IT Project Management: Implementation of SAP by Woolworths Limited

This report depicts the role and responsibilities of using proper project management practices during the implementation of any project. In order to resolve the functional and operational risk SAP is implemented by the nominated company Woolworths Limited.

Running head: IT PROJECT MANAGEMENT
IT Project Management
Name of the student
Name of the University:

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Executive Summary
This report depicts the role and responsibilities of using proper project management practices
during the implementation of any project. In order to resolve the functional and operational risk
SAP is implemented by the nominated company Woolworths Limited.

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Table of Contents
Analysis of project case and its organizational context...................................................................2
Size and budget............................................................................................................................2
Problem statement.......................................................................................................................2
Project objectives.........................................................................................................................3
An evaluation of the current state of the organization’s IS/IT technology and its dependency......3
SWOT analysis................................................................................................................................3
Process and methods used in IS/IT projects....................................................................................5
Justification......................................................................................................................................5
Enquire and evaluate the tools.........................................................................................................5
Critically analyze how the selected project is aligned to the strategic goals of the organization....6
Opportunities for improvement in management of IS/IT strategies and approaches......................6
Examine the scope of the project.....................................................................................................7
Major features project limitations and issues related to scope changes..........................................7
Scope statement...............................................................................................................................7
Requirement analysis document......................................................................................................7
Project charter for clarification........................................................................................................8
Investigate the method used for creating the schedule of the project..............................................8
The methods used by the project manager......................................................................................8
Gantt chart.......................................................................................................................................9
Analyze the methods used by the project manager.........................................................................9
All your claims and recommendations..........................................................................................10
References......................................................................................................................................11

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Analysis of project case and its organizational context
After a worrisome time it has been determined that Australia’s Woolworths stabilizes an
Information Technology based system to improve the operational and functional activities
(Heagney, 2016). In order to turn around the fortune, Woolworths Limited, one of the largest
supermarket chains of Australia has embarked new IT based business strategies.
The organization has also taken certain discounted brands from the market. The
competition rate in the retail market is extremely tough these days which required major
attention for Woolworths Limited. The company’s results highlighted huge numbers of
Information Technology troubles in recent days (Kerzner & Kerzner, 2017). The company has
gone through wide range of system upgrades and introduces IT based operating model.
Size and budget
The Woolworths Limited is mainly focused on improving the current ERP system. The
company is interested to adapt a cloud based platform (SAP). The size of the project is large and
the net budget that has been estimated for the implementation is $80,000. It is measured that with
the help of this measurement Woolworths Limited would be able to grab more consumers and
commercial benefits as well.
Problem statement
The different issues that the company is recently facing include inaccurate decision
making issues, inaccurate data management and lack of security of the stored data and the
company has also introduces HCM across the company.

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Project objectives
 To analyze the current operational and functional issues or challenges that the
Woolworths limited is facing
 To design and implement cloud based SAP and give reliability, security,
accountability and manageability (Stark, 2015)
 To improve the recent supply chain management system and customer relation
shop management approach
An evaluation of the current state of the organization’s IS/IT technology and
its dependency
Currently the organization uses ERP system to manage large set of data. The system
helps the associates to retrieve and use that information while required (First, 2016). It helps to
store large information and due to availability of various security measures none of the
unauthorized users would be able to access the server.
The commercial profit, data security and rate of employee turnover are dependent on the
IS/IT strategies used by the company.
SWOT analysis
SWOT analysis
Strengths
 The Woolworths Limited’s business
indicates that it is highly sustainable with
the use of IT strategies.
Weaknesses
 The company has a poor coordination with
the rest of the organizations

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 The operations and functional activities
completed by the company are well
dedicated. In addition to this, expert team
handles this operation with a rightful
manner ( Fleming and Koppelman, 2016)
 For departmental emergencies and
maintenance properly established financial
resources are also offered by the
organization
 The company uses some latest technologies
along with effective management strategies
to avid the block outs.
 The maintenance cost is very high
 The encryption mechanism used by the
company is very weak
 Numbers of associate experts and
manpower is inadequate (Heldman, 2015)
Opportunities
 It will give advanced training
opportunities to the associate staffs
 It helps to increase and meet the
demand of the ICT development as well
as digital control access
 It gives ability to develop new
applications and software to ease the
organizational aspects (Kendrick, 2015)
Threats
 It increases the chances of virus attack
which might cause major system
breakdown
 It cause high level data insecurity
because of the internet hackers and
cyber attack ( Galliers & Leidner,
2014)
 Competitiveness and dynamic
innovation can also cause threats

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Process and methods used in IS/IT projects
It will help the project associates to obtain competitive advantages and commercial profit
as well. The technology or mechanisms that are essentially followed by Woolworths Limited for
business growth and success throughout to provide satisfactory services or products to ht
consumers include Customer Relationship Management (CRM), Enterprise Resource Planning
(ERP) and Supply Chain Management (SCM) (Hornstein, 2015). Theses technical supports will
improve the management approaches and operational activities of the organization.
Woolworths Limited recently uses different technical support system in terms of SCM,
CRM and ERP as well though the ERP system used by the company is not enough secured
which requires serious attention (Galliers & Leidner, 2014). In the IS/IT projects the process or
method that are helpful to use include agile, waterfall, scrum project development methods.
Justification
Implementation of the SAP ERP is justified because it can offer accurate project security,
reliability, accountability, manageability and scalability to the company’s regular operations and
functionalities.
For this particular project predictive project development lifecycle methodology is
nominated because it helps to direct the project activities towards the project aim, objectives and
aims.
Enquire and evaluate the tools
In order to evaluate and execute the project activities the tools that can be used
successfully include Work Breakdown Structure (WBS), Gantt chart and Critical Path Method

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(CPM). The CPM will help to reduce the project complexities and also define the shortest path
that can be followed to meet the project objective. The Gantt chart will help to track the status of
the project after completion of each activity.
Critically analyze how the selected project is aligned to the strategic goals of
the organization.
It has been analyzed that the project is aligned to the strategies goals because the previous
problems that the company was facing related to security, reliability and accountability are
reduced or minimized (Harrison & Lock, 2017). Though, these risks are not completely resolved
by reduced a lot.
Opportunities for improvement in management of IS/IT strategies and
approaches
In order to gain effective opportunities throughout to improve the IS/IT strategies as well
as approaches business requires to possess continuous improvement plan and the continuous
improvement plan include the following:
 Woolworths Limited has introduced incremental changes
 Defining proper business process
 Improvement of the consumer experiences
 Cost reduction
 Improvement if process efficiency and resource productivity
 Reduction in response timing

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Examine the scope of the project
The scope of the project is to improve the existing ERP system of the Woolworths
Limited with an operation model (Marcelino-Sádaba et al., 2014). The project scope is to convert
the ERP system to a SAP based system and make sure that all organizational operations are
accurate and secured as well from the organizational perspectives.
Major features project limitations and issues related to scope changes
There are different issues associated to scope change and those are as follows:
 Overrunning project budget
 Over allocation of project resource
 Overloaded tasks/activities
 Lack of experiences among the project team members
Scope statement
The project scope is to analyze the current problem that Woolworth limited is facing
because of lack of technical support. Initially the project risks are needed to be identified and
then respective management strategies should be introduced. The company has introduced leaner
operation model to replace the company wide system (Kendrick, 2015). The new ERP or SAP
platform will act as a merchandizing platform that can improve other functions and ongoing
activities.

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Requirement analysis document
Before final preparation of the project, requirement analysis has been conducted followed
by requirement identification, gathering and requirement analysis. Then the details of the
requirements are describes as functional and non functional requirements. Again the document is
served in contractual basis among the developers and the consumers.
Project charter for clarification
The project will be completed followed by five phases in terms of initiation, planning,
design and execution, testing and closure (Goetsch & Davis, 2014). The project is following
predictive development life cycle method and thus, the testing approaches those will be used
before the final implementation of the project are unit testing, integrated testing, and user
acceptance testing.
Investigate the method used for creating the schedule of the project
For developing the project schedule the tool that is used by the Woolworths Limited is
Gantt chart. The Gantt chart will help to represent all the project activities and their internal
relationship. It will also help to track the project status and the progress of the project (Goetsch
& Davis, 2014). If during the analysis it is determined that the project is no following the actual
path or direction then respective change management should be introduced.
The methods used by the project manager
In order to control the project schedule the project supervisor and the associate team
members are using the predictive project development methodology, This methodology is using

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to make sure that all the sub tasks and activities are completed within the time without any sort
of delay.
Gantt chart
Figure 1: Gantt chart for the project
(Source: created by author)

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Analyze the methods used by the project manager
In order to keep the project within the budget or to avoid over allocation of project budget
the analysis method that has been used by the project manager and the team associates is
feasibility analysis (First, 2016). Feasibility analysis result shows that if all primary
measurements are successfully followed then the company would earn high revenue within
coming 3 years.
For preventing the project to become failed the company should follow different
prevention mechanism in terms of risk management plan stakeholder management plan.
Communication program implementation, procurement and contingency management plan etc
(Goetsch & Davis, 2014). If each of the knowledge management areas is successfully followed
by the project associates then the chance of project failure will get reduced.
All your claims and recommendations
Training and development: In order to identify the potential challenges and risks the
company needs to arrange professional training and development program for the associates.
Encryption technology: The Company requires using accurate encryption mechanism to
convert plain text into cipher text. Without similar decryption key none of the users would be
able to access any confidential information.

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References
Cohen-Vogel, L., Tichnor-Wagner, A., Allen, D., Harrison, C., Kainz, K., Socol, A. R., and
Wang, Q. (2015). Implementing educational innovations at scale: Transforming
researchers into continuous improvement scientists. Educational Policy, 29(1), 257-277.
First, M. B. (2016). Adopting a continuous improvement model for future DSM revisions. World
Psychiatry, 15(3), 223-224.
Fleming, Q. W., and Koppelman, J. M. 2016, December. Earned value project management.
Project Management Institute.
Galliers, R. D., &Leidner, D. E. (2014). Strategic information management: challenges and
strategies in managing information systems. Routledge.
Goetsch, D. L., & Davis, S. B. (2014). Quality management for organizational
excellence.pearson.
Harrison, F., & Lock, D. (2017). Advanced project management: a structured approach.
Routledge.
Heagney, J. (2016). Fundamentals of project management. AMACOM Div American Mgmt
Assn.
Heldman, K. (2015). PMP project management professional exam deluxe study guide: updated
for the (2015) Exam. John Wiley and Sons.

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Hornstein, H. A. (2015). The integration of project management and organizational change
management is now a necessity. International Journal of Project Management, 33(2),
291-298.
Kendrick, T. (2015). Identifying and managing project risk: essential tools for failure-proofing
your project. AMACOM Div American Mgmt Assn.
Kerzner, H., & Kerzner, H. R. (2017). Project management: a systems approach to planning,
scheduling, and controlling. John Wiley & Sons.
Kerzner, H., and Kerzner, H. R. (2017). Project management: a systems approach to planning,
scheduling, and controlling. John Wiley & Sons.
Marcelino-Sádaba, S., Pérez-Ezcurdia, A., Lazcano, A. M. E., and Villanueva, P. (2014). Project
risk management methodology for small firms. International Journal of Project
Management, 32(2), 327-340.
Stark, J. (2015). Product lifecycle management.In Product Lifecycle Management (pp. 1-
29).Springer International Publishing.