Lesson video

Welcome.

My name is Steve and I'm your computing teacher.

In this unit, we're looking at IT project management.

And this is lesson two, initiate a project.

Make sure you've got something to write with and something to write on, and your notes from the last session as well.

It's also good to make sure there are no distractions nearby so that you can focus completely on this lesson.

Amazing.

Let's go.

In this unit, we are analysing a project brief, identifying the user requirements of a project and evaluating the constraints of a project.

Now at the end of the last session, we asked you to look into four other forms of project management.

Let's have a look at those now.

The first one was Scrum.

Scrum is an approach to the agile project management method.

It is team focused, which means it doesn't necessarily need a team leader.

There is a sense of doing sprints together still.

It's still sprint focus.

The second method we asked you to look at was the critical chain project management method.

This method was a newer form of critical path project management.

This time you work backwards from the end goal to identify the things that you can deliver.

Past experience allows for an improved efficiency when mapping tasks.

And resources are focused on the task at hand, rather than multitasking.

The third method was the integrated project management method.

This is commonly used in creative industries.

There is an emphasis on standardising and sharing processes.

Project managers have a better insight into the whole creative projects, and it normally works best for large complex projects.

And finally, we asked you to look at PRiSM.

This is project integrating sustainable methods.

Focus is on the impacts to the environment of the end product and how to minimise it.

The entire life cycle of the project is accounted for including post-production.

All team members need to be on board with the concept of sustainable project delivery.

So what four things do all those project management methods have to do? All of them need an initiation, all of them need planning, all of them need to be executed, and all of them need to be evaluated.

This is known as a project life cycle.

We're going to start today by analysing the project brief.

This is the initiation stage, the first stage of any project.

It is essential that you understand what the product is about before anything else happens.

If you're not quite sure of something you might misunderstand.

And misunderstandings can waste time further down the line.

But what does analyse actually mean? The online Cambridge Dictionary gives this definition, "To study or examine something in detail, in order to discover more about it." How can we apply this? Well, over the next few lessons, we'll going to be looking at a project for an imaginary business called Delicious Desserts.

I want you to imagine that they have a small and very popular shop, and they would like to extend their service to offer an online ordering and delivery service.

In this instance, we have a written for you a project brief for you to analyse.

So, here's some techniques that you can use to identify key aspects of the brief.

One thing you could do is make a list of key points as you are reading.

You might also like to highlight key parts of the text whilst you are reading.

So, we are going to ask you to read through the project brief for task one.

Again, just to give you an idea, you could look through that second paragraph as an example, read through it carefully, and then highlight key phrases.

They clearly want an integrated system.

Highlight other phrases like this one, stock control and sales to calculate any profit made in a week, a month and a year.

So there are three different ways they want to calculate the max in their spreadsheet and their solution, Or you might make a list.

integrated system, which is something we highlighted.

Control stock and calculate profit and loss in those three ways.

Again, in a moment, look at task one, read through the brief and analyse it, either highlighting it or writing a list of the key elements.

Pause the video now and complete the task.

So, what are the user requirements? These are the things that project brief is asking you to do.

It means identifying specifically what the user wants to see as the outcomes of the project.

If we have a look at the highlighted list you completed, the first thing that we can say that is of a user requirement, is that they want an integrated system.

But what does integrated system actually mean? Let's look at the current situation to help you decide.

At the moment they've got two separate spreadsheets for pricing and stock control.

At the moment, pricing is not really accurate, as the running costs aren't actually included.

And sometimes unfortunately they run out of ingredients.

The user wants these separate sheets combined, creating an integrated and all in one system.

This all in one system would combine the stock control and pricing spreadsheets.

It would prevent running out of stock by using a colour to indicate when stock is running low.

And as we've mentioned, it would calculate profits and loss daily, weekly and annually.

This is just one of those requirements, but else does the project brief say the wants? They also require a digital interactive dessert selector using a tablet.

And they've requested two posters to advertise.

Firstly, the online ordering and delivery service and secondly, the interactive dessert selector.

So, what have we got so far? Hopefully you now have a highlighted text or a list of key requirements.

Is this list an effective way of presenting your thoughts and ideas to your manager? We're now going to explore your next step, the feasibility report.

This is a document used in project management that assesses whether a project can be completed successfully.

It considers technical, legal, time, resource and financial aspects.

All of these are crucial in identifying whether a project is actually feasible.

So, here's the task.

We would like you to create your own report.

Can you use the template provided to start your feasibility report by filling in the first two sections, the introduction and the use of requirements.

At this point, you do not need to complete the what needs to be done column.

You can leave that for later.

So for the introduction, look carefully the brief, what does it tell you about the company? You could start your introduction by saying something like this, Delicious Desserts own a small shop where they sell desserts based on waffles, cookie dough and cheesecakes.

What else could you include? For the ideas as well, what they want to offer customers.

Maybe online ordering and delivery, maybe you want to mention that there's an interactive system for customers to help them choose a dessert.

Maybe you want to mention what they want for the business, improve stock control and pricing.

And it's probably worth mentioning the timeframe in which the project needs to be completed.

So pause the video and complete the task.

Over to you.

So, constraints.

These are the things that might hold us back.

It's useful to have a prior awareness of things that might go wrong in a project.

By identifying these things early, steps can be put in place to help prevent things going wrong.

The project could be delayed.

Incomplete analysis of the brief could lead to a user requirement being misinterpreted.

Or a lack of skills within the team might mean that some training is required before you start.

The technical term for things that could prevent the success of a project is constraints.

Constraints and the things that can be done to prevent them happening, can be presented in a risk assessment table.

So, here's some constraints for Delicious Desserts.

Maybe your team's forgotten how to use spreadsheets effectively.

Maybe somebody becomes ill so they're time off the project, and that means there's delays to the project.

Maybe the images you're using might break copyright law.

And maybe the user might phone up and say, "Can there be a change?" How easy will it be to instigate that change? How can we prevent these things from happening? Well, maybe reviewing your spreadsheet skills before a project starts would prevent that being a problem.

In terms of a illness, maybe make sure there's some buffer time planned, so if something goes wrong, you've got some spare time to catch up.

With regards to the changes to the project, getting feedback from the client early on might make sure that those changes aren't impacting later on in the project.

And when it comes to breaking copyright law, it's always going to use copyright free images or take your own photographs.

Now these constraints to a project needs to be identified and allocated a risk level, linked to the likelihood of the event occurring.

It can be high, medium or low.

These are then presented in a table, with the things that you're going to do to try and minimise or prevent the risk.

For example, the risk with a limited resource skills using spreadsheets.

The level of that risk is medium.

What are we going to do to mitigate that risk? We're going to review prior learning and access some training.

Task three, complete the feasibility report.

Complete the constraints table and the conclusion on your feasibility report, to complete this aspect of initiating a project.

Over to you.

Pause the video while you complete your task.

Task four, the task list.

Using the worksheet, create a list of tasks that need to be carried out to complete Delicious Desserts project.

These tasks will be formed from the user of requirements you have identified today.

Again, pause the video to complete your task.

Make sure you share your work with Oak National, tagging @OakNational or #LearnwithOak and make sure you get your permission from parents or carers before you do that.

I'll see you in the next lesson.