Chapter Exercises

In these exercises, you will evaluate three different IT projects that are experiencing problems with quality. For each scenario, you will offer a solution to ensure quality.

Exercise 1

Michelle is the IT project manager for an implementation of seven Windows 2003 Servers. The scope of the project is to install and configure a Windows 2003 domain with Active Directory. Three of the servers are to be located in the company headquarters in Atlanta. Two are to be installed in the Tampa office, and the remaining two are to be installed in the Nashville office.

The servers in Atlanta and in Nashville have been installed successfully, but Jerry, the network administrator, has yet to install the servers in Tampa. Jerry reports that he is leery of moving from his NetWare environment to the Windows 2003 Servers. Michelle, the project manager, insists that Jerry install the servers as planned to complete the project. A week passes and Jerry still has not completed the installation. What steps can Michelle take to ensure that the installation is completed?

Your proposed solution:

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Exercise 2

You are the IT project manager for a software development project. Customers of your company, RWE Architects, should be able to use the Internet to check on the status of the building plans, review the work draftsman and architects have completed, and communicate with their account managers.

The plan to complete the project calls for a central database that can be queried by customers and the internal staff. The architects will also use a web portal to report the progress of each building plan they are working on so that customers will see the progress of the work.

The timeline for the project development and implementation is four months. At the end of the second month, you want to sample the work to date. You first evaluate the internal web portal that the architects will use to report the status of customers work. You discover that this application has actually been designed to track hours worked on the project for billing purposes and not to report the overall progression of the building plans. This is not what the project scope called for. What steps should you take to correct the problem?

Your proposed solution:

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Exercise 3

Mike is the IT project manager for an installation of four SQL Servers. The servers are all clustered for fault tolerance and are installed on multiple-processor machines, with 2GB of RAM for optimal performance. A server will be located in each network within the company.

The scope of the project requires a persistent, fast connection between each of the sites as the databases will synchronize on a regular, frequent schedule. Currently, the connection between Tempe and Phoenix is restricted to an ISDN line, well below optimal speed for fast updates. What are two recommendations you can make to ensure quality for the users in the Tempe office?

Your proposed solution:

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