Task: Project Plan Forecast
Utilizing the information below, please provide approx. 1400 words of detailed feedback on a project plan forecast regarding the following project proposal and risk management plan. Also please provide a 15-20-slide Microsoft® PowerPoint® presentation highlighting the major points of this final Project Plan.
In today’s security, law enforcement has been utilizing information technology to assist in all its daily functions. Though, information technology has become a critical part of law enforcement there is still several programs that need to be implemented. One program that has been highlighted and overlooked is in the arsenal of Adobe systems. This software is an addition to Adobe and it is known as the Adobe Extensible Markup Language or Adobe XML. Since some agencies function with security surveys of infrastructures the Adobe XML program would be a beneficial tool to utilize in support of management. Lastly, the following document will describe the Adobe Company in general and the Adobe XML adaptation project plan to include the justifications for use and best practices for a law enforcement agencies.
General Overview/Description:
According to Adobe Company’s website, Adobe Systems Incorporated offers a line of software and services for public and private sectors in the United States. The company was founded in 1982 and is headquartered in San Jose, CA. The company operates in four segments: creative professional, digital imaging and video, intelligent documents, and OEM postscripts. The company also provides professional services, technical support, and customer services. In addition, it owns capital limited partnerships that invest in early stage companies, and also makes direct investments in privately held companies. Adobe systems’ customers include creative and professional publishers, enterprise users, such as knowledge workers, information technology managers, line of business managers, and executives, and consumers to include digital imaging and video hobbyist. Lastly the company distributes its products mainly to dealers, value added resellers, system integrators, independent software vendors, direct end users, and on its website (Adobe.com, 2006).
The Adobe XML Project will be used as a portion of the Adobe Integrated Information Infrastructure Program. According to Wikipedia XML is defined as a service that provides a text-based means to describe and apply a tree-based structure to information. At its base level, all information manifests as text, interspersed with markup that indicates the information's separation into a hierarchy of character data, container-like elements, and attributes of those elements (2006).The Adobe XML program will be utilized for various practices and would be beneficial in communications and tools that will assist the administration, the agency’s s surveillance programs, and will do away with the obstacles that stand alone programs create. The description entailed in this document of Adobe XML is in direct standard with the project management methods.
2. Problem/result statement
In law enforcement agencies today, there is an ongoing attempt to convince the Adobe software industry of using XML technology to ensure the use and disbursement capabilities of information are available. Many major software corporations such as Microsoft, Oracle, and IBM offer Adobe XML as an important piece of their software packages. Thus Adobe ought to embrace XML as a component of its communications potential and software package. Due to Adobe XML’s simplicity and ability to label text and data, XML has been adopted in many various industries except some law enforcement agencies. The XML allows the capabilities to free up personnel since it relatively needs little human involvement and is able to process information through different applications, operating systems, and computer hardware. Though Adobe has a diverse mission, XML has proven to have numerous qualifications to meet any project management need that Adobe can’t handle. Adobe’s stand alone problem is that computer hardware and software to include the World Wide Web is a necessary tool to comply with all the vendors’ needs and uses. On the other hand, XML can be used with many different application not related to the world wide web, but as project plans continue to use web services XML will develop into an ever more imperative method for conducting business for both law enforcement and the Adobe industry.
3. Mission and Objectives
This project plan overview supports a critical portion of law enforcement to include the access to critical information that Adobe stand alone software does not provide. With the XML application it enables administration to have admittance anytime and anywhere to both project and employee information. These fundamental actions of providing law enforcement agency ultimate access facilitate project planning success with availability of information systems and technologies that XML provides.
The overall mission and objectives of the Adobe XML project are to;
Make available the Adobe XML applications and plan the methods, means, and support that law enforcement needs in order to increase the use of critical information and its operating systems to successfully complete any project plans in the future. The Adobe XML will also allow an enhancement in both knowledge, training in specific aspects, and future awareness of XML’s technologies. Lastly, the information technology officer of Adobe software will be able to regulate and enforce new recommendations to the law enforcement agency rules and regulations and harmonize with the other Adobe XML communities as a unit and a strong infrastructure.
4. Scope
Adobe’s overall support of law enforcement missions is to provide information to management, employees, vendors, and its partner agencies. For overall success of a project plan, the Adobe Company must provide the technology for management to be able to generate, transmit, and use any information efficiently. This document explains why Adobe should embrace XML to advance agency-wide activities that will assist law enforcement agencies in growing as a business and a infrastructure for technology. The Adobe XML project plan will assist in describing how the updated activities will assist law enforcement as a business and how these activities will be implemented.
5. Performance Measures
To ensure ultimate performance and effectiveness the following measures have been proposed in this plan.
1. Quantity of entrances to the Adobe XML Registry.
2. Quantity of the public interest proposes pieces of information to the Adobe XML Registry.
3. Quantity of explorations to the Adobe XML Registry.
4. Completed Adobe XML Customer Satisfaction Surveys.
5. Quantity of visitors to the XML website.
6. Project Management Practice
1. The law enforcement information technology team is required to establish at the start if the estimated deadline, budget, and manning assets are satisfactory to execute the plan.
2. The information technology team will categorize precedence of agency’s issues that may possibly delay the project plan overview.
3. The law enforcement project plan will be lead by a single project manager.
4. The information technology team shall correspond with all office communities affected by the project plan overview.
5. The information technology team shall produce an organized register of employees and departments that the following project will affect or hinder. The team will advise and keep all affected personnel advised of every step till the last and final conclusion.
6. The information technology team will create and deliver a law enforcement customer oriented product. The team will observe and listen to each and every survey referencing their duties and expectancies of the product. The team will accomplish the plan through continuous communication with the customer to determine if the targeted plan meets the customer’s expectancies.
7. Simulation Learning Points
Three key learning points for the “Selecting and Initiating Projects” simulation that I as a IT specialist and law enforcement officer would implement or apply in this project would be to take great consideration of selecting the project that best fits the strategic objectives, ensure that investments and budgeting is properly projected, and guarantee that the project implementation is up to specification to complete the required task. Selecting the best project that fits the objectives is key, since selecting the best project can result in decisive gains in positional advantage over any adversary or obstacle that may be encountered. Secondly, ensuring that proper budgeting is correctly processed through the proper channels for approval is highly critical to any project success. Making certain that all investments and revenue is accurately defined to ensure that all avenues of cost are covered to initiate and begin with the appropriate vendor selection. Lastly, utilizing a simple vendor matrix allows management to successfully evaluate and select the best vendor to implement the required task.
In conclusion, Adobe XML software is essential to the law enforcement realm given that disbursement of vital information can be life saving to not only employees but also to society. This project plan is to assist in the evaluation of Adobe systems to use XML as a critical piece of their software packages to its customers. This document provides several tactics and strategies to properly implement a project plan to embrace the XML technology. Adobe systems need to strategize and counter any opposition by making a crucial decision to ensure the safety of law enforcement officers and the community by implementing a simple project such as adding XML. Finally each decision in regards to Adobe XML systems project plan needs to be evaluated and considered to meet an agency’s strategic plans and objectives to ensure customer satisfaction and overall success.
Managing Project Risk
The subsequent document is an addition to the proposed project plan to adopt the Adobe XML software in the provided Adobe software and provide information technology to the realm of law enforcement. The document will provide profound managing project risk. This document will present information on specific tasks and milestones, specific projected risks, assessment of each risk’s impacts, mitigations strategies, and an explanation if there is a change in management. This managing project risk document will implement 3 learning points from the Managing Project Risk simulation to further enhance the information previously provided. In conclusion the following list will attempt to supplement the project proposal by adding in depth information of specific task and milestones.
The specific tasks and milestones required for this project plan.
1. Preparing law enforcement Programs/Project Plans
2. Fiscal Management
3. Performance Metrics and Analysis
4. Obtaining registry capabilities and configuring registry for law enforcement use.
5. Developing and publishing procedures and documentation and providing user support.
6. Evaluating registry for Adobe requirements.
7. Constituting Adobe XML working group and conducting meetings
8. Conducting company-wide XML training awareness and developing training material.
9. Delivering XML awareness
10. Reviewing project
Five specific project risks (including size of the project and context within the organization) that could arise as the plan is implemented and an assessment of each risks impact on project outcomes (in quantifiable terms).
a. A significant percentage of Adobe personnel using XML may not contribute their XML data to the registry. This may be due to perceived lack of value of the registry to the employees, issues with the registry’s design/implementation, or lack of resources or time to populate the registry.
b. Employees may not use XML as a native capability, they may refuse to use XML or be unable to interface with the company’s XML infrastructure due to resource, schedule, technical, or other considerations. The result would be lack of compliance with the Management agenda or unnecessary duplication of effort in defining and describing important firm data.
c. Security or other concerns may make use of XML problematic for Adobe and the benefits anticipated from investments will not be realized.
d. Data infrastructure may change in the short term and require a competing technology to XML and the benefits anticipated from these investments may not be realized. The probability of this risk is rated very low due to the relative maturity of XML and the lack of competing technologies that can approach its capabilities.
e. The scope of activities proposed for funding in this plan is very large. Failure to adequately manage and execute these activities will result in wasted investment and opportunity loss associated with unrealized XML benefits for the company.
Mitigation strategies for each risk.
a. Training Adobe personnel on the use of the registry can be a good option so that they can fully understand its capabilities. Contractor support to employers to provide further training and consulting assistance in using and populating the registry is an alternative. A strong Adobe XML Working Group of Agency practitioners can be built and it can convey the XML communities’ needs to the office of the CIO.
b. Educating the Adobe community on the mandates included in the agenda is an important step. Providing contractor consulting assistance in analyzing how to best interface with the firm’s XML infrastructure can be helpful. A website can be established and collect information about XML use in the company.
c. Adobe can get help from standards institutions that analyze the technical risks associated with using XML. Any security shortcomings discovered will likely be addressed vigorously.
d. Office of the CIO will continue its strong involvement in the development of the data infrastructure and will have early warning concerning any changes to the requirement to use XML
e. Fully fund and support the proposed activities so that the resources needed for their accomplishment can be applied. Apply oversight of the activities and work products via standard Office of the CIO governance and management processes to ensure their quality and timeliness.
5. A change management plan.
There are four primary activities performed in the risk management process:
a. Identification of risks: a continuous effort to identify and document risks as they are found.
b. Analysis of risks: an estimation of the probability of risks occurring and the impacts they would have if they should occur
c. Planning for mitigation of risks: an effort on a risk-by-risk basis to decide how to disposition risks, and what, if any, risk mitigation steps will be enabled
d. Tracking and controlling risks: collection of and reporting status information about risks and their mitigation plans (where appropriate) and taking corrective actions.
While all project team members have some degree of responsibility for risk management, the Adobe XML Project Manager owns all risks associated with this project. All project team members, including the support contractor staff, have the responsibility to identify risks, to perform an initial analysis to characterize risks, and to communicate risk information to the Project Manager. Following receipt of risk information from the party identifying the risk, the Project Manager will assign to a team member the responsibility for analyzing the risk and developing a recommendation to the Project Manager for risk mitigation. The Project Manager will approve or direct changes to the risk analysis and mitigation recommendation. He will determine whether or not to keep the risk within the project or transfer responsibility for the risk (via negotiations) to another organization outside the project. Risks kept within the project will be assigned to someone within the project for action. For each risk, a decision is made to determine whether the risk requires further research, is accepted (the acceptance rationale is documented in the project files), is tracked, or mitigated (create a mitigation plan, assign actions, and monitor the plan and the risk). All risks will be centrally managed and controlled by the Adobe XML Project Team via spreadsheets. The person assigned responsibility for the risk will provide periodic status reports to the Project Manager. A spreadsheet will be used to track risks and risk status. Summary information about project risks will be provided to the law enforcement executives using methods and tools specified by the program. The existing project budget includes funds associated with mitigating risks recognized at the time of approval of this project plan. If additional risks are identified requiring supplemental funding for mitigation, the executives will be notified.
3 Learning points
Running through the managing risk scenarios I was able to identify three key learning points that could be utilized throughout the proposed managing risk document. Initially, I was a bit skeptical about the information scenario provided and how it could be correlated with this risk management assessment. One key point that I was able to use was to use the risk management wheel i.e. identify, analysis, and response. The second key learning point is to have patience and utilize time management because each step appears to take an evaluation time period. The 3rd key learning point is to become proficient at using mitigating strategies to eradicate any problem that may arise in the project. Lastly the scenario was beneficial in learning the business aspect of risk management.
In conclusion, the mitigation risk proposal is of extreme importance since preparing for a possible risk catastrophe is key to any law enforcement authority. Being able to prepare, identify, and analyze the impact of any risk in any project is vital to both the project and the business reputation. It is important to mitigate any risk in any project to avoid costly measures and project termination. In response to any risk occurring in this proposal, a set of risk management options have been given to prepare for any obstacle that may be encountered. Some of the main key points to take advantage of is to identify possible risks that may affect this project and attempt to encounter such a risk. Analyze each risk and categorize them by importance. Lastly, prepare a response for each risk and have a mitigating strategy to dissolve the potential of that risk. These points have been identified and can make any project proposal a success as long as the team is prepared to face diversity. Finally the risk management process is essentially a back up plan and a way to prepare for risks that may affect the achievement of victory of the overall project.