough to meet the needs of both the internal and external expenditure external 10.0. Business benefits Research from recent studies has indicated that companies dealing in digital forensics are able to generate more than 20% of their summed revenues. The firm’s turnover at this was recorded to be approximately $2m per annum. If the project only manages to attain 10% of the amount of turnover expected by the firm the revenues will be increased by $40,000pa. This means that the total amount used as capital for the project will have been recovered in a year. The annual revenue in this case is expected to be at 25%. The turnover is projected to be higher if the number of internet users will keep growing and the firm increases its client base to the wider Wales region. The asset revenue will thus be projected to be at 40% pa (Kenneally, 2001). 11.0. Risk management The project general manager will be in charge of the risk register maintenance as well as its review. The project board will be expected to work hand in and with the team to ensure that the project maintains the up most performance. The project supervisor as well as the general manager of the project is to work hand in hand with the project board in performing the escalation of the perceived risks. The updating of the Issue log will be utilized in the project team to record any kind of escalation that is noticed in the project implementation process (Lynch, 2000). 12.0. Project organizational structure The project will be managed by 25 employees as represented in the organogram below. Project References Bill, N. (2004). Guide to Computer Forensics and Investigations. Boston, MA: Thomson Course Technology, 2004. Carrier, B. (2002). Defining Digital Forensics Examination and Analysis Tools. In Digital Research Workshop II. Carrier, B. (2003). Defining Digital Forensics Examination and Analysis Tools Using Abstraction Layers. International Journal of Digital Evidence. Vol 1, Issue 4,Winder. Eoghan, E. (2000). Digital Evidence and Computer Crime (Second Edition). San Diego, CA: Academic Press. Farmer, Dan; V. (2005). Forensic Discovery. Addison-Wesley Professional. Garber, L. (2001). EnCase: A Case Study in Computer-Forensic Technology. IEEE Computer Magazine January. Holley, J. (2000). Computer Forensics Market Survey. SC Magazine, September. Kenneally, B. (2001). Gatekeeping Out Of The Box: Open Source Software As A Mechanism To Assess Reliability For Digital Evidence. Virginia Journal of Law and Technology. Vol 6, Issue 3. Lynch, C. (2000). Authenticity and Integrity in the Digital Environment: An Exploratory Analysis of the Central Role of Trust. In Authenticity in a Digital Environment. Washington, DC: Council on Library and Information Resources. Read More