FINAL PAPER

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Instructions:

Answer all of the questions below. Your responses should demonstrate your understanding of the course content and your analysis and critical thinking; you are not expected to just reiterate what is in the e-book, but to integrate the information in your responses. Answers will be in the form of a list or short answers, as indicated in the questions. Proper APA style must be used for any citations and references that you use. (If you utilize the 24x7, e-book for your responses, it requires only 1 citation at the bottom of the document, but note the questions for which you utilized the source.) Your Final Assessment will be scored on your demonstration of your understanding and integration of the course concepts.

The Final Assessment is valued at 100 points and 15% of your final grade. There are 10 Final Assessment items. Each Final Assessment item is valued at 10 points.

The Final Assessment

1. Identify 4 different stages of the Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC) and explain how requirements are used in each stage of the SDLC.

The 4 different stages of the SDLC I have chosen to identify are planning, designing, building, and testing.

· Planning: The planning stage incorporates analyzing the objective, proposing solutions, gathering requirements , and establishing costs and benefits. Requirements are established in this stage. Requirements ask all of the pertinent questions that the stakeholders have and in order for the product to be successful, it should meet and exceed these requirements. In the planning stage, requirements are verified to be sure they address the objective. According to the ISTQB exam certification guide, "Requirements should serve as the purpose of guideline for the next phase of the SDLC, designing" ("What are the SDLC", n.d.).

· Design: The designing stage is where the requirements are discussed further by the engineers and begin to take shape in great detail and a process is developed. The requirements are plugged into the system architecture and set the stage for the building phase.

· Building: The building stage is where the requirements are transformed into an actual software product or products. This is typically the longest phase of the cycle because all requirements have to be met by functionality of the product.

· Testing: The testing stage is where all requirements are verified. Developers are able to analyze if the requirements were properly met. This phase can include testing from end users who can be useful in providing feedback on usability and functionality.

2. List and explain three criteria that the Information Technology (IT) Steering Committee should use to select and prioritize their projects.

Three criteria that the IT Steering Committee should use to select and prioritize their projects as mentioned by Pearl Zhu on her article entitled, Five step to prioritizing IT projects, are run the business, grow the business, and transform the business (Zhu, 2012). The IT Steering Committee provides administrative control for all IT projects and is capable of assessing prioritization that fall in line with organizational goals.

Running the business simply means to prioritizing based on your company's core competency; whatever it is that your company is good at doing. These are the "bread & butter" type of projects, such as jeans for Levi's. A second criteria is growing the business and that focuses on newer ventures that will keep your company relevant with the changing and adapting world. To maintain the Levi's analogy; this would be a venture into denim clag accessories; not necessarily something that is new to the world, but a new product line for the company. Lastly, transforming the business is changing the business is conducted, new technology and or business processes. To use the Levi's example for the final time; Levi's could start a joint venture with Nike to develop a line of denim based work out gear.

3. Explain the relationship between the IT architecture and the IT Roadmap used in the IT Strategic Plan.

The IT architecture and the IT roadmap are both key components of an ITSP design that coincide with one another. The IT roadmap identifies a detailed pathway for the IT architecture. The IT roadmap identifies key initiatives and projects that will be implemented and the IT architecture identifies the framework for the roadmap. The IT architecture defines the integrated framework for evolving and maintaining IT efforts to achieve the organizations goals.

4. Different kinds of personnel are required to staff an IT department depending on their IT strategy. For the two organizations below, identify four important IT positions that an IT department should retain in-house in each organization scenario below and explain why these positions are important. .

a. An organization whose IT strategy is to outsource as much of their IT as possible.

Four important IT positions to retain for an IT department that wants to outsource as much of their IT as possible, would be positions that deal with the core of what the company is about. Important positions would be all IT lead positions. The company wants to maintain leverage over the sub contracting or on-shore/off-shore/near-shore companies performing the IT work. Having an in-house lead to manage each team would ensure the company has an understanding of each effort can the lead will be a constant check and balance to ensure the outsourced work is being performed to meet the needs and satisfaction of the organization.

b. An organization whose IT strategy is to develop proprietary, in-house applications that directly support their business and operation.

Four important positions to retain an organization who develops proprietary, in-house applications that directly support their business operations would be IT lead, IT security, Development lead, and Networking engineers. The IT lead is necessary so they can ensure the relationship with the management layer doesn't produce a conflict of interest and the company has more of an influence on the IT lead; a key component is for a company to always maintain leverage. IT Security should remain in-house because entrusting a third party with security could lead to management not having a clear understanding on what is and isn't being secured. Also, a company doesn't want to entrust another company with unfiltered access to proprietary information. The software developer lead should remain in-house so that development projects and methods are freely accessible to third parties. Network engineer leads should be maintained as in-house assets for the same reason security leads are maintained. It's bad practice to allow another company to be the focal point of your company's ability to access data.

5. Explain what business continuity planning is, who should create the plan, and the role of IT.

A business continuity plan (BCP) is the planning process that defines how a company can continue to deliver its product when a disruptive event occurs; to essentially expect the unexpected so that business operations are not brought to a complete halt. A BCP looks at the continuity of the entire organization. Do you have a way to get HR, manufacturing, and sales and support functionally up and running so the company can continue to make money right after a disaster (Lindros, 2013) The plan should be created by the CIO. The CIO possesses the requisite knowledge of an organization to implement a BCP. IT plays a large role in the BCP because many of an organizations critical components operate via a computing system that is maintained by the IT infrastructure. The IT team in the organization needs to provide input into the creation, testing, the eventual implementation, and updating of the BCP. The IT team will be relied upon to provide details as to what infrastructure is necessary to maintain critical components that will allow the organization to continue operations.

6. Explain what it means to say that the “IT Strategic Plan is aligned to the business Strategic Plan.”

The alignment of the business strategic plan with the IT strategic plan means that the ITSP and BSP are working in concert with one another to achieve the stated vision and strategy of the organization. Both plans create a check and balance between one another to ensure that there is no loss in productivity, costs are kept in line, and efforts aren't being duplicated. When both plans are in sync, the mission of the organization is achieved. The alignment between BSP and ITSP is a dimension which comprises the following elements: synergy of business' functions, adjustment of available technologies, strategic management, competitive intelligence and business intelligence (Rezende, 2002)

7. Explain why the IT architecture is important to the IT Steering Committee and how they could use it.

IT architecture is important to the IT Steering Committee because the IT architecture serves as the broad basis for the deployment of an IT product. And this component is of vital importance to the IT Steering Committee because the committee is responsible for overseeing administrative control over all IT projects and assessing prioritization to meet the stated goals of the organization.

The IT Steering Committee can use IT architecture as a framework to establish the priority of IT projects within an organization. The IT architecture also serves as a way for the Steering Committee to consolidate projects and assets.

8. List and explain three reasons a Chief Information Officer (CIO) might outsource a project at a greater cost to the company.

Three reasons a CIO might outsource a project at a greater cost to the company are the expedient delivery of a product, attaining persons with specialized skills, and attaining personnel for a brief period of time.

A CIO might outsource to a company in order to meet a short or upcoming delivery to a company that specializes in a particular area, which means the company hired could already have the supporting software, knowledge base and infrastructure to support a short deliverable. Another reason to outsource is to get employees with a specialized skill set. If there is an emerging technology that not many engineers have experience in, it may be too difficult to find and hire said person, a solution would be to find a company that already has employees with that skill set in place. The third reason is if a CIO needs a person or persons on a temporary basis. If there's a technology that doesn't fit within the wheelhouse of the organization and a deliverable is deemed as temporary or developmental, it may be beneficial to outsource work to a company that has experience in a particular area with the premise of the employment being for a predefined period of time. This approach cuts down on training time as well.

9. The CIO is responsible for the business rules or requirements that generate a new system or changes to the existing system. How is his/her role responsible for these changes?

The CIO has many tasks and among them is being responsible for the business rules or requirements that generate a new system or changes to the existing system. The CIO is in a unique position to be made aware of all development efforts and IT priorities. The CIO interprets business needs, communicate to all stakeholders, and deliver pertinent information to the necessary parties at the necessary time (Scheuerman, 2011). One of the roles of the CIO is to preside over the governance body and make the suggestions on IT strategy and draft prioritizations as well as new strategies and changes to existing strategies.

10. What is change management and how does it relate to the IT organization?

Change management is the systematic approach to dealing with change both from the perspective of an organization and the individual (Rouse, 2014). Change management relates to the IT organization because it includes planning for a change, managing the change and reinforcing the change as it pertains to IT systems. Some items that undergo change management within an IT organization are the decision to upgrade hardware, software, organizational structure, or roles of IT personnel. The decision to upgrade all employee workstations from Windows 7 to Windows 10 as well as adding a new help desk tool for internal IT issues; both would undergo the change management process.

REFERENCES:

Lindros, K. (2013, November 14). How to Create an Effective Business Continuity Plan. Retrieved October 11, 2015, from http://www.cio.com/article/2381021/best-practices/how-to-create-an-effective-business-continuity-plan.html

Pinto, J. (2010). Project Selection and Portfolio Management. In Project management: Achieving competitive advantage (Second ed., p. 9). Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Pearson/Prentice Hall.

Rezende, Denis A.; ABREU, Aline F. de. Information Technology and Business Strategies Alignment - A Model for its sustainabilityand analysis of the big Brazilian companies' practices. IRMA 2002 - Information Resources Management Association InternationalConference, Seattle – USA, May 19-22, 2002.

Rouse, M. (214, April 26). What is change management? - Definition from WhatIs.com. Retrieved October 11, 2015, from http://searchcio.techtarget.com/definition/change-management

Scheuerman, M. (2011, February 8). Just What is the CIO's Role? Retrieved September 14, 2015, from http://www.cioupdate.com/insights/article.php/3924041/Just-What-is-the-CIO146s-Role.htm

What are the Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC) phases? (n.d.). Retrieved October 11, 2015, from http://istqbexamcertification.com/what-are-the-software-development-life-cycle-sdlc-phases/

Zhu, P. (2012, October 20). Five steps to prioritizing IT projects - Enterprise CIO Forum. Retrieved October 11, 2015, from http://www.enterprisecioforum.com/five-steps-prioritizing-it-projects/

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