I’ve today started work on searching for my articles. There is a dearth of available information on the topic, which I anticipated and hence catered for in my plan. It’s now a matter of breaking the work down into building blocks and researching each of those with the view to stitching the research together at the end.

I’ve made really good progress and have now completed the first draft. I haven’t updated the WBS with the swap of the WBS work with the other documentation work as I had issues with dependencies

In developing the proposal I decided to review some literature on how to undertake literature reviews. There’s so much more to it than what is normally given credit. I’m taking on the approach provided by Fred Pyrczak’s book, Evaluating research in academic journals: a practical guide to realistic evaluation which I feel works well with the outcome I’m attempting to achieve.

I’ve broken down my document pretty much in line with the template provided in the Subject Outline, which is:

1. Title
2. Rationale
   1. Problem Domain
   2. Purpose and Justification
3. Supervisor Approval
4. Research Challenges / Questions
5. Conceptual or Theoretical Framework
6. Methodology
   1. Analysis of sources of information
   2. Research Method
   3. Data collection method
   4. Ethical Issues
   5. Compliance Requirements
7. Project Plan
   1. Duration
   2. Deliverables
   3. Work Breakdown Structure
   4. Gantt Chart
   5. Risk Analysis
8. References

Today I started the project proposal. My project plan had me starting the template for this on the 26th, but given it was so minimal I’m not too worried, particularly because I’ve realised in my project plan that I’d put the WBS & Gantt development after development of the document. Either way I’m on track to finalising everything I need for the assessment.

In putting together the WBS, I neglected to see a few overlaps. Luckily, and now understandably, we needed to put together a Gantt chart. Doing this second part of the of the task for the project proposal highlighted areas around timing that I had overlooked. I’ve now reworked the WBS and have the Gantt chart all good to go so that I can move onto development of the actual proposal document.

I’ve spent the last few days completing a work breakdown structure using MS Project. I realised when opening the application, that I haven’t used it for some time, luckily not much has changed.

I haven’t undertaken any formal training as a project manager, so putting the WBS together has involved a fair amount of research, which like everything has so many mixed opinions. I feel the structure I’ve put together fits the need to deliver the final assessment for the subject.

This week, I have finalised the project blog site and submitted Task 1 for Assessment 1. Additionally, I have started collating material to use for my review and research later in the session.

There is a lot of material talking about Zero-Trust, SASE, and most importantly SOAR; however, most of it turns out to be sales oriented white papers. This is all further complicated due to my target of the Australian Government using a shared services like model for cyber security.

This coming week, I will put together my project plan together