Well this is my last post for my project. At the start of the project i found it difficult as there was a problem that i thought was out of my control. But i found the problem and everything went along a breeze. Below is what I am going to explain what has gone wrong, what has gone right, what tasks could i have taken less time with etc.
What was planned and executed well? and What was presented with difficulties?
I layed out the plan into separate sections (phases), The first section was planning phase. This went very well, i created my CPA and gantt chart properly, I created a tick list with what i needed and created the presentation in which it gave an outline of what i was going to create. All of these tasks were executed very well with no problems.
The second phase of plan was to design the layout of the room. I designed the lab and topology very well. I did have to change the layout twice due to the length of cabling that was given to me.
The third phase was very critical to me completing the project or not. The reason why i say this is because if any hardware was not functioning properly or the software was corrupt the project could not have gone ahead but fortunately the PCs i needed worked perfectly as well as the all the cabling, printer and switch. These were all executed properly and within the time scale. The last part of this phase was to test to see if the server software will work on the machine. One machine met the minimum requirements but did not meet the RAM requirement's, so i took it out of another machine with the clients permission. The software did install correctly and the software was working perfectly.
The forth phase was the main creation of the stage. As said in blog, this stage did not go as well as i hoped. Designing the network and lab was executed and within the time scale i set it. Setting up the server was fine, at this point i was only consentrating on sorting out the DHCP and this was executed and planned fine. The major problem that occur ed was that the client machines could not see the server or domain name. I tried everything, re-installing the server, re-installing the client machines, changing the network cables etc. So i assumed it was the network switch that was playing up a bit, oh how wrong was I. To test this i created a peer to peer network and this worked fine without the server, all the computers were communicating fine with each other. Then my supervisor said have you tried pinging the server, this had not luck either. After this i done a through research on the Internet and tried what most people did, re-install the DHCP service and disabling the firewall. Then i was playing around with the network properties and rubbed out the IP address for 'preferred DNS' as i thought the server was part of dns, so i rubbed this out on the cleint machines and server machines and what happens, it starts to ping the server and the server could ping to the client machine. So at this point it was not executed as planned but it was excited enough for me to carry on. Luckily this did not put me back on my timescale as i spent Monday to Friday sorting it out.
The fifth phase went much smoother until i was told that we had half term, so at this point i changed my plan a bit to the stuff i can do at home during the holidays and the stuff i will do at college. The main to items i did at home were the creation of the testing questionnaire and the creation of the movie sample. These were both executed very well at home and did them within the timescale. The week after I had to re-install the server to be able to take pictures for each stage of the installation, at this point my plan was to use MS encoder but unfortunately there were some incompatibility with the software and graphics card. So i print screened each staged as my plan B and this went very well and with the timescale of the plan. I had to complete this task on time because the users that were testing the user accounts were testing it on the Wednesday. Wednesday came and after creating the user account, there were still some problems with accessing there own area and accessing the printer as i did not install it yet even though i put it on the test plan. After i got the feedback from the testers, i started to work by fixing these problems. The printer problem was that the drivers for the printer given to me were incompatible for a print server, so with a change request, i changed it to a peer to peer network. Users could still print across the network but they would of had to get the print form the other client machine. This was a little executed but had a plan b to continue with the project. After facing the problems on Friday, the same users came again and tested the user accounts again and all went well with questionnaires to prove it. Everything was going to according to plan at a smooth rate.
Phase six went very well, by now all the server is up and running with 3 client machines ready to be used. Now it was time to create the videos which was the next major part i had to complete. These teaching videos had to be clear, so people could understand of what is being shown to them. I believe i have given them clear instructions to install windows server 2003, i also added in some speeches to guide them through the more difficult parts and i believe i have achieved this task at its full potential.
Phase 7 was basic compared to what I was doing 2 weeks ago, it was basically to make sure everything was working and a good tidy up was in order ready for the presentation for the client.
How effective were the tools you used for planning and monitoring the project progress?
Project planner was fantastic in helping me plan out the whole project properly. I have to say that the CPA was not as effective as i hoped it to be as i never followed it, i always followed my gantt chart. Updating this blog twice a week was very hard aswell, i did it but twice a week was to much when you are trying to concentrate on the project. I would say for next time, you would need to update it once a week, i think that is much better and more controllable.
How good or bad was the plan and how did it help or hinder the progress of your project?
The plan was excellent until up to the point of the half term part. The plan was clearly layout in front of me and i maged to re arrange the tasks with out going other the hand over date. My plan that i made was brilliant as i thought ahead of what could go wrong and what could go right. Due to this there was one part that i thought was going to go very wrong but i didnt it went perfectly which allowed to have a couple of days sorting out the server problem. The part that went very well was testing the hardware and software.
I beleive that i have layed this plan out in such away, that i can do the project again with no worrys at all. The reason why i say this is because in previous projects i have done, they have been completed but i could nt follow that particular plan again.
My final Gantt chart update:
What was planned and executed well? and What was presented with difficulties?
I layed out the plan into separate sections (phases), The first section was planning phase. This went very well, i created my CPA and gantt chart properly, I created a tick list with what i needed and created the presentation in which it gave an outline of what i was going to create. All of these tasks were executed very well with no problems.
The second phase of plan was to design the layout of the room. I designed the lab and topology very well. I did have to change the layout twice due to the length of cabling that was given to me.
The third phase was very critical to me completing the project or not. The reason why i say this is because if any hardware was not functioning properly or the software was corrupt the project could not have gone ahead but fortunately the PCs i needed worked perfectly as well as the all the cabling, printer and switch. These were all executed properly and within the time scale. The last part of this phase was to test to see if the server software will work on the machine. One machine met the minimum requirements but did not meet the RAM requirement's, so i took it out of another machine with the clients permission. The software did install correctly and the software was working perfectly.
The forth phase was the main creation of the stage. As said in blog, this stage did not go as well as i hoped. Designing the network and lab was executed and within the time scale i set it. Setting up the server was fine, at this point i was only consentrating on sorting out the DHCP and this was executed and planned fine. The major problem that occur ed was that the client machines could not see the server or domain name. I tried everything, re-installing the server, re-installing the client machines, changing the network cables etc. So i assumed it was the network switch that was playing up a bit, oh how wrong was I. To test this i created a peer to peer network and this worked fine without the server, all the computers were communicating fine with each other. Then my supervisor said have you tried pinging the server, this had not luck either. After this i done a through research on the Internet and tried what most people did, re-install the DHCP service and disabling the firewall. Then i was playing around with the network properties and rubbed out the IP address for 'preferred DNS' as i thought the server was part of dns, so i rubbed this out on the cleint machines and server machines and what happens, it starts to ping the server and the server could ping to the client machine. So at this point it was not executed as planned but it was excited enough for me to carry on. Luckily this did not put me back on my timescale as i spent Monday to Friday sorting it out.
The fifth phase went much smoother until i was told that we had half term, so at this point i changed my plan a bit to the stuff i can do at home during the holidays and the stuff i will do at college. The main to items i did at home were the creation of the testing questionnaire and the creation of the movie sample. These were both executed very well at home and did them within the timescale. The week after I had to re-install the server to be able to take pictures for each stage of the installation, at this point my plan was to use MS encoder but unfortunately there were some incompatibility with the software and graphics card. So i print screened each staged as my plan B and this went very well and with the timescale of the plan. I had to complete this task on time because the users that were testing the user accounts were testing it on the Wednesday. Wednesday came and after creating the user account, there were still some problems with accessing there own area and accessing the printer as i did not install it yet even though i put it on the test plan. After i got the feedback from the testers, i started to work by fixing these problems. The printer problem was that the drivers for the printer given to me were incompatible for a print server, so with a change request, i changed it to a peer to peer network. Users could still print across the network but they would of had to get the print form the other client machine. This was a little executed but had a plan b to continue with the project. After facing the problems on Friday, the same users came again and tested the user accounts again and all went well with questionnaires to prove it. Everything was going to according to plan at a smooth rate.
Phase six went very well, by now all the server is up and running with 3 client machines ready to be used. Now it was time to create the videos which was the next major part i had to complete. These teaching videos had to be clear, so people could understand of what is being shown to them. I believe i have given them clear instructions to install windows server 2003, i also added in some speeches to guide them through the more difficult parts and i believe i have achieved this task at its full potential.
Phase 7 was basic compared to what I was doing 2 weeks ago, it was basically to make sure everything was working and a good tidy up was in order ready for the presentation for the client.
How effective were the tools you used for planning and monitoring the project progress?
Project planner was fantastic in helping me plan out the whole project properly. I have to say that the CPA was not as effective as i hoped it to be as i never followed it, i always followed my gantt chart. Updating this blog twice a week was very hard aswell, i did it but twice a week was to much when you are trying to concentrate on the project. I would say for next time, you would need to update it once a week, i think that is much better and more controllable.
How good or bad was the plan and how did it help or hinder the progress of your project?
The plan was excellent until up to the point of the half term part. The plan was clearly layout in front of me and i maged to re arrange the tasks with out going other the hand over date. My plan that i made was brilliant as i thought ahead of what could go wrong and what could go right. Due to this there was one part that i thought was going to go very wrong but i didnt it went perfectly which allowed to have a couple of days sorting out the server problem. The part that went very well was testing the hardware and software.
I beleive that i have layed this plan out in such away, that i can do the project again with no worrys at all. The reason why i say this is because in previous projects i have done, they have been completed but i could nt follow that particular plan again.
My final Gantt chart update:
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