CASE STUDY #4 - Tax Application Project Management

Company: Consulting  Role: Project Manager Industry: Software Development / FinTech Methodology: Waterfall Tools Used: Ms Project

Problem

Developing a tax application requires precise sequencing of Requirements, Design, Development, and Testing phases with multiple cross-functional contributors working in parallel. Without disciplined schedule management, resource conflicts, missed dependencies, and budget overruns can quickly derail delivery. The challenge was to plan, sequence, and control the full project lifecycle while proactively identifying risks like resource overallocation and schedule slippage before they impacted delivery.

My Role

As Project Manager, I owned full lifecycle planning and control for this software project building the integrated schedule from scratch in MS Project, assigning resources, tracking progress against baseline, identifying critical path tasks, and managing cost across all phases. 

Key Actions

• Built a full phased project schedule in MS Project covering Requirements, Design, Development, and Testing phases across 38 days with clearly defined task dependencies and predecessor logic

• Identified and managed the critical path highlighting zero-slack tasks and visually distinguishing critical tasks to ensure scheduling decisions were made with full awareness of delivery risk

• Set and tracked project baseline capturing planned start/finish dates and costs at project inception, enabling accurate variance analysis as the project progressed

• Managed resource allocation across 8 team members assigning tasks by skill and availability, then using the Resource Usage view to identify overallocation (Molly Abraham) and resolve scheduling conflicts proactively

• Tracked project costs at task level  managing a $70,400 budget across all phases, with per-task cost visibility and total slack monitoring to support prioritization decisions

• Monitored project status and completion tracking % complete, actual vs remaining duration, and actual cost per task to maintain real-time project health visibility

Critical Path and Slack view

Critical path identified across all project phases zero-slack tasks highlighted to prioritize scheduling decisions and protect delivery dates. 

Baseline and Cost View

Phase level breakdown showing task owners, statuses, timelines, and predecessor dependencies across the Discovery and Planning phase.

Status Update View

Real-time project status tracking % complete, actual duration, remaining duration, and actual cost monitored at task level.

Resource Sheet

Resource sheet showing 8 cross-functional team members with standard rates used to manage cost and allocation across all project phases. 

Resource Overallocation View

Resource usage view: Molly Abraham identified as overallocated, enabling proactive workload rebalancing before schedule impact. 

Impact

• Delivered a fully structured, multi-phase project schedule with critical path, baseline, and cost tracking all managed in MS Project Professional

• Proactively identified resource overallocation before it impacted delivery, demonstrating risk-aware scheduling practice

• Maintained task-level cost visibility across a $70,400 budget with zero formula errors or tracking gaps

• Demonstrated end-to-end project control capability across planning, execution, monitoring, and control process groups

Key Takeaway

This case study demonstrates advanced MS Project proficiency including critical path analysis, baseline management, resource leveling, and cost tracking applied across a full software project lifecycle using industry-standard PM practices.