Failures in Scope Control when Developing a Web Portal for EBazar.com Essay

Failures in Scope Control when Developing a Web Portal for EBazar.com - Essay Example Problems have emerged, however, that have not allowed the projects to progress smoothly into phases of development that are needed to stay current and continue to evolve in relationship to trends and competition. The problem of scope has been determined to be the primary issue in developing IT projects for the firm, scope creep being a serious issue as every project for IT expansion has experienced change that comes from allowing individual departments the ability to add to the project in ways that lay decidedly outside of their original scope. The following report discusses how scope and the consequences of scope in relationship to time and cost are relevant to the efficient development of projects under the project manager for the firm. Without developing good practices in quality project management in relationship to defining and maintaining scope, the past problems will continue to plague future projects for EBazar.com and the position of project manager will be operating at a lo wer level of quality that is needed to serve the needs of the project. 2. Web-Portal Project A web portal is defined as a way for business to create a consistency in how their site operates, providing for procedures that use multiple applications and databases which would not otherwise be able to be tied together. Web portals are classified generally in two different states: either horizontal or vertical. A horizontal portal provides for several entities to be tied together within the website space. A vertical portal, which can also be termed a ‘vortal’, is specific entry into information that is relevant to a set of related topics, or even just one specific topic. This can also be defined by the concept of the vertical information portal (VIP) which will provide news and editorial content, publications, and e-commerce together through the use of dynamic multi-media applications which include blogging and social networking (Lazar 2001, p. 4). The purpose of creating a w eb portal is to allow a user to have multiple accesses to the site through a single sign-in function. Aggregation of content is an important part of the efficiency with which a website works, which is essential for an e-commerce operation. Through designing this portal for EBazar.com, the gap between the company and the consumer will be reduced, allowing smoother operations to produce higher firm performance (Al Zabar 2008, p. 12). 2.1Ready Made Versus Custom Design One of the most important problems to be addressed in creating a web portal is in making sure that it provides control of access to data that is presented available to the consumer. The heart of control for a web portal is the ability to customize the use of widgets so that content users can create customization without compromising speed and security. When using ASP.NET, as an example, the default page allows widgets to be added and subtracted without having to refresh (Al Zabar 2008, p. 12). Capacities to use ready-mad e software in order to create the portal that was needed for EBazar.com was discarded in favour of customizing the project so that it would reflect the unique nature of the business. This required an extensive project in which the scope of the project was initially limited through the current definitions of the web parts