Development and Project Management Method †MyAssignmenthelp.com

Question: Discuss about the Development and Project Management Method. Answer: Introduction Perfect Builders is an organization that is based in the Sunshine Coast and provides repair and assessment services to the insurance companies. Dan Perfect had set up the company in the year 1999 and has been working towards the betterment of the same till the present day. Looking at the problems and issues with the current system that is followed, it has been decided to implement an information system for enhancement of the business processes and operations at Perfect Builders. Adaptive System Development Methodology The information system that is required to be developed for Perfect Builders can be done through a number of system development methodologies. These methodologies provide the methods and guidelines that shall be followed in the development process. These methodologies are broadly classified in two categories as adaptive and predictive methodologies. In case of the required system at Perfect Builders, the adaptive nature of system development methodology shall be used. It is because of the reason that the system requirements state that there will be amendments that will be done in the developed system which will easier through the adaptive approach. Also, the end users that are associated with Perfect Builders that will be using the information system belong to various groups and categories such as members of staff, management resources, corporate and individual clients. The needs and requirements of all of these user groups will vary from each other which will be handled better through the adaptive approach in system development (Carvalho, Mello, 2011). There are many adaptive system development methodologies that are present. However, the one that will be apt for the information system for Perfect Builders will be agile methodology using the Scrum framework. There are several reasons that are present behind the selection of the Scrum based agile methodology for this project. The approach that is used in this methodology is the ad-hoc approach (Kautz, Johanson, Uldahl, 2014). There are no pre-conceived notions or guidelines that are designed in general and the strategies and policies are designed as per the scenarios and the requirements. In case of Perfect Builders, there is a high degree of criticality associated with the project along with the varying demands and requirements. Ad-hoc approach of this methodology will meet all of these needs and variations. There is also focus on the values that is laid in this approach instead of the functions and behavior (Hart, 2011). The information system that is required to be developed for Perfect Builders will surely involve many modifications, changes and amendments during the project and after the project as well. It will therefore be required that the system is efficient enough to deal with all these modifications and there is no need to perform re-work to handle the same. It will also be required to ensure that the scalability of the system is not compromised. The system shall be scalable so that the changes in terms of technology and requirements can be met. There may be need to scale the system up in certain situations and it may also be necessary to scale the system down in certain scenarios (Ashbacher, 2010). Both of these abilities will be provided and ensured by the agile methodology based on the Scrum framework. Involvement of Dan and his team will also be essential and it will be recommended that there is a constant tracking of progress, status and the project activities done. It will make sure that the client that is Perfect Builders has a complete idea of the product being developed at all times and can easily point out the changes if required on an immediate basis (Mahnic, 2012). The traditional approach in which the system is first developed and then reviewed by the customer leads to many changes and a lot of re-work for the project team. The adaptive system development methodology will therefore allow the involvement of Dan and his team throughout the timeline of the project (Ali, Babu, 2016). There may be many risks and uncertainties that may emerge during the development of the information system for Perfect Builders. These risks may be in the form of technical or operational risks, management related risks, resource risks, budget risks or any other form of the risk. It will be essential that there are guidelines present with the Project Manager and leadership involved with the project so that these risks can be handled and controlled. Adaptive approach for the project will provide this opportunity by suggesting the various risk control and prevention measures. Also, the approach will include the execution of the project in the form of stages and iterations. These iterations will be termed as sprints and the duration of each sprint will be kept short. It will lie between 4 to 7 weeks which will be used to target and complete the requirement sets. In such a manner, there will be multiple short term goals that will be created which will be easier to achieve as compared to a final single goal as the end product. Tracking of the progress along with the management and incorporation of changes will also be easy in this case. Once all the sprints will be executed, there will be final product that will be created in the form of the information system for the company (Altameem, 2015). All the reasons that have been stated above support the decision of choosing adaptive system development methodology over any of the predictive approaches for the project. There will be many of the managerial and operational advantages offered by the agile based scrum development approach. Event table Event Event Type Trigger Source Activity/Use Case System Response/ Output Destination Perfect Builders wants to add new client Internal Get insured details Insurance company Record new client A new client has been added successfully Perfect Builders, Client Perfect Builders gets new project Internal Insured wants to construct a property Insurance company Create project A new project has been added successfully Perfect Builders, client Assessor inspects property External New Project accepted Admin staff Inspect property Assessor successfully inspected the property Assessor Admin staff appoints building supervisor External Inspection successful Admin staff Assign building supervisor Building supervisor has appointed successfully Building supervisor Admin staff provides quote Internal Inspection successful Admin staff Provide quote Admins staff successfully provided the quote Insurance company Client sign-offs the project External Sign-off project Admin staff Sign-off project Client signs the project after project completion Client Admin staff maintain diary Staff New project created Admins staff Manage diary - Perfect Builders Use Case Create project Scenario Create new project Triggering Event Insurance company receives details of the insured for a new work. Description Allows admin to create a new project for the respective insured. Actors Insurance company, admin staff Related Use Case N/A Stakeholders Client, admin staff Pre-Condition Admin staff is already logged in the system. Post-Condition A new project has been created. Flow of activities Actor System 1) Insurance company emails the details of insured to the company. 2) Admin staff checks the details and initiate a new project. 4) Admin staff fills the form and submit it. 6) An assessor is assigned to the project. 3) System displays a project form. 5) System saves the new project and return a project ID to the admin staff. Alternate Course of Action 3.1 If staff enters wrong details such as start date, name of the insured, etc., then an error message is displayed. A design analysis was done by the design team to understand the design specification and requirements for the information system that is required to be developed for Perfect Builders. Interaction and responsiveness are two of the major demands and expectations that the users have from the design of any of the web based application. We will be following the design principles that enhance the Human Computer Interaction (HCI) and provide an amazing experience to the users. The first and the foremost design principle that we will follow in the application will be the use of responsive web design. For every user action, the system will provide a response according to the nature of the action. For example, if the user wishes to access the application in the landscape mode or reduced resolution mode, then the elements of the UI will accordingly adjust. There will be use of change in text colour, shadowing, highlight etc. that will be used (Akoumianakis, Stephanidis, 2005). There will also be principles of consistency that will be maintained in the application design. The use of colour scheme, layout, navigation, font style etc. will be kept the same across all the pages and screens of the information system that we will provide. Customization and personalization options will also be considered while designing the system. The users will be able to customize the application on the basis of the language options, colour options and theme of the application. It will provide the users with the ability to connect with the system in a better way (McFarlane, Latorella, 2002). Navigation and layout that will be used in the application will be kept as simple and smooth as per the standard design principles. There will not be too much of navigation on any of the screens as the users may not like to scroll too much. Also, there will not be any overloading of screen elements and the use of spaces will be judiciously done. The layout that we will follow in the design will be simple and will follow the structure as placement of title at the top followed by header, menu, and body and footer section. We will only alter the body section on every screen and all the other sections of the layout will remain the same across all the screens. We are aware of the fact that the users may perform certain errors or may accidently click on certain options present in the application. There will be a re-confirmation of every such task and there will also be easy reversal of actions that will be implemented in the system design. The system will also provide an informative feedback to the users (Bakker, Hoven, Eggen, 2014). Please review and read through all of these design principles associated with the application and let us know if there are any further additions/changes required. References Akoumianakis, D., Stephanidis, C. (2005). Building Consensus in Human-Computer Interaction Design: Integrated Activity-Oriented Design Environments. International Journal Of Human-Computer Interaction, 18(1), 85-103. https://dx.doi.org/10.1207/s15327590ijhc1801_5 Ali, S., Babu, A. (2016). A Hybrid Agile model using SCRUM and Feature Driven Development. International Journal Of Computer Applications, 156(5), 1-5. https://dx.doi.org/10.5120/ijca2016912443 Altameem, E. (2015). Impact of Agile Methodology on Software Development. Computer And Information Science, 8(2). https://dx.doi.org/10.5539/cis.v8n2p9 Ashbacher, C. (2010). Succeeding With Agile: Software Development Using Scrum, by Mike Cohn. The Journal Of Object Technology, 9(4). https://dx.doi.org/10.5381/jot.2010.9.4.r1 Bakker, S., Hoven, E., Eggen, B. (2014). Evaluating Peripheral Interaction Design. HumanComputer Interaction, 30(6), 473-506. https://dx.doi.org/10.1080/07370024.2014.921531 Carvalho, B., Mello, C. (2011). Scrum agile product development method - literature review, analysis and classification. Product Management Development, 9(1), 39-49. https://dx.doi.org/10.4322/pmd.2011.005 Hart, M. (2011). Agile Product Management with Scrum: Creating Products that Customers Love by Roman Pichler. Journal Of Product Innovation Management, 28(4), 615-615. https://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-5885.2011.00829_2.x Kautz, K., Johanson, T., Uldahl, A. (2014). The Perceived Impact of the Agile Development and Project Management Method Scrum on Information Systems and Software Development Productivity. Australasian Journal Of Information Systems, 18(3). https://dx.doi.org/10.3127/ajis.v18i3.1095 Mahnic, V. (2012). A Capstone Course on Agile Software Development Using Scrum. IEEE Transactions On Education, 55(1), 99-106. https://dx.doi.org/10.1109/te.2011.2142311 McFarlane, D., Latorella, K. (2002). The Scope and Importance of Human Interruption in Human-Computer Interaction Design. Human-Computer Interaction, 17(1), 1-61. https://dx.doi.org/10.1207/s15327051hci1701_1