Clothes ‘r’ Us Point-Of-Sale Initiative

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As testing is done for all elements of the software individually and as an integrated application. Delay in the deployment of GUI would affect overall time impact of the testing phase.

• Training: In order to successfully deploy POS system across retail outlets, it was essential to test it in pilot stores and train store managers, hence overall training deployment would be delayed.

Schedule Impact

Below is a table that depicts the total schedule impact of GUI sign-off on Big ABC Consulting Company.

Requirements Freeze (June 2002)

Process Schedule Impact (US$)

POS 152,000

Credit 139,680

Quality Assurance 54,400

Testing 20,000

Training 30,000

Total 396,080

From the table, it is clear that the total schedule impact that ABC Company bore was $396,080 which is nothing but an addition of all individual schedule impacts for different phases.

Cost Impact for Big ABC Consulting Company

Cost Impact for Big ABC Consulting Company is $2,161,360

Cost Impact for Clothes ‘R’ Us is $192,917 and CPI is 85.71% which means that the project is over budgeted at the time of GUI sign-off as mentioned in the below table.

Scheduled impact of Clothes ‘R’ Us is 0. The SPI is also 100% which means that the project is on schedule till the month of July.

Requirements Freeze (2002)

Process June Cost Impact (US$) July Cost Impact (US$)

PMO 0 247,200

POS 152,000 304,000

Credit 139,680 279,360

Store Management 0 304,000

CRM 0 39,520

Inventory 0 151,200

Quality Assurance 54,400 108,800

Testing 20,000 40,000

Tech Mgmt & Operations 0 231,200

Training 30,000 60,000

Total 396,080 1,765,280

Event 2: Transitions in Product Management team

The Design Implementation phase was well under way going into August as it was planned according to the Planning Baseline because of aggressive staffing of the technical consultants by ABC Consultants. The second delay came after the resignation of 4 out of 6 project managers, being hired by a private contractor. By referring Exhibit 6a, we can see that one product manager was assigned to one application. So the projects that were affected because of the resignation of the product managers were –

(a) POS (b) Credit (c) Store Management

(d) CRM (e) Inventory (d) Network Services

The resignation also impacted the overall implementation of the design applications. As entire product management team left the company by the end of August there was the delay of four more weeks in the Code Implementation phase due to complete transition of the product manager’s team. The project was on hold and the whole September was wasted in just the transition which also delayed the Software Integration and Testing.

Event 3: Incompatible Application Platform

There was another issue with the test incompatibility of the application with the preinstalled operating system which would result in the delay by 4 weeks. This event would affect the following projects:

(a) Testing: The testing of the developed software is directly dependent of the testing platform and hence the whole testing phase would be delayed or impacted.

(b) Quality Assurance: Quality of the product can only be assured if it has been tested an analysed in different testing scenarios, hence the assurance of quality activity will be delayed.

(c) Production Environment: This is the phase where the software is implemented in the retail stores and the go live environment. This cannot be achieved unless the software is completely tested and certified.

Event 4: WorldCom’s Bankruptcy

It was also observed in the case that due to the bankruptcy of the WorldCom, a new vendor to provide the private network was selected and hence resulted in the delay of the network configuration process. The below activities are in direct relation to an impact here

(a) Network Services (b) Infrastructure Deployment (c) Deploying Pilot Network

(d) Tech Management and Operations Configuration Management (e) Training

Analysis

To see the extent to which the project was delayed, we have calculated the cost and the Time delay as shown in Exhibit 1 – Cost & Time Impact of the attached excel sheet. To elaborate, we have performed following calculations to show the extent of impact of first event on the project time line.

From the calculation shown below, it was evident that, the SPI of Big ABC Company is 94.37% which means that the project was behind schedule in the month of June.

JAN FEB MAR APR MAY JUN

PV ($) $379,200 $1,384,320 $2,389,440 $3,506,240 $5,271,520 $7,036,800

EV ($) $379,200 $1,384,320 $2,389,440 $3,506,240 $5,271,520 $6,640,720

SV ($) $0 $0 $0 $0 $0 -$396,080

SPI ($) 100.00% 100.00% 100.00% 100.00% 100.00% 94.37%

Month 1 2 3 4 5 6

ES (t) 1 2 3 4 5 5.78

SV (t) 0 0 0 0 0 -0.22

SPI (t) 100.00% 100.00% 100.00% 100.00% 100.00% 96.34%

To further estimate the time of completion, we have:

Earned Value ($) Schedule variance = - $396,080

Earned Schedule variance = - 0.22

This - ve schedule variance indicates that the project is behind schedule.