What can be the lessons learned for the following university eCommerce website project? also provide references and citation

Scope

The project team has sufficiently delivered the in-scope activities covered in developing, testing, and deploying the FDU merchandise website, which was duly accepted by the customer (FDU Office of Student Affairs). As such, the project scope objectives have been met. There were multiple scope creep attempts, as the customer requested website features not included in the agreed in-scope activities. These requests include improving the search engine optimization after delivery, including search engine marketing or paid advertisement, and adding additional merchandise aside from the identified 20 merchandise. Still, the Project Manager adhered to the project scope by leveraging the Change Control Log and ensuring sign-off from the Project Sponsors. As it takes time to get the approvals, the requestors eventually decided not to pursue the added scope.

There were also attempts related to gold-plating where the outsourced software developer added features to the website that, though enhancing the functionality and aesthetics of the website, are not among the customer's requirements. These gold-plating features include a video playback platform, decorative layouts, and embedding of comments from website visitors. While these features aid website users, the Project Manager politely declined the offer of the outsourced software developer, as though it does not have additional costs, it could extend the project duration and impact the project delivery schedule.

Time / Schedule

The project's schedule target was met as the project was concluded ahead of the original completion date. Instead of completing it in 32 weeks (eight months), the project team finished it in 28 weeks by crashing. The schedule compression was made upon request of the Office of Student Affairs because the website has to be up and running during the New Student Orientation for the Fall 2023 Term. Due to the change in deployment date, the project team devised a revised schedule to identify the crash time and determine the additional resources needed. Overall, the crash time was 4 weeks, and though several non-critical activities' schedules were reduced, the reduced schedule did not produce new critical paths. The project team took advantage of the available slack time for non-critical activities to ensure the new target completion date could be achieved.

Cost

Due to a change in the website completion date as required by the customer, the project necessitated additional resources to crash the project schedule. As such, the project objectives were unmet, as the cost rose by __ %. There was a US$20,000 budget allocated, but the actual project costs amounted to ___ by the time the project concluded. FDU allocated a budget for the project, as developing an online store requires significant financial resources. The budget was used to pay the team members' salaries, the cost of software and hardware, and any third-party services, such as outsourced developers, required during the project. The Project Budget versus the Actual Project Costs is detailed in Table __. As seen in this cost report, most of the cost overruns were from personnel services, including third-party services from the outsourced software developer, the project's support, and technical staff as they needed to render overtime work to complete the project ahead schedule.