Running Head: PROJECT PROPOSAL 1

Project Proposal

Name

Institution
PROJECT PROPOSAL 2

Project Proposal

Executive Summary

In a bid to improve the student experience at the school of accounting, the university should
consider to replace the legacy systems it is utilizing currently. The university should adopt an
updated information management system, which ensures that self-service, among the students
can be enabled. Through such a system, students will be able to apply, check their grads and
conduct other academic functions online, at the comfort of their home. The project proposes
the utilization of the PeopleSoft Campus Solutions (CS) version 9.0 as the main software to
implement the project.
PROJECT PROPOSAL 3

Introduction

The information management systems at the school of accounting are aging and
becoming outdated, hence reducing the quality of services provided to the students and the
network administrators. As such, in a bid to create value to the experience and engagement of
the student, it is important for the university to upgrade its information management systems,
which have more features, to benefit the students. The project proposes the implementation of
the PeopleSoft Campus Solutions (CS) version 9.0 enterprise software. The main objective of
this project is to ensure that the existing systems for administration are replaced with advanced
technology, which supports the growing and dynamic student population at the school. The
technology to be adopted should support web-based and self-service functionalities for the
faculty as well as the students.

The faculty has been using its present student administration software in running the
different business functions of the faculty, since its inception. The legacy systems have various
limitations, and does not support expansions. Based on the highly dynamic and challenging
academic and business environment, it is important that the university utilizes a flexible student
administration program (Maumevičienė & Kurganienė, 2014). The goals for this project will be
as follows;

1. Provide a new or improved functionality which supports the academic progress and
success of the students. The availability of enhanced self-services access to the students
and faculties will ensure that the user experience and objectives of the organization are
met.
 Through the system, students will be provided will be provided an online access
to information pertaining to application, transcripts, class availability, grades,
admission status and many other types of information.
2. Improve the quality as well as the availability of data which will be crucial for strategic
decision-making process for the university.
3. Ensure that the system at the university is secure, maintainable, and reliable, to cater
for all the data management needs of the school.
PROJECT PROPOSAL 4

Time Management

The project will begin on January 29, 2021. The project will run for a total of 12 months,
being completed in August, 2021. The systems for the project will be deployed in several
phases, as shown in the timeline below.

The project will be composed of nine major tasks. The first task will be to come up with
the project planning phase. The planning phase will involve activities such as estimating the
budget of the project, the scope as well as feasibility studies on the project. The second task in
the project will be to conduct a functionality review on the proposed system. Such will involve
assessing the needs of the students in the school and understanding the capabilities of the
software involved and proposed in the project. Once the project is initiated, modules will be
started for the admissions and record management modules for the students. The different
records of the student, such as their names and course being undertaken will be captured and
transferred into the new system. After this, the financial module will be started. Such will
PROJECT PROPOSAL 5

involve aspects such as determining the fee structure and balances of the student. Once all the
data is collected and converted from the legacy system, the new system will be deployed, after
proper communication is made to the department and faculty involved.

Based on the different activities of the project, the deliverables for the project are
mentioned below.

 Providing improved or new functionalities to support the academic progress of

the students by providing self-service access to an online platform connected to
the faculty.
 Providing a reliable, secure and maintainable system for both the faculty and the
students.
 Improving the quality of information available to ensure that strategic decision
making is done, based on the concerns raised by the students.
 Reducing duplicative data entry as well as data maintenance.
 Increasing engagement and user experience of the students by ensuring that
they can be able to air or voice out their concerns via a secure online platform.
Students should also be able to conduct almost all of their academic

Performance Measurement System for the Project

The scope for the project mainly includes the implementation of the different modules
of the CS software in the School of Accounting Faculty. Managing the scope of the project will
be a major task during the implementation of the project, in a bid to ensure that the project is
completed within the schedule and does not exceed the stipulated budget for the project. In
implementing the project, the balanced scorecard was utilized, to determine the measures and
objectives of the project. Strategy maps were utilized in designing the balance scorecard for the
project. The tool utilized in this process, was the strategy matrix. A strategy matrix is a critical
summarization and visualization tool in project measurement systems. The strategy matrix
mainly displays the objectives, initiatives, measures and targets in one table (Mastilak &
Matherly, 2009). As a result of its design, the strategy matrix will certainly reflect the strategic
PROJECT PROPOSAL 6

theme for the project and university. A balanced scorecard for the project is shown in the table
below.

BALANCED SCORECARD FOR THE PROJECT THE SCHOOL OF ACCOUNTING

KEY
STRATEGY GOAL OBJECTIVE PERFORMANCE TARGETS
INDICATORS
give the students
the best IT experience to what we want to how we are going to
measure goal
increase engagement and accomplish accomplish the goal
performance
Show cost savings
Maintain the IT cost
in managing the Expenses as a % 5% per staff
efficiency to an
Allot the university's information system of of total budget involved
affordable level
  budget to support the the organization
Utilizing the process % initiatives
FINANCIAL

goals and objectives of

the project. Inn this, Creating staff value analysis on with the cost 80%
  smart and transparent awareness of costs initiatives. savings

financial interactions and benefits of new

% initiatives
information Utilizing the CBA to
will be utilized with the cost 60%
management system. make SMART decisions.
benefit
 
Identify student
The number of
Collaborate with needs and Providing a time-
service calls 30 per 5
customers to identify inefficiencies, and sensitive and effective
closed per time to working days
STAKEHOLDERS

and understand their implement the technical support.

reach
  needs and necessary solutions.
expectations. Achieve
# reports of
satisfaction through Build better less than 5
Ensure the software software-specific
service and product customer/student issues per
products are stable. issues and
delivery. relationships. month
challenges
 
INTERNAL PROCESSES

Utilizing innovation to Improve the process % service calls

Providing a reliable IT
improve internal delivery. related to <5%
architecture.
  processes. Maximize architecture
  Improve user % improvement 10% per
the resources by
experience of the on user survey quarter
implementing new
students
PROJECT PROPOSAL 7

Acting as a software # trainings and

Improve service
training and knowledge information 20 per month
strategies. delivery.
  base. requests
Providing quality # staff per call
Achieve a culture of 1 per call
  Prepared and trained assurance. necessary
LEARNING & GROWTH

growth and
the workforce Providing proactive # security training
development to 2 per month
  security. staff attending
develop our
Analyze student/user
employees to improve # user groups led 4 per month
  Accomplish goals and issues.
employee engagement
finish projects. Searching out training # identified per
and satisfaction. 5 per quarter
  opportunities. training session

Conclusion

The project is mainly designed to ensure that the current and future students at the
faculty are able to enjoy and have quality experiences, during their learning. The upgraded
information management system for the organization will ensure that the students are able to
have improved experiences, as self-servicing will be increased. Most of the basic services
required by the students will be available online. Services such as tracking their academic
records, transcripts and many other processes, will be provided online, from the comfort of
their homes and devices. Such will reduce the need to walk up to the service desks at the
faculties. Furthermore, prospective students to the faculty will also be able to make
applications, and check whether classes are available. Through the system, the faculty will be
able to collect specific user data, which will play a significant role in making strategic decisions,
especially for matters which affect the students. Some of the important factors that will help in
the completion of the project, is ensuring that project is finished within the stipulated time and
budget. The different project teams tasked to ensure this will happen, will include the project
sponsor, as well as the project managers.
PROJECT PROPOSAL 8

References

Mastilak, C., & Matherly, M. (2009). Resume as a Balanced Scorecard: Teaching the Balanced
Scorecard Using Analogy. SSRN Electronic Journal. https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1445636

Maumevičienė, D., & Kurganienė, I. (2014). Research into Lithuanisation of Enterprise Resource
Management System Oracle PeopleSoft. Studies About Languages, 0(24).
https://doi.org/10.5755/j01.sal.0.24.7036