WEEK 2 Material GRASPED!!!!

*SHEESH* Studying the material week 2 felt almost like torturing myself to the maximum. Week 2 lecture told us to read chapter 2 and 3, study guide and do the online quiz. To go through all of them needed a lot of motivation and determination from my inner side and thankfully somehow i did it.

Week 2 material was just full of key terms that i will memorize properly as the semester progresses. Firstly the key terms i learnt were System development lifecycle (SDLC), and Project. SDLC involves the entire process of building, deploying, using & updating an information system. Project is a planned undertaking that has a beginning & an end & that produces a desired result or product.

SDLC is divided into Phases. A SDLC usually has 5 phases:

1. Project planning activities: a group of activities that plan, organize & schedule the project.
2. Analysis: a group of activities which focus on understanding business problem that needs to be solved & on defining the business requirements
3. Design activities: use requirements defined earlier to develop the program structure & algorithms for new system.
4. Implementation activities: include programming, testing & installing the system for business users.
5. Support phase: activities needed to upgrade & maintain system.

The next important key term is System methodology. Basically this concept is about providing comprehensive guidelines to follow for completing every activity in the SDLC including specific models, tools & techniques. Models are representations of an important aspect of the real world. E.g. of models are: Flowcharts, Data-Flow Diagrams, Entity Relationship Diagram, Structure Chart, Use Case diagram, pert chart, gant chart, financial analysis, etc.

Tools are software supports that help create models or other components required in the project. Example of tools: project management application, word processor, code generator tool, database management application, CASE, IDE, etc.

Techniques is a collection of guidelines that help an analyst complete a system development activity or task. Examples are: data modeling techniques, object oriented analysis & design techniques, project management techniques, etc.

And then came the topic on 2 approaches to System Development:

1) Structured approach: which uses structured analysis, structured design and structured programming technique. It also has a modified methodology called information engineering which deal with refining the process.

2)Object oriented approach: which view an information system as collection of interacting objects that work together to accomplish tasks

Then i learnt about the new system methodologies being used namely: Unified process, Extreme programming, Scrum, Spiral Model and Agile Modeling.

Last major concept of week 2 were based on Project Mangement. Project Management "is defined as the organizing & directing other people to achieve a planned result within a predetermined schedule". Every project has a Project Manager who has a set of internal and external repsonsibilities that are mentioned below:

Internal Responsibilities:

1. Identify project tasks & build work breakdown structure
2. develop project schedules
3. recruit & train team members
4. Assign tasks to team members
5. Assess project risks
6. Monitor & control project deliverables & milestones
7. Verify quality of project deliverables

External responsibilites:

1. Report project status & progress
2. Work directly with client & other stakeholders
3. Identify resource needs & obtain resources
4. Establish good working relationship

Project Managers just needs to have good communication, planning & organizing skills with a good know-how on technology but doesn't need to be a very technical person. They are in high demand in the I.T industry since there are many projects being taken place all the time. Now i will briefly tell the major reasons behind project failure and success.

Reasons for Project Failure:

• Incomplete/ changing requirements
• limited user involvement
• lack of executive support
• lack of technical support
• poor project planning
• lack of required resources
• unclear objectives

Reasons for Project Success:

• Clear system requirements definitions
• Substantial user involvement
• Support from upper management
• thorough & detailed project plans
• realistic work schedules & milestones

Project Managers life has been made easy nowadays with this software called Microsoft Project and its available at the back of the SJB textbook. It generates project schedules quickly, accurately and neatly!!

A Project Manager needs to also conduct a project feasibility to identify all potential risks that could jeopardize the success of the project. Project Feasibility includes methods such as: Risk management, organizational & cultural feasibility, technological feasibility, schedule feasibility, resource feasibility and economic feasibility.

Once this step is done project manager can proceed to step of staffing the project, i.e. finding right people with correct skills & managing them throughout the project and then finally launching the project.

Thus this ends my idea on week 2 material..... :)