SPM Project Report

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Contents

Introduction

..3

Project Overview

3

Background

.4

Objectives of

Project

5

Constraints

5

Methods/Technologies used

6

Project Deliverables

6

Product breakdown

diagram10

Activities

11

Activity Flow Diagram (PERT)

12

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Resources

..14

Risk Analysis

.16

Bibliography

..17

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1. INTRODUCTION

In recent years the use of the Internet has changed the way our world functions.From social interaction to a new focus and availability of wider education, it hascreated a new way of life. But one of the greatest effects of the World Wide Web

has been the integration of business, as with the many companies that now providetheir products for purchase online.

The process is called ecommerce, and it has been proven that the development ofan ecommerce web site is the perfect way to increase retail sales. This is especiallybeneficial for those who commonly find themselves with a product overstock, or aneed to quickly move unsold merchandise and close-out products, which wouldotherwise result in a profit loss. The next major benefit of developing an ecommerceweb site is increasing the sales to supplement those that are already generated bythe business.

This Document gives details about a software project development plan to develop

an e-commerce website for a brick and mortar retail stores. The Retail store chain is

a medium sized retail chain company ABC retails Ltd. currently involved in Brick

and Mortar retails operations. However, increasing the reach through internet and

other issues such as inventory turnover made them to implement an e-commerce

website which would assist its current business model both in terms of sales and

managing inventory. The retail chain is based in Ahmedabad and has its 5 stores in

Ahmadabad Region.

1.1 Project Overview

This project deals with identifying the needs of a Brick and Mortar Retail chain

business which wants to foray into the web world to tap the consumers through

internet. The project consists of managing a software project involving design and

development of a web site. This website needs to be designed from the start

identifying the needs and target customers of the retail chain. The website would be

tested on test environments and then deployed to live for actual use. The Project

would also involve maintaining the website once it is live. The Project is expected to

finish in 4 months. The major resources required would include human resources,

hardware (web, application and database servers), computers, Network/Web

equipments, software for programming language and other licensed software such

as oracle/mySQL DB. Etc. The Project is expected to cost about Rs. 10,00,000 and

would deliver an ecommerce website connecting the ABC stores to the internet

world.

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1.2 Background

Client: ABC Retails Ltd.

Current business: Five retail stores in Ahmedabad. The retail stores are

supermarkets which includes all the grocery items, collection of various apparels,

footwear etc. Currently there is no online presence of the store and all the

operations are carried out through physical stores. The company wants to enter into

the online ecommerce business where users would shop online, make the payment

online and their goods would be delivered to their homes. Home delivery is also

available currently but this is done only when customers come to the stores, payand ask it to be delivered to their homes in case the shopping cart size is large and

they are unable to carry it to their homes. The company does not charge anything

for home delivery currently.

Current status of Online presence: Nil.

Functionalities required:

1) Website with information of all the available products.

2) User Login and storing of users information by maintaining a DB.

3) Shopping cart.

4) Payment system.

5) Shipment and delivery details.

6) Connecting and coordinating website operations with current operations.

Existing Software: Inventory management and billing system. The Company

already processes the backhouse operations (Supply chain management) with their

inventory management systems which take care of the purchase and inventory. The

Billing system is specifically used for billing purposes at the Retail stores. The

inventory management system is a centrally located server which is connected toterminals present at various retail chains. Also the individual billing data is updated

on the real time basis to the central server located at the Head office IT.

Stakeholders in the project:

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Stakeholders in the project include all the upper management of the Retail chain stores, steering

committee which is responsible for the project, all the other employees as the accuracy of the

transactions will depend on the success of the project, shareholders who have stake in the retail

chain, and the employees and customers of the stores who will using this site for their purchase

activities.

1.3 Objectives of the Project

The objectives of the project would be:

1. Develop an e-commerce website for retail chain stores for the purpose of

shopping through internet.

2. Deploy the site on Live servers and make it available to public for purchasing.

3. Create and link the site with the customers database.

4. Link the current inventory management system and billing system with the

website.

1.4 Constraints

The project undertaken would have following constraints:

1. Website created would be available on World Wide Web but operations would be

restricted (for operation) only to the users in Ahmedabad as Retail chain does not

have presence outside Ahmedabad.

2. As this is a low scale project hence there are resource constraints both in terms

of money and people.

3. There are external timelines demanded which are imposed by the ABC ltd. as

they would want to go Live according to their business strategy. Thus once the

website is on Live and that company has already advertised for its promotions and

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declared the date. Not availability of the site on the expected date would certainly

affect the reputation. Hence the project has an externally imposed timescales.

1.5 Methods/Technology to be used:

The Project would be using J2EE weblogic technologies for developing the website.

The coding language would be java language (weblogic version) and the Operating

system used would be UNIX. A content management tool (CMS Teamsite) would be

used to manage and upload the content on the website. The Application would

connect the Oracle database through weblogic database drivers. A weblogic 8.1

version would be used for the project. This would also provide the console for

deploying the builds onto the application and webservers. The xmls would be

hosted on webserver which would be dynamic pages of the website.

As discussed earlier, the project would follow a waterfall model where. The

processes would go sequentially starting from Feasibility study, User requirements,

Analysis, System Design, Program Design, Coding, Testing and Operation.

1.6 Project Deliverables

Since this project is basically a Product driven project, it will follow a waterfall

model. Since the operations of the retail chain stores is small and is confined to only

one city hence the website which has been designed in the initial delivery is with

the complete understanding of the stores requirements. However the content of

the website can be modified through the interactions. Ordering journey would by

and large remain same as mentioned in the initial requirement phase.

The Project deliverables at each stage would thus be:

1) System Products

2) Module Products

3) Management Products

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Service Level Agreement:

A service level agreement ( SLA) is a part of a service contract where the level ofservice is formally defined. IT is a negotiated agreement between the IT provider

and ABC Ltd. The SLA would record a common understanding about services,

priorities, responsibilities, guarantees and warranties. Each area of service scope

will have the 'level of service' defined. The SLA would specify the levels of

availability, serviceability, performance, operation, or other attributes of the service.

The Warranty time for code development, after sales services, Website downtime,

delivery time etc. would be covered under this document. Violation of this

document can lead to legal complications.

Requirement Specification Document:

This is very important phase at the start of the project. The business analyst and

the technical analysts would have interactions with the client (ABC ltd.) to

understand its basic requirements of the website. The business analysts would then

analyze the functional requirements and then pass it on to the technical analysts for

technological requirements. Once the analysis is completed they would prepare a

requirement specification document which would include all the functionalities that

the website should provide, GUI interface or front end interface, order journeys,

content displayed and other facilities provided. It will also contain all the technical

requirements that are needed to carry out this project in terms of hardware,

technological requirements. This document is then approved by the client and once

approved is then given to system designers to work on the design part. In case of

waterfall model and depending on the SLAs mentioned, any changes to be done in

the later stages of this document after the client signoff is received would involve

complications in terms of budget and time as mentioned in SLAs.

High Level and Low level Design Document:

Once the requirements are finalized, the next product is the design document. It will

involve design of various modules involved and the interconnections between them.

There will be two types of design procedures carried out, high level design anddetailed or low level design.

High level design will outline various functionalities that will go into the package on

a broader view. Since the software will be using a J2EE Weblogic platform, it will

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outline the object classes required for the major functionalities. The functionalities

would include:

1.Creation of Users Registration and login

2.Creation of the order journeys through jsps.

3.Creation of the products database and its display on the front end.

4.Connection of these jsps through content management tool.

5. Linking payment system by using the functionality of PayPal system.

It will also mention the database connection and various database drivers to be

used for connecting database with the application. Currently, a central server is

been used for storing all the products in the inventory at various stores. Hence the

application will be connected to this server.

Detailed level design will explain all the functions in great detail. It will explain the

actual flow of different java classes and its connection with the database and the

front end (which will be done using jsp). It will mention all the calls and how will

they be called. In case of jsp, it will explain which structure these jsps are using. It

will also explain how the connection will be established with the database and how

the calls will be made. Thus a complete technical design document would becreated for carrying out the coding processes.

Code:

Once the Design documents are ready the next phase is the coding. The coding in

this project would essentially be done on UNIX operating systems and would be in

java (J2EE version). The various five modules described above would be developed

by different set of developers. The output would be a code done in java languages

in the form of Jsps which would adhere to the design documents prepared.

Test cases:

Once the code is developed it requires testing. Thus specifying the test cases is

very important. These would include White box and Black box test cases. Black box

test cases are generally for the end user or acceptance test cases which are

generally done at the end of every module or completion of the website by users to

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check the business functionalities being met. These would include test cases for

ordering journeys for purchasing and payment.

Black box test cases would include scenarios where the code is checked technically

from inside. These cases are comprehensive and should check solidarity of the

coding being done.

These documents are fairly important in order to check the performance and

limitations of the code as to how much load it can sustain and extreme cases. IT is

important from both the developers (IT providers) and users aspects.

Application builds:

This is the combined package of the coded jsps, its interlinked connection tools

which is to be deployed on application servers. This build package also includes the

xml files to be deployed on the webservers. The Jsps would go to app. Servers and

xml to webservers. This would also contain the content needed to be uploaded as a

part of feed to the website. This content is a collection of product related jpgs, flash

files, and other promotional related content files which are dynamic on the website.

User Manuals:

This document would cover in detail about the various functionalities of the website

(as per the requirements). This would contain exhaustive description step by step

about the different functions and its working and uses that are incorporated in the

website. By using this manual the users can easily come to know about the working

of website through a users point of view.

Module description Documents:

These would contain the technical details of the different modules that are built for

making the website. Since it would contain the internal working of these modules

these would be confidential documents. This would also contain the working of

webserver and its connection to the app servers and content servers and app server

connection to database. A complete flow of the internal working would be covered

in this document.

Progress Report/Dashboard.

This document would essentially help the management and the project steering

committee to continuously monitor and view the progress of the project. It would

indicate deviations if any and hence would help the project committee to take

necessary actions if required.

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The product breakdown diagram for this project is shown below:

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Project

Products

System

Products

Module Products Management

Products

Progress

Report/

Design

docume

nt for

Order

Design

docume

nt for

Products

DB and

Display

Design

docume

nt for

Contentmgmt.

Design

docume

nt for

Paymentsystem

Code

for

Order

jrny. Jsp

Code

for

ContentMgmt.

Code

for

Products

Test

plan

and

test

casesfor

Code

for

Payme

nt

s stem

Test

plan

and

test

casesTest

plan

and

testcases

Test

plan

and

testcases

System Level

Agreement

Overall

Requirement

Specification

document

User Manual

Module

Description

documents

Applicationbuilds

Design

for

Registr

ationand

Code

for

Reg. &

login

Test

cases

for

reg.&


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1.7 Activities:

The following are the activities that are identified and would be carried out

accordingly for this project.

Activity Estimate

d Days

Activity Estimate

d Days

A Overall specification 20 I Coding/testing Order

jrny. Module

12

B Technical Design &

Architecture

17 J Coding/testing Product

DB & display module

12

C Low level Design for

Registration & login

module

5 K Coding/testing content

mgmt. module

12

D Low level Design for Order

jrny. module

5 L Coding/testing Payment

system module

12

E Low level Design for

Product DB & display

module

5 M System Integration 5

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F Low level Design for

content mgmt. module

5 N Overall system testing 4

G Low level Design for

Payment system module

5 O Build and Deployment

on LIVE servers

2

H Coding/testingRegistration & login

module

12 P Creating User manual 14

Below is the Activity network diagram shown for the project. The required days for

activities are estimated keeping the contingency factor for each activity.

12

C 5

37 Design forRegistratio

n & login

module

42

37 42

5 0

H 12

42 Code/testRegistratio

n & login

54

42 54

12 0

D 5

37 Design fororder

journey

module

42

37 42

5 0

I 12

42 Code/testorder

journey

54

42 54

12 0

A 20

0 Overall

Specification

20

0 20

20 0

B 17

20 TechnicalDesign &

Architecture

37

20 37

17 0

E 5

37 Design for

ProductsDB &

display

42

37 42

5 0

J 12

42 Code/test

ProductsDB &

display

54

42 54

12 0

F 5

37 Design forcontent

mgmt.

module

42

37 42

5 0

k 12

42 Code/testContent

Manageme

nt

54

42 54

12 0


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13

G 5

37 Design forPayment

system

module

42

37 42

5 0

L 12

42 Code/testPayment

system

54

42 54

12 0

M 5

54 SystemIntegration

59

54 59

5 0

N 4

59 Overallsystem

testing

63

59 63

4 0

O 2

63 Build &deploymen

t on Live

Servers

65

63 65

2 0

P 14

37 CreatingUser

manual

51

49 63

26 12

Activity

Label

duration

Earlie

st

start

Activity

Description

Earlie

st

finish

Lates

t

start

Latest

finish

Activity

span

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It is apparent form the Activity diagram that the complete project is bound to

finish in 65 days which is well within the given deadline of three months

(considering working of total 14 weeks and 5 days per week)

Here the System analyst/Architect would design the system specification and

high level design for system, while the developers would carry out the Design

and coding part of each module which would run in parallel. Testers would

test the code initially during the development of the modules

The system integration would then take place which would include

integration of all the modules, connection of jsp code with database and

current inventory system through appropriate calls, drivers and queues.

The overall system would again be tested in terms of end to end working.

Then the final build and deployment would be done on Live servers along

with the domain name registration and activation which would make the

website go live.

1.8 Resources

Resources are one of the key components of any software project. The project is a fixed

time/money project involving three months of time in which the IT Company has to develop and

deliver complete website up and running in three months from the date of start. There would be a

fixed amount of Rs. 10,00,00 would be paid by ABC ltd to the IT company. Also the cost of

licensing of the softwares and hardwares would be borne by ABC ltd. Resources for this project

can be classified into the following categories:

Labour: There needs to be a proper hierarchical structure in place for efficient managing.

There will be a project steering committee controlling the flow of project. A project manager

who will be responsible for the entire project. Each module will employ 1 developer who will

be responsible for developing each module. The developers will be responsible for testing and

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integrating their respective modules. There will be 5 testers for testing the integrated codes

base. The team will also consist of a system analyst who will analyze the client system and

will accordingly prepare the technical specifications. The system analyst would also do the

technical architecture design of the complete project. It will also consist of a quality assurance

team, which will be responsible for ensuring quality. Along with that a build, deployment and

an integration personnel looking after the integration of builds onto the development, test and

production servers. A content manager would work with the client for management and

uploading of content on the website.

Hardware/Software/Network It will include workstations and other computing and office

equipments. It will include the hardware requirements for the projects like servers, network

cables, internet ports, printers, scanners, photo copiers, etc. Software like OS, antivirus and

other various important software need to be updated on all the workstations. For this project

Sun Solaris servers are being used with UNIX OS and licenses for other softwares such as

Oracle DB, Weblogic, Teamsite, Loadrunner, Toad, Etc would be required.

Other Requirements: The management will require proper space for housing the resources. It

will include cabin for the manager and cubicles for other employees. It will also include

desks, chairs, proper lightings and other such stuff for the staff.

Time: The time required for the completion of project has been estimated to 3 months in

which the Website needs to be On Live fully functional. Further distribution of timelines in

terms of activities has been discussed in detail in Activity section.

Cost: The costs would in general is categorized into two sections:

1. Staff Costs: Staff costs for the project are shown below :

Member Weekly cost (in Rs.)

Module code developers (5) (7500)1500 x 5

Module code testers (5) (6000)1200 x 5

System Analyst/ Technical Architect (1) 2500

Project Manager (1) 2500

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Integration manager (1) 1500

Content Manager (1) 1200

Quality/security assurance manager (1) 1000

2. Overheads: Overheads for this project are estimated as Rs. 10,000 per week.

Hence for three months (approximately 15 weeks) the Overhead + staff costs add up to Rs.

4,83,000

The resource allocation needs to be done on the basis of skill set and the management needs to be

in constant touch with the HR department in order to get the right people. They have to manage

the resource attrition and have to find suitable replacement. Also, if some critical activity is

taking more than estimated time, management needs to employ extra resources there from some

other module or activity.

The management, also, need to keep the resources motivated in order to get the maximum out of

them, so that there will be no issues in completing the project on time.

1.9 Risk Analysis

Project needs to follow a strict deadline and also works on a budget. Any deviation from that cancause the company huge deal of losses. Hence, risk analysis is very important step in the success

of the project. It helps in analyzing where the project can go wrong. The three major causes of

risk in this project would be Unavailability of resources, Unavailability of key client

personnel, Technical problems.

A priority can be given to each risk by allocating a probability rating (1 10) and a seriousness

of impact rating (1 10). Multiplying the two together gives an overall score of priority

purposes.

A standard risk exposure assessment for this project is shown below:

S No. HAZARD LIKELIHOOD IMPACT RISK EXPOSURE

1 Major sickness of employees

involved in critical path

4 8 32

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activities

2 Requirement specification

changes during coding or testing

phase

7 9 63

3 Design and specification t akes

longer than expected

6 7 42

4 Major sickness of employees

involved in non critical path

activities

8 4 32

5 Coding of individual modules

takes longer time

5 4 20

6 Design flaws during module

testing

4 8 32

7 Architecture & design flaw

during system integration

3 10 30

The required score in the risk exposure column gives the priorities for the risks

which need to be either reduced or prevented first. For example the personnel

shortfall could be reduced by staffing with top talent, training and development and

early scheduling of key personnel. Technical faults in coding could be avoided by

improved software evaluation and formal specification methods. Quality of the

design and code could be improved through quality assurance procedures and

certification.

The major risk exposure is certainly on changes in requirement specifications during

coding and testing phase. Since it involves changes in design and lots of rework, its

impact is also high both in terms of time and money. Hence Stringent control

procedures high change threshold and incremental code development could be

done to reduce this risk.

Bibliography:

1. Software Project Management

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(Bob Hughes & Mike Cotterell, Fourth Edition, 2009)

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