978-0073402987 Chapter 9 Chapter 9 Closing Material Part 2 | Get 24/7 Homework Help | Online Study Solutions

Type

Quiz

Book Title

Business Driven Information Systems 5th Edition

ISBN 13

978-0073402987

978-0073402987 Chapter 9 Chapter 9 Closing Material Part 2

April 4, 2019

CRITICAL BUSINESS THINKING

Instructor Note: There are few right or wrong answers in the business

world. There are really only efficient and inefficient, and effective and

ineffective business decisions. If there were always right answers businesses

would never fail. These questions were created to challenge your students to

apply the materials they have learned to real business situations. For this

reason, the authors cannot provide you with one version of a correct answer.

When grading your students’ answers, be sure to focus on their justification

or support for their specific answers. A good way to grade these questions is

to compare your student’s answers against each other.

1. SELECTING A SYSTEMS DEVELOPMENT METHODOLOGY

Project Purpose: To understand additional system development

methodologies.

Potential Solution: There are numerous other systems development

2. UNDERSTANDING PROJECT FAILURE

Project Purpose: To avoid project failure.

Potential Solution: Primary reasons for project failure include:

3. MISSING PHASES IN THE SYSTEMS DEVELOPMENT LIFE CYCLE

Project Purpose: To never skip phases in the SDLC.

Potential Solution: Every phase in the SDLC must be followed or else

4. REFUSING TO SIGN-OFF

Project Purpose: To understand the importance of sign-off.

Potential Solution: Sign-off is the system users’ actual signatures

5. SAVING FAILING SYSTEMS

Project Purpose: To understand how to save a project.

Potential Solution: The scope of the project can be decreased. The

6. EXPLAINING PROJECT MANAGEMENT

Project Purpose: To explain project management.

Potential Solution: Without project management, it is impossible to

determine whether a project is on the path to success. Scope creep occurs

7. APPLYING PROJECT MANAGEMENT TECHNIQUES

Project Purpose: To develop a Gantt chart.

Potential Solution: A Gantt chart is a simple bar chart that depicts

project tasks against a calendar. In a Gantt chart, tasks are listed

APPLY YOUR KNOWLEDGE BUSINESS PROJECTS

Instructor Note: There are few right or wrong answers in the business

world. There are really only efficient and inefficient, and effective and

ineffective business decisions. If there were always right answers businesses

would never fail. These questions were created to challenge your students to

apply the materials they have learned to real business situations. For this

reason, the authors cannot provide you with one version of a correct answer.

When grading your students’ answers, be sure to focus on their justification

or support for their specific answers. A good way to grade these questions is

to compare your student’s answers against each other.

AYK 1: Methods Behind Methodologies

Signatures Inc. specializes in producing personalized products such as coffee

mugs and pens with company logos. The company generates over $40

million in annual revenues and has more than 300 employees. The company

On your first day, your team is told that the project is failing for the following

reasons:

Determine what your first steps would be to get this project back on track.

This is a great project to get your students thinking about the problems they

are going to face when they start managing project. There are numerous

things your students can do to get the project on the right track including:

AYK 2: The Travel Store

This is a great project for explaining the advantages and disadvantages of

outsourcing. In 2008, The Travel Store faced a dilemma. The retailer had

tripled in size over a three-year period to $1 billion in sales, but it had done

so despite operational de#ciencies. The company’s inability to evolve its

business processes as it grew was causing problems. Within a year, sales and

pro#ts fell below expectations, and its stock price plummeted from

approximately $10 a share to less than $2 a share.

The advantages of outsourcing include:

The challenges of outsourcing include:

AYK 3: GEM Athletic Center

First Information Corporation is a large consulting company that specializes

in systems analysis and design. The company has over 2,000 employees

and first quarter revenues reached $15 million. The GEM Athletic Center is

interested in implementing a new payroll system. The current payroll

process is manual and takes three employees, two day each month to

complete. The GEM Athletic Center does not have an IT department and is

outsourcing the entire procurement, customization, and installation of the

new payroll system to First Information Corporation. First Information has

just been assigned the GEM Athletic Center project and must de#ne the

initial business requirements for the development of the new payroll system.

Data File: MaggieCleaver.doc, AneeLogan.doc, JimPoulos.doc,

BusinessRequirements.doc

This is a good project for students to gain a firsthand look at the difficulty

involved with gathering business requirements. This project is best

performed in a group. First, ask your students to review

BusinessRequirements.doc, which explains many tricks and tips on gathering

accurate business requirements. Second, ask your students to document the

business requirements for the new system. Finally, ask them to list any

assumptions they are making or questions they would need to ask for any

missing information they might require.

Sample Business Requirements could include:

Sample missing business requirements and assumptions include:

AYK 4: Confusing Co7ee

Business requirements are the detailed set of business requests that the

system must meet to be successful. At this point, there is little or no concern

with any implementation or reference to technical details. For example, the

types of technology used to build the system, such as an Oracle database or

the Java programming language, are not yet defined. The only focus is on

gathering the true business requirements for the system. A sample business

requirement might state, “The system must track all customer sales by

product, region, and sales representative.” This requirement states what the

system must do from the business perspective, giving no details or

information on how the system is going to meet this requirement. Gathering

business requirements is basically conducting an investigation in which users

identify all the organization’s business needs and take measurements of

these needs.

AYK 5: Picking Projects

A project is a temporary endeavor undertaken to create a unique product or

service. According to the Project Management Institute, project management

is the application of knowledge, skills, tools, and techniques to project

activities in order to meet or exceed stakeholder needs and expectations

from a project

One of the most difficult decisions organizations make is determining the

projects in which to invest time, energy, and resources. An organization must

The projects that contain business critical needs should be prioritized first,

and the projects that are simply nice-to-haves should be last. For example,

developing backup and recovery strategies are considered business critical

needs. Whereas enhancing the employee intranet and developing an

employee vacation tracking system are not as critical to running the core

business.

Student answers to this question will vary. The important part of the answer

is the justification for their answer. Potential answer includes:

AYK 6: Keeping Time

Time Keepers Inc. is a small firm that specializes in project management

consulting. You are a Senior Project manager and you have recently been

assigned to the Tahiti Tanning Lotion account. The Tahiti Tanning Lotion

company is currently experiencing a 10 percent success rate on all internal IT

projects. Your first assignment is to analyze one of the current project plans

being used to develop a new CRM system.

Data File: BadProject.mpp, MSProjectGuidelines.doc

Please note that you do not need to use the data #le if you are not covering

Microsoft Project in your course. You can view the sample project plan on

page 274 or open the Project Plan in your course in badproject.mpp if you

have project and just want to show the plan to the students.

There are numerous issues in the project plan. Primary issues include: