Riordan Manufacturing specializes in plastics manufacturing with operations in both China and the United States of America. They employ over 550 employees in there operating locations and the tracking of the employee’s information is currently conducted in an inefficient manner in multiple databases and systems. If Riordan wants to stay within reach of its competitors, it is important to perform an overhaul on the current processes to make them more efficient. Using current, cutting edge technology, the plastics manufacturing company would like to create a single system that envelops all employee information and helps the Human Resources Department become streamlined. Implementing the technology available in the market today, Riordan will be able to consolidate the information currently in multiple applications, into a single, efficient application.

Utilizing the System Development Life Cycle model, the existing HR system can be analyzed and a project plan created to modernize the system. One of the benefits of using the SDLC is that it provides a structured and organized path to any kind of system development. Analysts that use this method are able to thoroughly cover all the phases of system development. The five phases are project planning, analysis, design, implementation, and support. The first phase in the cycle is project planning and in this step, defining the scope, and feasibility of the project occur. After this initial stage, the others will follow and occur in multiple iterations which in turn will create incremental system development.

Project Planning

Riordan Manufacturing wants to maintain all of their Human Resource data in a new system, consolidating employee records, Microsoft Excel spreadsheets currently maintained by many managers, and other data from all of the departments. The scope of the project is to consolidate all the data and tools spread over different departments into a common HR system. This system should be able to manage all employee information as well. The feasibility of this new system shouldn’t be an issue since the management has already shown and interest and freed up budget. In addition, the company currently utilizes an existing legacy HR system that already includes employee information and the other manually maintained Excel documents. This would make the transition of data from the old system to the new system much easier and rapid.

Analysis

After the project planning phase completes, the analysis phase begins. This phase includes gathering the necessary information needed to comprehend all the user’s needs and to figure out the system requirements. It is important for the system requirements to meet the needs of users so that the system is designed correctly to improve business processes. In addition to the primary system users in the HR department, such as the payroll clerk who routinely uses the current system, there are other clients involved in this improvement project. These stakeholders include the technical staff, which will need to provide input to ensure the proposed system is compatible with existing systems and network infrastructure. Other individuals that need to be involved with the new system analysis are those individuals who currently maintain their own Excel spreadsheets. The consolidation of the vast amount of various employee data is one of the new system requirements, and the involvement of the clients that maintain this information is critical to defining how to integrate their data into the new system. The training and development specialists, employment recruiters, compensation manager, employee relation specialists, and department staff managers are some of these employees that will be integral. Without all the stakeholders being involved in the development process, their specific requirements and needs cannot be met. Utilizing various information gathering tools and techniques, the current processes can be understood and the new user requirements can be achieved.

The first information gathering technique to be used will be the review of existing documentation and current system reports. The existing documentation can provide insight into the functions and internal processing of the current system. The system reports are an effective method for the analyst to learn about the existing system and business functions. The reports can also show some of the procedures that the users are currently familiar. The use of the existing documentation can be a good tool in interviewing the end users.

“Interviews work very well for gaining insights from both internal and external stakeholders, as well as from actual users of a system under consideration” (Baty, 2007). Interviewing the client allows the analyst or design team to fully grasp the requirements and in turn documents these understandings. These interviews should include what the end user does, how they do it, what information they use, and what reports they work with. This method however, can take a large amount of time and information depending on the number of users that need to be interviewed. If the traditional method of interviewing seems like it will require too much time, an alternative method is joint application design (JAD) sessions. “Joint Application Development (JAD) is a process that accelerates the design of information technology solutions. JAD uses customer involvement and group dynamics to accurately depict the user's view of the business need and to jointly develop a solution” (Rottman). These sessions involve all clients in either a physical and/or virtual environment to discuss all the user’s needs, business functions, and all of the system requirements.

Business functions and processes can also be discovered by the analysts after observing and documenting the users on a daily basis in the user’s working environment. Utilizing diagrams, the analysts can show the sequence of events of each user and which users are performing which functions. These activity diagrams can be expanded upon to include additional system functionality or change the way current processes are performed. These diagrams can also assist in building prototypes, which will further the discovery process.

Any kind of tool that helps the end-user and idea of the finished product is vital to the overall success. Development of prototypes based on the analyst’s diagrams will give users a working model of a specific facet of the system. This is an effective method for users to get a feel for the new system to determine if it is meets requirements or if any changes need to be made to the requirements. Prototypes can also be used earlier in the planning phase to help determine the feasibility of the project, the system requirements, and to validate the accuracy of the requirements.

Once requirements are understood and documented, they need to be validated for accuracy. Since it is costly to correct a mistake or a misunderstanding in system requirements later in development, it is important to find and correct errors during the requirements analysis. Validating requirements is one method of detecting errors and is done during the use of the prototypes. Users can validate that their requirements are met correctly by using what is provided in the prototype. If the prototype is not accurately reflecting the user’s requirements, the requirements can be modified and another prototype created for further testing. A more comprehensive method of validating requirements will consist of a formal walk through of the documented requirements. A walk through is the final step before the design team hands the project to the technical team who in turn, begins the development stage. “A step-by-step review of a specification, usability features or design before it is handed off to the technical team for development” (PC Magazine, 2011). The walk through consists of reviewing documented system requirements to ensure they capture the needs of all end-users. The documented requirements under review include information discovered from the existing system documentation, interviews and JAD sessions, activity diagrams, and results of prototype testing. Any requested changes will be made before proceeding to the design phase and may require an additional scheduled walk through if considerable changes are necessary.

Works Cited

PC Magazine. (2011). Retrieved 3/17/2013, from PC Magazine: http://www.pcmag.com/encyclopedia_term/0%2C2542%2Ct%3Dwalkthrough&i%3D54185%2C00.asp

Baty, S. (2007, September 10). Conducting Successful Interviews With Project Stakeholders. Retrieved 3/17/2013, from UX Matters: http://www.uxmatters.com/mt/archives/2007/09/conducting-successful-interviews-with-project-stakeholders.php

Rottman, G. (n.d.). Joint Application Development. Retrieved 3/17/2013, from University of Missouri

St Louis.: http://www.umsl.edu/~sauterv/analysis/488_f01_papers/rottman.htm