Steps to Project Completion

Steps to Project Completion Problem Definition: The current system needs to be analysed to determine why a new system is needed for the current system. The analysist needs to discover what is needed to be added and why it is needed, this needs to be done as the developer will be unable to produce the needed product without this information, or they might develop something that is incompatible with the current system or add features that simply shouldnt be there are not needed. The analyst needs to define specifically what is wrong and what needs to happen, to do this there are several methods: One on One interviews, Mass surveys and simple observation of the current systems. Feasibility Study: Once the analyst is confident that they have discovered the problems and found all they need to know, then they need to determine whether or not it is feasible to actually take action to develop the product or not. Average questions that are asked during this stage are questions about the Cost, the possible Budget, will there be enough Time, does the company have the necessary Skills to develop it, does the company have the necessary Hardware to develop the product, do they have the needed Software to run the product and how much it would cost, will there need to be Training to run the program once made and would it be Technically possible to create. Systems Investigation: Once the management has listened to any alternate solutions that might be provided by the System Analyst and have decided to either commission the new product to be developed, or to make changes to a pre-existing product/system. During this phase, a very detailed investigation will be carried out to understand the current system and the proposed new system. With the current system, the analyst and developers will need to know how staff/ customers interact with it, how other systems interact with the current system, what is good about the current system and what could cause problems with the current system. With the new system, the analyst and developers will need to know what the new system/product needs to be able to do, how it is going to do this, what people want from it and how it should be incorporated into the system. To do this, the analysist would perform Face-to-Face Interviews with potential users of the system to see what they would like, perform obs ervation how users use the current systems to try to create a way to seamlessly integrate the new product into the current system so the users can use it with efficiency. Systems Design:Once the project manager and the client have agreed upon the requirements (Requirements Specifications) is becomes the time to define the project for its last few stages before the project enters development. This phase is called the Design phase, during this phase the project is designed in detail to ensure that the product will meet the users requirements. This involves Project Planning, System Requirements Specifications, the Data Dictionary and the Testing Documentation. Project Planning: This is about handling staff associated with the production of the product: how many are involved, where and when they are needed for the project. It would also include information about what resources they might need: computers, office spaces, soldering kits etc. it would also include the planning tools, which are used in this section such as Gantt Charts, Critical Path Analysis (CPA) and any Project Management Software. System Requirement Specification: This document will contain information such as the capture methods used to gather data for the system, any of the inputted data that goes into the system, any data that is outputted from the system, how the data is processed through the system. In addition, a record of the file structure for the data storage, how the UI (User Interface) is designed, how it interacts with the OS (Operating System) being used and the hardware that is going to be used on the new system. Data Dictionary: This defines Tables, fields, records and relationships, along with the constants, variables and data structures. As well as any validation that is required in the system along with any query structures. Testing Documentation: From the gathered information from the analysts, the developers will know what is expected of the final product; from this, they will be able to develop a Test Plan for the key parts of the product once developed, and more tests can apply later. Requirements Analysis and Specification: In this section, the developers would need to know all of the requirements that is needed in the final product and why. This includes what the final project should be what it should do, how it should do it and a business case stating whether it could be done on a budget with details stating how much it should cost. It also includes whether or not it is recommended to pursue this course of action or if it would be more beneficial to follow another course of action. System Development Testing: During this stage, the main development of the product takes place using the previously acquired information to correctly design the product. Normally, if possible, the project would be separated amongst several people or teams of people to allow for them to each work on parts of the project individually to help speed up the development. Once a functional version of the product is ready, the developers will run the product through a series of tests that have been made in the prior test plan document. By using this Test Plan, the development team can learn what works, what does not and what might need to be done to improve, refine or fix any issues that could be causing problems. System Implementation: This is when the product is implemented into the main system; to do this the developers will have previously designed to work with the main system. This is also when the product is put out for sale and is distributed to the client and other potential buyers or clients. System Maintenance: This continues for the lifetime of the product, any Technical Documentation that has been created previously including anything like the Test Log, Data Dictionary and the Project Planning for technicians to perform maintenance as needed. This will allow technicians to see what components of the product do what and use this to help solve any issues that might arise. Review Evaluation: Once everything is complete the Project manager will review how well the overall development of the product, see where things might have gone wrong or see what was handled better than other parts. From this review they will be able to see how well certain parts of the process and know what needs to be improved.

The Start of Islam Essay -- Islam Muslim Religion

The Start of Islam   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Out of the many interesting religions of the Far East Islam has quite a uniqueness to it. The name, Islam stems from the word â€Å"salam,† that means peace. The word â€Å"Muslim,† which means a follower of Islam, refers to a person who submits him or her self to the will of God. Many religious experts believe that the prophet Muhammad founded Islam in the year 622 CE. Muhammad was believed to have lived from 570-632 CE. This particular religion started when the angel Jibreel read the first revelation to Muhammad. We know already that the followers of Islam are called Muslims. The Muslims believe in the â€Å"one true God,† which they call Allah.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Muhammad was born in the year 570 CE. When he was growing up, he was sent into the desert in order for a roster family to raise him. The young Muhammad was orphaned when he was 6 years old but brought up by his uncle. While Muhammad was young, he worked mostly as a shepherd. Later on in his youth, he was given the job of being a camel driver on the trade routes between Syria and Arabia. Throughout his travel, he meat many people of different religious beliefs. Muhammad was able to observe members of Christianity, Pagan, and Judaism religions. After Muhammad married, there was more time for meditation for him. Supposedly, at or around the age of forty, the angel Gabriel (Jibreel) visited him while he was in Mecca. From then on he believed that he had been ordained a prophet by Gabriel, and that his concern was co...

Ruined Maid and To His Coy Mistress Essay -- Love Relationships Thomas

Ruined Maid and To His Coy Mistress Both the â€Å"Ruined Maid† and â€Å"To His Coy Mistress† provide us with disturbing images / pictures of love, sex and relationships as I am about to explain. The â€Å"Ruined Maid† was written by Thomas Hardy in 1866, during the time when women didn’t have sex before marriage and they were thrown out of their village for being â€Å"ruined†. The public at that point in history had a very strict view of sex and marriage. They thought that women in particular should never have sex before marriage and they should have everything taken off them for being â€Å"ruined†. They were looked upon as a disgrace to society. The â€Å"Ruined Maid† provides us with disturbing images and pictures of love and relationships because the poem is about a woman who has become â€Å"ruined† which means that she’s had sex before marriage. She’s turned the meaning of this into a good thing while most people thought that it was a bad thing because it meant that the woman had no self-respect and that they were looked upon as prostitutes in a sense. The poem starts with Melia and a...

Jones Blair Case Study Essay

Jones †¢ Blair is a company that produces and sells architectural paint it also sell paint sundries which include paintbrushes and rollers. It caters to over 50 countries which are divided into two sectors the DFW area and the non-DFW area. Of the two the DFW area has been proven to be the most successful area for the company. In 1999 the company made 80 million in sales and 60% of this was contributed by the DFW area. There are two segments within the company’s main sales attributes and these are between the do it yourself market and the professional market. With regards to the professional market in the DFW area this accounted for 70% of sales In the non-DFW area 70% of sales were made through the do-it-yourself market. During a meeting the company discussed the problem of where and how to carry out marketing efforts. They were left with four options: 1) Cut the price by 20%. 2) Hire one additional sales rep. 3) Spend additional $350,000 on advertising. 4) Stay the same. A detailed look into each option. 1) Cut the price by 20%. The shopper research programme indicated that dealers will back off the brand when the customer appears price sensitive. By cutting the price by 20% this will allow the company to be on par with national brands. The current contribution margin for the company is 35% if the price was to be cut by 20% then the new contribution margin would be reduced to: 35% – 20% = 15% with the current sale volume being $12 million and a price cut of 20% the sales would have to increase significantly for the price cut to be effective. According to Barrett â€Å"we are now the highest price paint in our service area† the fact that the company still has increasing sales despite being the highest cost brand of all the competitors this shows that the company is being perceived as giving high quality goods where people don’t mind about paying extra for their brand. If the company was to cut the price by 20% this may leave doubts in peoples minds about whether or not the brand is actually as high quality as they had thought. The fact that they can get away with charging a higher price for their brand they should stick with it. 2) Hire one additional sales rep. Currently the company has 8 sales reps which are responsible for the following tasks: Monitoring inventories. Taking orders. Assisting in store display. Coordinating cooperative advertising programmes. A survey indicated that the sales reps were very well liked, helpful, professional and knowledgeable with regards to paint. These reps are paid a salary and also a 1% commission. The cost of hiring an additional sales rep would be $60,000 a year, this is excluding commission. The vice president feels that the current sales reps aren’t aggressive enough and the fact that only 5 new accounts were made in the last 5 years something needs to be done. Only 16% of the accounts come from the non-DFW area so maybe a focus needs to be placed onto this area. If this was to be done, an additional sales rep be assigned to the non-DFW area this could lead to a significant increase in sales. 3) Spend additional $350,000 on advertising. The vice president of advertising believes that there is a need for an awareness level of 30% among do-it-yourselfers to affect their sales. An emphasis on television coverage will reach non-DFW consumers in 15 countries. Research shows that ads affect the buying process Since most consumers consider the store before the actual brand maybe the advertising should be focused more-so on corporate ads rather than brand ads. The company spends 3% of its net sales on advertising therefore the current cost of advertising is: 3% of 12 million = 360000 with an additional spend of $350000 on advertising the total cost of advertising would be: 360000+ 350000= $710,000. This would almost double the cost of advertising and since there’s an emphasis on television this could prove to be a risky option, especially since brand awareness isn’t the main attribution to buyer behaviour. Another factor to consider is the fact that 75% of the audience of the advert aren’t buying paint. 4) Stay the same. The final option for the company would be to keep everything the same which is advised by the vice president of finance. Since the company is continuing to make profit he feels that if you were to take the other options that there would have to be a significant increase in the sales volume which may not be a result. Although most of the options offer different benefits and of course different drawbacks we don’t think there is an outright option to choose. With regards to the cut in price of 20% we don’t believe this option should be chosen. The fact that the company is allowed to charge the higher price and is perceived as being a high quality brand why should they risk losing all of this by accepting the price cut. The next option with regards to hiring an additional sales rep we feel that the fact that they have 8 sales reps already would the addition of another really make a significant impact on sales. Rather than focusing on hiring a new one we believe that if they focused more-so and possibly retraining their current sales reps this could prove to be more effective. The fact that the sales reps are already considered highly by the customers is a bonus. If more effort was put into them and how they could improve efficiency then this could be worthwhile to the company. The company could divide up the sales reps into the necessary markets and possibly by offering them incentives this could increase their performance. By hiring an additional sales rep doesn’t necessarily promise a change in sales. With regards to an increase of advertising spending of $350,000 we wouldn’t recommend this option. As the company wants to put an emphasis on television and the fact that 75% of the audience don’t buy paint, the 25% of the audience that do doesn’t seem like a big enough market coverage to invest such a lot of money into. Instead we feel they should look into other marketing options. The fact that with regards to buyer behaviour that customers choose the store first before the brand maybe the company should look into advertising within the actual stores. They could look into what stores are proven to be more popular and focus advertising attention on these. With the last option as staying the same although the company is continuing to make profits we feel like this could be the easy option. Rather than just being content with what is currently happening with the business they should focus on improving the business. The fact is that more and more competitors may enter the market or even people may change their buying behaviour but ultimately the company should try and always be a brand considered.