COIS20025 Systems Development Overview
Term 2, 2014
Assessment 1- Systems Development
Prepared by:
Your Name
Your Student Number
Due Date: 1pm Monday 11th August, 2014
Table of Contents
1. Introduction
2. Approach to Systems Development
3. Systems Requirements
3.1 Functional Requirements
3.2 Non Functional Requirements
4. Project Cost Benefit Analysis
5. Project Schedule
6.1 Stakeholder Analysis
6.2 Investigation Techniques
6.2.1Questionnaire
6.2.2Interview
6.2.3Survey
7. Reflections and Conclusions
8. References
1. Introduction
Reef Adventures is a bareboat charter business in the coastal areas of Airlie Beach. They are facing problems with their current system in managing the business. Also the increasing rate of errors are their another concern. Till now most of their business process in paper based. The main parts of their business process are,
- The Sched that is the timely communication reports with the boats in the sea. This is crucial to maintain as it ensures the current status of the boat. If this process is automated then they can handle the boats in a better way and more numbers of boats at a time.
- Booking of charters and diving equipment. Right now customers can book the charters or equipment by using 1800 phone number and from website. However, the booking via phone is managed by two staffs with a single PC and often they have to wait for another to complete the work. This make the process delayed. Also the system suffers from human errors and as a result faces customer dissatisfaction.
- The paper based accounting system is highly inefficient to cope up with the growing demands of the business.
So Reef Adventures wants a new system to fulfil the following objectives.
- An automated information system.
- Faster and error free booking management
- Reducing the errors
- Making more revenues from the business.
This report will discuss about the system development process to meet the objectives.
2. Approach to Systems Development
Information system development approaches varies depending on the size and requirements of the system. There are traditional Software Development Life Cycle approaches that are suitable for either small systems with clear requirements or for bigger systems with rigorous planning, documentation etc. A common approach to small and medium scale systems are agile approaches. As the name suggests, these approaches are focused on rapid system development process. Another feature is these are cost effective system development approaches for systems with unclear requirements.
The subtle differences among these approaches are,
SDLC approach / Agile approachMost of the SDLC approaches are sequential and process oriented. The requirements are to be stated prior the development process and based on those requirements the system will be developed. / Most of the agile approaches are rapid and iterative in nature. It produces several partially developed artifacts and captures changes in requirements during the development process easily.
Development teams are built based on their expertise. For example there will be different testing and coding teams. The development process does not depends on individual team members. / Development teams are strength of the development process. Those are smaller, self-organizing and cross functional teams. The development process depends on team members.
Active user participation is not encouraged other than the system requirement investigation phase. The development process relies on heavy documentation. / Active user participation is needed throughout the process and does not rely on heavy documentation.
Suffers from customer dissatisfaction, risks of schedule slippage, and risks of developing out dated system unable to meet changed requirements. / Suffers from ambiguity in requirements and frequent changes in requirements.
The recommended system development approach for Reef Adventures is Agile approaches. Reef Adventures is a medium scale business and has not used any information till now. They have identifies potential drawbacks of their current system still there are other requirements which may be refined during the development process if they use the partially developed artefacts. For example, the interfaces of the information system may be well understood if they see the interfaces while development. Other than that agile approaches are good for working within budget and time. Also they will get their system built as soon as possible.
3. Systems Requirements
Understanding system requirements clearly is an important step for system development. The whole development process depends on the understanding of these requirements. The clarity of the requirement will increase the degree of effectiveness of the system. Any software development process breaks the system requirements into two categories. Those are,
3.1 Functional Requirements
Functional requirements are the requirements a system must fulfil. In general main functional requirements are behavioural and functional aspects of a system. Performance requirements, interface requirements, usability requirements, security requirements are main components of system requirements. In case of Reef Adventures agile system development approaches will be taken. In agile approaches there is very little scope of documenting functional requirements in details. Those are discussed mostly verbally with the client while the development process and is implemented in the system in the next iteration. And the cycle goes on, until all requirements are fulfilled. So there may be new requirements added while developments which were not identified earlier. The planning of the functional requirements of a system is called system design.
3.2 Non Functional Requirements
Theoretically all requirements of a system other than functional requirements are non-functional requirements. Some of those are availability, accessibility, operability; fault tolerance, security, compliances etc. are non-functional requirements. Unlike functional requirements, non-functional requirements are documented explicitly in agile development approach. The planning of non-functional requirements is called system architecture. These are supportive requirements for enhancing the functional requirements.
4. Project Cost Benefit Analysis
The cost benefit analysis for Reef Adventures’ automated information system is given below.
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CostFirst Year / Second Year / Third Year
Non-Recurring Cost
Hardware / $2,000 / $0.00 / $0.00
Software / $1,500 / $0.00 / $0.00
Installation / $1,000 / $0.00 / $0.00
Training / $500 / $0.00 / $0.00
Total Non-Recurring Cost / $5,000 / $0.00 / $0.00
Recurring Cost
Maintenance / $400 / $500 / $700
System updates / $100 / $150 / $200
Total Recurring Cost / $500 / $600 / $700
Total Cost / $5,500 / $600 / $700
Benefits
Revenue generated / $2,000 / $2,500 / $4,000
Total Benefits / $2,000 / $2,500 / $4,000
($3,500) / $1,900 / $3,300
Table 1: Cost Benefit Analysis
From the cost benefit analysis the cost estimation, payback period etc. will be understood. The cost benefit analyses consider one time investments as non-recurring costs and maintenance and updates cost as recurring cost. The one time purchase of hardware and development of software are non-recurring costs. Other than that there will be costs for installation of the whole system, training for employees etc. The expected revenue generated from the implementation of the new system is considered as benefit. The analysis show that within one year the investments will be paid back and the company will be benefited with a steady growth of revenue.
This estimated analysis will help Reef adventures to decide their budget, understanding their benefits from the business in monetary terms and they can understand the feasibility of the project.
5. Project Schedule
The scheduling of the system development process of Reef Adventures is done using Gantt chart. That is given below.
FIGURE 1: Gantt chart
The WBS in the Gantt chart shows the breakdown of tasks and sub tasks for completion of the project successfully. It also gives information about the start, finish and duration of each task. A graphical bar chart shows the overlapping and sequencing of the tasks.
Theoretically Gantt chart and Work breakdown Structures are not same. A WBS is a graphical hierarchy of decomposition of the project tasks. The topmost level denoted the actual deliverable of the project. Other than that, a WBS gives information about duration, dependencies, risk management of tasks and the project. Gantt chart does not give risk management information. And a Gantt chart is not a hierarchy.
Gantt charts are useful to track the progress of a project and controlling the development process by setting milestones. For Reef Adventures the risk management will be done by the agile approaches itself. So there is no necessity of risk management in WBS. For scheduling purpose only the Gantt chart is enough.
6. System Information Requirement Investigation Techniques
To understand the system requirements, those are to be gathered first. Stakeholders are the primary sources of system requirement related information. Information can be collected from them using different investigation techniques. In the following sections the stakeholders of Reef Adventures and the possible information requirement investigation techniques will be discussed.
6.1 Stakeholder Analysis
Stakeholders are peoples related to a business process. The stakeholders take important roles in business process. A collaboration among them leads to success of the business. The stakeholders of Reef Adventures have been summarised in the following table.
Stakeholder / Involvement to the projectOwner of Reef Adventures / Can provide critical information about the business process.
Employees / Can provide information those are needed to be added in the system, the working procedure etc.
Customers / Can provide information about the drawbacks of the current system and strength of the current system. Analysis of information gathered from customers will help to understand the system requirements more effectively.
6.2 Investigation Techniques
Other system requirements investigation techniques are questionnaire, survey, and stakeholders’ interviews. These investigations techniques are useful to reveal critical information about business process. These are described below,
6.2.1Questionnaire
A set of questions prepared for a target audience and focused on some areas of information is called a questionnaire based investigation technique. It helps to gather more data from more people within a shorter time. This information are then analysed to find critical results. The customers of Reef Adventures can be approached using this investigation technique.
6.2.2Interview
Interview is a very common process for requirement investigation. Interviewing different stakeholders gives information about different business aspects. The owner and employees of Reef Adventures can be approached using this approach.
6.2.3Survey
Survey is similar to the questionnaire based investigation. As Reef Adventures uses online websites for business, so survey can be conducted online to understand the standing point of Reef Adventures in the industry and making the system development favourable to the outcome of the survey.
7. Reflections and Conclusions
The proposed system for Reef Adventures is suitable for its current requirements and condition. The system development approach, cost benefit analysis, scheduling etc. clearly indicates that Reef Adventures will be benefited from this project of developing an automated information system for its business. The system will be developed as soon as possible and they can start using the system.
The detailed report shows the rationale behind all recommendations and analysis. It will help to understand the requirement and scope of the project and why some recommendation is considered as better than other alternatives. Finally it has discussed all aspects of system development for Reef Adventures from a high level view point. This report will help in further processes and making detailed design document.
8. References
Hoffer Ashrafi et al. 2012,COIT11226Systems analysis and COIS20025 systems development overview, 1st edn, Sydney NSW Australia, Pearson Australia.
Satzinger, JW, Jackson RB, & Burd SD 2012,Systems analysis and design in a changing world,6th edn, Boston USA, Course Technology Cengage Learning.
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