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:
1. 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.
2. 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.
3. 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.
4. 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.
5. 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):
1. 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 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 in operating and maintaining the system.
2. Project Schedule Management
Determine a realistic duration for each task, and then link the tasks as appropriate with the 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 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.
3. 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 the 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 4th 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 4th month based on the graph and figures in (d) and (e).

```Report Template
Table of Contents
1 Introduction
2 Project Scope Management
3 Project Schedule Management
(ONLY TO HERE)

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 (Brief Introduction and a table)
- 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 Both form (Activity, Duration, Predecessor) and graph(Start Date -> Node1(Activity, Duration, Finish to Start, Finish to Finish, Start to Start, Start to Finish, Slack) -> (Nodes…) -> Finish time)
- Critical Path analysis (CPA)
```
Response Guidelines

Non-Linear Activity Sequence *(Must)*: Assume that activities (labeled a-z) exceed the 8-month constraint, indicating the necessity to optimize by parallelizing tasks where possible, potentially resulting in multiple *Critical Paths*.
Visualization Requirements:
* Use Markdown for text formatting.
* Utilize Mermaid for rendering graphs and forms.
* Enclose visualizations within two **triple backticks (```)**.
* Encode parentheses "(" as #40; and ")" as #41; when necessary.
Tooling Flexibility: If a tool other than Markdown/Mermaid is better suited for a specific task, feel free to use it, but please justify your choice.
Response Timeline: Take your time; we have the full day to work through this. Prioritize thoughtfulness and accuracy over speed.