System Development and Project Management - Essay Example

System Development and Project Management Information processing is a major societal activity. It has become an important resource of all walks of life today. Whether it is industry, commerce, defense, banking, education, economics or politics. Information is needed everywhere. A significant part of an individual working and personal time is spent in recording, searching and absorbing information. Generally 70% to 80% of a typical executive’s time is spent on the processing and communication of information. The exponential growth of information all around makes it necessary that information is probably collected, stored and retrieved in various fields so that it could be usefully exploited where and when needed. We are interested in a system development, which can manage projects within the organisation. Organizations felt the need of system development as the requirements increases. First of all they have to depute a team leader or manager who plans, manage and controls the development process of the project. The project manager has to understand the requirements of the client and then determine the scope of the project. At the same time a system development team has to be created by those employees who have requisite qualifications and knowledge. The team should be lead by dynamic, able leader who can control and manage the project. Normally due to lengthy projects having complex activities and scarce resources, development team feels demotivated. Employees having negative attitudes also create problems in the team results in lower productivity. Unproductive work environment, inefficient project management styles, lack of stakeholders’ interest and commitment of senior management team results in demotivated team, low level of productivity, delay in projects and subsequently failure of projects. So before forming a system development team we have to analyze on the above aspects first then only we can move forward to develop a system to manage projects. Previously software development consists of a programmer writing codes to solve a problem or automate a procedure. Nowadays systems are so big and complex that team of architects, analysts, programmers, testers and users must work together to create the millions of lines of custom written codes that drive our enterprises. To manage the system a number of system development life cycles (SDLC) models or processes have been created. These process models provide an approach that decides the path of software development from the conceptualization of the projects to its formal termination. It defines a structured approach to sequence the phases and identify the requirements of each phase in SDLC. Generally a number of benefits which can be derived by applying specific processes are following: Repeatability of components, Manageability of projects, Measurability of project factors, Clarity of work products and provision of a sense of completion of phases which psychologically motivates developer to perform better and better. There are different processes such as Waterfall model, Prototyping model, Incremental model and spiral model. Each process has its own specifications and suitability according to the project. Selecting an appropriate process model is crucial because it can provide a basic framework to initiate and carry out a project to its conclusion. It also defines the path for various project related activities such as planning, scheduling, resource allocation, risk management and cost and effort estimation. These activities ensure smooth progress of a project within the allocated time and ensure maintenance of quality and measurability throughout the project. To select a process model that is suitable to a project, the following criteria can be considered: Business goals of the organisation, Expected size of the project, Client and project requirement, Availability of funds and development staff and Risk perceived in the project. Wrong selection of process model may results in project delays or failure. Assigning unrealistic deadlines, wrong estimations, unidentified, partially identified or unplanned risks may pose a threat to success of a project. Hurried and unstructured activities of a project lead to delay or failure. So in developing a system we must take care of properly identified activities, sequenced and properly assigned roles and responsibilities to the various team members. In developing a system software engineering, methodologies have major role to play. Methodology is a codified set of practices that may be repeatedly carryout to produce software. There are two types of methodologies i.e. Structured and object oriented. Structured system analysis and design methodologies (SSADM) are based on Waterfall model represents systematic development and rigorous documentation. It involves the application of a sequence of analysis, documentation and design task concerned with: analysis of current system, outline business specifications, detail business specifications, logical data design, logical process design and physical design. The three most important techniques that are used in SSADM are logical data modeling, data flowing modeling and entity behaviour modeling. Object oriented methodologies consist of object-oriented programming (OOP) having message passing programming capabilities. The distinction between the different styles occurs because different programming languages emphasize different aspects of object-oriented facilities. Presently the requirements are changing and most of the consumers are beginning to demand complaint based UML modeling tools. It is an object oriented model chosen on the basis for the notations and semantics in real time perspective because it is fast becoming an industry standard and support most of the methodologies. It offers all major object oriented techniques including cases, class diagram and sequence diagram. Similarly participatory design is also an approach, which places a premium on the active involvement of workplace practitioners in design and decision-making processes. CASE (computer aided software engineering) is also one of the efficient tools, which is being currently used in managing projects. It controls the development of a system especially for large and complex projects. During the development of the projects problems like project scope can change towards the end of the project life cycle, ill-defined scope or ambiguity regarding the function and performance may occur, which results in project delay or uselessness of the project. So at the very initial level of the projects scope should be defined properly. Clarity of the background characteristics of the user of the final product must be clearly defined and known. Identifying appropriate tools and technologies, which is changing very rapidly, is the prerequisite for successful project management. Most of the projects generally do not integrate within the existing system in the same or different domain and this limits the application of the software and reduces the shelf life of the project. The key to success of a system is interoperability. Making customers part of the process (through market analysis and focus group) system development is more likely to meet the real world requirements. An organized approach to system development encourages code and design reuse reduces cost and improves quality. Quality products tend to improve the corporations image, providing a competitive advantage in the market place. References: 1. Avison, D. E, Fitzgerald G. (1995) Information system development: Methodologies, techniques & tools, McGraw-hill. 2. Hemphrey, W.S. (1989). Managing Software Process. Addison- Wesley 3. Jackson, M.C. (1991). System Methodology for Management Sciences, Plenum Press. 4. Senge, P. (1995). The Fifth Discipline- The Art and the Practice of Learning Organization. Random House. 5. Accessed on 04.06.06. Read More