Systems Analysis And Design Fundamentals

Project Influences

Discuss about the Systems Analysis and Design Fundamentals.

Projects are usually designed to help achieve certain predetermined goals that are established by the project team before any work concerning the project is initiated .This means that an organization has to identify certain needs that require a given project for them to be satisfied, these are often referred to as project goals and they are the determinants of all activities and plans that are carried out concerning the project at hand, by accurately the project goals it becomes easy to set timelines for a project as well as set accurate budget estimations as well as identifying all the factors that need to be put in place for the success of a project. How correctly the project planning process is carried out and the resulting adherence to the initial plan determines the success of a project. Project Management is the process of ensuring that the implementation of a given project is carried out correctly within the timelines and the budget set through initiation, planning execution, controlling and completion of a given project to ensure that its objectives are met. There is usually a success criteria involved in the process .This report offers an analysis and analysis of Denver International Airport Baggage Handling System. The Report will be structured into three main parts.

A number of factors are responsible for the outcome f a given project. They are re commonly referred to as project Influencers abbreviated as PESTLE referring to political, economic, and social, Technological Legal and environmental factors. For Denver mostly the project was to a large extent dependent on the technology. Failure to pay keen attention to the technology might have been one of the causes of failure (Rebentisch, 2016).  Environmental factors include factors such as climate and climate change. Since this was to occupy a 140 km piece of land, any serious weather changes such as heavy rains resulting to floods could have serious impact on the project. Legal factors such as health and safety of the people constructing and those using the system could also have affected it. Social factors are the cultural aspects of a given community that can affect a given project while economic factors are any changes in the economy that can have significant impact on a project. These include factors such as inflation which can escalate the budget estimates for a project. Political factors such as taxation had an impact on the overall cost of the project.

Assessing project Viability

As Project manager of the Denver Airport project I would have taken sufficient time to consider the technological complexities that were involved so the initial planning phase would take consideration of the anticipated technological challenges in the design and functionality of the integrated baggage handling system without underestimation of its complexity. This would ensure that the system was able to achieve its intended objectives. As a manager I would also ensure proper leadership though planning, control and evaluation to ensure that the project was completed without the delays that were experienced thus the extra cost would have been saved. Some of the decisions could have been avoided such as allowing continuation of the project without sorting out the challenges that were experienced (Gaynor,2010). As a project manager I would therefore have ensured that each implementation stage was successfully carried out and any challenges identified sorted out before implementation would proceed to the next phase.  

With the growing demand in airport services the rise in the number of people seeking to travel by Air to and from the United States, the construction of Denver Airport was a great necessity. This was going to be the largest airport in the United States and would be attending to an approximate number of 50 yearly. This would have been a great plus for the Air transport industry as the airport would provide a greater capacity that would ease congestion in other airports across the country. Besides the airport services that the Airport would be providing to its clients, the airport would also be able to provide huge amount of revenue to the City of Denver and provide employment by cementing Denver City as an Air transportation hub. Therefore despite the challenges faced with the Baggage handling system that led to delay in the opening of the Airport, it was a great idea to build Denver Airport as it would be able to boost the Air transport significantly (Kerzner, 2013).

Feasibility study is an analysis of an identified project to determine its viability or its successful completion by considering a number of factors that technological, economic social and legal that may affect it. Feasibility studies are used by project managers to determine the possible positive and pessimistic outcomes of a given project before embarking on its implementation. Feasibility ensures among other things the economic justification of a project .this means that the project should be in position of having a positive impact on the economic status of the person or organization implementing it (Hass,2009).

Project Risks

I would therefore need to consider impactful this new project would be o the operations of the airport this would be though cost vs benefit analysis .I would also need to carefully analyze the complexities involved in the new project vs the technical expertise available to meet these end results .Finally I would also consider the financial estimates and the scope of the project to ascertain how the project would be able to meet its end results within the set budget and scope.

Denver Airport project can be analyzed in terms of its duration and budget. Based on the on the duration set aside for this project which was initially two years the project can be assessed as a large project .Also based on the area in square kilometers that the project was going to cover and the number of people and units that it was supposed to serve concurrently, it can be classified as a large project .Apart from time and cost, complexity, project change and strategic importance can also be used in assessing the size and scale of Denver Airport construction project (Crowder,Carbone & Demijohn, 2015).

Projects are usually designed to achieve certain outcomes of generate some benefits. The cost of a project should be directly proportional to the expected benefit of the project this means that if there is a large budget for a project the expected benefits are supposed to be many and vice versa .However if a project’s cost is more than its expected benefits the viability of project becomes questionable. It’s therefore important to analyze projects cost and profitability in order to establish if the project will have appositive or negative outcome (Estrella, 2007).

I would decide the effectiveness of the decision made based on their outcomes .For example if the decision made such as the decision to extend the timeline for the project and it benefits or shortcomings (Kock,2007).  If a decision made lead to any positive change or resulted in an overall improvement of the project then I would term it as effective. For the wrong decisions that were made, I would recommend their review by all the team members so that better decisions that would enable the project to achieve its determined outcomes would be achieved.

Value management in construction management plays significant role in ensuring that the project achieves continuous innovation and overall improvement of the project. The plan will help to keep the project team motivated in order to improve the overall outcome of the project. 

Quality Management

Project risks are those factors that are likely to affect the achievement of the project objectives within the established time. Risk management is the process through which risks are identified, analyzed and prioritized. Risk management will ensure that the implementation of the project is carried out according to the initial plan by helping identification and elimination of risks (Demarco & Lister, 2013).

Quality management is the process of ensuring that the activities involved in a given project including the estimated outputs and benefits as well as the processes to arrive at these benefits meet the expectations of the stakeholders. Quality management will ensure that the project team work towards the achievement of project objectives (Winch, 2010).

In project management, change refers to anything that has the ability of impacting the projects processes, tasks, job functions of the project team as well as structures. Change management is therefore the process that is used to manage change any change occurring to the project and the project team .It helps in keeping the project on course (Laar & Punter, 2010).

In the context of project management, environmental management refers to the process of managing the overall impact of the project to the environment .Environmental management will ensure that the potential impact of the project on the environment is minimized as much as possible.

Health and safety management refers to all the strategies put in place to safeguard the health and safety of the project team. This will ensure that the potential impact of the project on the project team is minimized.

In the context of project management Resource management refers to the process of allocating project resources effectively and efficiently. This will ensure that the resources set aside for a project are not wasted unnecessarily.

The success of a project is solely dependent on how effectively these plans are handled. Successful consideration of these plans ensures that the project is able to achieve its objectives .It also ensures that a project is successfully completed within the time set and within the budget (Shenhar & Dvir,2007).

Conclusion

Based on the above analysis, it is therefore important to note that there are several factors  that come at play in as far as project management is concerned .Failure to consider these plans lead as well as poor decision making to the absolute failure of Denver International Airport Baggage handling system, perhaps world’s largest baggage handling system. For successful implementation of a project therefore project influencers need to be analyzed by the stakeholders so that it is possible to deal with all factors that might tamper with the scope of the project as well as its achievement of predetermined objectives .Apart from project Influencers assessing the viability of a project is also paramount. Viability of a project enables project stakeholders to weigh the project benefits against its cost. Had this been done for the Baggage handling system, it would have been possible to identify what the outcomes of the project such as its high maintenance costs and perhaps an alternative would have been sought. Finally planning would have made it possible to complete the project within the time set and budget and the extra cost could have been saved.

Reference List

Rebentisch, E. (2016). Integrating program management with systems engineering. [Place of publication not identified], John Wiley & Sons.

Crowder, J. A., Carbone, J. N., & Demijohn, R. (2015). Multidisciplinary systems engineering: architecting the design process. Cham, Springer. https://public.eblib.com/choice/publicfullrecord.aspx?p=4206709.

Demarco, T., & Lister, T. R. (2013). Waltzing with bears: managing risk on software projects. https://proquest.safaribooksonline.com/9780133492248.

Estrella, J. A. (2007). Identifying software project risks in the Canadian financial services sector: an international comparative study. Markham, Ont, Agilitek Corporation.

Gaynor, G. H. (2010). Decisions: finding your way through the maze. Oxford, Wiley-Blackwell.

Hass, K. B. (2009). Managing complex projects: a new model. Vienna, VA, Management Concepts.

Information systems foundations: constructing and criticising workshop, gregor, S. D., & Hart, D. N. (2005). Information systems foundations: constructing and criticising. Canberra, ANU E Press. https://epress.anu.edu.au/?p=128271..

Kerzner, H. (2013). Project management: case studies. Hoboken, N.J., John Wiley https://www.123library.org/book_details/?id=62637.

Kock, N. F. (2007). Systems analysis & design fundamentals: a business process redesign approach. Thousand Oaks, Calif, Sage Publications. https://public.eblib.com/choice/publicfullrecord.aspx?p=996263.

Laar, P. V. D., & Punter, T. (2010). Views on evolvability of embedded systems. Dordrecht, Springer.

Reussner, R. (2016). Modeling and simulating software architectures: the Palladio approach.

Shenhar, A., & Dvir, D. (2007). Reinventing project management: the diamond approach to successful growth and innovation. https://www.books24x7.com/marc.asp?bookid=23562

Oz, E. (2016). Management information systems. Boston, Thomson Course Technology.

Winch, G. (2010). Managing construction projects: an information processing approach. Chichester, Blackwell Pub. https://site.ebrary.com/id/10631341.