Lindstrom 1 MEMO To: Professor Roger Aucoin From: Nate Lindstrom Date: 03/26 28 /2011 Re: Project Plan Dear Professor, First, my sincere apologies for the lateness of this assignment. A major family event on the far coast of the United States happening in concurrence with my starting a new job conspired to consume far more of my time than I reasonably expected. In keeping with the assignment, I am submitting the enclosed document entitled Project Plan. The purpose of this document is to provide details surrounding the overall project plan, the resources and personnel involved, and perhaps most importantly, how information about the project and its progress is to be communicated with all involved. I hope the enclosed document meets with your expectations. Respectfully, Nate Lindstrom
Transcript
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MEMOTo: Professor Roger Aucoin
From: Nate LindstromDate: 03/2628/2011
Re: Project Plan
Dear Professor,
First, my sincere apologies for the lateness of this assignment. A major family event on the far coast of the United States happening in concurrence with my starting a new job conspired to consume far more of my time than I reasonably expected.
In keeping with the assignment, I am submitting the enclosed document entitled Project Plan.
The purpose of this document is to provide details surrounding the overall project plan, the resources and personnel involved, and perhaps most importantly, how information about the project and its progress is to be communicated with all involved.
I hope the enclosed document meets with your expectations.
Respectfully,
Nate Lindstrom
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Project Plan
Table of ContentsExecutive Summary .....................................................................................................................................3
General Approach ........................................................................................................................................5
IT Operations ...........................................................................................................................................9
Server hardware not delivered on schedule ..........................................................................................11
Data loss occurs during systems migration ............................................................................................11
Data corruption occurs during systems migration .................................................................................11
A key resource becomes unavailable for an assigned task ....................................................................11
Power or connectivity is lost during a critical task .................................................................................11
Training ......................................................................................................................................................12
Quality Control ..........................................................................................................................................13
Appendix A ................................................................................................................................................15
Work Breakdown Structure ...................................................................................................................15
General Approach ........................................................................................................................................5
IT Operations ...........................................................................................................................................9
Appendix A ................................................................................................................................................13
Work Breakdown Structure ...................................................................................................................13
Executive SummaryThe document provides the managerial, procedural, and communicative aspects needed to successfully execute the project to replace Yahoo!’s existing trouble ticket system and existing wiki documentation repository with Atlassian JIRA and Confluence. Due to the scale of the existing solutions, and the number of users who depend upon them, their replacement is not a trivial undertaking. Nevertheless, moving Yahoo! to the Atlassian platform will be more than repaid through gains in reliability, performance, and user satisfaction.
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ObjectivesThis project is to replace the existing ticket and documentation systems with Atlassian JIRA and Confluence. The current systems don’t work well together, are rapidly aging into obsolescence, and are staggering under the load of supporting Yahoo!’s continued growth. Atlassian JIRA, an enterprise trouble ticketing system, and Atlassian Confluence, an enterprise wiki documentation system, will support Yahoo! in continuing to reach our business goals. This project will also ensure the complete migration of all existing information from the old systems to the new, thus ensuring a seamless user experience.
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General ApproachAs the company does not have a formal project management approach, an informal method loosely based on the waterfall method will be employed for this project. Team members who are involved in the project will meet in a brief, fifteen-minute stand-up meeting each morning, and the PM will be present to review task assignments for the day. Daily progress will be communicated to the PM via email on a semi-daily basis, with all status updates for the week due by 4 PM Friday. The PM is also responsible for sending out a weekly progress report email by 6 PM Friday.
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Contractual AspectsThe following contracts will be entered into as a result of this project:
Second Party Assets DetailsAtlassian JIRA software support Six business hour support response time, Monday
through Friday, for issues reported via email or phone.
Atlassian JIRA software updates Updates and security fixes provided for a period of one year from date of purchase.
Atlassian Confluence software support Six business hour support response time, Monday through Friday, for issues reported via email or phone.
Atlassian Confluence software updates Updates and security fixes provided for a period of one year from date of purchase.
Red Hat Enterprise Linux support Four hour support response time, 24x7x365, for issues reported via email or phone.
Red Hat Enterprise Linux updates Updates and security fixes provided for a period of two years from date of purchase.
Dell Server hardware delivery Equipment delivery date guaranteed after receipt of purchase order.
Dell Server hardware warranty Equipment warrantied to be free of defects for 90 days from date of delivery. Defects result in whole-unit replacement.
Dell Server hardware support Six hour onsite response, 24x7x365, for all hardware issues for a period of three years from date of delivery. Parts and labor fully covered under this support agreement.
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ScheduleTask Duration Start FinishPlanning Phase 10 days Mon 5/2/11 Fri 5/13/11 Develop vendor selection criteria 2 days Mon 5/2/11 Tue 5/3/11 Develop hardware allocation strategy 2 days Mon 5/2/11 Tue 5/3/11 Determine data center space and power needs 1 day Mon 5/2/11 Mon 5/2/11 Create communication to announce legacy system freeze 1 day Thu 5/5/11 Fri 5/6/11 Announce legacy system freeze 1 hr Fri 5/6/11 Fri 5/6/11 Schedule user training days 1.13 days Wed 5/4/11 Thu 5/5/11 Reserve conference rooms and projector equipment 1 hr Wed 5/4/11 Wed 5/4/11 Send out calendar invites for user training days 1 hr Fri 5/6/11 Fri 5/6/11 Send out calendar invites for project post-mortem meeting
1 hr Fri 5/6/11 Fri 5/6/11
Procurement Phase 10 days Mon 5/16/11
Fri 5/27/11
Select vendors to contact for quotes 1 day Mon 5/16/11
Mon 5/16/11
Submit RFQs to selected vendors 1 day Tue 5/17/11 Tue 5/17/11 Gather quotes from selected vendors 1 day Wed
5/18/11Wed 5/18/11
Evaluate quotes from selected vendors 1 day Thu 5/19/11 Thu 5/19/11 Finalize purchase selections 4 hrs Fri 5/20/11 Fri 5/20/11 Submit purchase orders to vendors 1 hr Fri 5/20/11 Fri 5/20/11 Request data center space allocation 1 hr Fri 5/20/11 Fri 5/20/11 Take delivery of hardware and software 1 wk Fri 5/20/11 Fri 5/27/11Deployment Phase 5 days Mon
5/30/11Fri 6/3/11
Assemble and configure hardware 1 day Mon 5/30/11
Mon 5/30/11
Install hardware in data center racks 4 hrs Tue 5/31/11 Tue 5/31/11 Cable, connect, and power on hardware 4 hrs Tue 5/31/11 Tue 5/31/11 Install operating system on servers 2 hrs Wed 6/1/11 Wed 6/1/11 Install MySQL on database servers 1 hr Wed 6/1/11 Wed 6/1/11 Install Atlassian JIRA on application servers 2 hrs Wed 6/1/11 Wed 6/1/11 Install Atlassian Confluence on application servers 2 hrs Wed 6/1/11 Wed 6/1/11 Configure MySQL, Atlassian JIRA and Confluence 0.33 days Wed 6/1/11 Wed 6/1/11 Configure backup of database and application servers 2 hrs Wed 6/1/11 Thu 6/2/11 Validate database, application, and backup configurations 1 hr Thu 6/2/11 Thu 6/2/11Migration Phase 10 days Mon 6/6/11 Fri 6/17/11 Freeze existing data within legacy system 1 hr Mon 6/6/11 Mon 6/6/11 Backup existing data from legacy system 6 hrs Mon 6/6/11 Mon 6/6/11 Verify backup of existing data 4 hrs Mon 6/6/11 Tue 6/7/11 Import legacy data into Atlassian Confluence 2 days Thu 6/9/11 Mon
6/13/11 Import legacy data into Atlassian JIRA 2 days Tue 6/7/11 Thu 6/9/11
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Validate imported data 1 day Mon 6/13/11
Tue 6/14/11
Establish URL redirects to forward users to new systems 1 hr Tue 6/14/11 Tue 6/14/11Validation Phase 5 days Mon
6/20/11Fri 6/24/11
Spot-check Atlassian Confluence pages against legacy data
2 days Mon 6/20/11
Tue 6/21/11
Spot-check Atlassian JIRA tickets against legacy data 2 days Wed 6/22/11
Thu 6/23/11
Verify that wiki-to-ticket links were preserved 1 day Mon 6/20/11
Mon 6/20/11
Verify that ticket-to-wiki links were preserved 1 day Fri 6/24/11 Fri 6/24/11User Training Phase 5 days Mon
6/27/11Fri 7/1/11
Conduct user training day 1 1 day Tue 6/28/11 Tue 6/28/11 Conduct user training day 2 1 day Wed
6/29/11Wed 6/29/11
Conduct user training day 3 1 day Thu 6/30/11 Thu 6/30/11 Conduct user training day 4 1 day Fri 7/1/11 Fri 7/1/11 Conduct training for remote/telecommute users 1 day Mon
6/27/11Mon 6/27/11
Closure Phase 3 days Tue 7/5/11 Thu 7/7/11 Power down legacy hardware 1 hr Tue 7/5/11 Tue 7/5/11 Remove legacy equipment from data center 1 day Tue 7/5/11 Wed 7/6/11 Review project milestone successes and failures 4 hrs Tue 7/5/11 Tue 7/5/11 Review project date successes and failures 2 hrs Tue 7/5/11 Tue 7/5/11 Review project budget successes and failures 2 hrs Tue 7/5/11 Tue 7/5/11 Hold project post-mortem meeting 4 hrs Tue 7/5/11 Wed 7/6/11 Create and publish overall project post-mortem report 1 day Wed 7/6/11 Thu 7/7/11
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Resources
IT Operations Alan Factor (system administrator) Chuck Sumner (system administrator) Brian Mays (database administrator) Michael DeGiovanni (NOC engineer)
CommunicationWhat WhenProject kickoff meeting At project startProject post-mortem meeting At project endStand-up meeting WeekdaysStatus meeting FridaysStatus meeting minutes email FridaysMilestone completion announcement emails As neededChange request notification emails As neededChange advisory board meeting Tuesdays as neededAdverse events communication emails As needed
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Risk Management Plans
Server hardware not delivered on scheduleLikelihood Low. The vendor has an excellent track record of providing on-time deliveries.
Severity High. All subsequent phases of the project are gated by this deliverable.Mitigation Allocate hardware away from other sites or services on an emergency basis.
Trigger Notification from the vendor that the shipment date has slipped or been missed.
Data loss occurs during systems migrationLikelihood Low. There will be extensive verification and quality controls in place.
Severity Low. Missing data can be restored on a very granular basis in a short timeframe.Mitigation Restore the missing data from the original system to the new system.
Trigger User reports missing data.
Data corruption occurs during systems migrationLikelihood Moderate. There will be controls in place, but corruption is more likely than loss.
Severity Low. Corrupt data can be overwritten with good data restored from the original system.Mitigation Overwrite the corrupt data with data from the original system.
Trigger User reports corrupt data.
A key resource becomes unavailable for an assigned taskLikelihood Low. The triggering event is extremely unlikely.
Severity High. Project timelines can quickly slip if work stalls due to an unavailable resource.Mitigation Depending on the task, another resource may be able to cover for the missing resource.
Trigger An unanticipated business event which requires a resource be quickly reassigned.
Power or connectivity is lost during a critical taskLikelihood Low. Both power and connectivity in the data center have an SLA for 99.99% uptime.
Severity High. Project timelines can slip severely if an event occurs during a critical task.Mitigation None. Work will be stopped until the power or connectivity is restored.
Trigger Loss of power or connectivity.Project slippage or delays, except during the Migration Phase, pose little risk—while dates may have to shift, there is no business impact. However, delays encountered during the Migration Phase will have significant business impact, as the time window during which existing ticketing and documentation systems are unavailable will need to be extended. In an effort at mitigating this risk, time budgeted to the tasks within the Migration Phase has been increased by a factor of 50%.
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TrainingThe level of success enjoyed in training the users on the new Confluence and JIRA systems will directly influence the overall level of success in this project. Put another way, if the users are unsure of the new solution, or able to only use it in a faltering manner, then even if this project came in ahead of schedule and under budget it will not have been successful.
To help insure that the training is of the highest possible quality and effectiveness, an experienced private consultant, Chander Kant, has been retained. His company, Linux Certified, is an industry leader in providing comprehensive training services to companies ranging from Unocal 76 to Kaiser Permanente to Symantec. The training curriculum will be carefully tailored to the specific audience at Yahoo!, which is a mix of highly technical engineers and less technical—but still far more computer-savvy than the average employee—project managers, IT managers, and customer service experts. The curriculum is designed to build on itself, one day after the previous, drilling into increasing feature depth and technical detail as the course progresses. But until most multi-day courses, only the first day is “mandatory” for employees—after the first day, an employee is welcome to attend as many classes as he or she desires until they are satisfied in their level of understanding.
The training sessions will be recorded, and available for watching on-demand, streamed over the local network, anytime an employee wishes to refresh his or her memory of the training. These videos will also be made available to new hires as part of the onboarding process, helping to familiarize new employees who are joining Yahoo! without prior Confluence or JIRA experience.
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Quality ControlTo know that you have achieved success first requires that you define it. In order to understand the impact of the new system on its users, the following quality control measures will be implemented both immediately after and in the months following the conclusion of this project.
Virtual suggestions and comments box: a website URL will be published to the entire organization which will allow users to leave suggestions, complaints, comments, or compliments regarding the new system. It will provide for both self-identifying and anonymous comments.
Monthly surveys for the first quarter: for the first three months following the conclusion of this project, an electronic survey will be sent to all users, and the results tabulated and shared with management. It will contain questions such as, “Do you find the new system more or less easy to use than the old one?” and “True or false: creating a new ticket takes less time than it did before.”
Quarterly surveys: a quarterly survey (consisting largely of the same questions as the initial monthly survey) will be sent out after the initial three-month period for the first year, and then will be rolled up into the existing quarterly IT services survey.
Quarterly innovation award: in keeping with the existing employee awards program at Yahoo!, a new award will be created and given on a quarterly basis to a user who best demonstrates making use of Confluence and JIRA in innovative and time-saving ways. This award will be called The Golden Ticket and will be accompanied by a $100 American Express gift card. The winner’s innovation or solution will be showcased on the company Intranet homepage, and will receive mention at the follow quarter’s all-hands meeting.
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Project Evaluation MethodsThe primary methods which will be employed to evaluate the overall success of this project are as follows:
Did total costs come in at or below the budgeted total costs? Did individual costs for each vendor come in at or below those budgeted for each vendor? Were all tasks accomplished within the scheduled task duration? Did the migrated data pass all consistency checks? Did any unexpected issues arise during the project, and if so, how were they handled?
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Appendix A
Work Breakdown StructureTicketing and Wiki Systems
Upgrade
DeploymentProcurement MigrationPlanning Validation Training Closure
