Project Plan Checklist

Use this checklist to prompt you for details you may want to include in your project plan. It is designed to be used in conjuction with the project plan form and is organized in the same manner.

Project Summary

• What business advantages/features are offered by the architectural improvements?
• What technology is involved? (hardware, software, vendor service)
• Where will the technology be used?
• Describe the affected user population (by region, by location type)
• How will each affected group benefit from this project?
• How will Cisco benefit from their use of it?

Affected Groups

Please use the form checklist and then include additional groups in the space below if needed. These groups will need to send representatives to all four review. In addition, your sponsoring (funding) group will need to send a representative to the Commitment Review meeting.

• Describe who will have a role in ensuring that this project is a success: who will be responsible for building, coding, or implementing this.
• Who will be responsible for maintaining and managing it once it is installed?
• Who will train users or support staff if needed?

Financial Analysis

Project Sponsor

Estimate the financial benefits to be gained by these business advantages, including time and/or money saved over the current architecture.

If possible, consider the risks involved in this change, estimate their likelihood and estimate the cost should these potential dangers take place. If possible, compare the estimated benefits over time with the estimated costs (e.g. a table showing costs and benefits of current system, compared to the expected costs and benefits of the proposed new system).

Estimate the time and cost to perform any necessary planning and testing.

Roughly estimate the time and cost to fully deploy the project solution throughout Cisco.

Calculating the ROI and Payback period.

• Capital costs: Roughly estimate the cost to Cisco of purchasing all the hardware, software, and vendor services required to fully deploy your project.
• Operating costs: Roughly estimate the change in cost to Cisco to operate this improved network vs. operating the network without this improvement for one full year. Assume that customer demand and usage remains the same.
• Profits / Savings: Roughly estimate the money made or saved as a result of your project, over one full year
• ROI: Carry both the costs and the savings out over a 3 year period. Deduct capital costs and 3 year operating costs from the 3-year profits or savings benefits. How much money will be saved or earned as profit, after deducting all capital and operating expenses? This is the 3-year ROI.

I.e. 3 year ROI = {Savings per month - Operating costs per month} x 36 months - Capital costs. Example: If your project costs $100,000 to install, saves $25,000 per month, and costs $15,000 to operate per month, then the 3 year ROI is $260,000.

$260,000 = {$25,000-$15,000} x 36 - $100,000.

• Payback Period: How long will it take for any savings over time (Savings per month - Operating costs per month) to equal the up front capital expense of planning, testing, and deploying this improvement?

I.e. Payback Period (months) = {$ Capital costs} / {Savings per month - operating costs per month}. Example: If your project costs $100,000 to install, saves $25,000 per month, and costs $15,000 to operate per month, then the payback period is 10 months.

10 months = {$100,000}/{$25,000-$15,000}.

Note that these are rough estimates of the true ROI and Payback period. When you have real financial data (real costs, real benefits), you might want to increase the accuracy of your ROI and Payback period by including the corporate "Cost of Capital" (how much interest income your corporation would be making from the capital costs you spent on the project), and any impact of inflation over the 3 year ROI period.

Architecture Overview

• Describe at a high level the architectural changes required, by comparing the current architecture to the architecture as it is likely to look after the full implementation.
• Describe the technology involved in the solution.
• Describe how each product or service might best be included in the various offices and geographic areas. If there are technology choices to make (a choice of models, software versions, network protocols, network management support tools, etc.), make them here. These best technology choices may vary with the office type or geographic area (e.g. technology X in one office type or geographical area; technology Y in another); if so, make these choices very clear, and explain the reasoning behind these choices.
• Define the Connectivity requirements. Create both a logical map (logical subdivisions of the network) and a physical map. Show how it interconnects with the current environment, and be as specific as possible about the interfaces between the new added project equipment or software and the current architecture.
• Define the Capacity (e.g. bandwidth, and scaleability), Availability and Performance (e.g. QOS, response time) requirements of the new network solution.
• Define specific equipment and software to be used in the new network solution.
• If possible, describe the cabling, infrastructure, and environmental requirements.

Implementation Overview

• Show the architecture before and after implementation, and show important stages in between (e.g. installation in the large headquarter sites, then installation and medium branch sites, then installation in all Cisco sites.) Use network diagrams.
• Determine which types of offices (e.g. HQ, hub, engineering, sales) would most likely benefit from this service. Determine which geographic areas (US, EMEA, Asia Pac, Americas) would most likely benefit from this service. Prepare an ordered deployment schedule. If possible, select actual sites and place them in groups based on their order of deployment (e.g. first round of installations, second round, etc.)

Support Overview

• At a high level, decide how this new product or service will be monitored and maintained, and how access security issues (if any) will be handled.
• Determine which Cisco (or outsourced vendor) groups would be best qualified to (i) deliver, (ii) install, (iii) test, (iv) monitor, and (v) respond to problems related to the proposed solution.

Next Steps:

By pressing the "submit" button this form will be delivered to the ENS Publications Group for processing and posting. You will receive a confirmation email within 24 hours as to the status of your project plan submittal. Project plans are posted at http://www.eman.cisoc.com/ANTS/Documentation/projects/index.cgi

Affected groups will be able to read it and then prepare for Commitment review meeting.

Within 3 days you should receive a scheduled date as to when you will be able to go before the Architecture Review Board for the Commitment Review.

By that scheduled date, you will need to have prepared a powerpoint presentation (no more than 2 slides per Project Plan heading, for a total of no more than 20 minutes for any but the most complex projects, followed by 10 minutes for questions).