Chapter Exercises


Exercise 1

In this exercise, you will be presented with a project management scenario. You will then be asked a series of questions based on the scenario.

You are the project manager for the rollout of 1200 Windows XP Professional workstations. Of the workstations, 730 will be new, while the remaining 470 computers will be operating systems upgrades. You have decided that all of the workstations, regardless of the new equipment or the upgraded operating system, will need a uniform installation. Domain names , installed software, and the security policies should be the same across all of these workstations.

Your team has discussed the various methods that could be used to install the operating system image. Here is a quick record of their recommendations:

Team Member

Recommendation

John

I think that we should deliver and place all of the workstations first and then configure the workstations according to guidelines. Applications can be installed via Windows 2003 s policies capability.

Susan

I think the machines should all be configured prior to delivery to the clients . We could use imaging software to deploy the images to the workstations and then deliver them once all of the workstations have been configured.

Henry

Imaging software is definitely the way to go. But I think we should map out the physical departments where the machines are to be delivered. Once we ve identified all of the machines in each area, we can put the image on the PC and then move it to each department.

Shelly

What we need is a combination of solutions. Let s take Susan s imaging idea and combine it with Henry s mapping of the physical placements of the machines. We should take the machines and physically place them on the network. Then, over the network, push the image to the machines through the imaging software. This way we can be delivering the PCs, installing the PCs, and installing multiple PCs over the network all at once.

Fred

Okay, that s a good idea. The only problem is it s going to be hard to deliver 730 workstations during the workday ”or even over a weekend . We re going to have to do this after hours and in sections. Let s take Shelly s idea and combine it with Henry s idea to deploy the workstations over several weekends.

Complete the following questions to finish the exercise:

  1. What type of decision-making process was your team participating in?

  2. What are advantages to using this process?

  3. Are there any disadvantages? If so, what are they?

  4. Which team member may feel that his contribution was not valuable ?

  5. How could you respond to this team member to encourage that individual to continue to participate?

  6. Which team member could be considered the sage personality type?

  7. Now that you ve heard what the team members have to say, what method would you recommend for this installation process?

  8. Why would you deploy the workstations in the method you just described?

Exercise 2

In this scenario, you will be presented with three descriptions of team members on your project. To complete the exercise, answer the questions after each team member description.

Scenario: You are the project manager for a Lotus Notes installation. The software will need to be customized to fit your environment and will be installed on 1700 workstations throughout your company s network. Here are your team members:

John Umprheys John is a Certified Lotus Professional. He has worked with Lotus Notes for several years and is generally considered to be the lead technician on Lotus Notes development. John is getting bored with Lotus Notes and would like to move into management, networking, or Visual Basic development after this project.

  1. What methods can you use to motivate John on this project?

  2. What personality type do you think John is, a hygiene seeker or a motivation seeker?

  3. Why do you think that John is this type of personality?

  4. How does this information help you in motivating John on the project?

Sarah Williams Sarah is the new member of the IT department. She graduated last year from the University of Illinois with a degree in computer science. She does not have much experience in Lotus Notes, but is very eager to learn. She considers herself a quick learner, but likes to experiment with the technology before she is willing to try anything in production. She feels she must master the entire product before her contributions will be of value.

  1. What methods can you use to motivate Sarah on this project?

  2. What personality type do you think Sarah is, a hygiene seeker or a motivation seeker?

  3. Why do you think that Sarah is this type of personality?

  4. How does this information help you in motivating her on the project?

Sean Young Sean is an experienced network administrator. He has his MCSE, and has worked with Lotus Domino Servers. He has limited experience with Lotus Notes development work. Sean is not very interested in learning the development side of Notes, as he d rather stay in his comfort zone with network administration. His biggest concern is that the project will not go smoothly and his job as a network admin will be compromised.

  1. What methods can you use to motivate Sean on this project?

  2. What personality type do you think Sean is, a hygiene seeker or a motivation seeker?

  3. Why do you think that Sean is this type of personality?

  4. How does this information help you in motivating Sean on the project?




IT Project Management
IT Project Management: On Track from Start to Finish, Third Edition
ISBN: 0071700439
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2004
Pages: 195

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