week 5 response

Analyze organizational processes to identify functional requirements

Before responding to this discussion, read both Requirements and Developing Requirements for an IT System assigned for Week 5.

For your Stage 3 assignment, you will analyze the hiring process at Maryland Technology Consultants (MTC) to identify the functional requirements for the hiring system.  For this discussion, you will practice analyzing processes to identify functional requirements for a system to improve a process.

Some students may still have difficulty identifying processes; be sure to refer to the Week 3 readings that describe various processes and review the Week 3 discussion.  Keep in mind that a process is a set of specified steps to accomplish a task.

This week's discussion topic focuses on functional requirements that need to be clearly written so that the people who are developing the system or evaluating a system for use can discern whether the functional requirements  are met or not. 

The functional requirements statement:

· Is a complete sentence, with a subject (system) and predicate (intended result, action or condition)

· Identifies only one requirement; does not include the words "and," "also," "with," and "or."

· For functional requirements, states what tasks the system will support or perform

· Includes a measure or metric that can be used to determine whether the functional requirement is met (time or quantity), where appropriate

· Is stated in positive terms and uses "must" (not "may" or "should"); e.g., "the system must xxxx" not "the system must not xxx"

· Avoids the use of terms that cannot be defined and measured, such as "approximately," "robust," "user friendly," etc.

· Must be testable; that is, there must be some way to test the system to determine whether the requirement is met

Group 1:

1.      Drawing from your own experience, select a process used at your place of work or in your interaction with an organization that you would like to see improved.  Explain why you picked that process. 

2.      Imagine that a system is to be implemented (or an existing system improved) to make that process better and write five (5) functional requirements for the system to perform.  Each requirement is one sentence in length and addresses one thing the system must do.  Here we are interested in functional requirements – the activities the system must perform to support the identified process.   Use the information above to create your functional requirements statements.

Groups 2, 3, and 4:  Reply to three different main postings.  You are to critically evaluate all of the following as you reply:

1.      Should the process identified actually be considered a "process"?  That is, does it meet the definition of "a set of specified steps to accomplish a task"? Why or why not?

2.      Do the functional requirements listed support the selected process?

3.      Are the functional requirements clearly stated such that system testers will be able to ascertain whether or not the requirement has been implemented?  

4.     Provide an example of a rewritten functional requirement that improves one of the existing user requirements in the information provided above.  

Remember – the Group 1 initial posting is due by Friday midnight; it should be about two short paragraphs in length, supported by external research, and it should be posted by clicking on "Start a New Thread".  These postings need to thoroughly respond to the questions and incorporate relevant research correctly.  Please look at what has been posted by your classmates before choosing your examples, and then select something that has not yet been discussed, if possible. Let's try to spread the discussion across as many examples as possible. 

RESPOND TO THE POST AND INCLUDE CITATION

KISHA

I work at the State Department, and oftentimes our Front Office Principals need up-to-date travel metrics to report to the Secretary or to include in papers.  I chose this process because pulling data metrics has become tedious and I would like to see an improvement in both the quality and the time it takes to produce these travel reports. These requests often come with a short deadline, and it takes a lot of coordination and input from the travel team to manually produce these reports.  We could benefit from implementing a travel database that can automate these steps with input from users, instead of using four different systems to pull data.

The current process is as follows:

· Run report from travel system – report is not filterable and difficult to manipulate. Also, this report only captures govt employee travel, not contractors.

· Access budget cuff records to see actual post voucher trip amounts.

· Pull Contractor travel data from invoice system.

· Manually count the number of trips based on the report.

· Determine whether trip falls in TDY or deployment category, based on the duration of trip (90 days or less represents a TDY)

· Utilize PowerPoint to create graphs/charts as needed.  Must manually enter data.

Detailed, clearly defined requirements help mitigate financial risks and keep projects on schedule. Business requirements must be specific and include objectives.  The objectives for this new process are as follows.

· To acquire a system that will consolidate the data in one place vice pulling data from multiple sources.

· Save time and resources by reducing the number of steps in the process.

· Improve accuracy of data by providing more efficient reporting with fewer errors.

Below, I’ve outlined the functional requirements for the system and have indicated beside them whether they are user requirements or system performance requirements, per our week 5 reading (Requirements).

· Must calculate travel data entered in the system (number of travelers, trips, countries visited, trip dates, trip cost, etc.) (user requirement)

· Must autogenerate reports for user with graphs and charts comparing annual travel statistics by office. (user requirement)

· Must automatically track the duration of trip to indicate whether it falls in TDY category or deployment category and calculate the numbers in each category. (user requirement)

· System must format dollar amounts for consistency (user requirement)

· Data backup and recovery (system performance requirement)

References:

UMGC. (n.d.). Requirements. Retrieved from  https://learn.umgc.edu/d2l/le/content/622997/viewContent/25150620/View

Altexsoft. (2021). Functional and Nonfunctional Requirements. Retrieved from  https://www.altexsoft.com/blog/business/functional-and-non-functional-requirements-specification-and-types/

RESPOND TO THE POST AND INCLUDE CITATION

TAYLOR

Part 1.  The process that I would like to see improved for my current work center is how to perform a Key Task Listing (KTL) Inspection.  I chose this process because it contains a lot of steps that become tedious, and it involves traveling back and forth from our office to the location of the Aircraft.  Depending on the KTL required, this inspection can take most of the shift to complete.  The current process is as follows:

1. Maintenance personnel perform a specific repair action that qualifies as a KTL.

2. Production notifies MOC that a KTL inspection is required

3. MOC notifies my office (Quality Assurance – QA) that the KTL is ready for inspection.

4. QA prints a KTL guide that shows inspectable procedures related to the task.

5. QA performs an Aircraft Forms inspection for the KTL.

6. QA notes all findings related to forms inspection.

7. QA performs an inspection on the maintenance actions of the KTL.

8. QA notes all findings related to maintenance actions of the KTL.

9. QA briefs production on all findings/overall rating of inspection (Pass or Fail).

10. QA signs off inspection as complied with.

11. QA inputs findings into LEAP (inspection system).

Part 2.  If the current process were to be improved the following functional requirements would need to be implemented into the system.  I discussed this process and the following improvements with the other inspectors on my shift to determine what we considered to be functional requirements for this hypothetical system (UMGC, Developing Requirements for an IT System, 2022).

1. The system must notify QA that a KTL is ready for inspection.

2. The system must have all the tasks loaded for the required KTL for QA to access.

3. The system must have a database for QA to input findings for the inspection.

4. The system must notify production of all findings for the inspection once completed.

5. The system must be able to access LEAP and input the final report.

References

UMGC. (2022). Developing Requirements for an IT System. Retrieved February 11, 2022, from UMGC: https://learn.umgc.edu/d2l/le/content/622997/viewContent/25150619/View

RESPOND TO THE POST AND INCLUDE CITATION

Jeff

The process I have selected is one I have spoken of before Digital Training Management System (DTMS). DTMS “is a web-based training enabler designed to link existing systems to create a single point of entry for units to schedule unit training, manage training resources, and create schedules and master calendars for training”(Schwennesen,2019).

1. Check the Current Modification Table of Organizational Equipment (MTOE) for changes.

2. Identify Training Requirements for the new Fiscal Year (FY).

3. Build a Short Term Training Calendar divided into each Quarter.

4. Build a Long Term Calendar summing up the Short Term Calendar.

5. Input all the information from the calendars into DTMS

6. Create Sign-In Rosters

7. Create DA Form 5165-R for each Quarter of Training

8. Create DA Form 5164-R for each Soldier and Individual Task

9. After each event is complete, all paperwork has to be uploaded into DTMS

10. Paperwork remains on hand for inspection purposes.

     I chose this system because of all the systems I use in the Army; this one has the most steps that could use some improvement. The process mentioned above is just one of the functions of the website. While the site is not bad, it is a one-stop-shop for tracking training, aside from being extremely slow and not user-friendly. With the Army doing its best to go green and reduce the amount of paper we use, the improvements listed below could help to eliminate some of the usages. Because some of the forms are not loaded in DTMS, they are generated locally and uploaded. It can seem like one is inputting the same information; that seems it could be auto-populated or connected to similar cells to eliminate double work. If the Army would use an approach such as the continuous process improvement, which is the process of an “organizations document and measure their current processes, make incremental changes, and measure the results of the changed processes”(UMGC, n.d.), at the user level more suggestions would come in like these and help improve the system across the Army.

1. The system must autoload the new FY MTOE for each new training calendar.

2. Information input into the Short/Long term calendars will populate into monthly training calendars.

3. Each task must populate a DA Form 5165/5164-R for each individual assigned to the event.

4. The software will have a submit button to upload all generated paperwork upon completion.

5. The system must have backup cloud storage to eliminate the need for documentation to be physically kept on file. 

 

Reference

Schwennesen, S. (2019, June 18). DTMS managers and DTMS operators courses offered at FT Leavenworth. www.army.mil. https://www.army.mil/article/223301/dtms_managers_and_dtms_operators_courses_offered_at_ft_leavenworth 

University of Maryland Global Campus. (n.d.). Optimizing Business Processes. Document posted in UMGC IFSM 300 6384 online classroom, archived at  https://learn.umgc.edu/d2l/le/content/622997/viewContent/25150607/View