2.5 The Roles Other Team Members Play

QA and Documentation s Role. Near the end of the design process QA and Documentation are brought in to review the Design Document and are invited to the design review meeting. QA and Documentation are each responsible for developing a document that will outline what their department s deliverables will look like and are each responsible to provide their capital, resource, and time needs to the Project Manager. In Phase 1, the Project Manager estimated that QA and Documentation would each use 25 percent of the time and money that IT used to develop the project. In Phase 2, QA and Documentation create and document what their actual needs will be. IT will need to support and assist QA and Documentation in their efforts to create their plans for the project.

Help Desk s Role. Help Desk is responsible for reviewing the project design with Business Development and IT. Help Desk looks at the project to identify any special needs that users will have. They also look to see what their department will need in order to learn about, support, and identify problems once the project is released. Help Desk reviews the Design Document and the documentation to assure that the features their department needs will be tested in the way they perceive them to be used and to assure that the documents provide the level of information necessary for individuals to install, understand, and use the project by themselves . The easier the project and documentation are to install and use, the more independent the user will be. Independent users save the company money in the long run since they use fewer resources than dependent ones use. It is worthwhile to put time and energy in during the project s development to ensure that it will be easily supported once released. Help Desk should be aware of the cost advantage of developing a project that allows user independence. They are the part of the team responsible for championing easy-to-use features and documentation. Help Desk needs to review their organization s ability to service the project and identify what changes are needed to make the organization more efficient, so they can provide better support.

Project Manager s Role. After the design review, IT should have a concrete plan defining what will be created, when it will be created, when it will be completed, and what hardware and software they recommend. Once Documentation, QA, and Help Desk have had the opportunity to identify and document their needs and resources, the Project Manager creates an integrated schedule. It is important to note that unless this is a small project, the Development, QA, and Beta phases usually take at least a year. If this project will be released to customers, it is unrealistic to ask Business Development to detail a launch plan this early in the process, since many environmental factors are considered when developing time frames and contact names in a launch plan. Business Development can provide the Project Manager with a ˜ ˜straw man list of the type of deliverables they believe they will create for a launch plan, the cost of launching the project, and an idea of when the project will be launched. With the exception of Business Development, all other departments should have clearly identified their schedule to create and release a project. All departments should have an idea of the costs associated with releasing this project.

Most likely the Project Manager will also be responsible for planning the deployment of hardware, software, and networking equipment: The Design Document identifies what the project will look like; this includes projects that entail new hardware, software, or networking equipment. If the company is looking at replacing employees PCs, the Design Document will identify the software and networking capabilities needed by employees and the configurations recommended for the new PCs. In Phase 3 ”Development, the Project Manager and IT manager will review different vendors solutions, negotiate price, and identify the delivery schedule. The actual release plan, which includes receiving, staging, and installing the equipment, will be created in Phase 4. During Phase 2, the Project Manager will create an estimated time frame and schedule for the project. This schedule will be updated in Phase 4, after the contracts have been signed and delivery schedules have been identified.

2.5 in a Nutshell

Even though IT has the critical responsibilities, the rest of the teams still have important deliverables during this phase.

• QA and Documentation are each responsible for developing a document that will outline what their department s deliverables will look like and for providing their capital, resource, and time needs to the Project Manager.

• Help Desk reviews the Design Document and documentation to assure that the required features will be tested the way they perceive them to be used and to assure that the documents will provide the level of information necessary so users can install, understand, and debug the project themselves.

• Project Manager creates the integrated schedule.