Closure Review

Project Summary:

Project Review

Objectives

The aim of this project was to update our onsite Exchange servers that handle mail-flow to Office 365 in order to enable ongoing support and by aligning them with the cloud environment to reduce the risk of support issues with mail flow.

Deliverables

The project was originally split into two deliverables in two phases:

Phase 1 - Install SP3

Phase 2 - Upgrade Exchange hybrid servers

Scope

Following review of the End of Planning by WIS on 9/9/16, and subsequent consideration by the Project Sponsor, the project deployed Exchange SP3 only (previously to be delivered as Phase 1) and didn't continue to the upgrade of the onsite Exchange 2010 hybrid servers to Exchange 2016 (previously to be delivered as Phase 2).  A PICCL was created for the scope change.

The project was re-planned to reflect this change.

Schedule

The Delivery, Deployment Review and Closure milestones required to be rescheduled on 12/10/16 due to external conflicts with the COM022 (Academic Timetable Integration With Office 365 Calendar) project and due to essential work required as part of the Biosciences mail migration.

This was done as a precautionary measure - it was agreed with the Project Sponsor that the work of COM028 was less urgent and should be delayed to prevent any unanticipated impact to high profile urgent work.  A PICCL was created for the milestone change and this was approved 14/10/16 https://www.wiki.ed.ac.uk/display/insite/Applications+WIS+Notes+-+14+October+2016

Deployment was completed on 1/11/16 and a Deployment Review took place on 7/11/16 by email.

The Project Team agreed on 29/9/16 that the standard process for installation of a SP would be followed and therefore the following stages in the original plan would not be required: Build Review, Deployment Checklist, Acceptance Review (see meeting notes).

Analysis of Resource Usage:

Staff Usage Estimate: 14 days (this was after scope change https://www.projects.ed.ac.uk/unpublished/project/com028/issues/1 - was previously 50d)

Staff Usage Actual: 12 days

Staff Usage Variance: -10%

Other Resource Estimate: 0 days

Other Resource Actual: 0 days

Other Resource Variance: 0%

Explanation for variance:

There was a small variance in the actual staff usage due to the work taking less time than planned.

Key Learning Points:

1. The recommendation to deploy Exchange SP3 only came from a project team member during the project planning phase.  The change in scope significantly reduced the planned effort required and reduced and removed some of the risks to the mail service that would otherwise have been associated with a server upgrade.  This highlighted the value of regular project assurance during the course of project delivery - reviewing the benefits against the business need.

Outstanding issues:

No issues were reported during deployment.