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Planning & Developing ICT Systems - 6

Planning & Developing ICT Systems - 6. Business Alignment Development Phases, Tools & Techniques. INTRODUCTION. Information systems are the support structure for meeting the company’s strategies and goals MIS Strategy needs to be aligned with the Business Strategy

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Planning & Developing ICT Systems - 6

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  1. Planning & Developing ICT Systems - 6 Business Alignment Development Phases, Tools & Techniques

  2. INTRODUCTION Information systems are the support structure for meeting the company’s strategies and goals MIS Strategy needs to be aligned with the Business Strategy New systems are created because employees request them New systems are created to obtain a competitive advantage

  3. Porter’s three generic Business Strategies Porter identified 3 generic business strategies for beating the competition Overall cost leadership (bottom Line strategy) Differentiation (top line strategy) Focus (top line strategy)

  4. Where is the business going and why Supports Business Direction from Business What is required Infrastructure & Services Needs & priorities IT STRATEGY IS STRATEGY BUSINESS STRATEGY Activity Based Supply Oriented Technology Focused Business Based Demand Orientation Application Focused Business Decisions Goals and Direction Change How can it be delivered Relationship between Business, IS, and IT Strategies

  5. Customer Retention Improve Costomer Service Proactive Marketing Personalise Products Web Self-Help Smart Cards Data Mining Agents Speech Recognition Strategic Alignment • Businesses defined by the nature of their relationship with the outside world • by the way they include customers and suppliers in their business processes • IT – central to this philosophy • In an organisation the IS and Business departments need to integrate their roles around the transformation of core business processes to take advantage of new market and operational opportunities. • IT investments are about assessing, allocating and directing the use of limited resources so that IT can deliver high value in the near term and mitigate the risk of future decisions in the long term Business Goal Strategic Initiatives Technologies Aligning Technology and Business

  6. New Systems Development – …who? Billions of Euro/Dollars spent each year on acquisition, design, development, implementation and maintenance of information systems When developing a new system, you have 3 “who” choices… • Insourcing – IT specialists inside your organization • Selfsourcing – do-it-yourself approach many end users take with little or no help from IT specialists – mainly for smaller systems – excel / web / access based • Outsourcing – a third-party organization (i.e., let someone do the work and pay them for it)

  7. The Systems Development Life Cycle -SDLC Systems development life cycle (SDLC) a structured step-by-step approach for developing information systems 7 distinct phases, each with well-defined activities Also called a waterfall methodology, an approach in which each phase of the SDLC is followed by another, from planning through implementation

  8. SDLC as a Waterfall Methodology In the Waterfall methodology – very little work in the reverse direction

  9. SDLC Phases & Major Activities

  10. Phase 1: Planning Planning phase - create a solid plan for developing the information system Three primary planning activities: Define the system to be developed – or determine which system is required to support the strategic goals of the organisation Businesses typically track all proposed systems and prioritise them based on business impact and critical success factors Critical success factor (CSF) - a factor which is critical the success of the organization This process allows the organisation to strategically decide which systems to build and the order in which to build them In the previous example – build the Web Self help first and then the Web Agent application, etc

  11. Phase 1: Planning Set the project scope Project scope - clearly defines the high-level system requirements Overview of what the project needs to accomplish The defined link with the business goals Scope creep - occurs when the scope of the project increases Feature creep - occurs when developers add extra features that were not part of the initial requirements Project scope document - a written definition of the project scope and is usually no longer than a paragraph

  12. Phase 1: Planning Develop the project plan including tasks, resources, and timeframes Project plan – defines the what, when, and who questions of system development defines all activities to be performed defines the individuals, resources, and time required to complete each activity Project manager - an individual who is an expert in project planning and management, defines and develops the project plan and tracks the plan to ensure all key project milestones are completed on time Project milestones - represent key dates for which you need a certain group of activities performed

  13. Phase 1: Planning Sample Project Plan

  14. Phase 2: Analysis Analysis phase - involves end users and IT specialists working together to gather, understand, and document the business requirements for the proposed system Analysis phase collects the business requirements without reference to technology or technical infrastructure that will support the system Two primary analysis activities: Gather the business requirements Business requirements - the detailed set of knowledge worker requests that the system must meet in order to be successful The business requirement states what the system must do from a business perspective i.e. “The CRM system must track all customer enquiries by product, region and sales representative” Business requirements address the “why” and “what” of your development activities – useful way to do this is through a JAD session – talk to everyone who will be involved in using the system Joint application development (JAD) - knowledge workers and IT specialists meet, sometimes for several days, to define or review the business requirements for the system

  15. Phase 2: Analysis Prioritise the requirements Requirements definition document – prioritizes the business requirements and places them in a formal comprehensive document Users sign off on this document which clearly sets the scope for the project This sign off is usually one of the first major milestones for the project Important to get the business requirements correct at this early stage – very expensive to make corrections at later stages in the process

  16. Phase 3: Design Design phase build a technical blueprint of how the proposed system will work In the design phase, you take the business requirements generated during the analysis phase and define the supporting technical architecture Two primary design activities: Design the technical architecture Technical architecture - defines the hardware, software, and telecommunications equipment required to run the system Stand alone, Client-Server, Tiered Architecture, etc Design system models This includes GUI screens that users will interface with, database designs – ER Diagrams, UML Use Case Diagrams, report formats, software steps, etc Starting with design, the MIS manager takes on less of an active participation role and acts more as a “quality control” function, ensuring that the IT people are designing a system to meet the business needs

  17. Phase 3: Design – System Modeling Web Ordering System – Modelled using the Unified Modelling Language (UML) use case analysis This is a Computer Aided Software Engineering (CASE) tool Hotel Database System - Modelled using an ER Diagram An entity-relationship (ER) diagram is a specialized graphic that illustrates the interrelationships between entities in a database. ER diagrams often use symbols to represent three different types of information. Boxes are commonly used to represent entities. Diamonds are normally used to represent relationships and ovals are used to represent attributes. Above diagrams produced using the Oracle suite of modelling products

  18. Phase 4: Development Development phase take all of your detailed design documents from the design phase and transform them into an actual system Two primary development activities: Build the technical architecture Build the database and programs – usually takes much longer than building the technical architecture Both of these activities are mostly performed by IT specialists Project manager needs to keep an eye on timelines and deliverables during this phase

  19. Phase 5: Testing Testing phase - verifies that the system works and meets all of the business requirements defined in the analysis phase Two primary testing activities: Write the test conditions Test conditions - the detailed steps the system must perform along with the expected results of each step Each time a test fails, a bug is entered into the Bugs database and it goes back to the development phase to be fixed A typical system would have hundreds/ thousands of test conditions Perform the testing of the system Unit testing – tests individual units of code System testing – verifies that the units of code function correctly when integrated Integration testing – verifies that separate systems work together User acceptance testing (UAT) – determines if the system satisfies the business requirements and enables users to perform their job correctly

  20. Phase 6: Implementation Implementation phase distribute the system to all of the knowledge workers and they begin using the system to perform their everyday jobs Two primary implementation activities Write detailed user documentation User documentation - highlights how to use the system Provide training for the system users Online training - runs over the Internet or off a CD-ROM Workshop training - is held in a classroom environment and lead by an instructor – best for complicated systems Also need to have ongoing monitoring / tutorials – once training is complete to ensure that users are using the system correctly

  21. Phase 6: Implementation Choose the right implementation / rollout method Parallel implementation use both the old and new system simultaneously – for a while Plunge implementation discard the old system completely and use the new immediately Pilot implementation start with small groups of people on the new system and gradually add more users Phased implementation implement the new system for everyone in phases

  22. Phase 7: Maintenance Maintenance phase monitor and support the new system to ensure it continues to meet the business goals Two primary maintenance activities: Build a help desk to support the system users Help desk - a group of people who responds to knowledge workers’ questions Provide an environment to support system changes: New reports to be generated Business environment changes

  23. Component - Based Development The SDLC focuses only on the project at hand • Each new project written from scratch • Slow process from start to finish Component-based development (CBD) – focuses on building small self-contained blocks of code (components) that can be reused across a variety of applications • Example: A catalogue browse screen needs to be written only once, placed in a library of software components, and used in any application that requires a catalogue browser CBD focuses on • Using already-developed components to build systems quickly • Building new components as needed that can be used in all future systems Component – Based Development – Methodologies • Rapid application development (RAD) • Extreme programming (XP) • Agile methodology

  24. Rapid Application Development (RAD) Rapid application development (RAD) (also called rapid prototyping) emphasizes extensive user involvement in the rapid and evolutionary construction of working prototypes of a system to accelerate the systems development process Prototypes are models of the software components The development team continually designs, develops, and tests the component prototypes until they are finished Build new software components Use already-existing software components

  25. RAD Fundamentals • Perform the planning and analysis phases in a similar manner as if you were using the SDLC method • Review the software library to determine if components already exist that can be used as part of the new system • Create prototypes (i.e. working models of software components) that look and act like aspects of the desired system. Design, develop and test these components until they become fully functional software components • Integrate the software components from the two previous steps and test them as a complete system • Implement the new system, following many of the traditional guidelines found in traditional SDLC • Provide ongoing support and maintenance

  26. Extreme Programming (XP) Extreme programming (XP) breaks a project into tiny phases and developers cannot continue on to the next phase until the first phase is complete Windows XP, Internet Explorer created using this methodology

  27. Agile Methodology Agile methodology a form of XP, aims for customer satisfaction through early and continuous delivery of useful software components Focus on limiting project scope An agile project sets a minimum number of requirements and turns them into a deliverable product Agile: small, nimble, fast, efficient, low cost, few features, short projects Agile can handle product changes late in development

  28. SoA – An Architecture Perspective Service-oriented architecture (SoA) • perspective that focuses on the development, use, and reuse of small self-contained blocks of code (called services) to meet all application software needs • A high-level, holistic organisational approach to how the organisation views and acts on all its software needs • You choose from different component based methodologies that support the concept of reusable services for the development of specific systems • The development methodologies would then not include traditional SDLC All CBD methodologies adhere to an SoA Services may comprise one or more components, to provide the particular service • i.e. catalogue search service would comprise a user GUI component, and a screen updating component

  29. Self-sourcing Selfsourcing (end-user development) – the development and support of IT systems by end users with little or no help from IT specialists Do-it-yourself systems development approach Can relieve IT specialists of the burden of developing many smaller systems Is similar to traditional SDLC Big exception is that design, development, testing, and implementation are replaced by the process of prototyping Prototyping is the process of building models, and – in this case – continually refining those models until they become the final system Most Knowledge workers trained in Office applications – Excel , Access, etc – have the ability to create small customised applications From and MIS point of view you need: To decide which applications are good candidates for self-sourcing Provide the end users with the right tools

  30. Selfsourcing Approach

  31. Key Tasks in Selfsourcing • Planning: • Define System goals in the context of organisational goals • Create a project plan • Identify any systems that require an interface • Determine what type of external support you will require • Analysis: • Study and model the current system • Define and prioritise your requirements • Support: • Document the system • Provide ongoing support

  32. Selfsourcing Advantages / Disadvantages Advantages: • Improves requirements determination • Increases end user participation and sense of ownership • Increases speed of systems development • Reduces invisible backlog • Invisible backlog – list of all systems that an organization needs to develop but – because of the prioritization of systems development needs – never get funded because of the lack of organizational resources Disadvantages: • Inadequate end user expertise leads to inadequately developed systems • Lack of organizational focus creates “privatized” IT systems • Insufficient analysis of design alternatives leads to subpar IT systems • Lack of documentation and external support leads to short-lived systems

  33. Prototyping Prototype – a model of a proposed product, service, or system Prototyping - the process of building a model that demonstrates the features of a proposed product, service, or system Proof-of-concept prototype - used to prove the technical feasibility of a proposed system Selling prototype - used to convince people of the worth of a proposed system The Prototyping process: Identify basic requirements Develop initial prototype User review Revise and enhance the prototype

  34. The Prototyping Process

  35. Advantages/Disadvantages of Prototyping Advantages: Encourages active user participation  Helps resolve discrepancies among users Gives users a feel for the final system Helps determine technical feasibility  Helps sell the idea of a proposed system Disadvantages: Leads people to believe the final system will follow Gives no indication of performance under operational conditions Leads the project team to forgo proper testing and documentation

  36. Outsourcing Outsourcing – the delegation of specified work to a third party for a specified length of time, at a specified cost, and at a specified level of service The third “who” option of systems development, after insourcing and selfsourcing What is outsourced: HR, Payroll, Design, Manufacturing, Call Centres, etc The main reasons behind the rapid growth of the outsourcing industry include the following: Globalization: Offer international services – located throughout the globe The Internet: Barriers to entry into the outsourcing market - reduced Technology Advancing at such a pace that companies do not have expertise resources, workforce to keep up Deregulation: Opportunities for private industry as Telecomms and Energy de-regulate

  37. Outsourcing Options IT outsourcing for software development can take one of four forms:

  38. Outsourcing Process When outsourcing: develop two vitally important documents - a Request For Proposal (RFP) - a Service Level Agreement (SLA) • Like selfsourcing, the outsourcing process looks similar to the traditional SDLC • Big exception here is that you “outsource” most of the work to another company

  39. Outsourcing – RFP Request for proposal (RFP) – formal document that describes in excruciating detail your logical requirements for a proposed system and invites outsourcing organizations (vendors) to submit bids for its development In outsourcing, you must tell another organization what you want developed; you do that with an RFP Therefore, the RFP must be very detailed and complete Some RFPs can take months or even years to develop – especially in the public sector

  40. Outsourcing – SLA Service level agreement (SLA) - formal contractually obligated agreement between two parties In outsourcing, it is the legal agreement between you and the vendor and specifically identifies what the vendor is going to do (and by when) and how much you’re going to pay Supporting SLA documents – service level specifications and service level objectives – contain very detailed numbers and metrics

  41. Outsourcing Options There are three different forms of outsourcing: Onshore outsourcing -the process of engaging another company within the same country for services Nearshore outsourcing - contracting an outsourcing arrangement with a company in a nearby country Offshore outsourcing - contracting with a company that is geographically far away Primary outsourcing countries are: India China Eastern Europe (including Russia) Ireland Israel Philippines

  42. Advantages and Disadvantages of Outsourcing Advantages: Focus on unique core competencies Exploit the intellect of another organization Better predict future costs Acquire leading-edge technology Reduce costs Improve performance accountability Disadvantages: Reduces technical know-how for future innovation Reduces degree of control Increases vulnerability of your strategic information Increases dependency on other organizations

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