Dear Students,
This is the Case Study #1. Prepare. Dead Line : 12 May 2008 ( Monday ).
Project Management
PM 2008
Lecturer : Zainudin Johari
Case Study 1
Title : Project in Developing Systems at XL Ltd
XL Ltd is a printing and packaging company. It mainly deals with large companies and has around 2,000 customers in total. There are on average 200 orders per day. The company is a family owned organisation and many of the employees have worked for the organisation for many years. It is not what you might call a technologically innovative company but the staffs know they must update their approach or suffer the consequences. The Managing Director is fearful that sweeping changes may be hard to take for some employees and so is concerned about how the entire process is handled.
XL had separate software systems for the processing of orders, accounts and stock. This arrangement was seven years old and was not integrated very well as the three systems were developed at different times and did not have a consistent interface, although data could be transferred between the systems. The interfaces to all three systems were not very easy to use for many of the employees. XL believed this to be the cause of many errors in the system as terms and key words were different in each system.
Besides the order processing, accounts, and inventory systems XL wanted to investigate the use of the following systems:
Transport delivery system
XL would like a system that produces a listing that includes the routes for the delivery of the goods. This will be used by the drivers so that a more economical delivery process is maintained. Currently, a member of staff works on the delivery routes for the drivers.
Marketing Systems
The company wants to utilise the data and information in the systems more fully to market more effectively to its customers. There is data on all of the orders for the past seven years.
Ordering via the Web for their customers.
The Managing Director is conscious of the danger of being perceived as an old fashioned company. She is still not convinced of the merits of ordering via the Web but would be very interested in hearing a proposal to do so.
The Managing Director along with the new IT Manager called a meeting with the senior members of the organisation to discuss the information systems at XL. The IT Manager was given overall responsibility for the development of the new systems.
The IT Manager explained that XL did not have the in-house expertise to develop the new systems and should go about selecting a good software development company to do much of the software selection and development whilst XL employees could so most of the analysis. The Managing Director explained that XL did not have a great deal of money so any outside involvement should be kept to a minimum. As a result the IT Manager selected her team of two IT staff (Bill was asked to act as systems analyst and Jane as junior analyst) and Francis on secondment from the Accounts Department.
Bill asked Jane to start gathering information on the problems and requirements of the new systems. Jane had little experience in doing this but decided to talk informally with a number of people in the organisation. The reports they gave were somewhat conflicting as some staff liked the existing systems and hinted that they would be very displeased if any major changes were made. Other staff appeared at their wits end with the information systems and suggested radical changes. Jane knew that the Managing Director wanted improvements and so chose not to spend time gathering more information from employees as this would only confuse matters further. She presented her findings based mainly on her own dealings with the information systems in the organisation and passed them off as representative findings and requirements from the users.
Bill spent time modelling the data and processes related to the existing systems in a CASE tool that XL had recently acquired. Once he had received Jane's documentation about the users' requirements he started on creating models for the new systems. Once this had been done a presentation was made to the Managing Director and senior staff who although not fully understanding the implications of the models presented were in agreement that the system should now be developed.
In consultation with the IT Manager, who had been spending much of his time trying to oversee the corrections to the existing systems, a decision was made on the purchase of software. Jane was given responsibility for any customisation of the software.
To avoid employees clinging to the old systems it was decided to start with the new systems on 2 January after the New Year holiday break. Many problems were reported and many of the employees threatened to walk out if they were not rectified quickly. The Managing Director was most upset with the situation and asked the IT Manager to report on the situation immediately.
Questions
1) Outline the main causes of the problems that led to the disastrous situation at XL.
2) Did the team responsible for the changes follow the systems development life-cycle phases? What aspects of the SDLC were missed out?
3) What approach would you have adopted if you had been responsible for the changes?
4) XL did not conduct a proper feasibility study. What were the consequences of not conducting a feasibility study and what should it have included?
5) How would you have dealt with the concerns of the managing director about the staff coping with the changes?
6) Was the team responsible for the changes adequately skilled for their roles?
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