ICT508 – Information Technology Project Management Assignment

Assignment Task

BACKGROUND

You are a Project Manager working for EdMedia International Pty Ltd (EdMI). EdMI is a small to medium enterprise that employs 36 people in various roles. Our company is based out of Perth in Western Australia, but we have some staff located in Perth, Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane. The staff operating in the cities outside Perth are purely sales personnel. There is one of these salespeople operating in each of these capital cities to service a relatively large customer base, which includes many primary and secondary schools in those cities and some commercial organisations (e.g. we are supplying some specialised adult education). Up to this point, we have not attempted to sell our services to the mass market (i.e. we have not attempted to sell to individual subscribers and EdMI has only focussed on organisational clients like schools and businesses).

Up to now, EdMI has been deploying our educational videos and educational games on DVD/Blue Ray. In the past, our company held nearly 40% of the market share in Australia. However, EdMI’s considerable market share has been eroding over the last few years and we now hold only about 27% of the available market for schools and government organisations/businesses. We do, however, have an advantage. EdMI still controls the primary rights to more than 60% of the available educational videos and games packages available in Australia. However, this does not appear to be helping us to maintain our market share. The erosion of our market share appears to be due to clients wanting to access their educational content more flexibly. EdMI has, therefore, decided to investigate implementing a new media deployment solution, as a part of a key business expansion. This project is known as ‘EduStream’, and the resulting system will have the same name.

The proposal put to the EdMI Board involves creating a system, which utilises a similar architecture to the one implemented by Netflix v=YXQpgAAeLM4), and leveraging the Real Time Streaming Protocol (RTSP). The preliminary intent is to roll out a one-year Pilot Project that will establish the foundation for the EduStream system, and then expand on this through following project phases. However, for the moment, the focus will only be on the Pilot Project. The EdMI Chief Information Officer (CIO) (Mr Ben Dover) is the delegated Project Sponsor, and he will be reporting directly to the EdMI Chief Executive Officer (CEO) (Mrs Donna Jenner). You have been selected as the Project Manager. This means that you are responsible to the CIO for implementing and overseeing the Pilot Project from initiation to closure. If the Pilot Project is successful, the intent is that you would then assume the role as Project Manager for the following phases.

As a first step, you will need to deliver key project initiation and planning materials to the Board by 9:00 AM on Friday 31 Mar 2023. These materials must deliver clarity regarding the business case and outline how the project can be implemented successfully (once it is approved). The deliverables for this submission are outlined in the section beginning on Page 7 of this Assignment Information.

THE PROJECT

The objectives of the project

The aim of this project is to create a stable, effective and user-friendly streaming solution, which will allow educational training videos and games to be deployed over the internet. For this Pilot Project, the Board has decided to begin by deploying Content Delivery Network (CDN) nodes in Perth, Sydney and Melbourne. The pilot sites should be delivered in the same order as discussed in the previous sentence. In addition to the streaming systems, you will need to implement a range of other elements. A preliminary technical architecture has been developed for this system. This architecture and some descriptions of key system elements are available through the LMS under the Assessment heading. The file is called ‘EduStream Technical Architecture Overview’. You will need to ensure that you understand this architecture.

Key issues to be addressed

To implement this project, the following important issues will need to be addressed:

• The Board is still not convinced that this will be a viable solution. The materials that you provide in this Assignment will, therefore, have to be detailed and convincing, or you may find yourself out of a job.
• You are not an expert in video streaming technologies, and there is no expertise related to these technologies within the company. Additionally, EdMI’s knowledge of establishing large scale webfront-ends and databases is minimal. Consequently, you will need to engage one or more experienced contractor, who can coordinate/implement this solution under our control. This identification and selection of contractors will be a high priority for your efforts. When conducting this selection process, it is recommended that you implement a weighted analysis approach as a part of a Request for Tender (RFT) preparation process. This weighted analysis approach will be discussed during the Topic 2 Workshop.
• EdMI is not a dedicated technology company. Consequently, setting up ‘green-fields’ (all new) data centres and systems is beyond our core business. For this reason, outsourcing will be important. Consequently, you will need to identify appropriate Data Centres in each of the pilot cities, and a Call Centre that you can use to provide support. You may also want to think about aspects such as leasing of equipment to help minimise up-front costs.
•  At the end of the project, we will need to ensure that EdMI can maintain and manage the EduStream system that is created. This may mean that we need to bring skills and Intellectual Property (IP) into the company or set up reliable relationships with other organisations, who can do this for us.

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