E-Commerce Advertisement Project at the Electronic Arts Inc - Essay Example

Lecturer E – Commerce Advertisement Project, at the Electronic Arts Inc Introduction Advertisement is one of the critical factors involved in the success of any product even for the products being sold using eCommerce that is one of the mediums to increase the sales of the products globally. The vital aspect of the advertisement is the creativity in a way to encourage and compel the viewers, listeners and / or readers (audience) for buying the product. There are several mediums to market the product includes, but are not limited to the development of the website, marketing through social networks (either online or magazines), television, radio, newspaper, articles, email marketing, short message services and multimedia distribution methods (CD-ROM, DVD, mobile phone applications). Keeping in view the importance of the advertisement, the Electronic Arts Incorporation (our client) decided to advertise their products over the internet, sale of the products (eCommerce) and along with development of videos (EA Inc., 2014). The Electronic Arts Inc. selected the Rubicon (Project Vendor and I am the Project Manager) to initiate the development of eCommerce enabled website along with the online videos for the advertisement. The vendor Rubicon is one of the leading companies for selling and buying of the advertising globally (Rubicon, 2014). In the initial sections of the document examines the scope, objectives, goals and the critical success factors of the project. The document proceeds with explaining the project management methods include: the Gantt Chart, critical path, network diagram and financial plan (cost estimates) of the project. Moreover, the document includes the organizational chart showing the internal and external organization as well as a responsibility assignment matrix. The document further contains an evaluation of the risks involved in the project and how they (risks) avoided by the vendor. The last part of the document contains suggestions for alternative project management methods and guidelines for the project to bring back it to the track, if there is slippage in the schedule of the project. 1.1 Project Scope and Objectives The project of the Electronic Arts Inc has its own unique requirements; moreover, the scope and objectives of the project have been identified and given below (Alsmadi, Alhami, and Alsmadi, 2009). Project’s Characteristics Electronic Arts Incorporation Goal and Objectives (Portny, n.d) Get a diverse audience excited about the games of EA Inc. Educate that audience about EA Inc.’s features and services Development of a sophisticated website having a web-savvy look Website ability to sell and purchase games (eCommerce) Easy to maintain website Incorporate multimedia – Flash for the menus and video for advertisement Customer registration and membership Development of a site referral program It is pertinent to mention here that there are several more objectives of the EA Inc.’s project. Management Team (Eisenberg, 2009) The Rubicon (Project Vendor) utilizes eight (8) human resources to complete the project within specified time, including the project manager (me), database administrator, eCommerce specialist, website developer, website designer, content developer, Search Engine Optimization (SEO) expert and video editing specialist. Stakeholders There are three (3) main stakeholders of the project include: the EA Inc., Rubicon (Vendor) and the customers / clients of the EA Inc. 1.2 Success Project Criteria There are four (4) basic or predefined success factors of a project, including cost, schedule (time), scope and quality. A project is said to be successful if the project has been completed within the specified cost, schedule (completion date), scope (delivered all the milestones / deliverables) and quality i-e the project fulfills user / customer requirements (Taylor and Schied, 2011). Therefore, it is the responsibility of a project manager to fulfil all the requirements of the customer by distributing all the deliverables of the project within specified time and cost to complete the project successfully. Moreover, the Aaron J. Shenhar, Dov Dvir, Ofer Levy, and Alan C. Maltz in 2001 explained the four success dimensions as the project efficiently (meeting project schedule and estimated cost / budget), impact on the customer (fulfillment of functional and non-functional requirements, domain requirements, solution of customer’s problem and customer’s satisfaction), business success and preparing for the future. It is worthwhile to compare the success factors described in the both studies. The first two success factors explained in the later study are similar to the three (3) success factors of the earlier study, including the project should meet the schedule, the project should complete within specified cost / budget and the project should fulfil the user requirements. As per the study by Lavagnon A. Ika, the project success criteria are still an immature topic as all the research has been made on finding the success criteria or factors, however, only a few papers have been found by measuring the success of the project based on established success factors. Therefore, keeping in view the predefined success factors, it is worthwhile to assess the EA Inc. project. Despite the above basic success factors of the project, the EA Inc. has its own success criteria for the project includes, but is not limited to the project efficiency, enhancing customer range, business success, and preparing for the success. The brief description of the success factors is given in the following table (Shenhar, Dvir, Levy, and Maltz, 2001). 2. Project Management Methods The above analysis shows that the initiative of the EA Inc. satisfies all the characteristics of a project (goal oriented, temporary, unique, management team, resource utilization, cycle of activities – explained below), hence, it can be declared as one of the projects of the EA Inc. Now it is worthwhile to assess the phases of the project which were undertaken to complete the project. The Project Management Institute (PMI) defines the five (5) phases of the project as conception and initiation, project definition and planning, project launch or execution, project performance and control and project close (ProjectInsight, n.d). The upcoming section of the document briefly explains how the project manager (myself) would deals all the basics of the project management in the project of the EA Inc. 2.1 Work Breakdown Structure Usually, it is the responsibility of a project manager to develop a project plan including scheduling through Work Breakdown Structure. The importance of scheduling can be realized by the following words: “The person in charge of scheduling is the person who really manages the project. It stands to reason that if no-one is in charge of scheduling then no-one is managing the project.” (Petroski, 2006) The work breakdown structure (WBS) is a hierarchical decomposition of the work that is required to be completed by the project team in order to achieve the project objectives. There are various benefits of using the WBS by the project manager that include, but not limited to, determining the scope of the project, the assigning human resources to the deliverables, monitoring of the project deliverables, it allows managing accurately the cost, time and risks of the project. Furthermore, while developing WBS it should be kept in mind that the micro-level work packages should not be represented as it would be difficult to manage for the project manager, it is required to only mention the deliverables rather activities and the WBS cannot replace the Gantt chart (Maylor, 2005). Therefore, a schedule of the EA Inc project has been developed and given below: ID Tasks Days Start End Cost (Pounds) Resources Predece 1 Ecommerce Electronics Inc 188 Mon 4/28/14 Wed 1/14/14 160,080 2 Analysis 42 Mon 4/28/14 Tue 6/24/14 47,200 3 Need Analysis 15 Mon 4/28/14 Fri 5/16/14 18,400 PM 4 HR Analysis 5 Mon 5/19/14 Fri 5/23/14 0 3 5 HW and SW Analysis 7 Mon 5/26/14 Tue 6/3/14 0 4 6 Cost Analysis 6 Wed 6/4/14 Wed 6/11/14 3,360 PM 5 7 Content Analysis 10 Mon 5/19/14 Fri 5/30/14 13,080 PM Content Developer 3 8 Market Analysis 17 Mon 6/2/14 Tue 6/24/14 9,520 PM 7 9 Technology Analysis 4 Thu 6/12/14 Tue 6/17/14 1,600 Web Developer 6 10 Meeting 1 Wed 6/18/14 Wed 6/18/14 1,240 Content Developer, Web developer, PM 9 11 Proposal 0 Wed 6/18/14 Wed 6/18/14 0 3,4,5,9,10 12 Scope 0 Tue 6/24/14 Tue 6/24/14 0 7,8,9,10 13 Planning 63 Mon 6/2/14 Wed 8/27/14 28,640 14 Project Goals 15 Wed 6/25/14 Tue 7/15/14 8,400 PM 8 15 HR Assignments 3 Wed 7/16/14 Fri 7/18/14 1,680 PM 14, 9 16 Content Outline 6 Mon 6/2/14 Mon 6/9/14 1,680 Content Developer 7 17 Meeting 1 Tue 6/10/14 Tue 6/10/14 840 PM, Content Developer 16 18 Sales and Marketing 15 Wed 7/16/14 Tue 8/5/14 4,200 Content Developer 8,14,17 19 Ad Contents 15 Wed 8/6/14 Tue 8/26/14 10,200 Content Developer, Graphic Designer 18 20 Meeting 1 Wed 8/27/14 Wed 8/27/14 1,640 PM, Web Developer, Content Developer, Graphic Designer 19 21 Project Plan 0 Wed 8/27/14 Wed 8/27/14 0 20 22 Prototyping 99 Mon 7/21/14 Thu 12/4/14 47,840 23 Screen Mock-ups 15 Thu 8/28/14 Wed 9/17/14 12,000 Graphic Designer Web Developer 15,21 24 Storyboard 15 Thu 9/18/14 Wed 10/8/14 0 23 25 Design Contents 8 Mon 7/21/14 Wed 7/30/14 2,240 Content Developer 16.16 26 Interface Design 15 Thu 7/31/14 Wed 8/20/14 12,000 Graphic Designer, Web Developer 25 27 Meeting 1 Thu 10/9/14 Thu 10/9/14 0 26,24 28 Test prototype 20 Fri 10/10/14 Thu 11/6/14 21,600 Web Developer, Graphic Designer, Content Developer 23,25,27 29 Ad Development 20 11/7/14 Thu 12/4/14 0 28 30 Testing Feedback 10 11/7/14 Thu 11/20/14 0 28 31 Prototype 0 12/4/14 Thu 12/4/14 0 28,29,30 32 Development 91 Thu 7/31/14 Thu 12/4/14 22,800 33 Graphics Art 10 Thu 7/31/14 Wed 8/13/14 12,800 Graphic Designer, Video Editor, Web Developer 25 34 Produce Sounds and Videos 10 Thu 8/21/14 Wed 9/3/14 4,800 Video Editor 16.26 35 Integration 13 Thu 9/4/14 Mon 9/22/14 5,200 Web Developer 33.34 36 Product 0 Thu 12/4/14 Thu 12/4/14 0 35.31 37 Testing 82 Tue 9/23/14 Wed 1/14/14 13,600 38 Test Cases 15 Fri 12/6/14 Thu 12/25/14 6,000 Web Developer 36.31 39 Links Testing 19 Tue 9/23/14 Fri 10/17/14 7,600 Web Developer 35 40 UAT 14 Fri 12/26/14 Wed 1/14/14 0 38.39 2.2 Cost Management A project, whether it is huge or small, an equivalent financial plan or budget is always there and each project stakeholder is facilitating the project manager to complete the project within allocated or specified budget. The baseline budget provides a detailed breakup of all project costs. In order to manage a project successfully, it has to have a baseline budget so that the progress of the project can be monitored against expectations. There are certainly more reasons that identify the importance of budgeting include, but are not limited to that the budgeting facilitates to transform a considered plan into activities, it serves as the official monetary plan, it facilitates to develop the targets, it identifies divergence from the strategy or vision, it establishes responsibility and accountability and it is also used to allocate resources (Center for Business Practices, 2009). One of the techniques for measuring the performance of the project is the Earned Value Management (EVM) that integrates the scope, time and cost of the project, to monitor the progress. EVM develops and monitors Planned Value (PV), Earned Value (EV) and Actual Cost (AC) for each work package and control account. Moreover, the To-Complete Performance Index is used to calculate the projection of cost performance that must be achieved on the remaining work to meet a specified management goal, such as the Estimated at Completion (EAC) or the Budget at Completion (BAC). The above given techniques have been implemented in the EA Inc. project, in order to monitor and review the performance of the project. The following screenshots show the costing graphs of the EA Inc.’s project: 2.3 Network Diagram The logic network project management tool emphasizes on sequencing the activities of the project to determine the project duration. The project manager needs to identify the activities, the predecessors and successor relationship of the activities, the duration of each activity, the forward and backward pass, the activity float (or slack) and ultimately determining the critical path of the project by identifying the longest project path. The PERT chart is the graphical illustration of the critical path method or analysis (CPM or CPA). The critical path in the Gantt chart and PERT is usually represented with red color and the project manager need to concentrate on the critical activities as if one of the critical activities delays the project would not complete within the planned completion date (Mind Tools, 2013). 2.4 Organizational Chart As there are a total of eight (8) team members required to complete the project. The project manager is the leader of the project team, e-Commerce Specialist and SEO Specialist would report to the project manager. However, the three (3) team members would report to the e-Commerce Specialist include: the website developer, content developer and database administrator. The two (2) team members include: the Graphic Designer and Video Editor would report to the SEC Specialist. The following diagram shows the organizational structure of the project team that has been utilized to complete the e-Commerce project of the EA Inc. 2.5 Responsibility Assignment Matrix The Responsibility, Accountability, Consulted and Informed (RACI) matrix is a project management tool to manage the human resources or the project management team to successfully execute their roles. The project manager would assign tasks each team member and specify the role of the person in the RACI matrix. The following snapshot shows the template of the EA Inc. project’s RACI matrix. 2.6 Risk Management Risks are part of a project and can lead the project to even failure, therefore, there must be a management plan (known to be as Risk Management Plan) to deal with the risks to avoid or lesser their bad impact. There are many risks which have been identified to be occurred during the execution of the EA Inc. project. Some of these risks are internal to the EA Inc. include, but are not limited to the information risks, technological risks and business risks. However, the Rubicon during the execution of the project encountered jurisdictional risks that were external to the organization. The jurisdictional risks of the EA Inc. project include: the delivery risks (whether the country’s policy allows to sell products to the location of the customer), foreign regulation and the United Kingdom’s regulation. In order to mitigate these jurisdictional risks, a thorough study has been conducted to get information on the rules and regulations of the business countries and legal views have been solicited from the local and foreign markets. Moreover, these regulations have been incorporated in the contract / agreement of the customer with EA Inc. 2.7 Project Governance and Reporting System Communication is an imperative component in project management that can eventually lead to success or failure of a project, either it is big or small, the good communication impacts diverse individuals and departments of an organization or project. If the project is not well coordinated and the tasks are not well communicated to the project team or information on how to accomplish a task is not provided, the situation could lead to project failure. Furthermore, communication is just not about assigning tasks to the project team but also the higher management and all the stakeholders should also know their relevant information on time. There are certain standards and guidelines are developed to deal with project communication among all the stakeholders. Therefore, it has already been clearly informed to all team members that either formally or informally, all the communication (reporting system) would be made using the e-mail system of the Rubicon (vendor). 3. Evaluation of Project Management Methods With the passage of time, the field of project management is emerging and maturing, therefore, in order to perform one task there are diverse methods and techniques. For instance, the project manager of the Rubicon used code form of the work breakdown structure (WBS), however, the WBS can also be represented with a graphical notation (hierarchical structure), as well as the Warnier Diagram can also fulfill the purpose. But comparatively, the WBS in code form as done in this project is more appropriate to utilize in determining the scope by dividing the project into modules, activities and tasks (Brotherton, Fried, and Norman, 2008). Moreover, one of the other main advantages of the WBS is the identification of the total time required to complete the project. Moreover, the WBS facilitates to identify the number of human resources required for the project as well as its helps to estimate the cost of the project. Keeping in view these benefits, it can be stated that the WBS in comparison to the Warnier Diagram is a better choice (Lavagnon, 2009). Further, in order to manage the critical path of the project, the network diagram is utilized in the project. There are various alternatives to the network diagram include: the Gantt chart, Critical Path Management (CPM) and Project Evaluation and Review Technique (PERT). The vital objective of the Network diagram for which it was used in the project is the identification of the critical path and activities. It is pertinent to mention here that the other techniques as given above, also have capabilities of identifying the critical. However, the graphical notation of each technique is different from each other and each of the techniques has its own advantages and disadvantages (Office of Government Commerce, 2009). Therefore, keeping in view the fact, it is quite hard to state that which technique is better than other. But as the network diagram fulfils the objectives of its usage in the project, therefore, the network diagram technique is appropriate for this project. Moreover, the remaining project management techniques i-e the organizational charts, responsibility assignment matrix (RACI i-e Responsibility, Accountable, Consulted and Informed), the risk register or log and the communication plans are appropriately used on the project to facilitate the project manager to manage the project successfully (Gardiner, 2005). Overall, the project management methods used in the project provides various facilities to the project manager. 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[online] Available at: [Accessed 23 April 2014] Taylor, J. and Schied, J., (2011). Working with Project Constraints – The PM Triangle. [online] Available at: [Accessed 24th April 2014] Read More