Information System Development For International Charity Foundation (ICF)

Selected Approach for System Development

ICF is a charitable foundation that have multiple branches in countries like Myanmar Vietnam, Bangladesh and Zambia. This organization helps people in the above mentioned countries through the educational and medical programs. The operations of this organizations area mainly dependent on the donations by different organizations and individuals. Presently there are more than one hundred employees working in the organization as nurses, doctors, child care staff, accountants and teachers in the different branches.

  Different sections of this report contributes to the selected approach for the development of the information system, functional and non-functional requirement. In addition to that, the report includes cost benefit analysis of the project and the techniques used for requirement investigation.  

Approach to Systems Development

Approach for the development of the system

For the development of the proposed information system the agile development methodology is selected.   The agile development methodology helps the in breaking down the complete project into some short iterative system release cycles.  In this way the, the selected methodology involves stakeholders in the development process while constantly demonstrating them the developed prototype of the desired information system.

 In this way the development process can accommodate the feasible stakeholder’s recommendations and changes to the system in every sprint in order to meet all the user’s functional requirements. As the proposed information system for the IFC includes multiple stakeholders and potential users of the systems, this selected methodology will help in meeting the expectations of the users at the time the development of the system is completed.

 Justification for the selection of the approach

 The agile approach is selected for the following reasons,

 Improved stakeholder satisfaction: helpful in improving the client satisfaction by involving them in the development process and demonstrating the working prototypes after each sprint of the development.

Better project control and reduced risks for the project: With every sprint meeting the requirements are defined for the next sprint to be covered (Putra, Ahlan and Kartiwi 2016). This methodology is helpful in elimination of the chances of failure of the project as the users and the stakeholders are continuously involved in the project in order to clarify and develop information systems.

Following are the detailed list of the functional requirement   for the proposed system,

Web based application: As the foundation have multiple branches in different countries thus it is important make an application that will be make the data available at real time to the staffs working in different countries.

Justification for the Selection of the Approach

Staff operations module:   This module of the information system will have functionalities to process the applications by the children and assigning the children to the appropriate programs with the minimum steps as well as reducing the redundant data processing operations.  In addition to that, through this module the staff will be responsible for sending receipts for the donors who paid donations.

Reporting module: This module of the information system will be helpful in tracking the cash flow, stock levels at every branch of International Charity Foundation in order to avoid reduce or eliminate the wastage of supplies. Moreover, this module will help in the generating reports for each month about the donations received and expenses incurred in a specific month to monitor the cash flow.  

Security and confidentiality of data through Authentication and authorization:  In order to make the information system and the data in it, the system will only allow users to register and login to the system only after the approval from the system admin or upper level management of the foundation (Venkatesh, Rai and Marupking 2017).

Availability: As the system will be responsible for providing data to the staffs to different staffs in countries thus it important to have minimum downtime for the application so that the impact on the processes can be minimal.    

Project Cost Benefit Analysis

 For the cost benefit analysis of the project following data values are used in order to determine the economic feasibility of the project.

Cost-Benefit Analysis For the Information system Development for ICF
Discount Rate	10.00%
Proposed Annual Benefits from the Project	$108,000.00
Annual Maintenance Costs	$     7,200.00
Development Cost (One time)	$250,000.00
	Year	0	1	2	3	4	5	TOTALS
Economic Benefit in every year		$0.00	$    108,000.00	$    108,000.00	$  108,000.00	$  108,000.00	$      108,000.00
Discount Rate for the Project		1.0000	0.9091	0.8264	0.7513	0.6830	0.6209
PV of Benefits from the Project		$0.00	$98,181.82	$89,256.20	$81,142.00	$73,765.45	$67,059.50
NPV OVERALL BENEFITS		$0.00	$      98,181.82	$    187,438.02	$  268,580.02	$  342,345.47	$      409,404.97	$  409,404.97
DEVELOPMENT COSTS		$    (250,000.00)
Recurring Costs for the project		$0.00	$      (7,200.00)	$       (7,200.00)	$    (7,200.00)	$    (7,200.00)	$        (7,200.00)
Discount Rate		1.0000	0.9091	0.8264	0.7513	0.6830	0.6209
PV (Recurring Costs)		$0.00	$      (6,545.45)	$       (5,950.41)	$    (5,409.47)	$    (4,917.70)	$        (4,470.63)
NPV OF COSTS		$    (250,000.00)	$  (256,545.45)	$   (262,495.87)	$(267,905.33)	$(272,823.03)	$    (277,293.66)	$ (277,293.66)
Overall NPV								$     132,111.31
ROI
								0.4764

Table 1: Cost benefit analysis of the Information system development project

(Source: Created by author)

 From the above table cost benefit analysis table it is evident that, the as the ROI of the project is positive with the use of the following values

Cost for development=$250000

Discount rate =10%

Annual benefit =$[(5000+4000) *12] =$108000

and annual maintenance =$[600*12] =$7200. After the cost benefit analysis and calculation of ROI (return on investment) it is found that, the project has a positive ROI. This implies that in a certain time period the total cost of benefits will be more than the total cost incurred at the implementation time of the information system of the project.

Project Schedule

 Following is the schedule for the information system development project for the ICF;

Task Name	Duration	Start	Finish	Predecessors
Information system development for ICF	154 days	Mon 13/08/18	Thu 14/03/19
Initiation phase	25 days	Mon 13/08/18	Fri 14/09/18
Feasibility study of the proposed system	10 days	Mon 13/08/18	Fri 24/08/18
Stakeholder meeting	5 days	Mon 27/08/18	Fri 31/08/18	3
Determining the scope of the project	7 days	Mon 03/09/18	Tue 11/09/18	4
Selection of project team and Project Manager	3 days	Wed 12/09/18	Fri 14/09/18	5
Requirement Gathering and analysis	32 days	Mon 17/09/18	Tue 30/10/18
Collecting functional requirement for the proposed system	15 days	Mon 17/09/18	Fri 05/10/18	6
Drafting the preliminary specifications for the proposed systems	7 days	Mon 08/10/18	Tue 16/10/18	8
Development of delivery timeline for the system	5 days	Wed 17/10/18	Tue 23/10/18	9
Acquiring required resources	5 days	Wed 24/10/18	Tue 30/10/18	10
Design	30 days	Wed 31/10/18	Tue 11/12/18
database design for the system	10 days	Wed 31/10/18	Tue 13/11/18	11
interface design for modules	15 days	Wed 14/11/18	Tue 04/12/18	13
Completion of design phase	5 days	Wed 05/12/18	Tue 11/12/18	13,14
Development Phase	47 days	Wed 12/12/18	Thu 14/02/19
Development of Modules	25 days	Wed 12/12/18	Tue 15/01/19	15
Integration of different Modules	15 days	Wed 16/01/19	Tue 05/02/19	17
Development of the prototype	5 days	Wed 06/02/19	Tue 12/02/19	18
approval from the client	2 days	Wed 13/02/19	Thu 14/02/19	19
Testing	15 days	Wed 13/02/19	Tue 05/03/19
Integration testing	7 days	Wed 13/02/19	Thu 21/02/19	19
Security Testing	5 days	Fri 22/02/19	Thu 28/02/19	22
User acceptance testing	3 days	Fri 01/03/19	Tue 05/03/19	23
Release and Deployment	7 days	Wed 06/03/19	Thu 14/03/19
Beta version Release	5 days	Wed 06/03/19	Tue 12/03/19	24
Deployment of the developed application	2 days	Wed 13/03/19	Thu 14/03/19	26

Table 1: schedule of the Project for Information system development

(Source: Created by author)

Following is the WBS for the project generated from the provided schedule of the different tasks in the project.

 The project includes multiple related activities that are important to complete sequentially in order to achieve the desired outcome from the project.    Through the WBS the project managers will be able to reduce the complexity of the tasks to measure the progress (Putra, Ahlan and Kartiwi 2016). In the gantt chart and wbs it is evident that the tasks in the schedule can be fast-tracked to match with the project time line.    

Functional Requirements

 The primary stakeholders of this project are the top level management of the foundation. In addition to that the sponsors, donors and staffs of the organizations are other stakeholders of this information development project.  

Brainstorming:   This technique can be used for both groups or individuals.  In this technique ideas are collected and reviewed as well as analysed.  After the analysis relevant and feasible ideas are incorporated as system requirements.

 Use cases:  For the organization it is easier for the potential users to explain their work, how they do it and different processes they complete. In this way the systems requirements are collected from the actual users of the system by working through use cases for different processes (Putra, Ahlan and Kartiwi 2016).

One to one interviews:  in this process users are asked different kind of questions   related to the required functionalities which may be open-ended, probing based or follow-on type for a specific functionality. In this way this process can help to elucidate stakeholder requirements.

Conclusion 

As the project requirement for this project includes task to automate the manual processes which are presently completed by the employees.  The main objectives of this information system development project is develop an information system that will be helpful in redundant jobs and wastage of time. With the above mentioned schedule and WBS it will be easy to developed the desired system.  

From this project I have learned about the use and effectiveness of the different project management tools in the development of the information system which may lead to better control and execution of the project.  This experience and knowledge will help me in successfully complete my future endeavours.  

References

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Hanseth, O. and Lyytinen, K., 2016. Design theory for dynamic complexity in information infrastructures: the case of building internet. In Enacting Research Methods in Information Systems (pp. 104-142). Palgrave Macmillan, Cham.

Laudon, K.C. and Laudon, J.P., 2016. Management information system. Pearson Education India.

Naser, S.S.A. and Al Shobaki, M.J., 2016. Computerized Management Information Systems Resources and their Relationship to the Development of Performance in the Electricity Distribution Company in Gaza.

Park, J.G. and Lee, J., 2014. Knowledge sharing in information systems development projects: Explicating the role of dependence and trust. International Journal of Project Management, 32(1), pp.153-165.

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Putra, S.J., Ahlan, A.R. and Kartiwi, M., 2016. A Coherent Framework for Understanding the Success of an Information System Project. TELKOMNIKA (Telecommunication Computing Electronics and Control), 14(1), pp.302-308.

Sligo, J., Gauld, R., Roberts, V. and Villa, L., 2017. A literature review for large-scale health information system project planning, implementation and evaluation. International journal of medical informatics, 97, pp.86-97.

Venkatesh, V., Rai, A. and Maruping, L.M., 2017. Information systems projects and individual developer outcomes: Role of project managers and process control. Information Systems Research, 29(1), pp.127-148.