The purpose of TPP-1 is simply to get your team working together and figuring out how you will work together throughout the semester to accomplish the project deliverables (ITP-1 through ITP-7) throughout the course.  A week-to-week and a day-to-day plan will help ensure that your team will successfully meet each of the assignment deadlines.  

We find that, especially in these short 8-week classes, teams sometimes underestimate the effort required to plan, research, draft, redraft and finalize each assignment.  The teams sometimes struggle with collaboration problems such as team members not doing their team-assigned tasks or not doing them on time so that others can use their input for their own tasks or to merge and prepare the final draft, or perhaps leaving everything to the last minute then being unable to complete it or unable to integrate the contributions of all team members.  Or other team process problems.  

We want to prevent that.  So TPP-1 asks you to develop a team process plan for how you're going to work together to accomplish the project goals.  This is not asking you to plan the project itself.  That comes later.  Rather, this requires that your team think through and plan what your team process will be and how you will work together to do assignment work.  The TPP deliverables (TPP-1 and TPP-2) are not part of the Authentic Assessment.  All ITP deliverables are part of the Authentic Assessment. 

Teammates who do not contribute in a substantial and timely manner should be notified email (with a copy to me) that the team member will not be included for grading.   

Important Note:  This project is due on Wednesday of Week 2 (rather than the usual Sunday).

The teams for the Integrated Team Project (ITP) will be assigned by the first day of class.  Within the first week of class, each team is to:

• Meet together virtually, using the assigned LEO Group for your team.
• Get acquainted.
• Figure out what you have in common.   Determine what skills and experience you each have that would be useful for the team.
• SELECT A TEAM NAME and have one team member send it to the instructor via INSTANT MESSAGES in the classroom no later than FRIDAY, 10:00 pm.

• Proceed with the TPP-1 Team Process Plan project and Team Process Schedule, below.

Determine and discuss the initial team roles of each team member.  Your team should consider rotating the Team Leader’s role among the teammates, but if your team agrees to a single team leader for all assignments, this is acceptable.  Rotating gives each team member an opportunity to take the lead for at least one ITP deliverable.  This spreads the responsibilities and the learning among the members of the team. 

•      Some assignment team roles might include

• Team Leader for the semester OR individual Team Leaders for each deliverable (e.g, Team Leader for the Charter; Team Leader for WBS; Team Leader for Schedule and Durations, etc.).  In other words, the Team Leader role can be rotated to give each team member experience in managing a project.  Your team is responsible for managing itself, so this is your decision to make as a team.
• A variant of this is to decide to have a permanent team leader in order to have continuity through the entire semester, but to have rotate assignment deliverable manager or responsibilities each week so that each team member gets to experience project leadership.  This, too, can work well (but is not required).  
• Documentation manager to manage the team's documents, including consolidating and finalizing the deliverable.
• Editor to perform a final quality review and assure that the consolidated document reads as if one person prepared it.
• Configuration manager to keep the master version of Microsoft Project with other teammates’ input.
• Research manager to confirm and verify references/sources and formatting.
• Deputy team leader to fill in for the team leader when the team leader is unavailable.
• Other roles your team determines are needed.  Please refer to the ITP document in the Course Content area.

•      Teams will, within a few weeks, have a team WBS.  Rather than specific team roles, teams may decide to manage specific tasks by individual team members.  For example, Task 1 – gathering requirements, might “belong” to Jabari.  During the semester, Jabari. will be responsible for preparing the durations, schedule, resources, etc. for the Gathering Requirements task.  Task 2 – design the system, might “belong” to Mary R.  Mary R, too, will be responsible for preparing the durations, schedule, resources, etc. for the Design the System task. 

•      Whatever approach you take, the Team Process Plan is to discuss how work will be allocated for each class assignment to ensure that each member has an opportunity to make a significant contribution to each assignment.

•      The Team Process Plan in a Word document should include a description of team's agreed upon governance structure and decision making process.  Among other things, this should include whether -- and how -- the team PM role will be rotated or assigned and for how long, and how team decisions will be made (e.g., by vote, by fiat, by consensus, etc.).   The document should include a discussion of who will submit assignments for grading and when the postings will be made.  A contingency plan should be addressed for teammates that have schedule conflicts or emergencies.  And a contingency plan should be addressed to have a second person ready to post the assignment before the time it is due if the team leader is not able to post.

•      All team members’ names should be on the cover page if all team members contributed.

•      Build a schedule in Excel that demonstrates an understanding of the level of effort involved for each teammate.  Review each class deliverable and the due dates.  Determine what group efforts your team will take to submit the assignments and build a schedule in Excel.  Your schedule, for example, might include what effort is being assigned and when it will be assigned to teammates; if there will be weekly “discussions” to clarify who, what, and when the team members are to submit their efforts for first review by teammates; when final contributions are due for consolidation; when the final documents will be distributed for the team’s final review before submittal; and who will be responsible for posting each assignment.  This schedule will also be submitted in in Week 1.

•      Your team process schedule in Excel should show at least two things (using a separate tab for each): 

o    An 8-week macro schedule of the course, showing what assignments will be worked on in which weeks.  Include all assignments and project deliverables; both team and individual assignments.  It would be useful to include projects, deliverables, homework, reading, and Discussion Forums.  Include the due dates, the points each assignment is worth, and a rough estimate of the amount of time you think each assignment will take to accomplish.  This should help you plan your time during the semester and see what is coming up when, how big an assignment it is, and how much effort it may take.

o    A 7-day micro schedule of what is to be done on team deliverable assignments either each week separately, or in a typical week if you anticipate each week being similar.  Include such weekly items as: reading the textbook assignment, determining project roles and assignments for the week, team meetings/discussions, preparing drafts of assigned documents and files, (virtual) team meetings and discussions, reviewing draft documents and files, revising documents and files, verifying research, consolidating the work of team members, preparing final documents and files, submitting work for grading, and so forth.  Each such task or item should either a timespan, a scheduled date (e.g., for meetings), or a due date (day of the week).  Each task item should also include the personnel role assigned to accomplish it (e.g., all team members, the team leader, the documentation manager, the team editor, etc.).  Assigning names to the roles and the effort will help your team stay on track.  Each week, every member of the team will know what is expected of him/her and when the work has to be completed.  It might be useful to a rough estimate of the amount of time you think each task will take to accomplish.  This should help you plan your time during the week so that you are able to get your team work done on time. 

o    An example of the 7-day micro-schedule for TPP-1 might include, among other things, such items as:

§  Monday-Tuesday, each team member individually reads the assigned chapters and the ITP assignment

§  Tuesday-Wednesday, the PM and the team jointly decide on specific task assignments for each team member for the week

§  Tuesday-Thursday, each team member posts answers to the individual discussion questions in the weekly class Discussion

§  Wednesday, the team PM sends a message to the instructor stating who the team PM is for the week

§  Thursday-Friday, all team members do a draft of their assigned ITP project work and individually do their class homework

§  Friday or Saturday, all team members post their draft work in the LEO Group then get together for a virtual team meeting in the LEO Group in order to assess progress; all team members also respond to other postings in the weekly class Discussion

§  Saturday, all team members revise their assigned work and post it in the LEO Group;

§  Sunday, another virtual team meeting in the LEO Group to assess progress, integrate their contributions, and edit and revise the final product; when done, the team PM posts the final result in his or her Assignments.  Monday morning before noon, the team PM posts a copy of the submission in the weekly discussion Discussion for class review. 

o    This is only an example.  It is not exhaustive (there would be more than this, and more detail); it is not required as-is (you should revise it to fit your team and its operation); it would include specific names and task assignments when possible; and it is not in a good format (a tabular format or a spreadsheet might be better; whatever works best for you).  It is only a suggestion of an example. In other words, these are merely ideas and suggestions to get you started.  This is not a template or a completed plan or schedule.

•      Grading - Approximate breakdown by areas include:

o    General: Structure, Format, Mechanics, Style (~5%)

o    Team Process Course Completion Plan (~45%)

o    Team Process Course Completion Schedule (including both macro schedule and micro schedule; see above) (~50%)

Please be sure to read the Team Contribution Assessment and Grading of Team Assignments and the Project Documentation Requirements sections of this ITP Master Document.

The instructor will assign students to work together as project teams.  You all should have access to your corresponding team LEO Group in LEO. If you do not see yourself and your team in the LEO Group area, please contact the instructor. Also contact if you are assigned to two or more teams.

First, read the Overview of the Integrated Team Project (ITP), of which this is the first ITP deliverable.

Then in your project teams:

•      Determine the initial project management roles of each team member as a member of the IT project team for planning, designing and installing the IT system.   

•      Some team roles might include

o    Project Manager

o    Functional or technical managers, such as telecommunications, application software designer, database developer, Web page designer, etc.

o    Budget/Finance

o    Project Management Support such as procurement or human resources

•      Discuss the approximate project scope you anticipate for the project, what the IT needs of the client organization might be, what to include and what to omit, etc.  Scope provides the boundaries of the project.  Your discussion should include what is included in the project scope as well as what is not included in the project scope.

•    Please use the textbook and other academically credible sources, as a minimum, to define an IT System and then to determine the scope for this project. For example, including a scheduling software package for the client’s use may be within the scope. Providing a learning applications for new employees might be not be within the scope of this IT project.   

•      Please be sure you are clear on the basic requirements for this project so you can determine the scope.  What will you provide if the proposed plan is accepted?  You may email the client/stakeholder (your instructor) to further define requirements, if you find that you do not have enough information. You will most likely have many questions about the requirement.  Please be sure to ask the client your questions to help define and refine requirements for the IT System.  As in many real-world projects, the requirements are the weakest part of the project.  The lack of detail is deliberate to encourage the team to work together to share knowledge and experience; and then to work with the client/customer to obtain and fill in what might be missing.  To complete the project plan successfully, you WILL need to solidify the project requirements!

•      Note:  Recall that the magnitude and scope of the project must be such that it will require the work of 3 to 6 people who will constitute the project management team (even though your own team might be smaller, you MUST include roles for 3 to 6 people.  These additional "virtual" people will be responsible for accomplishing the work or tasks to complete the project) and will take 3 to 6 months to complete.  If it is less than this, then you have scoped it too small; if it is more than double that, then you have scoped it too large.  This is regardless of how many people are assigned to your class LEO Group.

•      After researching project charters in our textbook and credible Web site and/or the www.pmi.org  website or other professional PM site (e.g., valid, academic-type research), prepare a Project Charter for your project.  This document becomes the basic AGREEMENT to describe the project and what it entails with enough detail that the approximate scope and magnitude is clear and understandable by both the team and the client/customer or executive sponsor. The Project Charter will include an estimated cost and an estimated schedule. Your charter must include signature blocks of the appropriate parties that are agreeing to the charter.

•      Our LEO classroom includes a Sample Project Charter that you may find helpful.  You may use templates or other formats that you find in your research so long as the source is credible, identified as a source, and includes at the least the following:

o    An Executive Summary that summarizes the purpose of the document, the problem statement or need for the project, the solution or approach (a high level description of the IT system, which might include a graphic), and conclusion of the document. The Executive Summary should be consistent through the semester with the same basic information plus improvements, additions and/or changes as determined by the assignment(s). ALL assignment questions should be answered in a way that provides the reader with enough background and information to understand the answers. As you go through the semester, the Executive Summary will include the scope, cost and schedule.

o    Defined scope of the project

o    What is in scope and what is not in scope for the project.

o    An estimated schedule and estimated cost

o    Project success criteria

o    Project Management and Technical Approach

o    Project objectives (business objectives, organizational objectives, client objectives, etc.) and a discussion of the alignment with the business strategy and goals

o    Project constraints and most obvious risks.

o    Project team roles and responsibilities

o    Identification of primary stakeholders

o    Communication methodology

o    The threshold for change.  In other words, at what point would the Project Charter need a new agreement and signatures?  This might be a change to the project that results in an additional 30 days on the schedule or 10% of the cost.

o    The DEFINED end of the project

The document should provide a rough estimate of the project, scope, and rough order of magnitude of the cost and time required to accomplish the project.  The charter should provide enough detail for the client / stakeholder to make a decision about proceeding with the project planning.  The document should provide the definition of the END of the project.  In other words, at what point would the project be considered OVER, and how would we recognize success project success when we see it.

The project team is responsible for determining whatever information the team needs from the stakeholders and soliciting it from the stakeholder and customer.  The stakeholders will rarely volunteer information, since this is not their field and they do not know what you need.  This includes time/schedule, funding, and the system requirements.

To determine the requirements and proposed scope of your project, you may need to interview the stakeholders more than once (represented by the instructor).  You may ask questions, use questionnaires, conduct interviews, etc.  Since this is a global virtual project team, the stakeholders may not be available face-to-face.  You may use e-mail, invite the stakeholders (instructor) to LEO Group Conferences, or (subject to mutual arrangement of acceptable times) to LEO Group, Chat sessions, etc.  You may, in the spirit of twenty-first century global projects, consider teleconferences using various tools such as WebEx or Go-To-Meeting.  The team would hold responsibility for setting up these virtual meetings.

Team member roles should be realistic and demonstrate an understanding of the types of functions that are performed on an IT project team.  The Project Charter should demonstrate an understanding of the ITP project.  Perhaps most importantly, the scope should be clear and appropriate and the scope should accomplish the given problem statement.  As a hint: the project team should agree on what the problem statement is and it should be included in the text portion of each assignment to help keep the team, stakeholders and customer focused on what problem the project is intended to solve. 

The project description and high-level requirements should be clear, reasons for project should be stated, IT needs of client should be included, high-level business objectives or strategic vision of the client should be summarized, assumptions and constraints should be summarized, and major stakeholders (both internal and external) should be identified. 

The project charter should be relatively brief:  Just 2-5 pages (not including front and back matter such as the title page, references page, etc.).  The format of the project charter should be consistent with formats provided or used by other academic credible sources (with appropriate credit).

Does it seem as though perhaps there is not enough information to complete the project and the charter?  If so, please ask the client/customer (your instructor).

NOTE:  If any team members drop the course or simply quit participating, then please try to contact them, but please notify me as soon as possible.  I will deal with it.  I don't expect it to come to this, but I don't want to have one team with only one or two people left and another team with a surplus of members.  I will re-allocate members to balance teams if necessary in order to prevent this.

Please remember my emphasis on this class as a SHARED learning environment.  One member of your team (the team PM or designee) should post your first ITP assignment in the Discussion Topic SHARED LEARNING ENVIRONMENT – Project Charter.   I'm EXPECTING you all to look at what the other teams have posted and MY comments to those teams.  You are free to use this to improve your own team efforts on subsequent assignments and deliverables as we go along.  So, for example, if Team 4 does a particularly good job with the Project Charter, your team may decide to make revisions, as we move on, based on what you have learned from Team 4's work. 

However, if you use any text verbatim in a Word document, then give credit where credit's due by properly citing it in accordance with APA standards.  If you use something in MS Project or in Excel, then that's not as easily done.  In that case, make note of the use of the reference (and how it was used in your Excel or Project document) in the Word portion of the assignment when you post it so that we'll know how your research and resources helped you.

 Please be sure that you are familiar with ALL of the requirements.  

As you know, projects are completely dependent on the ability of the project team to work together.  Each of you has a skill or knowledge that will help your teammates.  I'm counting on you to bring those abilities to your team during these efforts.  

Grading Approximate breakdown by areas include:

o    General: Structure, Format, Mechanics, Style (~10%)

o    Project Charter (~30%)

o    Charter Scope (~60%)

 Case 

Your team has been asked to prepare a project plan to install an IT system in a local bakery.   Mamma Mia has been the primary baker and bakery owner since its opening 15 years ago.  The bakery is one of a dozen shops in a strip mall in an up-and-coming part of town. The bakery is a walk-up-and-order configuration with no seating space. Because the bakery has become more successful over the years, Mamma Mia has decided that the time is right to expand the bakery into the next store, which is now vacant, and she has signed a contract for the two stores to be connected and remodeled.  This space will more than double the size of the current bakery. With this added-on/extra space, Mamma Mia would like to offer her customers sandwiches and bakery items, as well as café-type seating.  At the moment, the bakery employs 1 other baker and 2 persons who wait on the customers at the counter. All paperwork, bookkeeping, ordering supplies, hiring and firing, and keeping track of inventory is done by Mamma.   When the expansion construction is complete, Mamma Mia anticipates hiring 4 additional people full time – 2 food-service certified sandwich makers, 1 more baker, and 1 more counter server.  She also intends to hire 1 person to track inventory and order supplies, and 1 person to manage the bookkeeping, bill paying, and finance parts of the business.   

Because the bakery is now a small operation, all business is done by telephone and with paper documents.  There is one cash register and all bakery goods are purchased with cash or check. To coincide with the construction/expansion effort, Mamma would like to have an IT system installed for point-of-sale, inventory, bookkeeping, purposes.  Mamma would like the system to “connect” to her suppliers, the health department for food services, and other business relationships.  She would also like a website so that she has an Internet presence and so her customers can make advance orders for pick-up.  Related to that, she would like the system to be able to process debit and credit cards. 

Mamma Mia has identified $100,000 to provide an IT system that will be modern, easy to use/employee and customer friendly, and will make her bakery and sandwich shop more efficient. The cost estimate is just that – an estimate. 

Mamma has very little experience working with computers and IT systems.  She feels a bit “old fashioned” but she is willing to learn and wants to be sure that her employees learn, too, how to work with the IT system.  Mamma is your point of contact and the person yu will be working with as you “fill-in” and finalize the requirements for the IT system, and then move to the design and implementation of the IT system.  This means you will have a need to define and explain terms as you work with her.  

As you begin to plan the ITP project, keep in mind that until now the client has had little or no IT system and has had no IT staff.  In addition, there is no networking, LAN, or Internet installed, and no productivity software or other applications.  You may assume that Internet connectivity is available in the area, however (whether via ISP or satellite or whatever).  Mamma Mia is the major stakeholder and your point of contact for this proposal.  Your instructor will fill the role of Mamma and the major stakeholder.  So all questions for the client should be directed to your class instructor.  Your team may consider clarifying the requirements, including the available funding, through Private Message email interviews with Mamma Mia.

For those not intimately familiar with food services, please consider the complex government regulatory requirements and electronic finance requirements for e-banking, e-ordering, and e-commerce to deal with.  You may need to address some basic privacy requirements regarding the employees of the bakery.

Reminder:  The project scenario was purposely designed to leave some things up to you -- for a reason -- so that you can make it whatever inspires you about the bakery and its automation and sounds fun to do.

Other things were omitted in order to both minimize the length of the assignment document so that you don't bite off more than you can chew, and to be realistic.  In real world project management, it is very typical for the clients to be experts in their own business areas but have little knowledge of IT or especially of projects.  Consequently they have little understanding of what kinds of information are needed to do a project, and especially of what levels of detail are needed.  They also have little knowledge of technical IT details that may be important for an IT project but aren't their field of expertise.  The clients often genuinely don't know what they want or need.  They don't know what IT can and can't do for them, so they don't know what to ask for or what's reasonable or unreasonable to request.  They also speak a different language than we do.  The result is that their requests are often quite vague from our point of view (even on the occasions that they seem specific from their point of view).  This will be the case with Mamma Mia!

So what happens?  The project team must ask.  The project team has to spend a lot of time eliciting requirements, assumptions, constraints, business rules, and so forth; especially requirements.  This is usually iterative, takes a lot of time, and continues (though hopefully decreasing) throughout the project.  I'll try to reduce the iterative and incremental nature a bit in order to speed things up a bit for this class.  Nevertheless, we intentionally want the project management experience to be realistic, so there are a lot of open ended things in the project scenario that the teams will simply have to ask about.

Who does the team ask?  The client, of course.  In this ITP class project, the professor serves in the role of instructor and also in the roles of the client, project sponsor, and functional business stakeholders.  So when you need more information than you are given -- which will occur, especially during the project charter and WBS phases -- don't guess, please ask!