Your Role and the Triple Constraint

Overview: In Milestone One, you began your progress toward successful completion of your final project, the risk analysis and mitigation memo. You will now
continue this preparatory work in Milestone Two by focusing on a technical role. You will consider how the tasks assigned to the role fit into an integrated
schedule found in a Gantt chart. You will then work with the triple constraint, showing how changes to it may impact the project, while proposing a new project
element that will enhance user experience with the student degree progress tool. It is important to note that this milestone addresses Section I, Parts C and D of
your final project. For purposes of this activity, these items have been further broken down than they are in the final version of your project; this will help guide
you through all the aspects of this point in your learning experience.
As you are beginning to see, working within project budgets and staying on schedule typically requires a team effort, as work tasks must be completed efficiently
and often in the correct order for the project to stay on track. Additions to the project and changes to the triple constraint may present opportunities or
potential obstacles. As a project team member, you need to adjust to changes to the project or to the triple constraint, identify and mitigate risks, and accurately
interpret or provide project information. While you will not engage with project risk and risk mitigation until your next milestone, this milestone presents an
opportunity to practice key skills related to understanding the project schedule and the triple constraint relationship in relation to the project’s scope, schedule,
and budget that will lay the foundations for the next steps in your final project.
Remember, as you go through these documents, you should be thinking of yourself as a member of this team. At this point, you have reviewed the project
charter (in its own separate Word document). You have reviewed the project scenario and RACI and WBS charts, which are included in the Excel workbook that
you used in Milestone One. To complete Milestone Two, you will need to examine an additional key piece of project information: the Gantt Chart file. As you will
see, the Gantt chart provides a thorough schedule that integrates the tasks assigned to project team members. Such a synchronization of tasks is typical in an IT
project, and part of the work of any team member is interpreting this schedule and performing tasks in the correct order. You will continue to refer back to these
documents throughout your work on the milestones leading to your final submission. You may reference aspects of these documents to support your answers,
using text and screenshots as needed.
Prompt: The project charter and RACI chart have been approved by the Regatta University administration. Using the project Gantt chart, your team has started
working on the project schedule based on these documents. The team needs to make sure that each member understands his or her responsibilities based on
the schedule. There are three technical roles for this project:
 Systems analyst—Shila Cole
 Application developer—Ana Fischer
 Backend systems analyst—John Jones
First, select one of the above roles as your own.
Next, consider that you and your team have been thrown a curveball and were informed of the following by your manager:
The team has one more item it needs your help to complete. The project has been given an extra $10,000 to add a new element that enhances the project to the
student degree progress widget. With this $10,000 comes an additional week of time added to the schedule. (The distribution of tasks among the team during
that week does not impact the budget.)
Based on your understanding of the Gantt chart and how to read it, your submission for Milestone Two should address the following critical elements:
I. Your Technical Role in the Project Schedule: This section should be approximately 2 paragraphs in length. In this area, you will discuss your selected
role, responsibilities, and important predecessor tasks:
 Select and identify a technical role from the approved list.
 Summarize the responsibilities of this role.
 Using specific information from the project’s Gantt chart, list where in the project schedule these responsibilities are assigned.
 Explain why it is important that predecessor tasks are completed before your tasks are performed, citing specific information from the project’s
Gantt chart to support your explanation.
II. The Triple Constraint Matrix: This section should be approximately 2 to 3 paragraphs in length. In this area, you will refer to the new directive you have
been given by your manager. Provide a brief explanation of the new project element that you want to implement. Examples include live animation on
the progress bar or a callout box that opens when students hover on a hot spot and that provides more detailed information to the students. You will
use this experience to inform your understanding of the triple-constraint relationship between the project’s scope, schedule, and budget.
 Clearly describe the additional element you propose, including how your feature alters the project timeline. For instance, will this addition to
the project add more testing time or increase development time?
 Use the Gantt chart and the Microsoft Project Tutorial document to appropriately place the new tasks for your feature. These additional tasks
should be inserted during the execution process steps (such as close to the development tasks or increasing the testing time). Be sure to update
any predecessors that may have changed with the newest addition and to assign each new task to the appropriate team member. In the Gantt
chart, highlight the task that you have added to make it easy for your instructor to find. Refer to the tutorials and resources provided to you in
this module to help you with this task. You will submit this element as a separate Microsoft Project file.
 Explain how the addition of this new element may alter the project timeline.
 Explain how a change in the triple constraint of schedule, cost, and scope allows for this project addition to occur based on your experience in
this activity.
Rubric
Guidelines for Submission: Milestone Two should be submitted as a Word document with double spacing, one-inch margins, 12-point Times New Roman font,
and adherence to the latest edition of APA formatting. Also submit your updated Microsoft Project file.
Critical Element Attempted With Minimal or No Functional
Issues (100%)
Attempted With Significant Functional
Issues (75%)
Not Evident in Submission (0%) Value
Technical Role Selects and identifies a technical role from
the approved list
Selects a role, but role is not clearly identified
or may not be on the approved list
Does not select or identify a project role 12.86
Responsibilities Summarizes with minimal or no errors the
responsibilities assigned to the selected
technical role
Summarizes the responsibilities, but
summary has major errors related to
accuracy, completeness, or clarity
Does not summarize the responsibilities
assigned to the selected technical role
12.86
Project Schedule Lists with minimal or no errors the areas of
the project schedule assigned to the
technical role’s responsibilities
Lists the areas of the schedule assigned to
the designated responsibilities but has major
errors related to accuracy or completion
Does not list the areas of the schedule
assigned to the designated responsibilities
12.86
Predecessor
Tasks
Explains with minimal or no errors why it is
important that predecessor tasks are
completed before own tasks are performed,
citing specific information from the project’s
Gantt chart
Explains the importance of predecessor task
completion, citing specific information from
the project’s Gantt chart, but has major
issues related to accuracy, completion, or
clarity
Does not explain the importance of
predecessor task
12.86
Additional
Element
Clearly describes with minimal or no errors
an additional project element, including how
the feature alters the project timeline
Describes an additional project element and
how the feature alters timeline, but
description has major issues related to
accuracy, completion, or clarity
Does not describe an additional project
element and how the feature alters timeline
12.86
Place New Tasks Places the new tasks for feature with minimal
or no errors
Places the new tasks for feature but has
major issues related to accuracy, completion,
or clarity
Does not place the new tasks for feature 6
Project Timeline Explains with minimal or no errors how the
addition of this new element may alter the
project timeline
Explains how the addition of this new
element may alter the project timeline but
has major issues related to accuracy,
completion, or clarity
Does not explain how the addition of the new
element may alter the project timeline
12.86
Project Addition Explains with minimal or no errors how a
change in the triple constraint allows for this
project addition to occur based on own
experience in this activity
Explains how a change in the triple constraint
allows for this project addition to occur
based on own experience in this activity but
has major issues related to accuracy,
completion, or clarity
Does not explain how a change in the triple
constraint allowed for the project addition
12.86
Articulation of
Response
Submission has no major errors related to
grammar, spelling, syntax, or organization
Submission has major errors related to
grammar, spelling, syntax, or organization
that negatively impact readability and
articulation of main ideas
Submission has critical errors related to
grammar, spelling, syntax, or organization
that prevent understanding of ideas
3.98
Total 100%