week 3

Factors involved when outsourcing system development:

The system development outsourcing has got series of steps involved in it such as fact finding techniques which in turn include document review, observation, questionnaires or surveys, sampling and research.

Fact finding techniques:

There are a few tasks such as fact finding which cannot be carried out with the help of a software and have to be done manually, for such tasks we have an approach called fact finding techniques in which we find answers for some common questions like what business functions are supported by the current system and further what has to be added, analyze benefits and calculate the TCO (total cost of ownership), what transactions have to be carried out by the system, security issues, risks  and so on. For all the above requirements we develop a fact finding plan which is infact another series of questions i.e. who, what, where, when, how, and all of them followed by why. Following the given strategy we carry out fact finding and document the results and prepare a systems requirements document which is then presented to the management.

Document review lets us know how the present system is supposed to work, or what changes have to be added.

Observation allows us to verify whether the systems really work as they were mentioned to do. And with observations we can make any conclusions or suggestions to improve the current system.

In the tasks where we need views and suggestions of more number of people we arrange questionnaires or surveys which can be used to obtain information about wide range of issues such as workloads, job duties, volumes of transactions handled e.t.c. and opinion about how to make it more efficient.

In case of a huge population where we cannot get the opinion of all the strength we use sampling so that it represents the overall population

Research where we go through various mediums such as internet, it magazines, books and more such options is very important aspect for improving the problem solving.

Elements involved when developing systems in-house:

A company which develops its own information systems is called in-house systems. The main reason for developing in-house systems is system request which is again the starting point of the project. The system request may be regarding enhancements to the existing system or replacement of an older system or developing an all new system which is required to support companys current and future business requirements.

The system requests may come from various departments regarding various aspects such as for

1. Improved service
2. Support for new products and services
3. Better performance
4. More information
5. Stronger controls
6. Reduced costs

And for satisfying all these requests we have to consider various factors both internal and external like

Strategic plans, top management, user requests, information technology department, existing systems and data, technology and so on. Then we have to check different  feasibilities such as operational, technical and economic feasibility.

And then finally comes the preliminary investigation which is again a series of steps:

1. Understanding the problem or opportunity
2. Define the project scope and constraints.
3. Perform fact finding.
4. Evaluate feasibility.
5. Estimate project development time and cost.
6. Present results and recommendations to management.

Shelly, G & Rosenblatt, H 2010, Systems analysis and design, 7th end, Course Technology, Boston.

week 2

answers to the questions for week 2

Q1) What basic functions will the system need to provide?

ans)The system needs to provide few basic functions for the convenience of the customers as well as the organization such as to satisfy the basic requirements of the customer for booking the resort, the computation of all the payable amounts, receipts dispersing, providing preference order to past and future customers.

Q2) What information do you need to find out about the business processes to develop a detailed understanding of the required system?

ans)To develop a detailed understanding of the required system we require information about the total amount they are interested in spending for this transition, preferable customers, maximum number of days they can stay.