Term Project

Project of developing a shared bike software platform

Project Background
A local government has conducted an urban study and identified several challenges related to
increasing traffic congestion and worsening air quality within the city. In response, they have
decided to launch a shared bike program to alleviate these problems and promote a healthier and
more sustainable lifestyle. The project is a large-scale initiative that is broken down into several
smaller and interconnected projects, including the development of a software system, renovations
and installation of road facility, procurement of a bike fleet, and the establishment of traffic
regulations. The city government has issued a bid document to solicit proposals from third-party
contractors for the project of development of the software system. The Statement of Work (SoW)
within the bid document outlines the specific requirements for the project, as detailed below:
The contractor shall fulfill the following requirements to establish the shared bike software
platform:

Bike Rental and Return
⚫ The system should allow customers to rent a bike by scanning the QR code and follow the
procedure to unlock the bikes. Therefore, your system needs to link with the locking
mechanisms. The customers must only return the rented bikes to specific spots.
Bike Fleet Management
⚫ The system should help the operator of the shared bike service to maintain and repair
bikes and to ensure the bikes are in good working condition at all times.
⚫ Develop a system for tracking the positions of all bikes.
Mobile Application Development
⚫ Design and develop a user-friendly mobile application for bike reservations, unlocking,
and tracking.
⚫ Integrate the mobile application with the bike station network, payment system, and
customer support channels.
⚫ Ensure the mobile application is accessible and compatible with a wide range of devices
and platforms.
Pricing and Payment Integration
⚫ Establish a pricing structure that encourages widespread adoption of the shared bike
service.
⚫ Implement a secure and user-friendly payment system that supports various payment
methods.
Operations and Customer Support
⚫ Establish a customer support system, including a help desk, feedback channels, and
incident response protocols.
⚫ Provide regular usage and earning reports to the city government.
Now, your company has won the bid and will develop the software system under a contract with
the local government. (Remember: you are only required to work on a project of the development
of the software platform only. You are not responsible for other projects, such as road facility
installation. Besides, you are not responsible for its ongoing operations.)
Assume that you as a project manager were appointed to lead this development project. For serving
the purpose of this project, the sponsor, the government, had a time constraint (8 months) as to
when this project must be fully completed and ready to be deployed. Besides, the prototype must be
delivered within two months after the initiation of the project and the intermediate modules must be
delivered within five months after the project starts. The user interface of major functions must be
contained in the prototype, and the implementation of the intermediate modules must contain
internal administration and operations.
Regarding the payment terms within the project contract, the government and your company both
have agreed on the “Cost Plus Fixed Fee” arrangement, i.e. all the expenses for doing project will
be compensated by the government. After the project is delivered and accepted, your company will
earn the fixed fee settled by the government.
You need to write a project report (refer to the report template given) that includes the following
parts (the words in bold typeface indicate the deliverables for submission and read the checklist on
Page 5 to make sure you don’t miss any important parts):

Project Scope Management
Develop a Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) (a tree-like form structure) for this project and
input the tasks into MS Project. It must include milestones and summary tasks. Assume that
some project tasks are similar to those from a previous project, with the scope defined
accordingly. These tasks are organized into the 4 high-level activities: Analysis, Design,
Implementation and Deployment. Use codes (a, b, c, ..., z) to represent the tasks while creating
the WBS, Gantt Chart and PDM.
(a) Background study on the e-payment implementation of similar projects.
(b) Collect detailed requirements from the relevant government departments about design
preferences.
(c) Develop a prototype to show the payment procedure.
(d) Design the overall software architecture.
(e) Design database.
(f) Design end-user interfaces on mobile phones.
(g) Design interfaces for admin functions on desktop computers.
(h) Design the signal connection with the bike locks for controlling.
(i) Design the security scheme for safeguarding the transactions over the internet.
(j) Develop interface templates for the sponsor to review (background color for all pages,
position of navigation buttons, layout of text and images, typography, including basic text
font and display type, and so on)
(k) Create a site map or hierarchy chart showing the flow of web pages.
(l) Create the individual web pages for the site.
(m) Create database.
(n) Source necessary library modules for client-side coding.
(o) Purchase a dozen bike locks for coding and testing
(p) Code the server-site modules (system admin and operations).
(q) Code the server-site modules (end-user services).
(r) Code the client-site modules (system admin and operations)
(s) Code the client-site modules (end-user services)
(t) Integrate the server-side modules and the web pages.
(u) Test on the connection to the bike locks with the shared-bike app (ensuring the bikes can
only be borrowed and returned at the allowable locations)
(v) Performance stress tests on the system (able to process 10,000 transactions in 5 seconds;
accommodate 5,000 concurrent users).
(w) Have the sponsor and end-user representatives perform UAT on the system.
(x) Install the web site on the Government’s web server for operation.
(y) Create technical training materials for the staff on how to use and maintain the operations.
(z) Train the staff on operating and maintaining the system.
Project Schedule Management
Determine a realistic duration for each task, and then link the tasks as appropriate with an
intention of arriving at the shortest time schedule without considering the resource constraints.
Be sure that all tasks are linked (in some fashion) to the start and end of the project. As
requested by the sponsor, you have 8 months to complete the entire project. Set at least 3
milestones at where you think appropriate (think about the purposes of setting milestones).
(a) Print the Project Schedule (Gantt Chart) to show the project schedule with necessary
elements.
(b) Print the PDM (Precedence Diagramming Method) network diagram for the project
for analyzing the Mandatory dependencies. Show the tasks of the WBS only. (In order to
make it readable, the network diagram must be drawn in a single sheet clearly. Use the
letters to represent the tasks. Don’t use the MS Project’s default print-out function for the
diagram because I find it unreadable without proper post-modification.)
(c) Conduct a Critical path analysis. Show the method and steps you take to arrive at the
path(s) and the length of the period taken.
Project Cost Management
Assume that you have 4 people working on the project, including one experienced team
member (Bill) who is good at analysis and design and charges $300 per hour; and three others
(Lisa, Andy and Kent) who are good at design and implementation and each of them charges
$200 per hour. All of them can deal with other tasks, such as deployment. You are the project
manager who takes part in managing the entire development process and you charge $500 per
hour. Besides, you must take hardware/equipment into your budget consideration as well.
Although the project does not include the purchase of bike locks and other equipment for the
later operation, you still need some for the development purpose. (Do a little market study on
the current prices of the needed equipment, e.g. mobile phones, bike locks, though marks will
not be deducted much for inaccurate estimations of hardware).
(a) Based on the project schedule, assign tasks to team members according to their
capabilities (including yourself) reasonably for the entire project. Except for you, the other
team members should be fairly assigned with workload as much as possible. Calculate the
costs and make up a Resource Sheet (just a table to show all the resources and their costs;
and the number of hours worked of human resource and the total costs in the project).
(b) Use the data from Resource Sheet to make the budget schedule (Cost Baseline) for your
project. Don’t forget to add the Contingency Reserve to the Cost Baseline table to make it
look complete.
(c) The required computing facility (for development), including computers, printers, network
equipment, along with necessary maintenance services, are rented for a certain amount (i.e.
$29,000) per month.
(d) At the end of the 4

th month, you are obligated to provide a progress report to your senior
management. Utilize the Earned Value Management (EVM) method to conduct the
necessary performance measurements, variance analysis and forecasting for your project.
(You need to make up reasonable figures for Earned Values and Actual Costs. Show the
detailed steps of calculations.)
(e) Exhibit the EVM graph to show relevant calculations and results of performance and
forecasting.
(f) Write a paragraph to describe the project progress at the end of 4

th month based on

the graph and figures in (d) and (e).

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Table of Contents
1 Introduction 2
2 Project Scope Management 3
3 Project Schedule Management 4
(WIP)...

1 Introduction

This chapter should include the following items:
- Brief introduction about the report, such that people know the purpose of working on this
report
- Elaborate “What” and “Why” you need to conduct this project
- Team charter
- A short paragraph to describe the structure of the following content of the report.

2 Project Scope Management

This chapter should include the following items:
- WBS
- Gantt Chart

3 Project Schedule Management

This chapter should include the following items:
- Network Diagram in PDM
- Critical Path analysis (CPA)
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1 ~ 3 only
Use markdown and Mermaid to presenting the form and graph in ```code block```