Instructions

Klanton Bower Data Center: Case Study

The Klanton Bower Data Center is a commercial data center specializing in small business IT services such as mass memory storage, email and enterprise systems servers, and website services. The data center, which has been in business for eight years, was started by the current owner, Klanton Bower, Ph.D., a data system specialist and research scientist. The data center also has four senior managers and several technicians and support staff who manage all the equipment and IT services infrastructure. Dr. Bower and the senior management have been researching next-generation equipment for a possible expansion of their services to meet current market demands and to prepare for future next-generation requirements of large enterprise software platforms.

As Dr. Bower and senior management review the capability of current infrastructure equipment and what is required to upgrade and expand to meet future demands, this is considered a large-scale expansion of their current operation and is viewed as a special project. Dr. Bower has asked senior management to outline what equipment would be needed, provide estimated delivery dates of equipment, an outline of the events required to accomplish this expansion project.

Senior management understand the importance of purchasing the correct equipment and, from a project standpoint, correctly managing installation and testing as well as the go-live to have as little impact on the data center operations as possible and have a seamless crossover so that current customers will not be affected. In the initial outlay of logistics, it has been determined that one piece of critical server equipment has a lead time twice as long as several of the other pieces of equipment, and that may pose a challenge in the installation and testing of all the equipment. Fortunately, this piece of equipment can be installed at a later date and be integrated and tested at that time. The second challenge is clearing enough space in the current data center for installation of the entire expansion infrastructure.

The primary components of this project include finalizing research and the equipment list; procuring all equipment and establishing delivery schedules; organizing and clearing the data center floor for the expansion of equipment; and sequencing all activities required for the installation, testing, verification, and go live cross-over to implement the new equipment.

Based on your previous readings and this week's assigned readings, apply the concepts and principles to address the items below in respect to the case study (see the rubric below):

1. Explain why it would be important that the project manager and project staff have detailed information on each work activity.
2. What is the general purpose in defining responsibilities of those affiliated with the project?
3. Why would you use a responsibility assignment matrix?
4. Explain why authority on a project has to be defined and communicated with the project stakeholders and project staff.
5. What is the value of Activity Definition?
6. What is the value of Activity Sequencing?
7. What is the value of Resource Estimating?
8. What is the value of Activity Duration Estimating?
9. What is the value of developing a Project Schedule?
10. How would you use a Work Breakdown Structure in this case?