COIT 20248: Information Systems Analysis and Design
Term 2, 2017
Assessment 1 – Systems Development
Lecturer: Mark Edward
Tutor: Juan-Carlos Muñoz
Prepared by:
Divya Gurung
SID 12062618
1. Introduction
Allsports is a sports club that facilitates a diverse range of sporting activities to several thousands of its members. ‘The Sports Report’ is a newsletter published by the club as a means of communicating its activities to all its members. The business processes carried out to accomplish publication of the newsletter and information tracking is manual and no online system exists at present. As such, keeping track of members, articles and advertisements has been identified as a problem. Therefore, an automated information system and electronic publishing has been suggested by the club’s president as a solution. The approach of this project hence is to identify and analyse the functional and non-functional system requirements, feasibility of the project, cost benefits and time management through project management tools such as work break down structures.
Final objective of this project is to deliver an Automated, ‘Allsports’, Sports Club Information System which integrates the key elements of sporting activities transactions.
2. Approach to Systems Development
2.1 Existing System of AllSports Club
AllSports Club is a club consisting several thousand members and facilitates different sporting activities. The club publishes a newsletter every week with 10 articles, written by club members under the supervision of the club president. 5 administrative staff and an editor have been employed to fulfil the publishing requirements of the newsletter.
AllSports Club procedures are manual and use word processor and spread sheet programs to track members, articles and advertisements. From this current system, many problems are encountered such as:
1. Lack of Appropriate Member Information (contact details, sports played)
2. Newsletters are published late
3. Inefficient Information Tracking (which member has submitted articles, what advertisements have been published and who to schedule as editor for upcoming editions, what article to publish in upcoming newsletter)
4. Loss of data because of manual process
5. Lack of report generation tools
As the mentioned issues exist and have not been acknowledged properly the newsletter service is facing dissatisfaction from the members. Accordingly, the new automated system should be introduced, and the Agile is the favoured system development methodology.
2.2 Selected Approach for system development
Our customers are familiar with manual systems such as spreadsheets. They are not well acquainted with automation or information systems. In an agile paradigm, every aspect of development — requirements, design, etc. — is continually revisited throughout the lifecycle. When a team stops and re-evaluates the direction of a project in a defined time period, there’s always time to steer it in another direction (‘The Agile Movement’ 2008). Eventually, this flexibility of revisiting requirements and developing necessary changes into a system will help in coming up with the right product.
1. Agile method facilitates collaboration with the intended user. So, the club’s presidents report can be made flexible as per his requirements through iteration and redevelopment
2. Agile development methods focus rigorously on delivering business value early and continuously, as measured by running, tested software and also includes sprint which eventually will help in delivering the system on time and meeting the owners expected cost-benefit of $3000 per month.
3. Business requirements might also change in sports club case. Sports activities might increase, all members might eventually have emails, number of articles, advertisements might change. The Agile method will help accommodate requirement change
3. System Requirements
Based on the case study the system requirements are as follows:
3.1 Functional Requirements
Functional Requirements of the project are as follows.
• Registration
Users must be registered into the system.
• Authentication
Admins, Editors and Staff must have valid user name and password for accessing the system.
• Authorisation levels
Different user will have different roles in the system. User can be admin, editor and staff. Admin will have unlimited access to the system and assign editors. Editors can upload articles and edit articles only.
• Manage Members
Staff users will upload, edit, update and delete member contact and sports information.
• Manage Newsletter
News Letter Identifiers and Article Names can be created and edited by Editor User’s.
• Publish Newsletter
Publishing newsletters weekly and emailing them to all members can be done by Admin user.
• Obtain Advertisement
Uploading and Managing detailed information of Advertisers and Advertisements can be done by Editor User’s.
• Deadline Notification
Due date of newsletter can be overseen by the notification in the system, so that newsletter will be published on time
• Reporting
Report generation for the analysis and evaluation of the business can be done by admin
3.2 Non-Functional Requirements
The non-functional requirements of the project are as follows:
• Security – System should not leak data and have proper authentication levels.
• Usability – User Friendly Interface
• Performance – Fast Data Retrieval and Report Generation
• Reliability – System should not lose data (have backup contingency)
• Supportability – The System should support multi OS platform
4.Project Cost Benefit Analysis
Cost-benefit analysis is a weighing-scale approach to making business decisions: all the pluses (the benefits) are put on one side of the balance and all the minuses (the costs) are put on the other (Hindle, 2009).
In Allsports Sports Club project, the cost benefit analysis is performed to check economic feasibility. For this, Net present value (NPV) of the cost is determined. Along with this, return on investment (ROI) and payback period after which project gains profit are calculated. According to the calculation, Net present value is positive, net Return of Investment is 26% and break even occur between 2 and 3. From this analysis, the online project of Allsports Club is feasible and project can be initiated.
4.1 Summary of Estimated Cost for the Development
Expense Category
Amount
Staff Costs
$20000
Fuel Cost
$15000
Incentives
$10000
Extra Hour Work
$15000
Training for New System
$20000
Total
$ 60000
4.2 Estimated Cost for Support / Recurring cost
Expenses
Amount
Server Maintenance
$2000
Software Update
$3000
Customer Service
$2000
Test equipment’s
$2000
Training
$5000
Total
$14000
4.3 Estimated Annual Benefits for AllSports System
Benefits
Amount
Advertisement
$15000
Reduction in staff cost
$2000
Information are easily available
$5000
Faster Publications
$5000
Subscriptions
$6000
Benefit due to time saving
$3000
Total
$36000
4.4 Cost – Benefit Analysis Table
Figure 1 Project Cost Benefit Analysis Table
4.5 Discussions on the obtained result. + Recommendations
5.Project Schedule
Figure 2: work breakdown structure
‘Work Breakdown Structure is a communication tool to present the projects scope in an understanding form and to coordinate a projects objective within the project team and other stakeholders’ (Haugen, 2002). Work packages in a work breakdown structure become a key mechanism for change management.
Figure 2 demonstrates the work breakdown structure of the projects. There is task separated into Project Initiation and Planning, Analysis, Design, Coding/Programming and testing, Implementation and documentation. These are additionally divided into sub errands as appeared in the figure 2. It gives general framework of number of activities of project that need to be completed.
Figure 3Project Schedule and Gantt chart
According to Hutchings (2005), ‘Project Schedule is the contractual diagram of the projects planned activities, their sequence determined by job logic, contractual time in working days required for completion and the conditions necessary for their completion’.
A Work Breakdown Structure and Project Schedule are directly related to each other because a Project Schedule is created based on the work packages defined in a Work Breakdown Structure. Project Schedule uses the time approximations found in work packages. The time and resources in Work Breakdown Structures are set in framed boxes but without dates. On the other hand, in project schedule the dates are computed.
¥ Given the system goals, requirements, and scope as they are currently understood, is the project schedule reasonable? Why or why not? (10 Marks)
6. System Information Requirement Investigation Techniques
6.1 Stakeholders
Stakeholders are essential source of information for system requirements. Depending on the type of project stakeholder, each have their importance, influence and interest in a project. Being able to distinguish roles of different stakeholders and understanding their expectations and contributions to the project is very important.
Internal Stakeholders
1. Members
2. Editor
3. Employees
4. System Analyst
5. Programmer
6. Owner
7. President
• External Stakeholder
1. Advertiser
2. Creditors
3. Shareholders
4. Competitors
6.2 Investigation techniques
1) Conduct interview and discussion with the users
Interviewing is a face-to-face method used to gather facts directly from the users of the system under investigation. The interviewer will ask some specific questions in order to get useful information from the interviewee.
Usefulness:
• Direct contact
• Questions are flexible
• Confidence of the interviewee can be gained and may enhance the quality of information gathered.
• Answers can easily be clarified
2) Observe and document business processes
This method involves examining procedures as they are carried out. The analyst observes how work and procedures are carried out with the existing system, and this enables the analyst to witness first-hand how the work is actually done and what it involves. The document analysis method involves examining existing data, records, documentations as well as procedure manuals used for the existing system. This method enables the analyst to obtain realistic and actual information about the system.
Usefulness:
• Data is collected in real time and tends to be more accurate
• Ready-made source of information.
• Quick and faster way to gather information
3) Build Prototypes
Building prototypes of systems and demonstrating them to users can give them true idea and experience of how the final product will be like. This will make their requirements clearer to themselves and through the prototype they can suggest more changes in the system or also remove unnecessary ones.
Usefulness:
• Realistic Review
• Actual methods of working and procedures can be observed
• Accurate way of gathering or verifying requirement
• Tangible analysis for requirement is possible
7. Reflections and Conclusions
The Final product will fully incorporate all necessary requirements as per Allsports Clubs problem solutions. With the installation of the new system managing member, article and advertisement information will be robust. Tracking member activities, article publications and advertisements will be efficient. Report generation will give admin a different dynamic to viewing day to day business processes. Members will receive article publications without delay. Overall the automated information system will generate value to the Club in the means time management, cost reduction and administrative efficiency.
With different project management tools such as the Work Breakdown Structure, Project Schedule, Cost Benefit Analysis, Agile Development Methodology we have been able to identify the scope of the project and proof of success i.e. low critical path, low overhead cost, maintaining resources within budget and time. Thus, we can justify that the project is feasible.
8. References
1. Agile Methodology, The Agile Movement, viewed August 20 2017, <http://agilemethodology.org>.
2. Hindle, T., 2009, ‘All of us do intuitive cost-benefit analyses every day of our lives’, The Economist, 15 September, Viewed August 20 2017, <http://www.economist.com/node/14298838>.
3. Haugen, G. 2002, Effective Work Breakdown Structures, Management Concepts Inc., Vienna.
4. Hutchings, J. 2005, Project Scheduling Handbook, Marcel Decker Inc., New York.