Part 1: Project Planning
Please respond to the following in not more than 200 words:
Summarize your experience developing a project plan for the access control system.
Which aspects did you find the easiest, and which were the most challenging for you?
Part 2: Then, in a separate post, follow up on one of your fellow students in a substantive post of up to 150 words that furthers their discussion. For example, you may support or politely challenge a post with your own insights or experience, make a suggestion, or ask probing follow-up questions. (Choose 1)
a. I had a clear idea the way I wanted to setup the project setting up or defining 5 key aspects was the easiest for me. We write so many papers in Strayer courses that defining or summarizing becomes second nature to you. I had experience installing a ACS in the past, but, planning it and running the project is where I want to be so this was a good exercise for me.
I would say it was a bit of a challenge to get the necessary software applications needed to provide the Gantt chart and the flowchart took a little more effort. I have created simple flow charts in the past, but, making one to fit this project took some time. The Gantt chart will take some getting used to more practice and exercise will make it clearer to me.
b. The easiest was the Project workflow diagram and the hardest was the Gantt chart. The Gantt chart was the most challenging as it was the visual design of the project but split into tasks. Determining the order, the subtasks of the upgrade of the security system was a challenge in itself, therefore is the reason I chose the Gantt chart.
Also determining what information within the chart needed to be completed. It is very detailed and I believe I completed the necessary requirements since we had to copy it into the Word document but I believe it would have been a requirement if we had to provide the Gantt chart as a file for review or reference.
c. My experience was not a bad one- developing a project plan was the best part for me- just thinking of what was needed for the project made it exciting. The easiest aspect of the project was creating the diagram- once I knew what needed for the project- I just implemented that in my diagram of how the system works. The most challenging aspect was the Gantt Chart- I wasn't familiar using a Gantt Chart, I never had to do a Gantt chart before- I had a difficult time set up the right format for the bar grid of the days of completion.
d. I hate to say it, but developing the project plan for the access control system was kind of fun. I enjoyed figuring out how the system might work, developing the tasks and subtasks, and creating the gantt chart and system workflow diagram. If I had to pick, I'd say the gantt chart was especially eye opening.
I actually work at a place where I see gantt charts hanging all over the place, but I never paid them much attention. I can now appreciate them a bit more. The scope document portion of the assignment was the most challenging/tedious part (and the part I did last), mainly because I wasn't sure what to put in the scope document. The easiest part of the assignment was creating the gantt chart - I used an online tool at ganttpro.com to create my gantt chart.