Summary
The provision of the lab and medical equipment plays an important role in the development of a new research project, the improvement of medical services, and the enhancement of academic facilities. Even if researchers and administrators establish clear goals and milestones in their work, there is a need for properly chosen staffing and non-staffing resources. This project aims at creating a website with the help of which people can investigate and choose the research equipment. The main feature of this website is the combination of keywords, search techniques, and solutions. Recommendations from experts facilitate a working process, and customers can set special requirements. In this proposal, several goals, milestones, deliverables, structure, timeframes, and costs will be identified to prove the importance of the project and its management.
Revised Project Proposal
The project is delivering a functional and interactive website for a lab and medical equipment company, which requires several specific features. The website’s overall goal is to allow a customer to be able to request a quote and view the laboratory equipment which would meet the research needs. Customization and special requirements need to be integrated to make the website more interactive and responsive. In addition, the website must have a payment option implemented because customers will place the orders on the platform after deciding. The fields of science, medicine, and education are frequently combined to provide society with an opportunity to improve the quality of living and discover new aspects of development and professional growth. This project focuses on the establishment of the timeline frames for a researcher team, as well as an understanding of the major costs and resources to create a website.
Goal and Objectives
The first project goal is to set up the core of the website with a library that includes all types of equipment. It needs to include all the required features and characteristics alongside the purpose of the equipment. The second goal is to design a website to be more interactive and add various customization options. Therefore, two primary objectives must be fulfilled to satisfy the client company. The first objective revolves around consulting a wide range of experts and the company regarding its medical equipment. This is necessary to create a library or list of available products, which will be viewed by the company’s clients. The second objective is to set up a secure payment method and customization options, where a customer will be able to indicate his or her research goals. The website should be able to recognize the keywords and offer plausible solutions. For example, if a client wishes to amplify the sample DNA, the platform needs to offer PCR machines.
Two more goals have to be discussed in this research project. On the one hand, it is crucial to understand and apply information about customers during the creation of a new site. Therefore, another critical goal is to improve the awareness of customers’ needs and expectations. It is not enough to introduce a high-quality website with several opportunities for people with multiple research goals. It is expected to demonstrate that this website is based on the analysis of human needs and educational purposes. As a result, the objectives are to regularly investigate researchers’ needs and implement the results in the website’s creation. On the other hand, the company’s benefits and profits cannot be ignored. Regarding this need, an additional goal is to increase sales and the number of customers when all technical and organizational aspects are considered. To meet this goal, it is important to check search engine options, enhance the content, and establish user-friendly relationships to make people come back and continue cooperation. These objectives play a crucial role either for researchers or for administrators because increased sales mean stable traffic and regular visitors.
An analysis of the plan is necessary to answer the question of whether the project can satisfy the goals and desires of the participants in this project. All participants involved in the project should evaluate indicators, plans, goals, and planned results. This is the first stage of the project or the planning stage. At this stage, a decision is made to change the project, adjust it, change goals, and results. After the analysis of the plan is completed, all further analysis processes are understood as performance analysis processes. At the planning stage, estimates and forecasts are developed. The method of performance analysis is necessary to control the work to achieve predictions and results. Evaluations of the criteria for achieving the goal serve as a project management method. Criteria for the success of projects means compliance with the deadlines, quality of work, cost of work for the project. If any of these criteria fails and gives negative results, a decision is made on a small adjustment, a qualitative change, or the complete elimination of the project.
Milestones and Deliverables
In the process of creating an interactive website, the identification of deliverables and milestones is a critical step. The online world is characterized by frequent changes and improvements, and its dynamic is usually hard to predict. Therefore, internal and external factors have to be taken into consideration. Internal deliverables are used to follow the progress of the work done and avoid unpredictable losses, while external deliverables aim at identifying the needs of potential clients (McDaniel, 2). To design a website and make sure it is interactive and functional, such deliverables and milestones have to be identified: the creation of a project brief, wireframes, mock-ups, and a final prototype (McDaniel, 2). Each step contains a list of tasks and expectations that must be discussed by a research team.
First, it is necessary to understand why the website is created, and a brief is an opportunity to overview all the details and goals. It is a major document for an internal project team that has to be introduced at the initial stage. It contains the description of the goals and objectives, as well as the audience, scope, and timeframes. When a team is stuck with another step, it is high time to consult the brief and understand what should be done next. After organizational aspects are discussed, it is important to evaluate the technical aspects, invite a professional team, and discuss wireframes. This deliverable aims at the identification of visual diagrams that serve as a basis for a website. Its milestone is to check if the final navigation for the website works effectively and meets the purposes set (McDaniel, 2). Mock-ups are necessary to comprehend an overall image of the website, its features, and the opportunities that are offered to clients. Functionality and interaction are assessed at this period to make sure everything is ready for a final prototype being introduced, which is the last deliverable in the project.
Timeline with Key Tasks and Deadlines
The success of this project is predetermined by the possibility of creating a simple, still effective timeline with key tasks and deadlines. Compared to the previous sections where technical aspects of the creation of a website are discussed, this section includes the discussion of the steps that have to be taken directly by a research team. Depending mostly on the work of website technicians, this timeline may include from four to six months.
First, one week is required to make initial preparations, analyze available balance, and create a proposal to identify an overall idea of the project. The end of the second week is a final deadline for gathering the equipment (including personal computers, memory cards, cameras, and additional devices indicated by a developers’ team). The third week is used to analyze the demands of customers, discuss the characteristics of the website platform, and delve into the study of lab and medical terms and customization techniques. Then, the period of mechanical work begins, and its timeframes are hard to predict. The key tasks are to develop a formula and make a design during the next two weeks maximum. The content writing and programming should take two months maximum. The next week is offered to test the website and its components, gather first feedback, and implement improvements. The site launch is planned to be taken within one day after four months of preparations and examination. The last month is used to analyze the work done and come to a conclusion if the goals are met and if customers are satisfied with the offered services.
Structure
The project management structure will be based on setting up a project-dedicated team, which will consist of several experts. The team needs to include a medical equipment expert, a professional researcher, a company’s representative, back-end developers, front-end developers, and web designers. The latter three will do mechanical work of creating the website, whereas experts will play an essential role in setting up a library and customization features. The company representative is also needed to understand what the client company offers and what it lacks. It is stated that project management methodology has a significant influence on the overall success of the project (Joslin and Muller, 1). Therefore, it is critical to outline the steps that will be undertaken.
It is important to consider that the project will consist of five stages, such as initiation, planning, execution, monitoring and management, and completion. Initiation is necessary for the start to be approved by the manager before work on the project, or its next phase begins. The project plan is determined as part of the process planning, which includes its content, list of tasks, scope, gradation of activities, and goals. Execution is all that is required for the implementation of the current phase of the project is contained in this group of processes. Monitoring and management are part of the process, which boils down to observing, studying, and further working with the received data. This is necessary to maintain quality indicators and increase work efficiency, and at this stage, the project management is evaluated. A completion is a group of activities that performs all the work before preparing for the new phase of the project or completes the operations within the framework of the general plan.
Stakeholders
The key customers are the potential clients of the company, who will access the website to purchase the required equipment. The stakeholders are the company itself and the web developers, whose payment depends on the successful completion of the project. The role customers are simple, where their goal is to have access to a platform with customization options. However, the customer’s impact is paramount since they will be the ones who will find the website either satisfactory or unsatisfactory. Therefore, the website will be adjusted according to their demands. In the case of stakeholders, the role of web developers to deliver an outstanding product and their impact is directly reflected in their work quality. The overall role of the company is providing essential information, which will be a basis for the library. Its impact will be manifested in the representative’s ability to guide the team on the company’s limitations and strengths.
Cost and Key Resources
The idea of the creation of a website and underlining the importance of medical research and library access for users is not cheap, and the approximate cost of this project is around $3000. The key staffing resources include two teams of experts: researchers and technicians. Their contributions vary, but it is expected to pay about $50-150 for their services per week. There is also a need to buy special devices to meet the goal and create a website. In the majority of cases, ordinary computers are not enough, and the establishment of additional programs or even software change is required. Therefore, the price of non-staffing resources should be taken into consideration (no more than $1000). Finally, food and water supply are obligatory for the team to meet their basic needs and maintain their health.
Sources
- Robert Joslin and Ralf Muller, 2015, Relationships Between a Project Management Methodology and Project Success in Different Project Governance Contexts, Web.
- Zach McDaniel, 2019, Deliverables: Everything a Web Designed Needs to Know, Web.