Designing a Matchmaking Business Website – Project Report

Project Schedule

Original Gantt Chart – Proposed Schedule Plan of the Project

This is the proposed time plan that was initially designed for the project. In this Gantt Chart, there is a specified starting and ending date estimated by the project stakeholders and project team. This proposed timeline of this project was completed during the feasibility study, and the risks were already planned. However, after initiating the designing phase of this project, there occur different challenges which forced changing the proposed timeline as follows;

Updated Gantt Chart – 1

After the successful meeting with the stakeholders in the feasibility phase, the main lead of website development (developers and IT experts) proposed a slight change in design. There was a clash in the project team’s availability, and the overall developing components (all the basics of website development) were delayed by 6 Days, which were supposed to be completed on 01/10/2021 (instead of 08/10/2021). Thus, the activities followed by this were also affected, the web graphics, user registration, payment options, web security, and marketing tools addition. However, this didn’t affect the other project phases, as the weekends were also utilized in the working days during the designing phase to avoid delay.

Updated Gantt Chart 2:

While doing the test run of the website, some flaws (like issues in user registration and payment options) occurred. Unfortunately, this wasn’t predicted before and resulted in 2 days delay of the project, and this also affected the next activities and next phase of the project timeline as well. The launching of the website was delayed for one day, and so does the final phase of the project. However, reviewing the website for upgradation and support innovation activities were thus started simultaneously because they were not dependent on each other. Hence, the overall delay of 2 days was incorporated by the hard work and dedication of the project team.

Final Project Timeline- Gantt Chart:

This is the final Gantt Chart (timeline of project phases), which shows a deviation from the initially designed Gantt Chart because of two challenges; however, the effect of delays in the activities was mitigated by taking the dependent activities into account and effectively managing the successor activities to avoid the conflicts final deadline of project submission. Thus, the proposed ending date of the project was fully met in this manner.  Additionally, the delays in activities and changes were not major. Thus, it didn’t affect the cost and budget of the project.

Project’s Final Report

This project was intended to design a matchmaking business website that will help the users interact with the people of their desires. Using various indicators like age, gender, culture, ethnicity, education, habits, earning, like and dislikes, this website was aimed to provide a user-friendly experience to its customers. While progressing in the project, there were challenges in the different execution phases; however, the challenges were tackled efficiently and effectively. This helped the project team complete the project within proposed time, cost, and other constraints as per the objectives of the project.

Project Proposed and Final Quality:

The level of the quality of the final launched website was effectively met as the developing lead, and IT experts completed the project with the proposed quality. The project has highlighted the effective implementation of the different processes and activities that ensured the successful project feasibility, design, implementation, evaluation and control. The identification of various stakeholders early in the project planning process aided in matching the activities and roles of each stakeholder in delivering a successful project. The project’s goals have been met to a great extent. Here’s a comparison between the project’s outcomes and the accomplishments that were previously planned.

Team Performance and Leadership:

The project was well-organized and managed, with me taking the lead and formalizing and drafting the BPMS (business project management system), as well as providing answers to questions and discussing the benefits and drawbacks of each with the team to reach a consensus on how to proceed accurately and thoroughly. The team did not have any conflicts or arguments since I foresaw what risks may develop into challenges and established preset courses to pursue if risks become issues. Therefore, ideas were offered to the team immediately, allowing for informed and timely decisions on next steps.

The coordination of my team was very strong, and the individual responsibility of each member was already defined in the kickoff meeting, which helped target individual goals. Being the leader of my team, I found my team very passionate in achieving the deadlines to complete the development of this Match 4 U website within the proposed time. From content addition, market segmentation of this website, advertising and determining the appropriate domain and hosting, all the members of the team were equally involved and helped each other.

Critical Review of Methodology and Approach:

In this project, the Waterfall project management methodology was adopted. The waterfall approach provides a lot of advantages when it comes to project management. Waterfall Project Methodology assists the teams in managing work more efficiently and effectively, all while creating the highest quality product while maintaining within budget constraints. We used the Waterfall project methodology as it is very effective in dividing the project into sequential phases and very effective in web development projects. This project – Match 4 U, used the sequential phase division application by dividing the project into four phases: Feasibility, Designing, Implementation, and Evaluation & Control.

It also brought up the user narrative method, which is a basic and easy-to-understand language that helps the team to grasp exactly what is the proposed design of the project, which will be useful for future projects. Each phase in our project was separate from the other; however, dependent on the previous phase. This helped our project to flow at a momentous pace, and w completed the project within the proposed timeline.

Risks and Lessons Learned:

All the problems that arose were foreseen in the risk register. Thus, remedies were in place to promptly address issues and keep the project on track. The team was offered with options for dealing with problems, which they considered and endorsed. A list of problems was compiled for each weekly report. The main challenge that occurred after the initiation of the project was there was no backup plan for completing the project with uncertainty in the project completion schedule (flaws in the project were not expected initially).

We learned the lesson that risks of flaws in the quality of the project are possible, and we must plan the mitigation plan accordingly to avoid the delay in the project completion. Additionally, we also learned that the quality of the project’s final product is reliant on every single individual’s contribution to the project; thus, working as a team can help manage the project effectively and deliver the best possible outcome.

Technology Report:

In this project, the MS Project software was used to create an estimated or proposed schedule with a user-friendly interaction (like other MS Office software). Microsoft Project is a helpful tool for project planning and management. Microsoft Project’s Tracking Gantt tool is a valuable feature. It’s vital to maintain any Gantt chart up to date if you want to take benefit of all of Microsoft Project’s capabilities. When project status is updated on a regular basis, the diversity of material available allows for a thorough monitoring of project status. When the Gantt chart is altered to support activity completion and to show activities that stimulate additional help, such as accurate budget reporting, a diversity of budget planning, and signalling routes, reports are a highly useful tool for keeping track of budget progress. I want to add the feature of making a network diagram through direct column entry in MS Project to make it more user-friendly. I would like to use Smartsheet (online software like MS Project), as it is easier to use accurate and reliable tool for project management activities.

Challenges:

The most difficult aspect of using MS Project, which was hosted on a virtual system at the institution, was the lengthy procedure of gaining access to it. This resulted in a lot of latency and slowed down the software, as well as a lot of issues while exporting or storing files.