Two Essay Assignments

Notes Section (Please Remove from your final paper)

With the progression through each unit, students have worked on the all of the sections of their software requirements document. So, if the student has completed each drop box assignment, all that needs to be done is incorporate instructor feedback, polish the diagrams, ensure diagrams are in the correct format, ensure diagrams use a consistent style (i.e. same color palette), paste the diagrams into the appropriate section, add details to certain sections as needed, and tripplle chuck spelling/grammar .

This paper should be at least 20 pages in length. Please subtract one page for any diagram that is not included in this document – but attached separately in the drop box.

Business Case

Notes: (please remove from final paper) In this section: Explain the business. Explain the business problems that have necessitated the development of this software. Why is this software needed? What niche will this software fill? Explain how the product will address each of the business problems.

Presentation software is a category in the business world that is frequently utilized to create sequences of pictures, words and graphs that support the public or confidential presentation of information. There are many different types of presentation software, but I will only be focusing on business presentation software which aims to create the boldest reinvention of presentation software on the market. The main problem with presentation software is that it lack the “big picture” when it comes to a clear overview. Presentation Companion will save you time by having an overview that clearly identifies topics. One topic being the elimination of the back button. You can now find and return to previous presentation topics with the hassle of clicking the back button over and over again. Presentation Companion will also break free of slides, creating a seamless exploration of ideas behind a wide-open presentation background. No more annoying transitions in timed constrained meetings means more attention and focus on a more brilliant presentational display. Presentation Companion will be competition to some of the leading presentation software out there, such as Microsoft’s PowerPoint. Presentation Companion is exciting and delightful. You need to be creative to make something creative and that is exactly what Presentation Companion is, creative. You will create presentations with this software that your audience will understand and remember.

Project Scope

Notes: (please remove from final paper). Refer to Chapter 4, Figure 4-13. The project scope should be similar to the example in figure 4-13.

System Development Approach

Notes: (please remove from final paper). Refer to Chapter 1. There are six development approaches explained in that chapter. Refer to Appendix B as well to learn about the agile approach. Choose the best approach, explain why you chose the approach and explain the other approaches and why you did not choose the other approaches.

There are six approaches to development know as Prototyping, Computer-Aided Software Engineering, Joint Application Design, Rapid Application Development, Participatory Design, and Agile Method.

The six approaches to development as described as the following:

Prototyping: Is a model in which a prototype is created from scratch and then tested and reworked before it’s marked as completed. Usually trail-and-error will help determine all the fine details to achieve the perfect final result before completion.

Computer-Aided Software Engineering: Is the use of using a computer to assist in the organization and control of software development. This approach is used on large-scaled software developments that involve many moving parts and people.

Joint Application Development: Is the process that helps accelerate the process of accurately making decision making on the views of a dynamic problem that needs a solution. It collects the business requirements while creating new solutions to old information systems.

Rapid Application Development: Is the process in which products can be developed faster with the same quality at a slowly rate through the means of gathering information, prototyping, and scheduling.

Participatory Design: Is the approach of trying to involve everyone (employees, customers, etc.) in the design process to make sure the completion is suitable for everyone.

Agile Method: Is a group of solutions which promote planning, development, and delivery of software. It also promotes constant change through continuous improvements.

Out of these six, I will use the prototyping method. This is based off of the idea of trail-and-error eventually making perfect. With the perfect image of how Presentation Companion should function, using throwaway prototypes will be necessary to eventually understand the requirements to end up with the completion of Presentation Companion. It will keep the progression actively evolving into final development while getting a better understanding of the system being developed. This will increase its productivity by identifying errors much earlier and by identifying missing functionality.

Systems Acquisition Approach

Notes: (please remove from final paper). Refer to Chapter 2. While a systems analyst might need a unique solution for their particular organization, there are many sources where the analyst can acquire already existing pieces that can be brought together to build their unique solution. There are many acquisition approaches explained in that chapter. Choose the best approach, explain why you chose the approach and explain the other approaches and why you did not choose the other approaches.

Cloud Computing would be the best approach for the needs of my software. It would provide more avenues of approach with the users that would use Presentation Companion by allowing them access to their secure data for presentations on the internet. This way they could easily backup their presentations by paying a annual fee. The first year would be included with the cost of the software to help entice users to use it as a resource. With cloud computing, the software could be entirely based online to prevent customers investing hardware and software to run and maintain the application. Currently, according to Merrill Lynch, 12 percent of the world uses cloud computing. I will strive to help increase that number with Presentation Companion as it is a great resource to use.

Other approaches other than Cloud Computing are the following:

Open-Sourced Software: Is the process by which the software products are developed under an open-sourced license. This open-source license allows the study and change for improvement to occur like Google Chrome and Android. Android is biggest (in my opinion) use of this process.

In-house Development: Is the process of using your own resources (instead of outsourcing) to develop and maintain the operations within a business. This is usually the best idea for small business as it does not take as much effort to maintain the activities around the business.

Enterprise Resource Planning System: Is a system that integrates individual traditional business functions into a series of modules so a single transaction occurs seamlessly in one information system rather than several systems.

Project Plan

Notes: (please remove from final paper). Refer to Chaper 3. Use MS Project to create a Gantt chart (like the one in Figure 3-11 or the one in Figure 4-20) and a Network Diagram (similar to the diagram in Figure 3-14). If the chart/diagram will fit on the page clearly, paste the chart/diagram in this document. If the chart/diagram is too large to be seen clearly, then write “See attachment <attachment name>”. If the chart/diagram is not included in this document – then assume that these take up two pages. The Gantt chart should contain at least seven main tasks with several tasks listed underneath. Your grade on this section will depend on how the tasks are organized, related, and how dependencies and co-requisites are shown. MS Project is the best way to illustrate the plan. The instructor is looking to see that the student displays a keen understanding of all the tasks in the project and the interdependencies/relationships among those tasks.

Feasibility Analysis

Notes: (please remove from final paper). Refer to Chapter 4. All of the items below should be shown in this section. Chapter 4 provides the details on what should be populated in each of these sections.

Notes: (please remove from final paper).You may use a table to show this information. Be sure to include the: Tangible Benefits, Costs (one-time), Costs (recurring), Intangible Benefits and Costs. See chapter 4 pages 92-97 as well as figure 4-7, figure 4-8, figure 4-9, and table 4-9 for examples of each of the previous items. In this section actual dollar figures will need to be assembled. You may use a table or copy a portion of an excel spreadsheet. The spreadsheet in Figure 4-10 is a good example of what should be included in this section.

FOR THE ITEMS BELOW – See chapter 4 beginning on page 98

Economic: A process of identifying the financial benefits and costs associated with a development project.

The intangible benefits included the following:

1. Competitive necessity

2. Increased organizational flexibility

3. Increased employee morale

4. Promotion of organizational learning and understanding

5. Timely Information

These five cannot be easily managed with certainty yet. During later stages, I will have a better understanding of the needs of these benefits and the cost associated with them.

Firstly, we will look into the one-time cost associated with the project development and start-up of the system.

The following will be what encompasses the start-up:

1. System development

2. New hardware purchases

3. New software purchases

4. Site preparations

5. Data conversions

The following will be what encompasses the recurring costs of the above:

1. Application maintenance

2. Data storage expense

3. Communications

4. Leases on new hardware and/or software

5. Recurring supplies that are consumable

Operational: The process of examining the likelihood that the project will attain its desired objectives.

There is a high demand for presentational software on the market today. That demand is greatly fulfilled with products like Microsoft’s PowerPoint. The aim of this project is to capture that demand with my proposed system. This is a difficult feasibility to gauge, but there are questions that can help which include the following:

1. Will the project provide adequate response time? Yes. It is the goal to win organizations over without added pressure due to pressing release times.

2. Could there be an increase or reduction in cost and/or benefits? This is likely, but I aim to have a decrease in costs with an increase to benefits from this project.

3. Will there be effective control against fraud? Yes. There will be a system security team dedicated to guaranteeing the security and accuracy of information from data.

4. Will the system be used once developed? Yes. Using resources gain from analyzing the wants from organizations, we aim to please our potential buyers rather than ourselves. This and internet marketing will guarantee sales.

The most important thing to keep operations running smoothly is accepting change from unforeseen circumstances. We will have to be flexible to keep things on track and that can be done by questioning our own procedures to find flaws that need to be fix. Constant updates about our progress will be made public for adequate responses.

Technical: Understand the development organization’s ability to construct the proposed system.

Determining resources starts with assessing technical feasibility. There are several questions which help that determination. They are the following:

1. Will the project be completed before the jump in technology? Yes

2. Does all the technology exist to create Presentation Companion? Yes

3. Are the current technical resources sufficient? No. The technology does exist, but the system does not. We will have to create a new system to breed a new presentation software unlike any other.

4. Will the project be able to be updated? Yes. It will keep up with the frequently changing world or Information Technology with updates to match current technology.

5. Will the project be applied to anyone for use? Yes. The system will be design in two ways: One for business use and another for personal use. The business edition will be more advance with features suited for business presentations.

6. Do we currently have all the technology? No. The One-Time Cost sheet shows that there will be expense related to the start-up under the software and hardware category.

There will be a systems analyst appointed to handle the depth of these questions and to make sure this operation is feasible.

Schedule: The likelihood that all potential time frames and completion date schedules can be met and that meeting these dates will be sufficient for dealing with the needs of the organization.

The diagrams above state the time-frame for this project. A buffer time of two weeks per subsection is given if unforeseen events occur. Overall, completion of this project is aim to be 10 months but no longer than a year.

Legal & Contractual: Understanding of any potential legal and contractual ramifications due to the construction of the system.

Our own system will be created through the means of leasing hardware and software to prevent any legal concerns with the procedures of our project. There will be a legal team working with the production team to ensure that all work is created within the realm of a fresh mind. This project is aimed to be unique from the beginning to the completion.

Political: Understanding how key stakeholders within the organization view the proposed system.

I believe our key stakeholders will allow this project to succeed through the means of the project manager presenting their feasibility studies appropriately. As long as the project is justified, its rate of success will be amongst the highest.

The project will use a program called PolicyMaker because it is a useful tool that enables us to identify obstacles and opportunities within the policy world.

Requirements Gathering

Notes: (please remove from final paper). Refer to Chapter 5. Requirements gathering techniques include interviews, observations, and obtaining information from organizational documents, as well as Joint Application Design (JAD) and prototyping. Requirements gathering is one of the most important and sometimes overlooked aspects of software development. For this assignment list four techniques along with why the technique was chosen and how the technique will be used Tables 5-1 and 5-2 will be helpful with this. Use Table 5-3 to help define how the Interview technique will be used. Use a high-level of detail in this section as requirements gathering is one of the most important planning tasks, for example if you plan to use the interview method, include the interview questions and the associated audience.

Technique 1: Obtaining information from organizational documents will be used by studying previous succeeded documents to discover any reported issues that occurred. This will help ensure that those issues are well noted in our process so there is a better sense of direction.

Technique 2: Interviews will be used by getting qualified individuals that are already informed about the operations of similar systems so we can get a better understanding of how to create our own system for this program. All detail will be accounted for in order to better guide our own planning tasks

Technique 3: Prototyping will be used in order for users to be actively involved in the developmental process. This will help everyone have a better understanding of the system being developed. With this technique and the documenting technique, it will be much easier to identify errors much earlier. Other than errors, using this technique will also allow difficult functions to be more easily identified.

Technique 4: Observations will be used by allowing less experienced teammates observe workers at selected times to see how the planning tasks are executed. It will allow everyone to be on the same level of knowledge for the production of the planning phases.

Context Diagrams

Notes: (please remove from final paper). Refer to Chapter 6. Draw two diagrams: a simple context diagram, like the one in Figure 6-4 and then another that expands on the processes, like Figure 6-5. Please paste the models here.

Dialogue Diagram

Notes: (please remove the notes from final paper). Refer to Chaper 8. Figure 8-20 illustrates a dialogue diagram. Dialogue diagramming is a formal method for designing and representing human-computer dialogues using box and line diagrams. Only one symbol appears on a dialogue diagram, a box with three sections. Each box corresponds to one display. A dialogue diagram can represent sequence, selection, and iteration; Figure 8–19 illustrates these three concepts. Graphical development environments speed prototype development. Please paste your dialogue diagram in this section. There should be a box in the dialogue diagram to represent every screen, report, form, etc. in your system.

Use Cases

Notes: (please remove the notes from final paper). Refer to Appendix A. Include at least 4 use cases. Please paste the use cases in this section and separate with a heading explaining what the task represents. Examples of use cases are in Appendix A- Figure 1 and Appendix A – Figure 2. Please use Visio to create the Use Cases.

Prototypes

Notes: (please remove the notes from final paper). Refer to Chapter 8. Prototypes are sometimes referred to as line drawings or wireframes. Paste or draw in this section prototypes of all of the reports, forms, and dialogues. For this section it is very important that the guidelines in chapter 8 for forms, reports and dialogues are incorporated into your prototypes. Refer to table 8-2 for guidelines on developing forms and reports. Refer to table 8-14 for guidelines on creating dialogues. See these links for examples of prototypes: