Planning: Project Identification, Project Management And Requirements Analysis

Question 1

What is a project?

Answer 1

Project is a set of activities with a specified beginning and end point intended to create a system that brings value to the business

Question 2

What is project management?

Answer 2

The process of planning and controlling an IS project within a specified time and budget

Question 3

What are project managers?

Answer 3

The monitor and control all tasks and roles that need to be coordinated

Question 4

How is the project identified ?

Answer 4

• Projects are driven by business needs
• Identified by business people
• Identified by IT people
• Both above.

The project sponsor is a business person that believes in the system and wants to see it succeed. Also, has the authority to move the project forward.

Question 5

What are the business values?

Answer 5

• Tangible: 2% reduction in operating cost.
• Intangible: Improved customer service
• Imperative: Millennium bug y2k.

Question 6

What questions arises in the feasibility analysis?

Answer 6

• Is this project feasible?
• What are the risks?
• Can these risk be overcome?

Question 7

Technical Feasibility. Can we build it?

Answer 7

Functional: are analysts familiar with this portion of the business?

Technical: Is this new or unfamiliar technology?

Scale: Is the project of a manageable size?

Compatibility: will there be many components to integrate?

Question 8

Economic Feasibility. Should we build it? AKA Cost-Benefit analysis

Answer 8

Identify and assign value to costs and the benefits

Determine the cash flow

Determine the value using :

• Net present value (NPV)
• Return on investment (ROI)
• Break-even point analysis

Question 9

Organizational Feasibility. Will they use it?

Answer 9

Will the users accept the system?

Is the project strategically aligned with the business?

Is there an obvious senior project champion(s)?

Have all stakeholders been identified and involved?

Is the management pre-disposed to adopting a new system

Question 10

Describe the project selection.

Answer 10

The projects are approved, declined or delayed based on value added vs risk.

The project portfolio management goals are to maximize cost/benefit ratio and maintain an optimal mix of projects based on risk-size, cost and length.

Question 11

What are the project management tools (Work planes) ?

Answer 11

Work breakdown structures (WBS): a hierarchy of tasks identifying duration, status dependencies

Gantt chart: horizontal bar chart that shows the WBS graphically

PERT chart: describes tasks and status

Question 12

How is the project effort estimated?

Answer 12

Estimation involves trade-offs between Functionality/Quality, time and cost.

      F/Q
        /\
      /    \ 
    /        \
T/\_\_\_\_\_ \ C

Question 13

How is managed the work plan?

Answer 13

In waterfall, the work plan is usually a sequential list of tasks needed to complete in a project.

In agile, the work plan is determined by the backlog.

Also, is an essential part of planning as it determines the skills, numbers and timing of people.

Question 14

Briefly describe the techniques to manage the project scope.

Answer 14

Identify all requirements at the
outset (!!!)

Allow only those changes deemed absolutely necessary

Carefully examine the impact of suggested changes

Delay some changes for “future enhancements”

Time boxing

Question 15

Why analysis of requirements is a critical step in the SDLC?

Answer 15

More than 50% of system failures are due to problems with requirements.

It’s usually very hard for customers/users to describe the requirements of a new system.

However, the changes can be made easily in this stage.

Question 16

What is a requirement? What types of requirement are? What is its purpose?

Answer 16

A requirement is a statement of what the system must do or characteristic it must have. Also, it evolves into a technical description of how the system will be built.

There are to types, which together define the scope of the system:

• Functional: related to a process or data FRs
• Non-fuctional related ro a performance or usability

It’s purpose is to convert high level business requirements into a detailed requirements that can be used as input for developing the system.

Question 17

How to determine a requirement?

Answer 17

Best determined by systems analysts
and business people together

Common techniques include:

• Interviews, questionnaires and/or observation
• Joint application development (JAD)
• Document analysis

Question 18

What are the challenges?

Answer 18

Analyst may not have access to the correct users

Requirements specifications may be inadequate

Some requirements may not be known in the beginning

Verifying and validating requirements can be difficult

Question 19

What are the requirement gathering techniques?

Answer 19

• Interviews
• JAD: Joint Application Development
• Questionnaires
• Document Analysis
• Observation

Question 20

Describe what interviews are?

Answer 20

It’s the most popular method. Selected people attend the interview and a schedule is created.
There are open-ended, closed-ended and probing questions. And there is a follow up after the interview.

Question 21

Describe what JAD is?

Answer 21

Join user-analyst meeting hosted by a facilitator. Meetings can be held electronically and anonymously. Sessions require careful planning to be successful.

Question 22

Describe what questionnaires are?

Answer 22

It’s a set of written questions used to obtain information from individuals. Paper based or electronic.
Used when designing for a system with external users. And there is a large number of users.

Question 23

Describe what document analysis is?

Answer 23

It provides information about the as-is system. Review technical documents such as form and reports.

Question 24

Describe what observation is?

Answer 24

Check validity of information gathered in other ways. Workers tend to be carefil when watched.

Question 25

What is a system proposal?

Answer 25

It combines all the material created in planning and analysis phases such as work plan, feasibility analysis, requirement definitions.