Approach to Systems Development

For the purpose of this assignment, you are assumed to be one of the consultants appointed to shoulder the system analysis responsibilities in ABC Information Services in the project as in the case study.

You will plan and manage the project as well as investigate and document the system requirements. For your Assignment 2 submission, you will produce a report that documents that discuss this project based on your understanding of it and the related investigation results through the tasks below.

1. Approach to Systems Development

(a) Compare the use of SDLC and agile development approaches?

(b) Justify your choice of your selected approach to systems development?

2. Systems Requirements

(a) What are the primary functional requirements for the system in the case study?

(b) What are the non-functional requirements for the system in the case study?

3. Project Cost Benefit Analysis

(a) Discuss your Project Cost Benefit Analysis?

(b) Provide an excel spread sheet with details in a Project Cost Benefit Analysis?

4. Project Schedule

(a) Show a work breakdown structure and a project schedule (as a Gantt Chart). Explain each of them and discuss how they relate?

(b) Given the system goals, requirements, and scope as they are currently understood, is the project schedule reasonable? Why or why not?

5. System Information Requirement Investigation Techniques

(a) The stakeholders involved?

(b) Explanation of your chosen 3 most useful investigation techniques?

(c) Justify the usefulness of the 3 investigation techniques?

The report presents a brief overview of the problems faced by PSSM with the current system. As it has been stated in the case study PSSM is a staffing agency recruiting employees for other companies. The present system of staff recruitment database is cumbersome. There are various redundancies of the current system. The problems faced by the company are regarding the electronic and the paper copies. The problems faced by the system could be eradicated if the company installs a new automated information system. This will reduce the complexity of the present system and the employees at PSSM will be able to use the software effectively. In the current system the staff report is difficult to manage. But the automated system will reduce the complexity. The employees can access the staff report easily. In the new system, the records of the employees can be stored only in electronic form. A track record of the success rate of placement can be maintained.

(a) Software development lifecycle is the process of building and maintaining the software systems. There are various phases in SDLC which ranges from analysis of the preliminary development to testing of the post development software and evaluation. There are two methodologies in SDLC. They are the traditional development and the agile development.

The traditional software development methodologies are the waterfall method, V-model. There are various steps in sequence that has to be followed for the development of the software.  The traditional method is dependent on a set of processes that has been determined earlier. The success of the project will be dependent on meeting all the requirements before the development of the project begins.

Systems Requirements

Agile development is based on the idea of incremental as well as iterative development. In this method each phase of the life cycle is visited over and over again. The software is improved by using feedback from the customer.

(b) In the present scenario the agile development model will be chosen. The results can be delivered by the agile development quickly than the traditional method. The former model is less expensive than the traditional model. The return on investment is the major priority of the agile development model. Unlike the traditional SDLC model, the agile development model is divided into smaller parts which are known as increments or iterations. The increments in the agile development model passes via each of the conventional phase of development. The major difference of the agile development with the traditional SDLC model is that in the agile development model there is early involvement of the customers, iterative development takes place, teams are self organizing and the system is adaptable to change.

During the phase of requirement, the stakeholders are identified by the team. The requirements are specified in the system requirement specifications. The requirement can be divided into two distinct groups. They are the functional requirements and the non-functional requirements.

The functional requirements for the development of the software are based on agile philosophy. They are development of XP and Scrum. There is variance between the two approaches but they both share an iterative approach.

XP is necessary to meet the programming requirements for the development of automated process. It does not focus on the managerial aspect of software development. The development of XP starts with the planning phase which is followed by various iterations. The acceptance of the user is tested before the software is released.

Scrum

Srum is the methodology for software development which includes the managerial and the developmental process. The project is divided into series of short iterations which is known as sprints. The backlog for each sprint is identified. At the end of each sprint, the team reviews the sprint in order to check the progress of the developmental process.

The non functional requirement for the development of software includes the environment in which the software is being built. The success of the development of the software will depend on the non functional requirements. The success of the functional requirements depends on the non functional requirements. The non functional requirements can be at the team level. It can also be at the program level. There are requirements of non functional elements at the portfolio level as well.

The cost benefit analysis of the automated information system calculates the return of the organization on investment. Return on investment is calculated for the justification of the effort as well as it is necessary for the planning process of the project.

The development of automated information system has both fixed and variable costs. The fixed costs for the system are the expenditure on the tools, equipments and training. The variable cost may increase or decrease based on the number of tests and times the tests is run.

Project Cost Benefit Analysis

The cost benefit analysis can be calculated as follows –

Return on Investment (ROI) = Benefits of automation/Cost of automation

The time line for the development of the automated software is 14 days.

The cost of automation can be calculated as follows –

Cost of automation = Price of the hardware + Price of the software + Time required to develop scripts + (Time required for the maintenance of the scripts * Number of times the scripts are executed) + ( Time required for the execution of the scripts * number of times the scripts are executed).

The return from the automation of the information technology will be 44.74%. The automated system will make the process of recruitment at PSSM much simpler. It is seen that the return from investment in the manual system is more than the complex than the automated system.

The schedule of the project is divided into four sections. They are as follows –

1. Analysis
2. Design
3. Development
4. Testing

(b) The project schedule is reasonable. The project will be completed in one year. The analysis of the project will be completed in one month. The total time required for designing is three months. Five months will be required for the development of the software. The testing of the software would require three months. The entire project will be completed within 12 months.

(a) The stakeholders in the process of software development are the owners of the company investing in the project, the employees using the current the automated software.

(b) Three useful investigation techniques

The investigation techniques for System Information Requirement are Observation, Existing documentation and sampling.

1. Observation – The system analysts can use this technique to become familiar with the system. The observation will be based on purpose.

Uses –

It helps to investigate the information that has been gathered during the process of software development. The variance in information can be determined and the actual information will be selected. The user will know whether the system will work or not.

1. Existing documentation – One source of information can be the existing documents which contain information about the past procedures, policies and the systems. The documents will have information regarding the procedures of input, procedures of output, specifications of the system and flow chart of the system. The existing documents will contain the information regarding the system interface procedures.

Uses

The historical data will be useful for the purpose of investigation of the system requirements. A well documented system requirement will contain information in a precise manner.

1. Face to Face Interview –

The face to face interview will help the analyst interview the selected staff using the current system. They will gather a detailed overview of the ways in which the process of software development will take place.

Uses

The face to face interview will identify the main issues. The analysts will take suggestions from the users for the improvement in the system. They will improve the ways in which the things are to be done. This will make the system more users friendly. The complexities of the system will be removed.

Conclusion

The installation of automated information system within the organization will benefit the users of PSSM. The database can be accessed by many users and it will remove the use of papers. The organization will have a database of the success rates of placement.

From the above project I learnt about the advantage of agile software development over the traditional software development system. It will reduce the time of the task. The processing of the work will be simple. I have come to know about the functional and the non functional requirements for the implementation of a new system.

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