Strategic planning process and prioritizing projects

Help in answering the following questions:

1. Explain whether project management techniques are appropriate for this project and why.
2. Describe the strategic planning process involved in this project.
3. Choose five key topics that you would use as criteria for prioritizing projects, and then use a weighted scoring matrix that includes at least two financial criteria to determine how you would evaluate the components of your project.
4. Your response should be at least 300 words.

Project Information
You are the Curriculum Manager for a large textbook publishing company. As part of your job you must put together the forecast of the projects your department will focus on for the next three years (2012-2015). You have eight different textbook revisions that should be completed during 2012. The revisions themselves do not bring in high dollar amounts, but clients are fickle, and if updated textbooks are not available they will look at your competitor for books. Four of the books are your top sellers. Three of them are fairly popular, and one revision is so old that your clients have looked elsewhere over the past year for a better resource. You also need to create a new line of textbooks for Engineering that should be completed by the end of 2015.

Your boss has also tasked you with the assignment of creating multi-media learning tools for the entire line of Biology textbooks your company produces. This multi-media line could bring in huge profits for the company if it could be completed by mid-year of 2013. This multi-media area is new and not an area the company has worked on in the past. You have some technology resources that could be used and some employee resources that are capable of starting the project, but there will be additional resources you will need to complete this project.

Your current target market for your textbook products has been at the high school level, and the CEO of the company wants to enter the college textbook market. You have also been tasked with determining what educational areas (Business, Criminal Justice, English, or Psychology) are the best areas to begin entry into this market. You will need to set up a task force, direct this process, create a timeline for entry, and begin work on a plan for your area regarding this new market. Then entry into this new market should occur sometime in 2014.