To do this you will need to confirm that you have sufficient knowledge of investigation, interview and documentation techniques, and the ability to produce a clear statement of business expectations and needs, including critical business requirements.
Your assessment tasks will require you to show you are able to:
- Determine context of business needs and problem
- Gather information
- Confirm system specifications
In order to find a solution for a client’s business problem, it is necessary to fully define the problem in terms of its system boundaries and scope. Objectives and expected outcomes of a proposed solution must be identified and documented, along with the development methodology which is to be used. This documentation must then be submitted to the appropriate person to ensure that its contents are accurate. The skills and knowledge covered in this learning pack are:
- Identify outcomes
- Develop objectives
- Documentation according to organisational guidelines.
An external consultant has recommended the implementation of enhancements to the university’s student management system. The project brief is:
‘to add functionality to the StudentPlus management system to allow student enrolments, student attendance and student marks via the intranet’
The project brief also contains a broad list of the functions the system should support. They are:
- Student self enrolment for classes via internet
- Enrolled classes statement
- List of classes for each teacher
- Entry of student marks
- Entry of student attendance
- Results statement for each student
Figure 1: Context diagram for student plus management system
2: Identify information gathering techniques
One of the key skills in determining solutions to business problems is making sure that you first know what the problem is.
While this seems an obvious statement, many clients are too close to a problem to be able to give you the information that may be essential to your role in a project. You need to be able to find the information that you require.
This blog will show different techniques that can be used to gather information for a project and will help develop your skills in interviewing and active listening.
Activity 2.1: Identify listening techniques
Scenario A
Customer: I would like to say that the computer I bought from your store keeps breaking down.
Vendor: Well, there must be something you’re doing that is not right. You’ve never used a computer before, have you? Don’t worry, you’re not the only one. I’ll see what’s wrong. I find that my customers who don’t have technical backgrounds always have trouble with their computers
Feedback A: The vendor is attacking the customer as a way of avoiding the issue and shirking his responsibilities. He could, instead, ask the customer to explain what goes wrong with the computer.
Scenario B
Client: The machine we hired from your company has been continually breaking down over the past two weeks.
Manager: What do you mean by ’continually’? Or do you mean ’continuously’? There’s a big difference between the two words. One means non-stop and the other means every now and again. Or do you mean ’constantly’?
Feedback B: The manager is avoiding the issue by ’nit-picking’. He did this to try to embarrass and belittle the customer. He was able to tell from the context exactly what the customer was saying but chose not to listen or respond. He could say: ’Tell me about the last time it broke down. How were you using the machine?’
Activity 2.2: Question types
Q: Name as many different types of questions as you can.
A: Following are a range of question types:
- reflective questions
- strategic questions
- open ended and closed questions
- organising questions
- what-if questions
- probing questions
- sorting and sifting questions
- divergent questions
- clarification questions
- devil’s advocate questions
- planning questions
This blog will provide you with the skills and knowledge you need to analyse and document the information that you have gathered about the problem, to identify the requirements of the new system, and to check that this meets the client’s needs.
The blog also includes information on how to analyse and document those requirements to determine the scope and problem or opportunity faced by the business.
Analyse gathered information to identify new system requirements and establish problem specifications.
- Document system requirements and problems.
- Check documentation to ensure it meets client business needs.
- Analyse client requirements to determine project scope, and the problem context or opportunity faced by the business.
- Document the client requirements, project scope, related problems and sources of information.
Activity 3.1: Data flow diagram
Figure 1: Data flow diagram
Q: Which guidelines have not been followed in the above data flow diagram?
A: There are including of:
- Process description must have a verb – appointment diary does not explain what this process does.
- Data flow description must only use a noun – check appointment does not describe the
data that is coming from the data store. - The data store must have a name
- Appointment confirmation data cannot go from the data store directly to the patient, it must go through a process.
- No data goes into the data store – if nothing goes into it we cannot get anything out of it!
Q: A spare parts business has identified the ability of customers to order parts online as an added–value requirement. What sort of added value will this provide to the business?
A: There will be many possibilities that you might identify, including:
- Improved customer satisfaction due to the ability to order from home or their business
- Increased productivity due to faster turn around time for the customer and less time required by the spare parts staff to answer phone queries and fill in order forms
- Financial benefits for the business associated with a possible reduction in the number of order entry staff needed
System boundaries: Limits of the functionality of a system, showing interaction with other systems.
Development methodology: Standardised method of developing a system.
External Entity: Any system (manual or computerised), or person who interacts with the system being investigated.
Hawthorne Effect: The tendency to improve performance when under observation
Interviewee: The person who is being interviewed
Interviewer: The person who is conducting the interview (ie asking the questions)
JAD: Joint Application Design – a formal structured technique used to gather information in a group.
CASE tool: CASE (Computer Aided Software Engineering) tools are software packages that help to automate software development.
Data dictionary: A data dictionary is a centralised system for defining and storing information about the data and the processes that transform the data in some way.
Levelling: Breaking down a process in a data flow diagram into lower level processes, each with their own data flow diagram
Platform: The type of computer hardware and / or operating system. For example, Wintel; a platform combining Intel x86 compatible hardware and Windows operating system, Lintel; a platform combining Intel x86 compatible hardware and Linux operating system.
3 comments:
This year I am starting my Diploma of Business Management, but I have no idea what I can go on to do after it? Would I be able to get a decent paying management career with this diploma?
Diploma of Business
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