Sadtakehometest

1.
A real-estate group in the federal government cosponsored a data warehou

se with the IT department. A formal proposal was written by IT in which costs we
re estimated at $800,000, the project duration was estimated to be eight months,
and the responsibility for funding was defined as the business units. The IT dep
artment proceeded with the project before it even knew if the project had been a
ccepted. The project actually lasted two years because requirements gathering to
ok nine months instead of one and a half, the planned user base grew from 200 to
2,500, and the approval process to buy technology for the project took a year.
Three weeks prior to technical delivery, the IT director canceled the project. T
his failed endeavor cost the organization and taxpayers $2.5 million.
Question:
a.
Why did this system fail? Why would a company spend money and time on a
project and then cancel it? What could have been done to prevent this?
2.
Suppose you are a project manager using a waterfall developmentbased meth
odology on a large and complex project. Your manager has just read the latest ar
ticle in Computerworld that advocates replacing this methodology with prototypin
g and comes to your office requesting you to switch.
Question:
a.
What do you say?
3.
Suppose you are an analyst for the Roanoke Software Consulting Company (
RSCC), a large consulting firm with offices around the world. The company wants
to build a new knowledge management system that can identify and track the exper
tise of individual consultants anywhere in the world based on their education an
d the various consulting projects on which they have worked. Assume that this is
a new idea that has never before been attempted in RSCC or elsewhere. RSCC has
an international network, but the offices in each country may use somewhat diffe
rent hardware and software. RSCC management wants the system up and running with
in a year.
Question:
1.
What type of methodology would you recommend
RSCC use? Why?
4.
Suppose you decide to become an analyst after you graduate. What type of
analyst would you most prefer to be? What type of courses should you take befor
e you graduate? What type of summer job or internship should you seek?
Question:
1. Develop a short plan that describes how you will prepare for your career as a
n analyst.
5.
Barbara Singleton, manager of western regional sales at the WAMAP Compan
y, requested that the IS department develop a sales force management and trackin
g system that would enable her to better monitor the performance of her sales st
aff. Unfortunately, due to the massive backlog of work facing the IS department,
her request was given a low priority. After six months of inaction by the IS de
partment, Barbara decided to take matters into her own hands. Based on the advic
e of friends, Barbara purchased a PC and simple database software and constructe
d a sales force management and tracking system on her own. Although Barbaras syst
em has been completed for about six weeks, it still has many features that do not
work correctly, and some functions are full of errors. Barbaras assistant is so m
istrustful of the system that she has secretly gone back to using her old
paper-based system, since it is much more reliable. Over dinner one evening, Bar
bara complained to a systems analyst friend, I dont know what went wrong with this
project. It seemed pretty simple to me. Those IS guys wanted me to follow this
elaborate set of steps and tasks, but I didnt think all that really applied to a
PC-based system. I just thought I could build this system and tweak it around un
til I got what I wanted without all the fuss and bother of the methodology the I
S guys were pushing. I mean, doesnt that just apply to their big, expensive syste
ms?
Assuming you are Barbaras systems analyst friend, how would you respond to her co
mplaint?
6.
Marcus Weber, IS project manager at ICAN Mutual Insurance Co., is review
ing the staffing arrangements for his next major project, the development of an
expert system-based underwriters assistant. This new system will involve a whole
new way for the underwriters to perform
their tasks. The underwriters assistant system will function as sort of an under
writing supervisor, reviewing key elements of each application, checking for con
sistency in the underwriters decisions, and ensuring that no critical factors hav
e been overlooked. The goal of the new system is to improve the quality of the u
nderwriters decisions and to improve underwriter productivity. It is expected tha
t the new system will substantially change the way the underwriting staff do the
ir jobs.
Marcus is dismayed to learn that due to budget constraints, he must choose betwe
en one of two available staff members. Barry Filmore has had considerable experi
ence and training in individual and organizational behavior. Barry has worked on
several other projects in which the end users had to make significant adjustmen
ts to the new system, and Barry seems to have a knack for anticipating problems
and smoothing the transition to a new work environment. Marcus had hoped to have
Barrys involvement in this project. Marcuss other potential staff member is Kim D
anville. Prior to joining ICAN Mutual, Kim had considerable work experience with
the expert system technologies
that ICAN has chosen for this expert system project.Marcus was counting on Kim t
o help integrate
the new expert system technology into ICANs systems environment, and also to prov
ide on-the-job training and insights to the other developers on this team.
Given that Marcuss budget will only permit him to add Barry or Kim to this projec
t team, but not both, what choice do you recommend for him? Justify your answer.

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1.

A real-estate group in the federal government cosponsored a data warehou

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