iProgram LLC is a small business launched by two former HSB alumni: Joshua Smith (Project Manager PM) and Branden Garcia (Software Engineer SE). They provide IT services for businesses and NGOs. With the prospect of expanding their market to include government organizations as clients, they have recently decided to use some Project Management tools to improve their business operations. The first project is related to reduce the time for their main type of projects: app development. After reviewing the process, they came up with the following project WBS to develop an app:

	Task	Predecessors	% of cost	a	m	b	Resources used
1	App Development
2	Pre-Planning		11%	6	8	13	PM, SE
3	Story Board	2	10%	3	6	9	PM, SE
4	Access data	3	14%	2	3	7	SE
5	Select platform(s) and device(s)	4	4%	1	1	3	SE
6	Establish go-to-market strategy	2,3,4	2%	1	2	4	PM
7	Prototype	2,3,5	19%	10	15	25	SE
8	Design UX/UI	6,7	15%	7	7	12	SE
9	UAT testing	8	9%	3	3	10	PM, SE, Intern
10	Beta Testing	9	9%	3	3	7	PM, SE, Intern
11	Launch	10	7%	1	1	2	PM, SE, Intern

Their total estimate for this type of projects is $30,000. As they have faced a decrease in profits due to poor schedule estimation, they came up with a probabilistic approach to their estimations. In the table above, a represents the best case scenario, m represents the most likely scenario, and b represents the worst case scenario for the duration of the activities (when calculating te, round up durations following standard rounding rules). All durations are in days. The company works 8 hrs/day. As any small business, their operating hours are quite flexible, however, they follow these basic scheduling principles.

They work about 51 weeks per year and only take a holiday break from December 24^th to January 1^st.

They work from home mostly, with a schedule of 8 hours per day, Monday through Friday.

The only Federal Holidays observed are Memorial Day, Independence Day, Labor Day, and Thanksgiving Day (plus the Friday after Thanksgiving) for as long as they fall in a working day. These days and the winter holiday are considered paid leave.

Joshua Smith wants to set October 18, 2021 as the start date for this project with the aim of having it complete before December 31^st. It is for a new client and, based on the success of this project, it could mean an expansion of the company to serve a new clients segment. Would they meet the deadline based on their estimates? Please report the finish dates for each of the activities of the project. Please be aware that since you most likely do not have MS Project, you are going to calculate the start and finish dates by hand, using a calendar (I recommend you print a calendar for 2021-2022, mark off paid leave days, and proceed to schedule the activities starting with Activity 1 and a start date of October 18, 2021)

Based on Branden Garcias previous experience, he established the following requirements and the complexity weighting for the app development five core functions. He is using the complexity weights based on a formula used by the IT department of a company where he interned three summers ago). See the details below:

Function	Number of Screens	Complexity
Input	2	Low
Output	2	Low
Interfaces	1	Medium
Queries	3	Low
Files	3	Low

Function	Complexity Weighting
Low	Medium	High
# of Inputs	1	4	6
# of Outputs	1	5	7
# of Interfaces	2	3	5
# of Queries	2	4	6
# of Files	1	4	7

Branden has been following his growth as a software engineer and he is confident he can code 6 functions points/month and expects a salary of $83,500 per year. Would they meet the deadline based on their schedule estimates AND based on Brandens skill level (consider that the project has to be completed by the deadline, not only the coding part)? Would it make sense to hire an additional software engineer? Under which circumstances? What is the cost of the coding part of the project (see activities highlighted in yellow)?

Joshua Smith is concerned about the budget of the project, and specially, about the budget allocated for labor. Usually, in this type of projects, labor accounts for 80-90% of the total project budget. The following information was communicated to Branden regarding the fully loaded cost of labor for app development. It is important to note that since the company is really small, most of the cost for this project is associated with direct labor.

Position	Estimated Hours Needed	Overhead Charge	Personal Time rate	Annual Salary	Hourly rate	Labor cost
SE	400	21.5%%	20%	$83,500
PM	160	21.5%	17.5%	$87,250
Intern	90	15%	N.A.	$30,500
Total

Does Joshua have any basis for his concerns? Write a 3-4 paragraph recommendation for Joshua and Branden based on ALL your answers and their estimates. (Hint: compare the budget spent just in the coding part of the project vs. the total budget allocated for the software engineer vs. the total budget of the project)