Company overview

XXX Information Technology Co. Ltd, is located in Shanghai, China. It delivers in hi-tech transactional services, consulting and technology services, systems integration and managed services in 50 countries representing a strong global presence. Currently, XXX is working with variety of clients across the market sectors; Manufacturing, Retail, Services; Public, Health & Transports; Financial Services; Telecoms, Media & Technology; Energy & Utilities. Company played a major role as the Information Technology Partner of 2008 Beijing Olympic and Para Olympic Games(XXX.net)

This Research is focussed on Managed Services, which is one of the service area of the Company, covers IT infrastructure build and operations, Data centre operations, PC support and help desk for end-users which consists of 26 project professionals. It also offers all the “design, build and operate” elements of a complete outsourcing solution. They manage and transform all the IT operations of their clients, including the management of their entire information and data processing systems(XXX.net).

Almost all the customers of XXX are based in Asia and currently have operations in China. Although operations such as development of system solutions and system deployment carried out in-house, software installation and application development are mostly outsourced to company’s sub-contractors or off-shored to customers choice of preferences where national and international teams may be involved.

Problem description

Managing Network Development projects can be difficult as the complexity of project increases. Consequently, more tasks required to be outsourced or off-shored to local or international sub-contractors. Therefore, collaboration and integration with number of teams which operate across geographical locations and time zones can be highly challenging.

Client has been increasingly experienced project delays and budget overruns from which, the client customer relationship and the reputation of XXX has been endangered. In Asian IT industry new companies emerged frequently where competition is becoming very high. Failure to address those issues could lead to losing the current customers and diverting the potential customers to the company’s competitors which has negative impact on business and the company itself.

PRODUCT TO BE DELIVERED TO CLIENT

* Provide an understanding of underlined causes of the current issues within the team management and communication and develop a solution.

* Provide in the form of a framework how the Company can improve its management of projects, ideally by utilising Agile Methods.

* Detailed Report

CLIENT REQUIREMENTS

* Identifying the underlying causes that are affecting the delays and cost overruns in their projects teams.

* Producing a more systematic and efficient approach for communication and managing projects.

CONSTRAINTS

Time: time is constrained as research, data collection, analysis and writing the project report will be limited to 600 hours .

Location of the sponsor: it is not convenient to hold face to face meetings with client who is half way around the world. Therefore meetings and reviews are to be carried out online and telephone conversations.

Access to the client information: It is not always possible to get the accurate view of the problem because multinational companies tend to withheld important information which may essential to project. Data can be biased towards individual perceptions than company procedures.

Limited access to previous research findings: Full text version of recent research articles is not always available to access. Moreover, certain research databases like SAGE journals and Wiley online Library are not accessible, through University of Sunderland.

Language: Company operates in China using the native language, so does the project communication and documentation. English medium is hardly in use. Therefore, survey has to be carried out in Chinese Language.

CLIENT RESOURCES

People: The project team and project managers comprise of 26 people . Survey will be carried out with the help of a Chinese language translator.

Information: Client project documentation and statistics; project cost estimates, project schedules, actual costs, project durations, individual feedback (Project managers & team ) .

REPORTING TO SPONSOR

Reporting Mechanism :

Video and audio conferencing software such as Skype and Viber are expected to be used as key means of Communication in order to gather the client information and to inform the client about the project progress.

Weekly Communication will be required until all the relevant information is gathered. Progressively, the client will be updated every 2 weeks to receive the feedback.

Documents to be reviewed and the project specifications are to be exchanged using Email.

SPONSOR SIGN-OFF

SIGNATUREDATE

PROJECT OBJECTIVES

1. To produce a literature review which offers a critical discussion and a wider coverage on managing transient project teams, team communication and how agile methods can be used to improve the managing those teams using a minimum of 40 research papers(papers already identified).

2. To identify all the underlying causes which are relevant to the current project team and management issues of XXX , through the survey.

3. To analyse the responses of the questionnaires that have been distributed to the entire team.

4. To develop a framework on how the Company can improve its management of projects based on the data collected and the literature, that address the client’s current issues, during the analysis.

5. To collect the client’s feedback to confirm whether the research conforms to the client’s objectives at the end of the research.

6. To develop constructive critical Evaluation of the entire project that covers the extent to which the project deliverables have been achieved, compared to the outcomes, the issues, setbacks and lessons learned at the end of the research.

7. To produce the complete project dissertation between 10000 – 15000 words, covering Abstract, methodology, discussion, recommendation and conclusion by 7th of December 2013.

STATEMENT OF RESEARCH

Research Statement

Managing transient teams has been an increasing challenge for the global projects despite the advances in communication technologies. Organisations believe that any loss of efficiency could easily be compensated with the time and costs advantages from not moving managers around. Therefore, the deployment of stronger project management approach is needed in order to produce a team more effective and sustainable, particularly in knowledge management, collaboration and coordination.

This research will investigate the deployment of Agile methods in XXX project Teams in order to maximize the benefits of the team’s structural and demographic diversity.