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Written Assignment 2

Management

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Written Assignment 2.3

This assignment has two parts. Complete all of the questions in both parts.

Part 1

1. Two projects are described below. For each, please make a list of deliverables you would include ensuring that the project fulfills its objectives.
    
   1. You are in the process of working with a contractor to pave a new driveway for your house as well as to build a detached two-car garage at the end of it. What deliverables would you place in the contract?
       
   2. You work for a company that makes widgets. You have a single plant located in the United States. The plant has orders, credit, manufacturing, warehousing, shipping, and invoicing departments. Each of these departments has its own unique legacy computer software programs. Information is passed from one department to the next by hand-keying the necessary information into a different computer hardware and software system. Your firm wants to implement enterprise resource planning (ERP), which involves replacing such individual legacy systems with one integrated software system. An order will proceed from beginning to end without anyone having to input data other than what was entered when the order was originally placed. Make a list of deliverables you would expect from the software company setting up the ERP system.

2. What is involved in testing the limits as you do initial scoping?

3. What is the value of a scope document?

Part 2

A work breakdown structure (WBS) is a deliverable-oriented hierarchical decomposition of the work to be executed by the project team to accomplish the project objectives and create the required deliverables. In short, it is a giant "to do" list that shows how the team will accomplish the project objectives. A WBS organizes and defines the project's total scope while subdividing the project into smaller, more manageable pieces into descending levels. Kendrick describes this process in Chapter 6. For a brief explanation and sample, see the chart below.

Look back to Part 1 of this assignment, where you made a list of deliverables. Choose one of the two projects described in Part 1, and create a work breakdown structure.

Textbook readings

• Read Chapters 5 and 6, and review Chapter 2, in Kendrick, Results Without Authority.

• Read Leading Virtual Teams (Pocket Mentor)