Project Charter Essay

Business Need: Ohio Department of Health and Human Services (ODHS) has 15,000 state and county agency employees in 88 counties in Ohio. ODHS has a network infrastructure that ranges to high quality in some regions within the system to very poor quality in other regions. Additionally, resources are limited due to a high turnover rate of existing employees causing support for the network to be handled by outside labor. Budget is also limited. To improve the infrastructure, ODHS has asked The Office of Network Support (ONS) to investigate upgrading the ODHS email system. ONS is responsible for coordinating software upgrade and updates and modifications from the Columbus, Ohio location ONS will manage the upgrade for ODHS to all agencies within the 88 counties of Ohio either by converting from the current e-mail software from Global Upgrade 7.0 to version 9.0. The decision will be made on the basis of cost, staffing and various incentives from the vendors. Currently there is a 20% cost increase with the Globalupgrades 9.0 software, but this cost will be offset by increased productivity and cost savings through incentives offered by the vendor Project Objectives: ONS will investigate, design and develop an upgraded email system providing research, expertise and installation assistance to improve the network infrastructure to improve communication between the 15,000 ODHS.Approach: Assign both external and internal personnel to assist in research to determine if updating to Globalupgrades 9.0 or another vendor is more cost effective and if incentives offered will give the advantages needed to improve the email system. Narrow research to at least two vendor contenders to use for the upgrade based on incentives, costs, and reliability and expansion packages. Select one vendor meeting all criteria and manage the  design, development and installation of the email upgrade. Testing of email upgrade through use of ODHS user group Implement email upgrade Project Team Members: The key members of the project are: Project Sponsor: Peter Parker: Director of Office of Network Support Project Manager: Lavina Barry for the Office of Network Support, ODHS. Key PM for the E-mail Upgrade Project Engineer: Diana Prince, ONS Software Engineer with specific experience in implementing and administering various email systems Globalcom Representative: Steve Rogers, Globalcom’s sales representative and chief point of contact for the State User Representative: Linda Lee Danvers, support specialist within the ODHS, serving as liaison between the ODHS User Group community and the project team ODHS User Group: A number of ODHS employees that are used to test system upgrades before implementation Team Members will be assigned by the project manager based on their expertise, skills and abilities. The team will be comprised of members from functional areas within the company that functional managers will provide with team members dedicating 100% of their time during the duration of the project. Project Mile stones: Deliverables Description Email Software UpdateInstallation of upgrade software Email System TestingTest system with user groups Email System ImplementationGo-live with support and consultation Project Constraints/Risks: Cost for the upgrade package will be a factor because of a possible increase in cost over the current system. With a high employee turnover, experts will be hired in-house on a temporary basis, selected by the project manager, to work on the project. One risk that may occur is the system being taken down for periods of time, disabling communication agency wide. This risk will be adverted by working on the system during downtime  and weekend time, with advance notice to forewarn all employees, including telecommuting users. Project Manager Authority and Responsibilities 1. Staffing – the project manager will determine the skill requirements for the Email upgrade project and provide them, along with specific team member names, by February 28, 2014. 2. Communications – status reports will be provided to the Sponsor bi-monthly. 3. Planning/Tracking – this project will be tracked using our in-house project management software. 4. Document/System Access – the project manager is authorized access to any company document or system in the pursuit of this project completion.5. The project manager will provide a project plan to the Sponsor no later than March 1, 2014. The project plan will include a description of the work, schedules, budget, spending plan, resource utilization charts and risk management plans. Support Requirements from Other Organizations: The Email Upgrade Project is set as a high priority for ODS. Functional managers will provide all the support needed to the project manager. Any scheduling conflicts will be resolved by the CEO of ODHS. Due to the limited resources available in-house, some labor will be contracted with outside vendors for the installation and testing. Vendor will support the project by providing staffing from their agency as well, number of staff and hours to be agreed to in a subcontract agreement.