Obligations of Management to Formulate a Systems Development Methodology

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Obligations of Management to Formulate a Systems
Development Methodology
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GROUP 5, The Idealists

• Sue Barnette-Wiese
• Shane Marley
• Robyn Gwinn
• Terri Layman
• Deanna Finney
• LaDwona Salary

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14 Obligations of Management

• Create constancy of purpose for improvement of
  product and service
• Adopt the new philosophy
• Cease dependence on mass inspection
• End the practice of awarding business on price
  tag alone
• Improve constantly and forever the system of
  production and service
• Institute training
• Institute leadership

• Drive out fear
• Break down barriers between staff areas
• Eliminate slogans, exhortation, and targets for
  the workplace
• Eliminate numerical quotas
• Remove barriers to pride of workmanship
• Institute a vigorous program of education and
  retraining
• Take action to accomplish the transformation

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System Development Life Cycle

• Phase I - The Preliminary Investigation
• Feasibility Study, determine primary problem,
  determine what improvements are needed, costs,
  benefits, best alternative
• Phase II - Systems Analysis
• Determine current state of the system with
  questionnaires, interviews and, Observations.
  Represent the system with systems flowcharts and
  data flow diagrams. Do a Systems Analysis Report
  and show goals, analysis of current system,
  alternatives recommendations
• Phase III - Systems Design
• Design Limits with organizational constraints
  and personnel involved. Develop the System Design
  using output/input/processing, data files,
  systems controls and procedures. Do a
  Cost-Benefit Analysis and Design Report showing
  current problems, overview of proposed system,
  summary of cost-benefit analysis
• Phase IV - Systems Development
• Equipment Purchase, Program Development,
  Scheduling with Gantt charts, Programming,
  Program Testing
• Phase V - Systems Implementation and Evaluation
• File Conversion, Systems Conversion, Direct
  Conversion, Training, Documentation, Systems
  Evaluation, audit, Review, System Maintenance

Defined by School of Computer Science Lecture
Notes at University of New South Wales Australian
Defense Academy http//www.cs.adfa.edu.au/teaching
/studinfo/cs1/Lecture_notes/programming/lecture09/

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Create constancy of purpose for improvement of
product and service

• Dr. Demings states Management must state its
  long-term purpose it can change, but not with
  the wind. Employees, suppliers, and customers
  need to know the long-term intentions.
• In the development of an I/S, everyone involved
  in the SDLC should know the purpose of the
  project. The project is doomed to failure right
  from the start without a purpose.
• It is inevitable that any systems development
  project will have changes. Change at all stages
  of the project life cycle should be provided for
  by anticipating change and being prepared to
  accommodate for those changes. Ignoring the
  ever-changing scope will jeopardize the projects
  overall quality and in turn, may produce a
  project of little or no value.
• Holding the scope to exactly what was envisioned
  at the beginning of the project offers little
  value to the user whose world is changing. This
  relates to Demings theory that the values
  reflect the companys obligation to promote total
  quality.
• Any road will get you there if you dont know
  where you are going. Constancy of Purpose
  provides the destination and a well-defined
  methodology outlines the road.
• Methodologies need to be established so that the
  constancy of purpose can be balanced out with an
  ever-changing world.

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Adopt the new philosophy

• Dr. Deming states, we can no longer live with
  the levels of quality that we were able to
  tolerate in the past. Management needs to learn
  their responsibilities and use leadership for
  change.
• To deliver a quality end-product, quality must be
  built in to every stage of the SDLC.
• Deming demonstrates the effect of quality of
  productivity with a chain reaction diagram. It
  shows that when quality is improved, costs
  decrease because of less rework, fewer mistakes,
  fewer delays, and fewer snags. The result is
  improved productivity.
• Productivity Output/Input. This ratio can be
  related to the SDLC in regards to the output of
  productive work providing quality projects to
  thrashing (producing unproductive work or
  rework). When thrashing can be minimized,
  productive work increases. This is then the best
  scenario for the SDLC to be effective.
• Methodologies are especially important to outline
  the practices and techniques for organizing,
  structuring and managing all the activities in
  the SDLC. An effective methodology enables more
  repeatable processes and overall lowers the cost
  of development. This in turn, helps to improve
  quality in the project.
• Project management and SDLC processes should be
  integrated into a well-defined methodology.

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Cease dependence on mass inspection

• Pertaining to the SDLC and the building of
  Information Systems, inspect the process not the
  product.
• Build quality into the software product the first
  time around by following a well defined SDLC.
  This starts in The Preliminary Investigation and
  continues through the Systems Implementation and
  Evaluation.
• Dont skip over steps to save time or money. What
  appears to be saved will be lost during the time
  spent redoing the project.
• Inspection, such as program testing, is vital but
  if misused can cause heavy losses.

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End the practice of awarding business on price
tag alone

• Reduce Cost by reducing variation through
  long-term relationships with single
  suppliers/vendors.
• Reduce Cost by reducing variation through the
  avoidance of building in redundant information
  and excessive documentation into a system.
• Form partnerships. (I.E. IT consulting company
  with non-IT company partnering teaches them both
  stuff and improves quality.
• Focus on Total cost which is the price tag and
  the cost of use of an item. One Software package
  may have a lower price tag but cost of use could
  push the Total cost higher than others. Causes
  could be system requirement upgrades, training,
  etc. Look at the whole picture.

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Demings Version Improve constantly and forever
the system of production and service, to improve
quality and productivity.Adapted Version
Improve constantly and forever the process of
application and data development and service and
data production and maintenance.
Continual Improvement

• Implement a plan-do-check-act process for
  information quality improvement.
• Plan Choose a problem. Analyze it to find a
  probable cause. (Project Planning
  and Analysis Phases)
• Do Run an experiment to investigate the
  probably cause. (Design
  and Development Phases)
• Check Analyze the data from the experiment to
  validate the cause. (Testing Phase)
• Act Refine and standardize based on results
  (Maintenance Phase)

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Institute training on the job

• Training (and education) actually begins from the
  inception of a project, not just in the
  Implementation/Training phase.
• Involving the user early on helps to ensure buy
  in
• Training and support are critical to users of new
  system so high-quality training must be ensured.
• Establish different types of training specific to
  type of user.
• (i.e. intermittent or occasional user versus
  typical user)
• Tutorial one person taught at a time
• Course several people taught at a time
• Computer-aided instruction
• Interactive training manuals combination of
  tutorials and computer-aided instruction
• Resident expert /subject matter expert
• Software help components
• External sources, such as vendors

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Institute leadership

• Leadership as defined by Dr. Deming is essential
  at all phases of the SDLC.
• This helps to
• Provide Direction
• Create Team Unity
• Establish Parameters
• Provide Motivation to get teams over humps

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Drive out fear

• Dr. Deming points out that the source of fear is
  always known the anxiety underneath it is not.
• The fear addressed here is that of confronting
  management.
• It is especially critical at the upper levels of
  the SDLC where programmer reality can impede
  the desires of management

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Break down barriers between staff areas

• Old methods
• Silo design teams
• One stellar group on same project
• New methods
• Cross-functional teams
• Ad hoc commitees
• Groups that establish industry standards
  (IEEE/IETF)
• SDLC steps most affected
• Preliminary Investigation
• Systems analysis
• Systems design
• These new teams should be used heavily to ensure
  cooperation in designing a tool that not just
  compiles, but is actually usable by the people
  intended to use it.

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Eliminate slogans, exhortation, and targets for
the workplace

• System Design Phase
• This phase includes a lot of brainstorming where
  mistakes are made and then talked over to
  improve.
• System Development
• Slogans for zero mistakes will cause competition
  amongst the developers for unhealthy competition
  within the company
• System Implementation and Evaluation
• All systems fail from time to time and so the end
  result for a user means failure that is out of
  their control from time to time.

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Eliminate numerical quotas

• System Development
• The emphasis should be on the quality of the
  product, not the numbers behind it. Even if it is
  the 1st product of its kind marketed, a
  competitor that took the time to do it right will
  come out ahead in the long run.
• System Implementation and Evaluation
• Systems have limitations and as a result quotas
  that you put on people are limited by a system

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Remove barriers to pride of workmanship

• Reducing barriers in System Design can give
  personnel room to expand. Creativity can be
  unleashed without having to worry about
  guidelines. It allows the employees to have a
  sense of freedom and add enjoyment to their work.

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Institute a vigorous program of education and
retraining

• More education and growth is required to stay
  competitive. Have upper management look at the
  cost as an investment ending up with a positive
  outcome for the company as a whole. Instead of
  looking at it in a negative manner. This gives
  workers the opportunity to gain knowledge and
  understanding which will result in appreciation
  to themselves. With positive criticism from upper
  management, awareness levels increase and the
  culture of the company begins to take shape.

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Take action to accomplish the transformation

• Upper management shouldn't cut costs to keep
  money in their pockets. This always backfires.
• Always obtain a master consultant to teach the
  new idea and improve workers. A major step in
  providing outstanding results.
• Taking the cheaper solution worsens the problem
  and resulting in more dept and poor results.
• Doing it right the first time reduces future
  costs.

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"Quality is free.  Its not a gift, but it is
free.  What costs money are the unquality things
-- all the actions that involve not doing jobs
right the first time.  Quality is not only free,
it is an honest-to-everything profit maker.
 Every penny you dont spend on doing things
wrong, over, or instead of becomes half a penny
right on the bottom line.  If you concentrate on
making quality certain you can probably increase
your profit by amount equal to 5 to 10 of your
sales.  That is a lot of money for free." -
Philip B. Crosby