Software Development Project Evaluation and Management

Strategic Grounds Evaluation

2 INF4825 January 2022 The following is valid for all the questions that follow. • You will receive marks for explaining and demonstrating the different concepts in your own words and examples. • You will not get marks for simply repeating what is available in existing documents e.g. your prescribed material. • Remember academic referencing. QUESTION 1 [28 marks] Use any software development project that you have access to (or create your own software development project). Set up a typical business case document, consisting of: 1. Introduction and background 2. The proposed project 3. The market 4. Organizational and operational infrastructure 5. The benefits 6. Outline implementation plan 7. Costs 8. The financial case 9. Risks 10. Management plan (20 marks) Projects must always be evaluated on strategic, technical and economic grounds. 1.1 Discuss in detail the strategic grounds by: 1.1.1 Identifying the relationship between the project and strategic planning; (2 marks) 1.1.2 The Role of existing strategic plans in the organization. (2 marks) 1.2 Discuss and explain in detail the technical grounds by: 1.2.1 Evaluating whether the required functionality can be achieved with current affordable technologies. (2 marks) 1.3 Discuss and explain in detail the economic grounds by: 1.3.1 Discussing the cost-benefit analysis of your project by identifying all of the costs and benefits of carrying out the project and operating the delivered application. (2 marks) 3 INF4825 January 2022 QUESTION 2 [24 marks] The Food Company, Healthy Food, needs an improved Recruitment System (RS). Healthy Food decided to develop the software, for this improved project, from scratch. Write a memo to the Healthy Food management, explaining the 8 main stages of this improved RS project, namely project evaluation; planning; requirements elicitation and analysis; specification; design/coding; verification and validation; implementation; and maintenance/support. Explain to management (i) each of the 8 stages (1 mark x 8 stages = 8 marks) and (ii) use your own 8 made-up “Healthy Food examples” (1 example per stage) to demonstrate each stage (2 marks x 8 stages = 16 marks). (8 X 3 marks) QUESTION 3 [10 marks] It was decided that during the RS project, prototyping will be used to gain knowledge and reduce uncertainty. Explain (i) how and (ii) during what stage of a system development project, would prototyping be useful as a means of reducing the following uncertainties: 3.1 There is a proposal that the senior managers at Healthy Food have access to management information through an executive information system installed on personal computers located on their desks. Such system would be costly to set up and there is some doubt about whether the managers would use the system. Explain (i) how, with a made-up “Healthy Food example” (3 marks) and (ii) during what stage of a system development project (2 marks), would prototyping be useful as a means of reducing this uncertainty. (5 marks) 3.2 Healthy Food is considering implementing a telephone system using the system development features supplied by Microsoft Access. They are not sure whether it can provide the kind of interface that would be needed and are also concerned about the possible response times of a system developed using Microsoft Access. Explain (i) how, with a made-up “Healthy Food example” (3 marks) and (ii) during what stage of a system development project (2 marks), would prototyping be useful as a means of reducing this uncertainty. (5 marks) 4 INF4825 January 2022 QUESTION 4 [12 marks] When referring to categories of risk, Kalle Lyytinen and his colleagues have proposed a sociotechnical model of risk, consisting of the following categories: actors; technology; tasks; and structure. In the case of the RS project, identify one risk for each of the four categories mentioned above (1 mark per category = 4 marks) and use your own made-up “Healthy Food examples” to explain these 4 risks (2 marks per example = 8 marks). (4 X 3 marks) QUESTION 5 [10 marks] One of the most challenging tasks in monitoring and controlling software projects is the shortening of the project’s critical path, which in fact determines the overall duration of the project. Discuss in detail the following 2 ways to (i) shorten the critical path and (ii) use your own made-up “Healthy Food examples” to demonstrate the discussions. (2 marks for explaining these 2 concepts in your own words - 2x2 = 4 and 3 marks for each of the 2 examples – 3x2=6). 5.1 Adding resources 5.2 Reallocating staff to critical activities (2 X 5 marks) QUESTION 6 [24 marks] As the project manager of the RS project at Healthy Food, you have been asked to make a presentation to your project team, explaining different communication and co-ordination dependencies that are commonly used in software projects. Your presentation must focus on the dependencies listed below: 6.1 Shared resources 6.2 Producer-customer relationships 6.3 Task-subtask dependencies 6.4 Accessibility dependencies 6.5 Usability dependencies 6.6 Fit requirements 5 INF4825 January 2022 Explain (i) each dependency (2 marks per dependency – 2x6=12 marks) and then (ii) add your own made-up “Healthy Food example” to demonstrate each dependency (2 marks per example – 2x6=12 mark