Project The Development of the Project - Report Example

Project Chatter By Student’s Name Course Instructor Institution Date Project Charter Applicable Processes/Procedures: The development of the project chatter will involve various steps the necessary to the development of the actual project (Heldman, Mangano, & Feddersen, 2016). This process will involve establishing the project leadership, putting forward the business case, defining the business problem, establishing the project goals, establishing the project’s deliverables, stating the project assumptions, determining the constraints and risks, mapping out the stakeholders, establishing the team members, and seeking approval for the project. 1 General Information: Project Title: Development digital receivers and scanners for customer care service providers Project ID: Digital Communications 2016 Sponsoring Organisation: Telstra and American Online Sponsor Representative: Respective Companies PR officers Prepared by: Sponsor Representatives Version: First Version 1. Project Stakeholders: Position Title/Name/Organization Phone E-mail Sponsor Representative Telstra and American Online, and other interested Call centre service provides Telstra: +1 877-835-7872 American Online: +1 800-827-6364 Telstra: contact through www.telstra.com American Online: contact through corp.aol.com Program Manager Will be contracted by the digital receiver and scanners provider Not yet available Not yet available Project Manager Will be contracted by the digital receiver and scanners provider Not yet available Not yet available Customer / User Representative(s) Customer representatives Not yet available Not yet available Digital receiver and scanners provider AOR limited a Japanese telecommunication devices giant (03) 3865-1695 in Japan +81 3-3865-1695 International mail@aorja.com 2. Executive Summary Call Centres are usually centralized offices that are used to receive and transmit information or rather messages that have a large volume using telephones (Kurniali & Titan, 2015). Despite the fact that these call centres are automated they tend to face a specific problem that has necessitated the need for the engineering industry to come up with a solution. The problem revolves around impaired speech (Simpson, 2009) which occurs due to the fact that many people do not know how to use their voices and have problems using them as well. A specific company operating in the engineering industry has found a solution to this problem. The solution involves the company getting to develop a useful tool that will be used to decode impaired voices. They will achieve this by securing a sponsor to facilitate the project, a task that they have already achieved since specific call centre providers have decided to do so. The project will need 3 software engineers ,2 electronic hardware engineers who will all be 100% involved in the project and a technician who will be 50% involved in the project. The project is to be completed in 2 years meaning all the software and hardware aspects of the project should be completed by then. Additional technical expertise will be implemented if necessary in terms of the company hiring more workers as consultants. Once complete, the project result will be tested in licensed institutions to ascertain whether it can be used in the calling centre in question. 3. Project Purpose The project is to be done mainly to solve the problem of impaired speech from clients using calling centres. The voice is an important tool in facilitating effective communication. If a client’s voice is impaired in any way, it may pose as a threat to any business that uses call centres to sustain its business activities. There are many people in the country at the moment and some of them have impaired voices due to functional health vocal problems. The project will ultimately eliminate problems that arise from impaired speech and make communication possible through the use of tool that will come out of this project. 3.1. Business Need / Problem . This project is sorely meant to help businesses facilitate effective business transactions in terms of offering effective and professional customer care services (Bennington, Cummane, & Conn, 2000). As stated above impaired speech in terms of clients’ voices is a major drawback for many business owners with call centres in their organizations. This project will help the business in question make its call centre reduce call response time (Cleveland, 2012) an issue that most clients find irritating. This will ultimately help the business organization retain its customers and gain more due to the fact that call centre issues like impaired speech decoding will be eliminated. As Cleveland (2012) notes, customer feedback gets to be clear as well since clients despite their speech conditions whether good or impaired will be catered for effectively and in the most professional way possible. There will be a reduction in time wastages since workers working in this call centre will not have to take extra time to decode impaired speech on their own. The project will provide these workers with the necessary tool to use in decoding impaired speech all in effort to make sure time they could have used to do so is channel into more productive aspects of the business in question. With the development of the new technology, cost cutting objectives will become attainable once this tool is fully functional since the speech recognition technology eliminates the need for more workers in the business organization; this reduces labour costs (Koivikko, Kauppinen & Ahovuo, 2008) for the business owner. According to Dua et al. (2014) the technologies making possible for people with disabilities use the service. With reduced costs and ability of more people to use the services, productivity in the business organization will also increase meaning sales will ultimately increase as well. This is because the tool being developed by the team in place will eliminate any errors that may occur when clients call in to seek services from the call centre and wrong information is taken. As a result, all clients of irrespective of their abilities or disabilities will be able to receive satisfactory services from the call centres. 3.2. Business Objectives Strategic Plan Element Project Business Objectives Create and develop a tool that will eliminate impaired speech problems that affect the business’ in question call center. Eliminate business problems associated with impaired speech (Simpson, 2009) among potential and current clients. Develop speech recognition technology that will ultimately help eliminate impaired voice related problems that affect customer service activities. Increase efficiency of marketing, surveying and controlling (Cleveland, 2012). Solve problems in less time possible. Proper customer care relations between clients and the business enterprise tend to create a good relationship between both parties. This leads to acquisition of more clients in the long run a move that means more profit will be accrued over time. Give clients automated options. Clients get to offer feedback on the services they get to receive from the business organization. This gives the business the advantage of knowing elements in the business in terms of services being offered that they need to change eliminate and improve. Give clients automated options. Clients get to offer feedback on the services they get to receive from the business organization. This gives the business the advantage of knowing elements in the business in terms of services being offered that they need to change eliminate and improve. The business organization gets to sustain its continuous growth and development giving it a chance to establish more branches in different parts of the country. Effectively facilitate customer resolution. Adequate customer problem resolution during the first conversation attempt ensures that the business organization through its call centre maintain its high service levels. A move that keeps it on top of its competitors. Represent the company positively. The business organization’s reputation depends highly on how call centre services are offered to its clients (Sojka, Kopeček & Pala, 2004). Impaired speech decoding tools among other mechanisms are used to encourage clients to seek services of the business organization since they get to be catered for efficiently as expected. The business’s image gets to be improved and business operations get to increase as a positive effect of good representation. Retain clients. Retaining clients who get to become repeat purchasers is less expensive than acquiring new clients over time (Keiningham et al. 2006). Extra funding that was meant to be used on acquiring new clients gets to be allocated to more viable projects that enable the business grow and expand as expected. Create an effective organization system. An effective organization system (Sharp, 2003) helps the business generate increased sales and increase the business’s revenue collection all while increasing its customer base. Create an effective technical support system. This will enable the business run smoothly since its specific objectives will be achieved. Eliminate unnecessary labour force. The project will enable the business eliminate extra labour present in the business organization (Bergevin, 2010). This helps the business in reducing its budget in terms of operations. Cater for extra clients. Clients that normally do not get catered for due to speech impairment issues get the chance to be catered for (Rafaeli, Ziklik, & Doucet, 2008). This in turn increases the business organizations’ earnings. Develop an effective sales centre. Effective sales due to effective customer relations gives the business organization an edge over it competitors coupled with increased earnings for the business organisation (Sojka, Kopeček, & Pala, 2004). 4. Project Overview 4.1. Project Description The project will involve six key figures all comprising of a technician, two electronic hardware engineers and three software engineers. All parties involved are expected to complete the task which is developing a tool that will eliminate business related impairment speech problems in the call centre in question; a task that is supposed to take 2 years. Additional room in the industrial building will also be put up for lease a move that will be complemented by the leasing of a special network analyser; licensed tests will also be conducted in licensed institutions. Additional technical help will be hired if needed. The project will be sponsored by a call centre as it strives to benefit from the whole exercise. 4.2. Scope The project is being carried out by an engineering company and involves the sponsorship of an interested party as well that serves as call centre in its own right. The ultimate end result of this project is the creating of a tool that will help eliminate impaired speech problems that are faced by call centres particularly the call centre in question when it deals with its current and potential clients. The technology created will have the ability to identify words or phrases that are spoken and convert them into machine readable content. The decoding tool created will enable customers to interact with it instead of speaking to it. It will take place in an industrial building and will be expected to be complete in 2 years. 4.3. Assumptions That the project will be completed in 2 years; there is no proof to certify that the project will actually be finished in the period specified. The work may take more than two years depending on externalities that may affect the whole development process. Workers may have days that they miss to engage in development activities of the project maybe due to missed work days, weekends and holidays. That there will be an additional room(s) that will be leased in the industrial buildings. There is a possibility that all the rooms in the building will be used by the team working on the project. That the team in place will need additional help to develop the impaired speech elimination tool. There is no proof to make this statement a certainty since the work has not yet began. The number of workers meant to do the work may be already adequate for the project to be completed on time. That the project will be successful; this is less likely to be true since errors and challenges are bound to affect the whole process. The number of workers chosen as part of the project’s team is an estimation of the required number of workforce needed to complete the work in 2 years as expected; the chosen figure for the team making up the workers to be involved in the project may not necessarily be enough to achieve the desired objective. 4.4. Constraints The work must take 2 years; based on the agreement made by both parties involved the work is supposed to be finished on the agreed upon time since the sponsorship is based solely on the time it will take. Sponsorship will be cut off after two years since that is what the sponsor is ready to offer. The developed speech impairment decoding tool must be tested in licensed institutions in order to validate it effectiveness as a speech impairment tool. Some workers are required to be fully involved in the project while others are not.5 workers comprising of software and electronic hardware engineers will be required to engage in the project fully (100% engagement).The technician who is the sixth member of the development team will only be partially involved in the project (50% engagement). Any additional rooms should be leased; this will enable the parties involved raise extra money in order to facilitate the project. 5. Project Requirements / Deliverables The project must be able to come forth with a tool that will be effective in solving impaired speech related problems that most call centres face in their operations. This will ultimately improve customer service since the call centre in question will be able to adequately deal with clients who suffer from impaired voice problems due to health reasons (Cleveland, 2012). Clients will also get the ability to be catered for in less time since no delays will occur due to time being set aside by workers to decode any impaired speech they get on their end. Tasks and duties in the production, development and creation process of the project will have to undergo evaluation and measurement in order to devise and allocate work equally for good results. 6. Project Management Milestones and Deliverables . Milestone / Deliverable Estimated Date Responsible Individual Completion of the project. Project team workers. Testing of the project in licensed institutions that operate in the same field as call operators. Project team workers. Implementation of the tool developed to eliminate impaired speech problems. Call centre operator that sponsored the engineering company’s development venture. 7. Costs / Budget . Purpose Amount Source Develop and create speech impairment decoding tool. $10,000,000 Call centre provider Hire workers; the whole team and all necessary additional technical help in terms of consultants. $3,000,000 Call centre provider 8. Personnel & Other Resources . Resources Description Project Team One technician, two electronic hardware engineers and three software engineers. All sourced from the engineering company that partnered with the call centre operator that is financing the whole project. Support Additional technical consultants if necessary. They will share ideas on better ways to make the impaired speech decoding tool. Facilities Industrial building. Act as the site where production, development and creation of the impaired speech decoding tool will be developed. It will be divided into partitions in order to reduce noise. Effective lighting will be placed in the building in order to make sure production activities are unaffected in any way. Equipment Keyboards, computers, software programs and packages. These programs can be language based all in an effort to help clients develop their speech and language as well (Fichten et al., 2012). The keyboards and computers will be used to develop the necessary programs and softwares that will enable the technology created function effectively (Lidström & Hemmingsson, 2014; Sanaman & Kumar, 2014). Software Tools Clicker 6 and First Words for younger clients; Dyna Vox and Liberator (Gargiulo, 2006). Such software tools are used to help in facilitating effective communication since they advance communication as a science. Other Conducting testing in licensed institutions. They will be selected on the basis of effectiveness in order to produce accurate results as expected. 9. Project Risks Risks are statements of issues or problems that have the potential to arise but have not yet occurred. List and describe the initial risks for this project. Qualification deficits; qualification deficits may occur when the team is being selected. This may lead to ineffective results in terms of achieving the desired goal which is developing a tool that helps in decoding voice impairment issues that relate to clients’ speech (Noronha & D’Cruz, 2009). Disruptive noise; noise brought about by neighbouring work places in the industrial building may greatly affected the productivity of the workers. Excessive confusing information; information generated by members of the team facilitating the completion of the project; may be confusing in some way if there is no well-established system to combine and execute ideas generated (Koivikko, Kauppinen, & Ahovuo, 2008). Poor lighting conditions; poor lighting condition (Patel & Broughton 2002) if the industrial building is not in adequate condition may make production activities slow since workers will not be comfortable when doing their work. Restrictive instructions; restrictive instructions given by the management unit of the project may limit the team in terms of executing ideas that may seem risky but beneficial in nature if executed. Information security; information on the project may be stolen or accessed by external in order to benefit from the work being done without the necessary permission. This takes place through hacking activities that may be undertaken as a move by competitors to gain an extra footing over the whole idea. Management changes; management changes that normally occur in such projects tend to affect how production and activities in such projects get handled. They can delay the work or affect the work negatively in terms of a bad relationship developing between the new manager and the workers themselves (Rabechini & de Carvalho, 2013). Third party involvement; this will expose the project to more risks when it comes to sensitive information about the data being accessible to a large number of people. Legal risks; legislation measures set by a government or local authority can have severe consequences in terms of the project getting to be finished on time. If any of these codes of conduct are broken the project can be halted or even stopped moves that pose a risk to the project itself. Financial risk; this is seen whereby funding of the project may run out abruptly, a move that can halt the project immediately and necessitate the engineering company to seek another sponsor. The project managers or manager should develop strategies that will be used to prevent wasteful use of financial resources meant to fund the project (Rabechini & de Carvalho, 2013). Technological risks; software and hardware tools that are to be used in the project development process may be destroyed due to one reason or another. This will adversely affect the whole project. Safety risks; lack of proper safety measures for the workers may lead to accidents occurring in the workplace. Inspections by local authorities may also yield to the discovering of safety violations which may make the project get deemed dangerous to continue until they are rectified. 10. Project Organization 10.1. Project Organization Chart Provide a graphic depiction of the project’s organizational structure. The project’s hierarchal diagram begins with the project sponsor and includes all project stakeholders. Project Coordinator Program Manager Project Manager Project Team Additional technical consultants The project coordinator it the main person in charge of the project implementation. The coordinator is a critical factor in the success of the project and mainly represents the interest of the sponsors. The sponsors are the main stakeholder, and the reason project will be achievable. This is due to the fact that the call centre operator in question which acts as the project sponsor gets to offer the necessary funding to make this project achievable. The coordinator thus candidates all activities between the sponsor and the engineering company. The program coordinator is also responsible for liaising with other interested institutions include the institutions that will be used as licensed institutions to test whether the developed speech impairment decoding tool or technology is ready for use by the call centre operator financing the whole project. The program manager is in changer of managing the programs. As an appointee of the engineering company, he corresponds with the company and the coordinator company. The Engineering Company serves as the party that is involved in the development of the decoding tool. It gets to provide the necessary workforce needed to create and develop it. It has an equal say in the project’s activities. Project Manager is in charge of managing the project processes and ensuring that the project team undertake their responsibilities. He directly relays project instructions to the project team. He is answerable to the project coordinator and program manager The project team is the team charged with the actual task of coming up with the tool itself through the sharing of ideas and doing to actual handiwork in its development. The team is sourced from employees working in the engineering company. Additional technical consultants will be sourced from the engineering company as well but only when the situation deems it necessary. They will not be part of the project until when their services will be required. 10.2. Roles & Responsibilities Describe the Roles and Responsibilities of all project stakeholders identified for this project. Stakeholder Title Name Roles & Responsibilities Project sponsor Telstra and American Online, and other interested Call centre service provides Finance the project. Money raised will be used to pay the workers involved and to acquire the necessary equipment to make the project successful. Engineering company. AOR limited Offer the necessary workers that make up the team. The workers will be provide by the company itself based o their performance in the parent company. The work will be supervised by key officials selected by the engineering company in order to ensure quality work is done. Project team To be constituted Develop the speech impairment decoding tool. To ensure that the developed speech impairment decoding tool is tested in licensed institutions inorder to make sure that its performance is effective as expected. Make sure that the agreements made by the two parties are adhered to and that the work is completed on time, which is in 2 years. Additional technical consultants(if necessary) To be hired Offer consultancy services. This means any additional work may be allocated to them in terms of sharing ideas with the project team already in place. Other related institutions Interested parties and stakeholders including the government and investors Serve as locations where testing of the finished tool can be done. 11. Approval Signatures The Signatures of the people below document acceptance and approval of the formal Project Charter. The Sponsor Representative must have the authority to commit the organization’s resources to the project. The Project Manager is empowered by this charter to proceed with the project as outlined in the charter. Position/Title Signature/Printed Name/Title Date Sponsor Representative Not available yet N/A Program Manager Not available yet N/A Project Manager Not available yet N/A Questions 1. What do you think is it better to have a project manager who knew the department or outsider? Are there some potential problems with this approach? It is better to have a project manager who has knowledge on the department since he or she is able to access the work being done and make sure that the final outcome of the project is what is required. 2. Who else can be a sponsor of this project? Or by other words what has to be done if sponsor is not interested in project any more. The company itself can finance the project by seeking the necessary capital from investors that is shareholders. This can be made possible if the company sells more of its shares to potential shareholders as a means of raising the necessary capital to fiancé the project. 3. From engineering point of view what is the most dangerous risk in similar projects. Lack of proper funding used to facilitate the project itself. A project or projects like these are expensive to undertake therefore they can go unfinished if funding becomes an issue. References Bennington, L Cummane, J & Conn, P. 2000, Customer satisfaction and call centers: an Australian study, International Journal of Service Industry Management, 11(2), pp. 162-173. Bergevin, R. 2010, Call centers for dummies. Mississauga, Wiley & Sons Canada, Ontario. Cleveland, B. 2012, Call Center Management on Fast Forward: Succeeding in the New Era of Customer Relationships (3rd Edition), ICMI Press Dua, T. et al. 2014, Speech Recognition Technology for Hearing Disabled Community, International Journal of Advanced Computer Research (ISSN) 4(3)2249-7277. Fichten, CS et al. 2012, Information and communication technology related needs of college and university students with disabilities, Research in Learning Technology, 2012(20), 18646 - http://dx.doi.org/10.3402/rlt.v20i0.18646. Gargiulo, RM. 2006, Special Education in Contemporary Society: An Introduction to Exceptionality 5th Ed., SAGE Publications Inc., New York Heldman, K Mangano, V & Feddersen, B 2016, PMP: Project management professional exam review guide, Sybex, a Wiley Brand, Hoboken. Keiningham, TL Aksoy, L Andreassen, TR Cooil, B & Wahren, BJ. 2006, Call center satisfaction and customer retention in a co-branded service context, Managing Service Quality, 16(3), 269-289. Koivikko, MP Kauppinen, T and Ahovuo, J. 2008, Improvement of Report Workflow and Productivity Using Speech Recognition—A Follow-up Study, J Digit Imaging 21(4): 378–382. Kurniali, S & Titan. 2015, Customer Service Information System for a Call Center, Procedia Computer Science, 59(2015) 298-304. Lidström, H & Hemmingsson, H. 2014, Benefits of the use of ICT in school activities by students with motor, speech, visual, and hearing impairment: a literature review, Scandinavian Journal of Occupational Therapy, (21), 4, 251-266. Noronha, E & D’Cruz, P. 2009, Employee Identity in Indian Call Centres, Sage/Response, New Delhi. Patel, JA & Broughton, K. 2002, Assessment of Noise Exposure of Call Centre Operators, Ann Occup Hyg, 46(8), 653-61. Rabechini, R & de Carvalho, MM. 2013, Understanding the Impact of Project Risk Management on Project Performance: an Empirical Study, J. Technol. Manag. Inno 8(Special Issues), 64-79. Rafaeli, A Ziklik, L & Doucet, L. 2008, The Impact of Call Center Employees’ Customer Orientation Behaviors on Service Quality, Journal of Service Research, XX(X), 1-17. Sanaman, G & Kumar, S. 2014, Assistive Technologies for People with Disabilities in National Capital Region Libraries of India, Library Philosophy and Practice, Paper 1200. Sharp, DE. 2003, Call Center operation: Design, operation, and maintenance, Digital Press, Amsterdam. Simpson, J. 2009, Inclusive Information and Communication Technologies for People with Disabilities, Disability Studies Quarterly Winter, 29(1), viewed 16 August 18, 2016 Sojka, P., Kopeček, I & Pala, K. 2004, Text, Speech and Dialogue: 7th International Conference TSD 2004, Brno, Czech Republic, September 8-11, 2004. Edited by Sojka P., Kopecek I., Pala K. prvni. Brno: Springer Verlag, 2004. 667 s. Lecture Notes in Computer Science Volume 3206. Read More