Networking Assessment Document Final Project Proposal

12/09/2011

Group 6: Security Section

Table of Contents

Section 1: Introduction & Project Charter ............................................................................... 3 a. Resources available for project (budget, personnel, equipment, etc.)......3 b. Schedule expectations......................................................................................................... 3 c. Goal Breakdown Structure................................................................................................... 4 d. Scope of Work .................................................................................................................... 4 e. Assumptions and Constraints.............................................................................................. 4 Section 2: Project Activities and Work Breakdown Structure ................................................ 5 Section 3: Project Schedule ..................................................................................................... 7 a. Gantt Chart ........................................................................................................................... 7 Section 4: Budget..................................................................................................................... 8 Section 5: Risk Management Plan .......................................................................................... 9 Section 6: Communication Plan.....11 Appendix I (Risk Register) .................................................................................................... 13 Appendix II (Status Update) .................................................................................................. 13 Appendix III (Email Example) .............................................................................................. 15

Section 1: Introduction & Project Charter The project Sparta team is a group of current and graduate Florida State University students that intend to volunteer in local organizations around Tallahassee to gain experience and assist the community. In order to assist the Sparta team, this project team is proposing an amendment to the current Network Assessment document, originally conceived by Melissa Raulston. The initial plan to do this is by focusing on resolving what we feel are three main weaknesses of the current document: its lack of interactivity, simplicity and its lack of conciseness. This project was undertaken due to the desire to assist Ms. Raulston in modifying the Network Assessment document so that it could be more beneficial to current and graduate Information Technology students from Florida State University. The current Network Assessment document is being hosted by Melissa Raulston, and is available at http://network.projectsparta.org/. The final project plan will be finished by December 8th, 2011. a. Resources available for project Total all phases: $100.00 Total this phase: $0 This project is being implemented using currently available resources, and by students who are not getting paid, therefore, it should not require any money to complete the suggestions. Ms. Raulston is hosting this Network Assessment on her own personal web server, and thus depending on what extra data usage this project may require, depending on how her website is paid for (monthly charge, or by how much data is used) she may incur extra fees. As a result of this possibility, the group has decided to plan a budget of $100 dollars that assumes charges may apply. b. Schedule expectations The project team came to the conclusion that there are four milestone events that needed to be accomplished. The first thing that needed to be accomplished was analyzing the network assessment document, and coming up with ways to improve the security section of the document, and later, the whole document. The next milestone was observing a group of I.T practicum students using the document, and critiquing the document's effectiveness in a live environment. Once that critique was completed, the third thing to finish was using the data that the team had gathered, and coming up with a plan to improve the document. After determining that that network assessment had to be re-coded to be helpful, and improve usability, the team concluded that would be the final milestone for the project. Start: Analyze Network Assessment Document End: Observe I.T practicum students Duration: 14 days Start: Observe I.T practicum students End: Modify Network Assessment Duration: 3 days
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Start: Modify Network Assessment plan End: Re-code Network Assessment Duration: 7 days Start: Re-code the Network Assessment End: Completed Assessment Duration: 80 days The project schedule is available in 5 stages: Initiating, Planning, Executing, Controlling, and Closing. The previously mentioned summary includes the execution stage through the closing stage. c. Goal Breakdown Structure This is a preliminary goal breakdown schedule which begins with the organizations highest level goals and works down through objectives, requirements and specifications as needed and known at this point. 1. The Network Assessment document will assist the current I.T. and graduate I.T. students from The Florida State University. a. Give students practical work experience i. Provide step by step instruction based on the categories of the Network Assessment document 2. Make the Network Assessment document more interactive a. By having simple Yes or No questions that returns feedback i. The feedback will provide examples such as: 1. Flash 2. HTML 5 3. Make the Network Assessment document shorter a. Get rid of redundant questions i. By compacting the questions and make them shorter and simpler b. Make document simpler overall i. Use radio buttons 1. Yes, No, Skip d. Scope of Work The project team concluded that there were 4 factors that determined the scope of the project plan 1. Plans for ways to improve the security section of the network assessment document 2. Plans to implement a more interactive form for the assessment. 3. Create a prototype demonstrating idea 4. Code the new network assessment document in HTML 5, and make it more interactive following the prototype design
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e. Assumptions and Constraints The group concluded that the following were accurate descriptions of the project assumptions and constraints. Assumptions 1. Students using will have varying experience in IT. 2. There will be a group of practicum students available to implement these ideas at no monetary cost. Constraints 1. There is a limited amount of time to implement the project 2. It is unknown whether students will possess knowledge necessary to implement new design effectively

Section 2: Project Activities and Work Breakdown Structure In this project, the team completed various activities that helped lead to the conclusion that an adjustment was needed in the network assessment document. The first activity that was arranged was the team meeting schedule. Every week the team would meet on Monday and Wednesday before class meetings to assure that team communication was happening. The team also went to Lee's Place, located on 216 Lake Ella Dr in Tallahassee, to observe the I.T practicum students using the network assessment document, so that the group could accurately determine what it's shortcomings were. After compiling feedback from the team, and I.T practicum student's, it was clear that the document was too complicated, and was not interactive enough. To solve this problem, the team concluded that the document should be re-coded into HTML5, and tailored to a prototype, which was created afterwards. Advantages Being able to provide Project Sparta with a document that would help their students not only learn but also provide the clients with a better service is the main goal. That in of itself is a great advantage. In order to do so the group will have to make the document easy to understand as well as helpful to those students who might not have a complete grasp on what it is to secure a system. A document that accomplishes this will provide students with the necessary knowledge required to obtain a job after college. In addition, as stated before, the quality of the work the students perform will improve in quality with the guidance provided by the document.

Assessing Project Risks When the project was started there wasnt a proper risk assessment plan intact. Therefore, the processes in which risks have been assessed were through the groups experience thus far. The plan for collaboration and team meetings was set at the beginning of the semester, however due to varying schedules between members they were not able to all meet collectively. This negative risk was identified early on during the write up of the initial proposal and status reports, but they werent able to properly assess it until the team had suffered setbacks. The work lacked continuity and there was obviously a problem in the teams overall collaboration. It was discovered that the probability of this risk occurring was very high, thus it was very unlikely that all group members could meet at once so the only course of action was to reduce the potential impact this risk had on the project. Major Project Risks Communication with other project members had been difficult; the delay in communicating has had an impact on the overall schedule. This has particularity affected the time schedule to observe students using the form. Not only did this delay later tasks but it also has a potential impact on the overall quality of the finished project. The decision to make significant changes within the form has opened the team up to potential uncertainties that will inevitably impact the time and amount of resources allocated to finish the form. There is also a possibility that the proposed plan could make the form worse than it already is. There is also a positive uncertainty from the decision to make changes that will result in an improved quality deliverable. Addressing Project Risks Actions have already been taken to address the risks related to team communication and collaboration. Once risks had been assessed, and it was determined that the team could not all meet at once, they began to implement the course of action. The group leader realized that the inability to agree on a time to meet was stopping a meeting from occurring at all; Neville addressed this by holding weekly group meetings before class. Work was accomplished, assignments were planned and work was delegated to members whether everyone was there or not. Not only did this strategy work, but it also greatly reduced the risk of the project being delayed due to members being absent. Although the problem of scheduling and time had been addressed there was still an issue with team collaboration (continuity throughout the semesters work was still lacking). Realization that the risk could not be avoided was vital to taking actions to mitigate the potential impact these risks had. A different approach was used when with the potential risk of making significant changes to the Network Assessment form. The risk had been assessed and consideration of every possible response, which included avoidance, transference, mitigation and acceptance, had occurred.
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There was no way to change the scope or objectives to avoid this risk nor was there a 3rd party or subcontractor the risk could be transferred to. Mitigation was a possibility but the risk had not been addressed early enough to determine an effective course of action. It wasnt possible an action to be taken against this risk without negatively affecting the finished proposal. The only course of action was to accept this risk and the potential impact it could have on the schedule and quality of work. As a result the overall amount of work that initially planned for but had increased but this should result in a more effective final product Work Breakdown Schedule

Section 3: Project Schedule The first five days will be spent with a kickoff meeting (taking two days), developing a project charter (three days), and signing the charter (one day) The second step (Planning) of the project is also divided into three parts. Developing the project plans (five days), reviewing project plans (five days), and finally approving the project plans (one day).

The third step involves the execution of the plans, which will involve spending fourteen days analyzing the current network assessment. After that, three days will be dedicated to observing the I.T. Practicum student using the Network Assessment. Seven days of modifying and tweaking the Network Assessment, and three days revising and submitting the document for approval. The fourth step in the plan is a seventy-three day process which involves reporting the performance changes and control changes. To do this, the document will be refined based on considerations determined from the execution phase of the project. The last step involves five days preparing the final project report, and one day presenting the final project. The group needs to make sure to stick to this schedule in order to maintain good progress throughout the entire project. This timeline will keep us from wasting time and falling behind on the project. All of the steps being followed are equally important. If one of the steps fails to be completed in a proper manner then the rest of the following steps will suffer.

a. Gantt Chart

Section 4: Budget The budget consists of only a few items; the only item that will need to be paid is the cost of hosting the form on a webserver. The costs of labor will be free since practicum students will be working on this project for their service learning objective, however the costs has still been included as reference for the amount of work required and in the case the project is outsourced. The development software has been included as free since most students will either be using campus resources or open source software.

Budget

Hosting Labor Software

Item Webserver Hosting Practicum Student Labor Development Software

Cost $7.95/per month $10/hour Free

Total Cost $95.40/per year $550 Free

Section 5: Risk Management Plan Project Name: Networking Assessment document (Security) Project Description: Create and edit a security page outlining common procedures for the Network Assessment document, which is located on http://Network.projectsparta.org

Project Manager: Melissa Raulston

Assessing Project Risks When the group started the project it did not have a proper risk assessment plan intact. Therefore, the processes in which the team has assessed the risks have been through the experience thus far. The plan for collaboration and team meetings was set at the beginning of the
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semester, however, due to varying schedules members were not always able to all meet. This negative risk was identified early on as the group started the initial proposal and status reports, but the team wasnt able to properly assess it until the group had suffered the repercussions. The work lacked continuity and there was obviously a problem in the overall collaboration. The group had discovered that the probability of this risk occurring was 100%, it was improbable for us all to meet at once so the only course of action was to reduce the potential impact this risk had on the project. Major Project Risks Communication with other project members has been difficult; the delay in communicating has had an impact on the overall schedule. This has particularity affected us when the team needed to observe students using the form. Not only did this delay the later tasks but it also has a potential impact on the overall quality of the finished project. The decision to make significant changes within the form has opened us up to potential uncertainties that will inevitably impact the time and amount of resources allocated to finish the form. There is also a possibility that the proposed plan could make the form worse than it already is. There is also a positive uncertainty from the decision to make changes that will result in an improved quality deliverable. Addressing Project Risks The group has already taken actions to address the risks related to team communication and collaboration. Once the team had assessed the risk and determined that the team would not be able to all meet at once, the team began to implement the course of action. The team realized that the inability to agree on a time to meet was stopping us from even meeting at all; the group leader Neville addressed this by holding weekly group meetings before class. Work was accomplished, assignments were planned and work was delegated to members whether everyone was there or not. Not only did this strategy work, but it also greatly reduced the risk of the project being delayed due to members being absent. Although the problem of scheduling and time had been addressed there was still an issue with the collaboration. This problem was addressed by implementing the use of Google Docs and Ventrilo, which allowed us all to work on the same document collaboratively and communicate through group voice communication software. The team realized this risk could not be avoided so instead we took actions to mitigate the potential impact these risks had. The team took a different approach when the team addressed the potential risk of making significant changes to the Network Assessment form. When the team had assessed this risk the team considered every possible response, which included avoidance, transference, mitigation and acceptance. The team realized there was no way of changing the scope or objectives to avoid this risk nor was there a 3rd party or subcontractor the team could transfer this risk to. Mitigation was a possibility but the team had not addressed this risk early enough to determine an effective course of action. It wasnt possible for us to take action against this risk without negatively
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affecting the finished proposal. So the only course of action was to accept this risk and the potential impact it could have on the schedule and quality of work. As a result the team had to increase the overall amount of work the team initially planned for but the team expect this to result in a more effective final product. Refer to Appendix I for the Risk Register. Section 6: Communication Plan This section provides a summary of the communication plan for project Network Assessment Document: Security Section. It includes a list of the main stakeholder audiences for this project, the goals for each of those audiences, the method(s) used to reach of the audiences and the timing of the communications. In many cases these communication activities (i.e. status reports) will be included and described further in the projects work breakdown structure. Key Stakeholders 1.1 Melissa Raulston Ms. Raulston is the original creator of the Network Assessment document and current head of the Project Sparta project. She is providing direction to the group in designing and implementing a new solution for the current Network Assessment document (Security Section). 1.2 Communication Goals The goal in relation to communicating with Ms. Raulston is that she receives information about the specific ideas to improve the security section of the Network Assessment document. In addition, the team plans to provide her with a general outline of the project milestones to allow her to keep track of the project. The group understands that she is a very busy person, and as such only needs the vital and pertinent information relating to this project. 1.3 Method The team plans to communicate with Ms. Raulston with a written proposal, as well as an oral presentation that she can attend during the class time. The proposal will be made available to Ms. Raulston on December 8th, and the oral presentation will happen on December 7th, 2011. 2.1 Dr. Chris Hinnant Dr. Hinnant is the faculty member overseeing the for the Network Assessment project plan. He assists the group in improving the project plan with recommendations based in experience. 2.2 Communication Goals The goal in communicating with Dr. Hinnant is that he is able to see every step in the process of completing the final project plan, and oral presentation. Dr. Hinnant needs to see all of the work
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that has been completed in order to evaluate whether the project is being done correctly, and to the standard by which he has set in the class. 2.3 Method The team will communicate with Dr. Hinnant in various forms, including verbally in the class and oral presentation, as well as in writing through the various status reports. The team will supply these communications according to the deliverable schedule located on campus.fsu.edu in the LIS4910 course schedule section. Network Assessment Project Team (Security) Overall communication issues that the group may face may be the fact that the group has a holiday approaching. Since the holidays usually serve as a time for people to leave town, it may be hard for people to communicate. Within the project Neville Smith would need to receive all communication regarding any changes and or updates to the network assessment. 1.4 Neville Smith Neville smith is a key stakeholder. He is the project team leader and is in charge of overseeing the overall project progress and also taking care of any internal communication inquiries.

1.5 Communication Goals The goals for communicating with Neville Smith are to insure that he is informed of all processes dealing with the network assessment. It is also important to make sure that he is informed to help with the overall symmetry of the project. With the group leader knowing he will be able to delegate work as needed. The team will also work on its internal communication methods by email, text messages and also phone calls. It is important to stress that communication with Neville is important however communication within the whole team is important as well. 1.6 Method Neville Smith is the project leader and he will be communicated through various forms of communication such as text message, email and phone calls. Refer to Appendix II for Status Reports Refer to Appendix III for Email Report

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Appendix I Risk Register

Appendix II Date: 11/8/2011 Subject: Project Status for networking assessment document (Security) Team Members: Brandon Stennett, Yves LHeureux, Victor Marquez, Neville Smith

Project Name: Networking Assessment Document (Security) Project Manager: Melissa Raulston

Report Period: 09/1/2011-12/1/2011 Project Description: Create and edit a security page outlining common procedures for the Network assessment document, which is located on http://Network.projectsparta.org

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Project Schedule Status Summary: __X__Green (on Time) ____Yellow (cautionary) ____Red (behind schedule) Explanation of Schedule Status The whole security portion of the network assessment team met with Mellissa Raulston on current goals for the network assessment on November 2nd. The team has a clear vision of where the network assessment will go. A testing and trial period was completed on November 6th, 2011 and analysis of the assessment trial is currently being worked on.

Key accomplishments this period -A test trial of the network assessment was completed on November 6th, 2011 -Uncovered that project scope needs to be redefined to include potential enhancements in relation to security section of document. The team has completed trials using the network assessment document and they are now concentrating on the proposal documentation.

Upcoming tasks for next period -Continue working on network assessment proposal. -Continue refining the documentation to tailor the expectations of the I.T Practicum students The upcoming tasks will involve less interaction with the IT Practicum students and more interaction with Melissa Raulston and the network assessment team. The group will also be narrowing down the ideas to perfectly fit the overall network assessment proposal. Issues -Currently not enough time to complete the network assessment proposal -Scope of the project needs to include amendments to how security section specifically can be amended -Need to determine exactly what will be maintained by this project, and who will be responsible for updating website once the base has been installed.

From the test trial of the network assessment it is clear to see that there are many issues with the assessment, such as no clear focus and lack of user usability.
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Appendix III Status update #2 Smith, Neville Sent: Wednesday, November 09, 2011 9:52 AM To: vhm08@fsu.edu; Stennett, Brandon; yj.lheureux@gmail.com; vhmarquez90@gmail.com; Smith, Neville Attachments: status update .docx ( Fellow Group members, Please examine the document and make adjustments as needed. Remember this assignment is due on the 11th so I need it back as soon as possible. The group has a risk management assignment due on the 18th, so please send the progress reports to me as soon as they are available. In addition, please continue working on the Google document, as it contains pertinent information that the group will need. I have scheduled an appointment to meet on November 16th with Melissa so that the group can present the ideas to her and gather feedback. Please contact me if you have any questions or concerns. Neville Smith The Florida State University C: 954-829-7476 )

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