Project Resource Management

Several people working on the Recreation and Wellness Intranet Project are confused about their responsibilities for the testing portion of the project. Recall that the team members include you, a programmer/analyst and aspiring project manager; Patrick, a network specialist; Nancy, a business analyst; and Bonnie, another programmer/analyst. Tony Prince is the project manager, and he has been working closely with managers in other departments to make sure everyone knows what’s going on with the project.

1.    Prepare a responsibility assignment matrix based on the following information: The main tasks for testing include writing a test plan, unit testing, integration testing for each of the main system modules (registration, tracking, and incentives), system testing, and user acceptance testing. In addition to the project team members, a team of user representatives is available to help with testing, and Tony has also hired an outside consulting firm to help as needed. Prepare a RACI chart to help clarify roles and responsibilities for these testing tasks. Document key assumptions you make in preparing the chart.

2.    The employees of the outside consulting firm and the user representatives have asked you to create a resource histogram to show how many people you think the project will need for testing, and to show when testing will occur. Assume that the consulting firm has junior and senior testers and that the user group has workers and managers. You estimate that you’ll need the involvement of both groups in testing over a period of six weeks. Assume that you’ll need one senior tester for all six weeks, two junior testers for the last four weeks, two user-group workers for the first week, four user-group workers for the last three weeks, and two user-group managers for the last two weeks. Create a resource histogram like the one in Figure 9-6(SEE ATTACHED) based on this information.

3.    One of the issues Tony identified is the ability to work effectively with the user group during testing. According to MBTI classifications, Tony knows that several of his project team members are very introverted and strong thinking types, while several members of the user group are very extroverted and strong feeling types. Write a one-page paper that describes options for resolving this issue, focusing on using a confrontation/problem-solving approach.