The Home Depot
Introduction
Home Depot is committed to modernizing its information technology aspects so that the customer services can be greatly improved. This project reflects this light and is aimed at streamlining the receipt lookup services in order to be on top of the prime competitor Lowe’s. The lookup application is intended to enable customers who have paid for merchandise by debit card, credit card or check return items even if they lost or have forgotten the receipt. As such this will curb cases of fraud which cost the company millions of money each year.
Tasks
The tasks that will be involved in this important project include the following: planning which will mainly rest with the management although expert knowledge will be sort from the Information Technology professionals. This will be followed by defining the product’s hardware and software requirements. The next important task will be user documentation. Training will then commence. The design of the product, construction and implementation will also form part of significant tasks that will be undertaken in this project. The system will then be integrated and tested. The task that will be continuous throughout the entire life of the product will be support. It will constantly and continuously be supported by the professionals.
Milestones
Home depot has made tremendous progress. It invests almost a million dollars in the IT infrastructure as a significant part of its modernization effort. This strategy will be a great milestone towards beating the Home Depots fiercest competitor, Lowe’s.
Task Dependencies
The tasks should be conducted effectively and efficiently so that the objective of Home Depot is adequately met. The management should ensure early planning and budgeting so that all the activities leading to the success of this project are sufficiently prioritized and done within the appropriate time limits .The user documentation should be created, drafted, reviewed and approved in time and it should be clear and friendly so that the users can be assisted without cases of ambiguity. This should also be conducted within the stipulated time. Initial training should be done. Hardware and software requirements should be met in a timely manner. Thereafter, the system should be constructed, integrated and tested. All these tasks should be handled within the confines of the required time frame and ought to utilize high degree of professionalism. The biggest dependencies will be time and human resource. The staff completing the duties should necessarily be professionals who are well versed with their areas of expertise.
Resource Assignments
The planning will be handled by the management. Documentation will be done by the Information Technology experts who understand the user requirements. Training will also be handled by professional team of IT experts. The experts will design, construct and test the program and provide the needed support. Management must be ready to oversee all these processes.
Effort Estimates
Effort estimate refers to the time and costs related expenses. Planning requires dedicated managerial efforts. There should be adequate budget for the planning tasks, about $200, should be set aside for this. Documentation will also be a costly procedure that may take up to $40,000. Training will require the utilization of skilled professionals which will also require roughly $60,000. Purchase of the necessary hardware and software will cost roughly $250,000. Design, construction implementation and testing of the system will take $350,000. $100 can be set aside for the initial system support.
Durations of Tasks
The total period of time required for the completion of these tasks should be 30days. This excludes the prior managerial planning. Documentation can be conducted in 5 days, training 7 days, purchase of hardware and software, 2 days. Design, construction, implementation and testing 16day and support will then follow. Each task must therefore be conducted as promptly, quickly and efficiently as possible to meet the time limits set.
Resource-level Schedule
Each resource will be utilized for not more than 8 hours per day. This is because these resources will definitely be under the direct control of humans, who, this project recommends should work for a maximum period of eight hours.
Base lined Start and Finish Dates
The project will commence on 1st December to 8 January. The project will not be handled over the weekends, Christmas Day and the 1st of January owing to the celebrations.
Conclusion
This project is very fundamental to Home Depot. It is intended to ensure that the company gets competitive advantage over others, particularly its prime competitor, Lowe’s. If the tasks described in this project are adequately undertaken within the specified period of time, the likelihood of modernizing the services of the company are very high. Customer services will be enhanced a great deal. As such the customer satisfaction will be guaranteed. A satisfied customer implies repeat of business and as such the life of the company will have been given a thorough boost. All the tasks right from planning, through the documentation, definition of software and hardware requirements, design, construction, testing and implementation should be done efficiently and by professional experts.
