Final Project Review

Evaluation the Effectiveness of Tools Used

I used many tools throughout my project to help me finish the project successfully but in this review, I will be talking about the tools used in planning the project. I used software called Microsoft Project to plan the entire project and the planning of the project as well. Aside this software I used a pen and a paper for my daily to-do list which helped me through the project. I am going to evaluate the software I used for the planning of my project and some features in this software.

The first and most useful tool in my opinion is the pen and pencil I sued at the very beginning of the project. I did a to-do list everyday on the task that I’m doing and how I get on with it, this to-do list was done using a pen and a pencil. The to-do list also helped identify what needed doing at what point in time daily and also helped store special instruction from short meeting with the clients of the project. The daily to-do list was constantly up dated so when a particular task is done it gets moved to the tasks which are done. 

The second and most important tool that I used was Microsoft project which was the planning tool for the entire project. Microsoft Project has some very useful tools within that help make project management easy. The first tool is the Gantt chart. A Gantt chart is a chart in which a series of horizontal lines shows the amount of work done or production completed in certain periods of time in relation to the amount planned for those periods. It simply shows the amount of work done in a certain given time period and the person who did the work. The Gantt chart tool allowed quick and easy creation of multiple charts in order to outline the plans progression and schedule quickly and efficiently. This slowly made the tool far more effective and the electronic Gantt charts become a vital reference in the projects progression. However the tool did have some faults, the Chart quickly became time consuming to create although editing previous copies seemed a more time efficient replacement to creating new charts for progression.

The lack of experience of the use of this tool was also an issue because it was difficult understanding the use of the Gantt chart and its importance. The picture below shows an example of the Gantt chart.

Another useful tool that I used in my project is the CPA (Critical Path Analysis). The critical path is the longest sequence of activities in a project plan which must be completed on time for the project to complete on due date. An activity on the critical path cannot be started until its predecessor activity is complete; if it is delayed for a day, the entire project will be delayed for a day unless the activity following the delayed activity is completed a day earlier. When the critical path of the project is wrong, it simply means that the plan of the project is wrong.

The critical path helped me identify the critical tasks in my project plan and not to play around those tasks. It simply mean in order not to delay the project, every critical task should be treated with all importance so that the project will be done successfully. In my project, because of the nature and changes made, I have different versions of the critical path because every time the Gantt chart changes, the critical path also change. The picture below shows the critical path of my project at some point in the project because once all task are completed, there will be no critical path anymore.

For the project management methodology, I used agile because of the size of the project and the number of people involved. Though this was a project, it wasn’t a proper project with a budget and real clients and also I have no knowledge on the agile documentation. I used a blogger to update on my project to my clients and also use it as an agile documentation for my project. Every update and changes made to my Gantt chart and the project management was reported on my blog.  The Blog helped me a lot in communicating with my clients as well because I shared the blog link with my clients and they checked it daily and gave a feedback on what they think about the progress so far.

Conclusion

In future if I’m to do this same project again, I will just use pen and a paper to plan and manage my project. The reason for this is the use of these tools and software needs a bit of knowledge about them and without this knowledge it is difficult to use. I think just using a pen and paper will be very easy and very comfortable.

Project Review 1

Project Review 1

The project has successfully been done though it is at its testing stage, i can confidently say the project is almost there. Due to the nature of the project, there were so many obstacles in the way but all these obstacles were successfully dealt with.

The original client requirements for this project was to have a working network with three cisco routers, two networks (subnetted) and the computers accessing internet through the router. The client had only one IP address (10.0.224.11) given to them by their ISP. All computers will access internet through this IP address. The client then decided that they want to use IP class C for the private internal network so that all computers will have IP address like 192.168.1.xxx. Also the client wanted a client-Server network so that all computers can be monitored from the server and that software can be deployed from the server. The picture below shows the initial plan of the project as requested by the client.

Due to some difficulties along the way, I had a meeting with the client and decided that the IP address class C is not enough to accommodate all the clients on the network in case of future expansion. The decision made was to use IP class B (172.16.0.1) which has more usable IP address and it will be comfortable for future expansion of the network. This meant that all configurations done with the IP 192.168.1.1 will have to be changed to 172.16.0.1 and this wasn’t easy to do. From the main router (internet router), all configuration were erased and done again from scratch.

This change made me contact an expert Michael Simms to help out with the new configuration but it was too difficult and ambitious so he advised that we have one router network and a switch in-between the router and the computers, the computers will access the internet through the router and a server to manage all the computers. The picture below shows the new network diagram with the computers and server.

                                                                                                                                    

This is the current progress of the project as agreed by the client. the internet router has been configured and can access the internet, all client computers has operating system running and connected to a domain(CISCONETWORK) created on the server. The domain will serve as a container to monitor all the clients computers connected to them.

Use of Effective Communication

During my project i have had to maintain communication with my client to update them on the progress of the project and ask if they are happy so far with the progress and also if there is any changes. Maintaining contact with my client was very difficult as they were very busy and also it was almost impossible to get my client to sit down with mw to discuss the project. So most of the time, we communicate through emails which i found very useful because then i can communicate with them at any time of the day.

There were four main major client/stakeholders meeting schedule on my project plan to take place along the line but we had more than four due to the nature of the project and how specific the client were about the deliverables each day. The major meetings were schedule to last about an hour of two but the mini meetings that i had with my clients some took about 10 minutes. The picture below shows an email communication between me and my client.

There was also the use of verbal communication which wasn’t recorded but because my client was in the same building as myself, i had the advantage of meeting them and talking to them about the project. There was the use of email communication to communicate between myself and my co-project manager John Whitter. John was managing the other side of the project because the project was too big for one person to manage.

Configuration Changes

Changes in IP address Schem will prompt a change in the entire IP address that the network uses. At first, the client agreed that we should use IP class C for the private poart of the network that the internal netwrok. later after acessing the requirement really carefully, it came to our notice that th IP address calss chosen wasnt enough to accommodate more comouters for future use, therefore we decided to move to class B. the Table below shows the new IP configurations. IP addresses on this network will be assigned mannually the reason been, there are few computers on the network so it easy to assign them manually (static). If the clients on the network increases, it can always be changed to DHCP without affecting the connectivity of the internet.

Update So Far

this is the new network diagram after hours of meeting with the stakeholder and expplaining the new risk that we face i.e. the IP address scheme wasnt enough to accomodate a network with three routers and five swithces. the final agreement was to have a network with one router that connects to the internet, a class B IP addrewss scheme instead of class C, a switch inbetween the router and the computers. the picture below shows the new network diagram.

Becuase of this problem that we faced the IP address, it delayed the project a bit but it is still on course to finish in the time set by te stakeholders. This means that the Gantt chart and critical path will change due to the  changes made to the dates and times on the gantt chart. the picture below shows the new critical path and the new gantt chart which is up to date.

Target For the Day

After making sure that the main router can access the internet, it is now time to going the rest of the network (Subnet A). i will introduce a switch between the main router and the Router for subnet A.

My main aim for today is to make sure the first subnet is setup and working and all computersa on the network can communicate.

IP Address List

The table below shows the IP address List of the entire network including all the other device (Routers, Server).

Update from meeting with stakeholder.

After having a meeting with the stakeholder, she is happy with the current stage of the job and wants us to continue with the next stage. i forgot to mention in my last post that i had help and advice form an expert.

the next stage of the project is to introduce the other internetworking tools i.e. switch, and the other two router into the network and configure them. the picture below shows the updated Gantt chart with the modified date and the changes made to the project. though there's been some setbacks and delays, the project is still on course and will be finish in due timne to meet the deadline.

Progress

After an hour and a half of stressing my self over wrong configuration, i was able to solve the problem with the router configuration. At this stage of the project, the first phase which is the network establishment and configuration has been completed. there were some issues during this phase. The main issue that i faced was the IP address configuration that i chose, it wasn't enough to for my network so i had to change it half way through.

Update on Project

due to incorrect configuration of the ip address scheme and also the ISP IP configuration, work wasn't complete. My gantt chart has been undated and work will resume today.
the picture below shows the new Gantt chart.

Update from Meeting with stakeholders

After having having a meeting with stakeholders involved in the project, we've all agreed that the initial plan (Gantt) is too brief and needs more tasks in it and the task titles needs to be more specific.
So we've decided to update the Gantt chart to suit what the stakeholders wants. the picture below shows the new Gantt chart and the new plan as agreed by the stakeholders.

After this section, the project is going back to normal and i will be following my plan as indicated on the Gantt chart. The next task on my plan is to connect a computer to the main router so that i can configure it to access the internet.

Critical Path

the picture above is the critical path of the project to its current status and its deduced from the Gantt chart.  The critical path determines the minimum time needed to complete a task given. The critical path is very necessary in this project because due to some technical issues, some of the project time and date was changed so i used the critical path to determine my next necessary task.

The above picture shows the critical path in the middle of the project, with some few date changes and task reallocation, the critical path will change. By default, the critical path changes anytime a task or date to a task is changed.

Update

Currently the project has been halted because there is a misunderstanding between the clients and the project manager. there are some things that are unclear as to how the project is being done. There is a scheduled meeting with the stakeholders of the project, after the meeting project will commence.