Analysis Of Proposed Information System For Brisbane Multi-Faith Temple Essay.

The aim of this report is to show the results of the analysis done on the provided case study for Brisbane Multi-Faith Temple (BMT) which is a charitable organization in need of a new information system to help them run and manage their day to day activities. The new system will be used by the patrons to perform all actions within the system and to track different activities with which they are associated. For the temples, the new system will enable the temples to keep an inventory system to keep track of what is coming in as new stock and what is going out of stock for use in the temple. The system will make it easy for the accountant to keep track of the stock levels so as to place orders for new stock.

The results of the case study analysis help to propose an approach that would be used to develop the new proposed information system whilst providing justifications for the choice. The reports describes the functional and the non- functional requirements of the proposed system and shows the cost benefit analysis of the project to determine whether or not the project is viable. The report shows the project schedule to be followed to undertake the project and discusses how reasonable the schedule is. The report also shows all the stakeholders involved with the project and discusses different techniques used for investigation of system requirements.

There are different approaches used in developing systems. These approaches can be classified into either traditional methods of system development for example the waterfall method or the new methods of system development like Agile approach. The recommended approach for developing the BMT information system is agile approach. BMT does not have an IT department thus the recommended way of developing the system would be to outsource for a team that is capable of developing the system using agile methodology.

The reasons why agile methodology is the best approach to use for this project over the traditional waterfall method are;

• Agile approach is able to adapt well to changes in priorities or requirements- A system developed with agile is up to date as the development is done in phases interchangeably where each phase is an improvement of the previous phase (Khalid, 2017). This means that the approach can handle changes in requirements even in later stages of the project unlike the traditional waterfall method whereby it’s very hard to incorporate changes in requirements or add new requirements to the project.
• Agile ensures customer satisfaction is a top priority. This is done by making sure that the customer is involved with the development of the project as the system is delivered in increments and the customer has an idea of what to expect as the final system (Sussex, 2014). Rolling out the system in increments also ensures that the customer is able to provide their inputs as the project progresses.
• Agile focuses on quality of the system by deploying the system in iterations. After completion of each iteration the development team is able to reflect on the mistakes done during the development of that iteration and come up with ways of avoiding and dealing with those mistakes in the next iterations (Quartieri, 2014). This helps manages any risks that might arise at any of the other oncoming iterations.
• Agile ensures each member of the development team is involved in developing the project. This is achieved by splitting up each iteration into smaller iterations which are assigned to an individual. This helps increase productivity of all team members as each team member is assigned to iterations they are good at. Ultimately, this leads to a happy and cohesive development team which delivers a good system at the end of the project.

Functional requirements

Functional requirements are the type of requirements that specify the technical functional of the proposed system. These are the requirements that specify how the user uses the system to perform a certain action in order to achieve a certain goal. The following are the functional requirements of the new proposed system;

• The new information system should enable patrons to create an account in the system and provide a login feature through which they can login to access their accounts or profile.
• The new system should enable patrons to make money donations online by incorporating online merchant services like PayPal or Visa. Upon making a donation, the system should send the patron an email with the transactions details of the donation.
• The new information system should enable patrons to check different events available on the system. The patron can then sponsor an event using the system.
• The new information system should enable patrons to create and manage scholarships by tracking details of everyone under the scholarship.
• The new information system should enable patrons to print or download a consolidated statement from their account.
• The new information statement should provide a safe and secure login for the accountant.
• The new system should enable an accountant to check the inventory to determine what items should be ordered and then place an order using the system.
• The system should enable each temple to have their personal inventory from where they should record all the items coming in as new stock and all items going out for use.

Non-functional requirements specify how the system should operate in particular scenarios and conditions. The user does not interact with the non-functional requirements. Non-functional requirements specify how the system will operate as the user interacts with the system. The following are the nonfunctional requirement of the new proposed system;

• Availability- The system should be available at all times.
• Security- The system should be secure especially for patrons who will donating money online.
• Robust- The system should be able to continue running even when it encounters an error.
• Maintainability- The system should be developed with maintainability in mind to make sure its easily maintainable after its deployment.
• Performance- the system should perform all functions using the least amount of time. For example downloading the consolidated statement by the patron should not take more than 5 seconds.

Cost Benefit Analysis

Cost benefit analysis is the process of evaluating the cost of the system against the benefits of the system to determine whether it’s feasible to undertake the project or not (Reh, 2017). The cost of the proposed system is $225,000 with a discount rate of 6% so the final cost is $211,500.

The new system is expected to reduce staff cost by $4,500 per month so in one year the total reduced staff cost is $54,000. The system is expected to save $5,000 per month incurred by food wastage thus in a year it will have saved $60,000.

The system will incur a monthly maintenance cost of $500 which totals to $6000 in a year. The following spreadsheet shows the detailed cost benefit analysis for the 5 years starting from the year of the project development

From the spreadsheet above its clear that in five years BMT will have saved $220,500 thus the project is feasible.

The project schedule specifies the amount of time the whole project will take and the time each phase of the project will take. To help determine the various tasks that are going to be carried throughout the project lifecycle a work breakdown structure is used (Bridges, 2014).

A Gantt chart is used to show how time is used to carry out various activities in the work breakdown structure.

Figure 1: Gantt chart

The Gantt chart and the work breakdown structure (WBS) are closely related because the WBS is used to breakdown the whole project into smaller reasonable tasks which can be done within a specified period of time. The Gantt chart is then based on the WBS where by it shows the time each task will take and the possible start date and end date of the task.

According to the system goals, requirements and scope the schedule is reasonable because all tasks can be completed within the projected timeline as shown in the Gantt chart thus ultimately the whole project can be finished within schedule which is important for nay project.

Stakeholders in a project stand to gain or lose with the success or failure of a project respectively. For the BMT project the stakeholders involved in the project can be classified as either;

• External executive stakeholders- These are external to BMT but have a huge influence on the project. These stakeholders might be the active patrons
• Internal executive stakeholders- These stakeholders are internal to BMT and make all managerial and corporate decisions. A good example is the chairman of BMT Sam Sharma.
• External operation stakeholders- These will be the end users of the system
• Internal operation stakeholders – These stakeholders are made up of the development team that will be developing the system.

The following diagram shows the mapping of each stakeholder depending on two factors

1. Influence on the project
2. Importance to the project

Figure 2: stakeholder map

The 3 most important investigation techniques used to collect requirements for the proposed BMT information system are;

• Interviewing- Interviewing involves two parties; the interviewer and the interviewee. The interview poses a set of unstructured, structured or semi-structured questions to the interviewee who is supposed to answer to the best of their ability. Sometimes the interviewee can be more that more than one.
• Observation- Observation is an investigation technique that involves studying subjects as they perform their day to day activities. For BMT observation can involve closely observing how different employees are carrying out their roles in the organization so as to get the business process of the organization
• Questionnaires- Questionnaires is a method of investigation that involves posing a structured questionnaire to a respondent to answer. The questionnaire can be in form of a paper or a web form. The respondents give their answers and then the questionnaires are analyzed to get data.

The reason for choosing the three techniques is that all of the three investigation techniques are cheap and easy to administer (Dehra, 2011). The data collected through the three techniques is easy to analyze especially for questionnaires with multiple choices for every question. Observation provides the most accurate as a qualified researcher goes to the field and observes the subjects as they carry on their duties and records all necessary information. Preforming group interviews is also cheap and saves a lot of time since all respondents are interviewed at the same time. If these methods are administered to investigate the system requirements of the proposed system, the development team is assured of quality data from any of the methods.

Conclusion

While undertaking the task of doing a system analysis and design for the BMT case study I acquired many take away which can be useful while doing system analysis and design not only for educational purposes but at industrial level. One of the take away is using a procedural approach to undertake any project by making sure that the project is carefully understood by all stakeholders before it begins. This will help avoid project failure as a result of missing out key aspects of the project that could have been evaluated and analyzed before the project began.

From undertaking the task it’s clear that using modern approaches of software development can be beneficial comparing it to the traditional methods like the waterfall method. For the project to be successful a close evaluation of the requirements, cost benefit, project schedule, requirements gathering techniques and stakeholders is essential before the start of the project.

References

Bridges, J. (2014, June 3). What Is a Work Breakdown Structure? Retrieved December 21, 2017, from https://www.projectmanager.com/training/what-is-a-work-breakdown-structure

Dehra, N. (2011, May 19). Techniques Used in Business Requirements Gathering. Retrieved December 21, 2017, from https://www.brighthubpm.com/project-planning/60264-techniques-used-in-business-requirements-gathering/

Khalid, U. (2017, September 25). 6 Most Common Reasons You Should Adopt Agile in Your Organization (Part 1). Retrieved December 21, 2017, from https://www.softwaretestinghelp.com/agile-methodology-adoption-1/

Quartieri, N. (2014, October 28). 5 Reasons to choose Agile. Retrieved December 21, 2017, from https://stayrelevant.globant.com/en/5-reasons-to-choose-agile/

Reh, J. (2017, August 8). Cost Benefit Analysis Example . Retrieved December 21, 2017, from https://www.thebalance.com/cost-benefit-analysis-2275277

Sussex, T. (2014, December 16). 13 Reasons Why Teams Are Using Agile Project Management. Retrieved December 21, 2017, from https://www.liquidplanner.com/blog/13-reasons-agile-project-management/