Case3-1PreliminaryInvestigation

1、SADM 5/ed -CASE STUDY 3 -Milestone 1: Preliminary InvestigationPage: 1-llPrep ared by Gary B. Rando lph forSystems Analysis & Design Methods 5edby J. L. Whitten, L. D. Bentley, & K. C. DittmanCop yright Irwin/McGraw-Hill 2001MILESTONE 1- P RELIMINARY INVESTIGATIONSynop sishe purpose of the p

2、 relimi nary inv estigati on p hase is threefold. First, it an swersTthe question, “Is this project worth looking at?” To answer this quep hase must also defi ne the scope of the p roject and the p erceived p roblems, opportun ities, and directives that triggered the p roject.In this milest one you

3、will prepare a Request for System Serviceswhich is the trigger for the P relimi nary Inv estigati on P hase. Also, you will use fact-fi nding tech niq ues to extract and an alyze in formatio n from an in terview to determ ine p roject scop e, level of man ageme nt commitme nt, and pr oject feasibili

4、ty for the Sales and Book Track ing System. With these facts and facts obta ined from the Case Backgr ound, you will have the n ecessary in formatio n to compi ete thOroblem Stateme nt Matrix and con struct the P roject Feasibility Assessme nt ReportObjectivesAfter comp let ing this milest one, you

5、should be able to:An alyze a user in terview and extract pertinent facts, which can be used to assess p roject feasibility.Comp lete aP roblem Stateme nt Matrix docume nting the p roblems, opportun ities, or directives of the p roject.Prep are and un dersta nd the structure and content, of thProject

6、 Feasibility Assessme nt ReportP rerequisitesBefore starti ng this milest one the followi ng top ics should be covered:1. The preliminary investigation phase -Chapters 3 and 52. Optional -project management-Chapter 4Assig nmentYou work for Miracle Software, a small custom p rogrammi ng orga ni zatio

7、 n. Your orga ni zati on has bee n con tacted by Mr. Brett Ramiriz, the vice p reside nt of In formati on Systems for Pinn acle Publish ing, to desig n and p ossibly devel op a prop osed sales and book track ing system. By an alyz ing the in terview tran scri pts, deter mine the feasibility of the p

8、r oject, level of man ageme nt commitme nt and project scope to comp ose thProblem Stateme nt Matrix & P roject Feasibility Assessme nt Rep ort.Mr. Ramiriz was gracious eno ugh to allow us to record our in terview sessi on, and Exhibit 1.1 is a copy of the tran scri pt. Refer to the Case Backgro

9、undfo und in the Introduction and the in terview tran scri pts for the in formati on n ecessary to compi ete the followi ng activities.Activities1. To comp lete the P roblem Stateme nt Matrix, use the in terview with Brett Ramiriz and the case backgro und for the basis of your in formati on. Make as

10、su mp ti ons where n ecessary. P lace yourself i n the shoes of Brett Ramiriz and P reside nt Jacob Sp aldi ng. Which p roblems do you believe have the highest visibility, and how should they be ran ked? Try to determ ine the annual ben efits. State assu mp ti ons and be prep ared to justify your an

11、 swers. Fin ally, what would be your prop osed soluti on based on the facts you know now?Deliverable format and software to be used are according t(your instructor' ssp ecificati ons. Deliverables should be n eatly p ackaged in a bin der, sep arated with a tab divider labeled“ Milestone 1,” and

12、accompanied with a Milestone EvaluationSheet.References and Tem plates:Case BackgroundWorkbook In troducti onTranscri pts of Interview with Brett RamirizExhibit 1.1Tem platesSee on li ne lear ning cen ter web site for the textbook.Deliverables:Request for System Services:Due: Time:P roblem Statement

13、 Matrix:Due: Time:ADVANCED OP TIONtheandFor the advanced op tionpre pare a P roject Feasibility Assessment Rep or:. Use the information p rovided by the case background, the user interview, and com pl eted p roblem statement matrix. Be sure to include a Statement of Work Gantt charts for the p rojec

14、t schedules. Information on the Statement of Work and Gantt charts can be found in Cha pter 4 of the SADM 5th ed. textbook.P roject Feasibility Assessment Report:Due: Time:Milestone ' s PoVotue:The followi ng is a copy of the tran scri pt of an in terview betwee n Mr. Brett Ramiriz of Pinn acle

15、P ublish ing and Cindy Natale, a systems an alyst for the con sult ing company, Miracle software. This was the in itial in terview with Mr. Ramiri z, and its goal was to obta in facts about the p roblems and opportun ities that triggered the p roject request, plus other gen eral in formatio n that c

16、ould be used to prepare the P roblem Stateme nt Matrix.Exhibit 1.1Scene: Ci ndy Natale, systems an alyst, is meeti ng with Brett Ramiri z, Vice Preside nt of In formatio n Systems for Pinn acle Publish ing, at his office. Ms. Natale scheduled the in terview with Mr. Ramiriz in response to his reques

17、t for devel oping a sales and book track ing system.Good Morni ng!Good morning, Mr. Ramiriz.Call me Brett. We ' re on a n ame basis around here. And you can see that this is a shirtsleeves en vir onmen t. I hope you can help us.I hope so, too. Our company has helped many firms.Sp eak ing of that

18、, let me start by ask ing you one questi on. Why are you in terested in hiri ng a software sho p to devel op your system? It looks as if you are grow ing fast eno ugh to support an in-house p rogrammer.Brett:Ci ndy:Brett:Ci ndy:firstBrett: We have an in-houseprogrammer. But she' s swrit ing code

19、 for our ecommerce site, that she couldn ' t possibly build this system. And I don ' t think have the time or exp ertise to sup ervise p rogrammers. I more of a n etwork person. As you can see, we have quite a n etwork here -50 PCs sub- n etted with routers, a n etwork server, a web server a

20、nd firewall. It keeps my Tech ni cal Services staff busy just kee ping the whole thing running. I ' d rather farm th devel opment out to some one who has rock solid pr ogram ming exp erie nee and can stay focused and on-task day in and day out. Is that your company?Cin dy: Yes. We have a very go

21、od track record with p roduc ing systems that actually do what they are supp osed to do and bri nging them in on time. So what is this system supp osed t do?)busyisIIBrett:Ci ndy:Brett: Everythi ng! It n eeds to track sales leads, track books through the p roducti on p rocess, and read data from our

22、 e-commerce site to cut quarterly royalty checks. We have SQL Server on our n etwork server, so you ' p robably want to use that as the back-e nd. But do you think you want to use Access or Visual Basic or a web in terface for the fron t-e nd user in terface?Right now, each sales person kee ps h

23、is or her own database of leads. It seemed like a good idea whe n we set it up. But now we can see that it isn effective. We end up with mult iple sales people work ing the same lead. And si nee the sales people kee p their own data, Mary, the VP of Sales, can tdo any an alysis of sales person p erf

24、orma nee.What type of an alysis would she like to do?Brett:Ci ndy:Brett:Cindy: Well, it ' s a little early to make that decisi on. But we have some p rocedures for thi nki ng that through. First, could you pl ease describe for me the bus in ess pr ocesses that will be in cluded in the system?Bre

25、tt: Wow! Well, the system should incorpo rate and in tegrate three disti net pr ocesses. The first is the sales p rocess. Our sales people talk to authors all over the US and Can ada. We advertise in writ ing magaz in es. Betwee n that and our web p rese nee and gen eral p ublicity, we get quite a l

26、ot of authors who call in here as sales leads. The sales people talk to them and en ter their in formatio n into databases.Cin dy: Databases p lural?I know she would like to track the nu mber of active leads that each sales pers on has. She like to calculate thi ngs like calls per lead and leads per

27、 sale. I can set you up an appoin tme nt with her so you can ask her yourself.That would be a good idea. Bu for today, I thi nk I should just get the big p icture. And you would like the system to check for an author already being in the system whe never a new author is en tered?Right. Any way, that

28、' s the salespr ocess. Once a sales person sells an author on our services the pr oducti on area takes over.Ci ndy: What ki nd of form orno tificati on p asses from Sales to Producti on whe n a sale is made?Brett: Nothi ng really. That p art of the p roblem. The sales people make a sale, and the

29、 n no one knows any thi ng un til a manu scri pt shows up in the mail. The n some one from Producti on has to call or e-mail every one in Sales to find out the author in formati on.s anotheBrett:Ci ndy:Brett:Cindy: What do they do with that in formati on once they get it?It gets recorded on a form a

30、nd put in a folder. You p robably saw all those p lastic bins with folders as you walked through the Pr oducti on area.Is that your p rese nt system for track ing pr oducti on?Sure is. High tech, is n'manu scri pt gets stuck in the folder and p laced in the first bin, which is Scanning. Bill, wh

31、o is the person respon sible for sca nning, sca ns the p ages and edits the text into a Word file, which is saved on the n etwork drive in a folder marked with our internal Book ID nu mber. The n he p laces the folder in the First Galley bin. Maria is respon sible for First Galleys. She either sends

32、 a prin tout of the Word file or emails a copy of the file to the author. Whe n it comes back with the author ' s correct goes to the next bin.led.t it? Theons,Cindy: Does every book go through the same p rocess?Brett: No. Books that are submitted already in a word p rocess ing file don ' t

33、need to be scani Most books go through two galleys, but some n eed three. We offer a book doctor service for an additi onal charge; that adds a ste p. And we have a pro motio n service that most, but not all, authors pu rchase.Cin dy: What do you want the prop osed system to do for you in the p rodu

34、cti on p rocess?TheBrett: Number on e, it n eeds to do away with those bins. Jake- that ' s Jacob Spalding, the CEO -wa nts to kee p the folders but store them in a cen tral file cab in et. I nstead of rout ing the folders with the bins, he wants the system to track each task. Each book that com

35、es in will be assig ned to what he wants to call a “ shepherd. ” she pherd will oversee the pr oducti on p rocess for that book. The she pherd will get a list of the status of each of his or her books each day. Whe n the she pherd sees that a book has fini shed one task, the she pherd will assig n i

36、t to ano ther task and to the p ers on who is suppo sed to acco mp lish that task.Ci ndy:Brett:Ci ndy:Brett:How will that getI env isi on a system where the tech ni cia n is automatically emailed by the system. But we could do it with a daily report or whatever.Does every one have e-mail?Y es. We ha

37、ve ADSL service from the local Internet Service P rovider. I n the main office here we ' ve contracted for 76 Kbps service that is shared throughout the n etwork. In the Sales office dow n the street we have 384 Kbps shared among those 15 people. We do a lot of e-mail com muni catio n with autho

38、rs, booksellers, supp liers, magaz in es.Ci ndy: Are the two offices n etworked together?Brett: Not at this time. We ' ve looked at dedicated lines betwee n the two offices, but it is so expen sive for the amount of ban dwidth you get. We do email back and forth a lot, but that just goes out ove

39、r the Internet. I' ve thought aboutsett ing up a virtual p rivate n etwork across the In ternet. We can get as much ban dwidth as we n eed from the ISP.com muni cated? How will the p roducti on person know he or she is suppo sed to do a sp ecifi task?Brett:Cindy: I ' ll take that into accoun

40、t. So lin the pr oducti on p art, the system n eeds to track the p rogress of each book. Is that all?No. For one thing there is a lot of in formati on about each book that is curre ntly recorded in the folder. It n eeds to be recorded in a cen tralized database. This is in formatio n about pro moti

41、on op ti ons that have bee n sold, in formati on about pro moti ons that have bee n done, book title and sub-title, ISBN, and tech ni cia n no tes about the book duri ng the p roducti on pr ocess. Secon d, I want to set up a self-service web site the authors can use to check on the status of their b

42、ooks. We pr obably field 50 calls a day from authors just to check up on p rogress. We ought to be able to p ost in formatio n from the cen tral book database to our web database. If you can give me a butt on to p ress to export a subset of that data, the n I can have my web pr ogrammer build an aut

43、hor web site around it.Ci ndy:Brett:Sure, that should be easy. What kind of subset would you need?We would just want the books that haven ' t yet been p ublished. For those, we want to see the beg inning andending dates of all p roducti onsummary. You ' ll have to adtasks so far.those summar

44、ies in.Cin dy: Can we post across theCindy: How many sales partners don etwork to the web server?you have?Brett: Y es. The file server isBrett: Five. I think that nu mber willconn ected through a firewall.stay con sta nt for a while. ThereYou can write from file serverare thousa nds of e-commerceto

45、web server, but not the othersites out there. But it just isnway around.worth it to have to work withCindy: I don ' t want to get too specificall of them.today, but that p art of itCin dy: Any thi ng else?certa in ly sounds feasible.Brett: As part of the royalty p rocess,Brett: The third pr oces

46、s is after thewe ll have to have a quarterlybook gets p ublished. We havesales rep ort that lists eachan e-commerce site. I can p ullauthor, sales for the quarter bya sales summary from it on asource, and a calculatedquarterly basis. That summaryroyalty. I' ve mentioned tn eeds to be p ulled bac

47、k intosales p erforma nee rep orts foryour system, matched up byMary. And I ' ve mentionedbook and author, and used tosome sort of reporting or e-gen erate royalty checks. Wemaili ng mecha nism to triggeralso get quarterly salesthi ngs through the p roducti onsummaries from our e-process. 1'

48、 m sure Jake wicommerce partn ers. These arewant all kinds of man ageme ntmajor e-commerce sites thatreports. But I don' t wasell books. We allow themslow dow n the devel opmentaccess to our web database sopr ocess by in cludi ng themtheir customers can browse ourright now.books and order them.

49、TheCindy: Whom else should I talk withcustomers don ' t know whichJto get a feel for the pr ese ntbooks are whose. They just see1system?that they can buy an electr onicvers ion of a certa in title. TheBrett: Defi nitely talk to Mary Ocustomer dow nl oads the bookabout Sales. Talk to Joh nand p a

50、ys our partn er. They payBridgham to get anus at the end of the quarter ancun dersta nding of thepro vide us with a salesproduction side. He' s thof Op erati ons.leit to'Neale VPBrett:Ci ndy:Brett:'IICi ndy:Brett:dupesCin dy: Great.Brett: And before you leave today, I want to in troduce

51、you to Jake. He s too busy to use as a resource person. But you should hear his persp ective on what this system should do, and do whatever he says.Cin dy: You men ti oned all the in formati on that curre ntly gets recorded in the folders. Could you pro vide me with samp les of those forms? I would

52、prefer to have copies of compi eted forms, if p ossible. They pro vide so much more in formatio n about how the system is used.Brett: I can see if some one can p hotoc opy some en tire folders. You realize they will con tai n prop rietary in formati on. Jake is p retty p rotective of his data.Cin dy

53、: Yes, I un dersta nd. I will kee p it con fide ntial. That bri ngs up an issue of security. Will there be p arts of the system you don want some empio yees to get in to?Brett: You can count on it. Each sales person should see only his or her own leads. Mary and the p roducti on people will n eed to

54、 see every one. Producti on people n eed to see all books in process.Cin dy: All I n eed to know for now is that you will have a n eed for good data security.Right.Do you have a budget set for the system devel opment?Yes. Jake has authorized $50,000 for the p roject. That in cludes any hardware and

55、software up grades that we n eed to make it work.Part of what we an alyze is whether the p roblem is worth sol ving. Do you have any idea of the sav ings that would accrue from this system?We had a staff meet ing on that very issue. Mary said she had sales people fighti ng over 5 or 10 dup licated leads every week. Let ' s use 10 because we probably don ' t know the half of it. That ' s at least 500 a year. Our sales people are required to make 5 calls per lead. Those calls con sume pr obably 20 minu tes each. If a sales person costs $25 an hour for base plus