Measuring Progress and Requirements

Measuring Progress and Requirements

Project Overview

The customer support corporation is past halfway in the provision of additional skills to its employees. Some of the additional skills that the organization provided to its employees included skills on how to use Microsoft Excel, Microsoft Word, Microsoft Outlook as well as the new CRM software. Besides these objectives, the IT department within the organization has been tasked with the responsibility of granting all employees access to training materials provided by the third-party vendor. Also, the project stakeholders are concerned with ensuring that the achievements of the project meet their requirements as well as all the respective goals. Below is an evaluation criterion that will be used in evaluating the success of the project through a list of 8 well-explained standards. The paper also enumerates the requirements that will be used to measure the progress of the project three months after the project’s implementation, while other standards will be used to evaluate success after twelve months of integration and the lessons learned in undertaking the project.

Standards of Evaluating the Success of the Project

Standard 1: 90 per cent of employees actively use the contents of the courses.

Description: At least 90% of employees within the organization login to the training portal and complete the course assignments.

Standard 2: 60% of users have completed at least three startup courses on the training manual within the first three months and any bonus exercises associated with these courses.

Description: By assessing the reports generated at the project manager’s desk, the completion rate of employees should be at least three startup courses within the first three months. By the twelfth month, 60% of employees should have completed the entire training course assigned to them by the third-party vendor.

Standard 3: The project met 70% of the project speculation within the first three months and attained 100% budget speculation by the end of the twelfth month.

Description: Deploying the project accounting practices goes a long way in determining whether the project is within the project as it necessitates the collection of real-time data, such as time and expense information. In this regard, small decisions at key times may have a significant impact on staying within the budget projections.

Standard 4: Team satisfaction necessitates timely achievement of organizational goals and objectives.

Description: Team satisfaction should be at the top of the organization’s criteria to evaluate the success of its project since they are individuals who are deep in the trenches and have insights on the next level of the project.

Standard 5: Productivity to increase by 4% by the third month while it is projected to have increased by 15% by the end of the twelve months since its launch.

Description: The company reports before and after the project implementation will tell whether productivity increased by four percent in the first three months and a total 15% increase within one year after the project implementation.

Standard 6: Evaluate the level of customer satisfaction courtesy of implementing the new training program.

Description: The customer service department within the organization should get their clients’ feedback while implementing the training program. This should tell whether they are certified with the results, whether their needs were met, or any adjustments that can be made to improve client satisfaction.

Standard 7: All the departmental leaders are active on the system after the elapse of the three-month period.

Description: all the respective leaders at different departments within the organization should be able to login to the system and monitor the course completion rate of employees by the end of the third month.

Standard 8: Employee turnover rate decreased by 6% within the first three months and by 18% within the twelve-month period.

Description: The orientation process that would form a significant part of the first three months should translate into a reduction in turnover rate by at least 6%, and increased accessibility to training materials should decrease the turnover rate further by 18%.

How will you measure progress at its completion, 3 months into its usage, and 12 months after being launched? Discuss why the evaluation requirements change over time. Support your answer with 1 credible source outside of the course materials.

Evaluating the project’s success is significant as it shows the direction the project is taking with regard to its completion. Standards 1, 4, 6, and 7 can be reviewed with the aid of the tracking reports generated at the project manager’s desk. On the other hand, standards 2, 3, and 5 can be reviewed using company reports generated from employees’ data. The success rate of employees in relation to course training can be used in evaluating standard 8 because employees experiencing challenges with the training are most likely to quit.

The project outcomes realized after three months are lower than those realized after twelve months. Therefore, evaluating the project’s success after three months is important because it enables the organization to learn how to optimize for success by uncovering the stories behind the results. Since the project is in the implementation phase, the evaluation is pertinent in enabling the organization to understand how the initiative is taking shape by informing it on early progress and how to maximize the project’s ongoing success (Guo, 2019). Additionally, this early form of evaluation paves the way for the organization to integrate improvements within the project (Guo, 2019). Three months into project implementation is the right time to push for long-term adaptations that will maximize long-term success.

The standards at twelve months are more rigorous and indicate whether the project successfully adopted new initiatives along the way. At this point in time, the employees and the management team are used to the project itself, and most of them have acquired the skills they initially were missing. As such, the evaluation requirements change over time because there is no one-size-fits-all type of evaluation that can be implemented (Albert et al., 2017). For instance, initiatives to necessitate change may emanate from surveying stakeholders, conducting individual interviews, and implementing focus group discussions. Also, an analysis of secondary data, such as written teamwork, and the progress of data submission with regard to training program may go a long way in necessitating the success of the project on a long-term basis (Albert et al., 2017).

Write a discussion on how to close a project and the value of creating a list of lessons learned. Consider how properly closing out projects can help an organization in the future.

As time passes quickly, it is only wise for the project team members to look at the project’s success upon its completion. One way of doing this is by creating SMART objectives to measure the success of project deliverables executed so far. Therefore, while preparing to close the project effectively, the team members should draft SMART goals to inform clear and understandable standards within the project framework. Some of the SMART goals that feature within the standard guidelines for customer Support Corporations include increasing productivity and reducing the turnover rate of employees. While the company seeks to increase productivity by 15%, it looks forward to decreasing the turnover rate by 18% by the end of the twelve months. Finally, closing the project should also have team members meeting to discuss the areas where they experienced challenges and those where success was realized exceedingly.

References

Albert, M., Balve, P., & Spang, K. (2017). Evaluation of project success: a structured literature review. International Journal of Managing Projects in Business.

Guo, J. X. (2019). Measuring information system project success through a software-assisted qualitative content analysis. Information technology and Libraries, 38(1), 53-70.

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The IT department is more than halfway through the completion of the skills gap project. The project stakeholders want to make sure the project deliverables meet their requirements and the goals of the project. The stakeholders are most concerned with the quality of courses, employee usage of courses, the integration with employees’ annual review HR software, ease of use for managers and the HR department, and the expansion of skills for employees. The stakeholders for the project have asked you to create evaluation criteria that will be used to judge the project at its completion, 3 months into its usage, and 12 months after being launched. You may want to review the case study as you complete this assignment.

Complete the following in a 3½- to 4½-page Microsoft Word document:

Develop a list of 6 to 8 standards or requirements for your project that you will use to evaluate its success

Write a brief description of each standard or requirement. For example, a requirement might be that 90 percent of employees have logged in to an assigned course within 3 months.

Write an explanation based on the list of standards and requirements on how you will measure progress at its completion, 3 months into its usage, and 12 months after being launched. Discuss why the evaluation requirements change over time. Support your answer with 1 credible source outside of the course materials.

Additionally, as a project comes close to being completed, project management doesn’t end. It is always important for each project to end by identifying lessons learned and how those lessons can be used by the organization in the future.

Write a discussion on how to close a project and the value of creating a list of lessons learned. Consider how properly closing out projects can help an organization in the future.

Submit your assignment.

This is the case study:

Customer Support, Inc. Case Study
Customer Support, Inc. (CSUP) is a large corporation with international clients that provides customer support related to their bank, credit card, or other financial accounts of their clients. It has over 5,000 full-time employees across the United States.
Its HR department recently completed a skills gap analysis for its workforce using resumes, employee feedback, managerial feedback, industry data, and analysis of internal data related to task completion. It identified skills gaps related to Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, Microsoft Outlook, and its new CRM software that needed to be improved across the organization. HR also projects a 10-15% productivity improvement across its workforce by providing these skills across its workforce.
The IT department has been assigned with the project of providing access to a third-party vendor’s training materials to all of its employees. The courses taken should be tracked within each employee’s HR information which uses a separate HR software package. Lastly, each employee will have a set of courses linked to their annual performance assessment which is tracked using a same HR software. Employees will only get their full bonus if they complete the courses their managers assign to them and link to their performance assessment.
You can assume that the project will take 5 months with an initial cost estimate of $150,000.
Work Breakdown Structure (WBS)
1. Project management
2. Requirements definition
3. Vendor and course identification
3.1 Identification of courses needed based on skills gap analysis
3.2 Identification of potential vendors
3.3 Creation of vendor evaluation process and metrics
3.4 Evaluation of vendors including integration requirements
3.5 Negotiation with selected vendors
3.6 Finalization of course and vendor selection
4. HR Software integration
4.1 Identification of integration information vendors need
4.2 Integration of course assignments into employees profile
4.3 Integration of course tracking into employee profile
4.4 Integration of annual review with course assignments and course tracking
4.5 Integration of course assignment and tracking views for employees and managers
4.6 Integration of reports for managers on courses assigned, courses taken, and courses assigned that haven’t been taken
5. Testing
6. Training, rollout, and support