project

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New Castle County Library system

Kriti Gangadhara

Neha Bandaru

Wilmington University

IST 7020 Analysis, Modeling and Design

Professor: Harold Lowe

Date: 10/03/2016

Table of Contents

1.Executive Summary 3

1.1.Issue 3

1.2.Anticipated Outcomes 3

1.3.Recommendation 3

1.4.Justification 4

2.Business Case Analysis Team 4

3.Problem Definition 5

3.1.Problem Statement 5

3.2.Organizational Impact 5

3.3.Technology Migration 5

3.4.Feasibility 6

4.Project Overview 7

4.1.Project Description 7

4.2.Goals and Objectives 7

4.3.Project Performance 7

4.4.Project Assumptions 10

4.5.Project Constraints 10

4.6.Major Project Milestones 11

5.Cost Benefit Analysis 11

6.Approvals 12

Executive Summary

Usually, this section is completed last after all other sections of the business case have been written. This is because the executive summary is exactly that, a summary of the detail that is provided in subsequent sections of the document. This section should provide general information on the issues surrounding the business problem and the proposed project or initiative created to address it.

1. Issue

We are updating the existing software for New castle county Library book transactions. The issue with the existing software is that, people are not able to place hold on the books that they were willing to borrow from the library.

1. Anticipated Outcomes

After the new feature is developed, people will be able to put hold on the books they want to borrow.

We are including a feature where in, if a particular book is not available in the NCC library, it can search in the neighboring county libraries.

Once the book is tracked, it will be shipped to the NCC library and put on hold.

The person who puts the book on hold will have 10 days within which he could visit the library and collect it.

If the book is not collected within 10 days, the hold placed on the book will be removed.

1. Recommendation

To achieve the desired results, we are following the below approach in our project:

The requirements are obtained from the client by the system analyst and conveyed to the programming team.

Once the Requirements are clear, the development starts in the development instance. This is tested in the testing environment where in dummy data is used.

Once the tested prototype is presented to the client, if it is approved, the system is migrated to the production. If not, further development is carried out in order to satisfy the client’s requirements.

Once the system is migrated to the production, it is supported there by the support team in order to make sure the system is stable. And thus signing off the project from the client.

1. Justification

This project makes it easier to track the transactions of the books, and also to make sure the person who puts hold on a book first will be made available of the book.

Also, the added feature of bringing the book from the neighboring county libraries helps to provide an excellent service for the people who depend on the libraries for the resources. Thus Information system playing a role in making the life easier.

Business Case Analysis Team

Team structure:

System Analyst: Kriti Gangadhar

The responsibility of a Business analyst in a project is to co-ordinate with the Customer, understand their requirements and convey it to the technical team.

Lead Programmer: Neha Bandaru.

The responsibility of the programmer is to understand the functional requirements, analyze and design the plan in which the technical team would like to proceed with the development of the system.

Problem Definition

1. Problem Statement

1. Organizational Impact

According to the proposed project, there will be one extra role that needs to be added in the library management. This should be a person who takes care of the shipment of the books between the libraries. If there is already a person who is taking care of this in the NCC library, then it won’t affect the existing system in anyway.

1. Technology Migration

High-Level Design of the system to be developed:

Develop a database where the details of all the books possessed by the NCC library are stored. If such a database already exists in the legacy system, make sure it is updated.

The system analyst of our team will collect the requirement of the new features to be added in a high level design document. This is the design part of the project.

This document will be passed on to the developer, and a meeting will be held where in the requirements are discussed. System analyst, client (Manager of the Library), the programmer and the project manager will be present in the meeting. This is the analysis part of the project. Here, the team will discuss the approach in which the entire project should be carried out.

Once the requirements are clear, the programming team will start working. It will develop a prototype of the system in a development environment, and test the system with some dummy data. This includes development and testing phase. The unit test cases are documented, where in all the possible risks are applied on the system and tested with the best solution for each defect.

This prototype is presented to the client (Library Manager), if it is approved by the client, the entire system is migrated to the production. This is the Go-Live phase.

Once the system goes live, it is observed for a while (In our case for 30-days), any issues detected in this phase are fixed by the maintenance team. This phase is called post-production, where in the system is supported for a while to see if it is working fine.

Once the system goes stable, it is signed-off from the client and thus bringing us to the end of the project.

1. Feasibility

There are five types of feasibility test that are done before any project is considered. They are:

Technical Feasibility:

All the tools, software packages, and the technical resources required for the project is analyzed and the availability of these resources currently in the organization is compared with the actual resources needed. As far as our project is concerned, we have all the resources already available in the organization. And there is no need to invest in any more resources.

Economic Feasibility:

This is to analyze the costs, benefits of the project. Before any financial advancements are made, this analysis is done and the decision makers will come to a conclusion if the costs and benefits are worth taking up this project development. In our case, the benefits to the organization are considered high from this project.

Legal Feasibility:

The legal requirements are well studied, and there are no conflicts that are to be raised with the proposed IT development for the NCC library.

Operational Feasibility:

This analysis is done to make sure the proposed solution will meet the requirements from the client, in our case, NCC library manager.

Scheduling Feasibility:

This analyzes that the plan does mention the specific deadlines are drafted. Which are more realistic and also benefit both the solution providers and the clients.

Project Overview

The project deals with updating the existing software for New castle county Library book transactions. The issue with the existing software is that, people are not able to place hold on the books that they were willing to borrow from the library.

1. Project Description

We will use agile SDLC, as this is a small project with very few requirements from the client. If there are any requirements, or priorities that the clients are to revisited and reevaluated, that will be considered and the project development will be altered likewise.

1. Goals and Objectives

After the new system is developed, people will be able to put hold on the books they want to borrow.

The system also includes a feature where in, if a particular book is not available in the NCC library, it can search in the neighboring county libraries.

Once the book is tracked, it will be shipped to the NCC library and put on hold.
The person who puts the book on hold will have 10 days within which he could visit the library and collect it.

If the book is not collected within 10 days, the hold placed on the book will be removed.

1. Project Performance

Once the system is developed, it is tested in the testing environment. All the three types of testing, i.e.

Unit testing:

The application developed is divided into smaller units, tested for their functionality. This is called unit testing. Each module is individually scrutinized for proper functionality. Thus making the system more reliable and bug free.

The unit testing involves those components that are uniquely related to the particular unit that is being tested.

In our project, we test the individual requirement provided by the client. Thus, each requirement is not being dependent on the other unit.

Integrated testing:

Integrated testing is a complicated process of testing when compared to the unit testing. Here the testers make sure that the units that are interrelated are maintaining the data integrity. The units are also tested for working in co-ordination with each other.

The sub-components are also tested so that they can verify that they are integrated successfully.

Here, we verify that are no defects in the interfaces and in the units that are integrated with each other. Below are the major tasks that are included in the process of integrated testing.

Tasks:

Prepare the Integration test plan:

Prepare
Review
Rework
Baseline

Prepare the Test cases:

Prepare
Review
Rework
Baseline

Integration Test:

Perform.

System testing : System

During a development phase, when two or more units are ready, they are assembled and integration testing is performed. Once the complete integration is done, then the System Testing is performed.

It is usually performed after the integration testing and before acceptance testing. The main goal of the system testing is to achieve the automation between the dependent components.

There are many testing techniques that are used in this System integrated testing. Few of them are:

Use case testing: Where the different use cases are documented and the testing is done for the data that justifies the use case.

Load testing: Here the system is tested for the high traffic. If the system is able to handle the high traffic and data capacity is more, then we can pass this test.

Volume testing: This is the testing of the capacity of the system, it may be the data capacity or, number of users logging into the system. In other words, the traffic handling capacity of the system is tested.

Graph based testing: The graphs are drawn for understanding the capacity of the system, and the whole system is tested in order to make sure that it satisfies the needs of the NCC library IT department.

Performance testing: The speed of the system, the network congestion of the system is tested in this type of testing process.

The system testing is a tedious task, as there are a number of testing sequences, units and dependencies.

In our project, we test the phases of the development, for example, the hold applied on the book is tested and then the searching of the NCC databases and the neighboring libraries is performed. So, these functionalities are tested in sequences accordingly.

Acceptance testing:

In our project, we have introduced the acceptance testing phase to make sure that the developed system meets all the requirements. Acceptance is a formal testing process with respect to the client’s needs, business processes conducted to verify if the developed system satisfies the acceptance criteria.

Acceptance is performed after the system testing and before releasing the system into the production environment. It is performed by our technical and management team. And also the IT manager of the NCC library needs to monitor the results of this testing. Once this test results are accepted by the NCC library’s IT manager, we can prepare for the go-live phase.

1. Project Assumptions

Below is the list of assumptions that are made in this project:

The requirements and priorities are given by the customer. The project team is made aware of the details of these requirements.

There are different environments provided for development and testing.
Data is migrated from the legacy system.

Data mapping is provided and approved by the client.

Reusable source codes are also provided to the development team.

These are the assumptions done at the beginning of the planning phase of our project. As the project develops phase by phase, the assumption list can be updated.

1. Project Constraints

In every project, there are certain constraints applied on the team. Based on these constraints, the team has to plan the phases of the development process.

Here, in our project, there are certain that are applied. They are:

The number of resources to be used in the team is limited to 3 people, a system analyst, a project manager and the lead programmer.

The billable hours to be logged to the client are 40 hours/week.

The environments provided need to be kept clean without any garbage data.

Every phase of the project needs to be signed off by the client, in order to avoid any misunderstanding and rework.

Once the system testing is done and all the approvals are provided by the different levels of managers at the client side, and the approval from the Quality assurance team, only then the system can be introduced into the production for go-live.

1. Major Project Milestones

There are deadlines for each of the tasks that are included in the project phases.

The major milestones in this project are:

Once the system to be developed is planned and analyzed, the requirement list needs to be approved by the client. This is considered as the basic milestone of the project.

The plan and approach of the project needs to be documented and these documents need to be signed off from the client. This is the second milestone achieved.

The development phase, the testing phase and the release into the production are the major milestones that are to be achieved further in our project.

Every milestone is celebrated when it is achieved as per the plan, meeting the timelines.

Cost Benefit Analysis

Steps to conduct a cost benefit analysis:

Determine costs
Calculate Benefits
Compare Alternatives
Report and Plan action

At the initial stage, after the analysis of the estimated costs for our project, we have come to the following conclusion.

This project estimated cost is: $1, 00,000 including the resources, billing of the employees, etc. It is expected to return an amount of $50,000/year to the organization.

Thus, the payback period is calculated as:

Payback period= initial payment/Annual cash inflow

P= $1, 00,000/$50,000 = 2 years.

The shorter the payback period, the better the business investment.

Average rate of return:

This expresses the profit generated from a project as a percentage of the initial capital cost.

ROI= Investment Revenue- Investment Cost / Investment Cost.

The business brings a constant $50,000 revenue for 5 years. Thus total revenue generated is $250000

ROI= (2, 50,000-1, 00,000)/1, 00,000 = 2.5 or 250%

Approvals

The Statement of Work was submitted to the client manager, in our case, the Library IT department manager, and the document has been signed off and the approvals are provided for the project to proceed further.

References:

https://www.projectmanagement-training.net/category/six-phases/

https://www.projecttimes.com/articles/10-steps-to-creating-a-project-plan.html

http://searchsoftwarequality.techtarget.com/definition/unit-testing

https://www.techopedia.com/definition/24590/system-integration-testing-sit