Information Systems Analysis and Design for International Charity Foundation

This report discusses the development of a computerized system for International Charity Foundation (ICF) to overcome the problems of manual handling of documents and payments. It includes the approach to systems development, systems requirements, project cost and benefit analysis, project schedule, system information requirement investigation techniques, and reflections and conclusions.

COIT 20248: Information Systems Analysis and Design
Term 2, 2018
Assessment 1 - Systems Analysis
Lecturer: xxx
Tutor: xxxx
Prepared by:
Student Name: xxx
Student Number: xxx

Table of Contents
1. Introduction.......................................................................................................................................1
2. Approach to Systems Development..................................................................................................2
3. Systems Requirements......................................................................................................................3
4. Project Cost and Benefit Analysis......................................................................................................4
5. Project Schedule................................................................................................................................7
6. System Information Requirement Investigation Techniques.............................................................9
7. Reflections and Conclusions............................................................................................................10
References...........................................................................................................................................11

1. Introduction
International Charity Foundation (ICF) is an Australia based international organization that supports
young children’s education and medical treatments if they have limited resources or unable to
gather sufficient funds for travelling abroad. ICF collects funds from various sponsors and provide
them to the children who have enrolled for specific programs. In spite of being a popular initiative
and receiving significant amount of funds from the sponsors every year, the organization is facing
certain problems regarding the operations. The problems included manual handling of documents
and payments resulting in numerous and considerable errors and the use of paper documents that
can be easily destroyed. Hence, the organization has decided to implement a computerized system
that will be much more efficient, faster and with minimized errors.
The aim of this report is to determine a specific and suitable system development methodology for
the development of the proposed information system for ICF.
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2. Approach to Systems Development
There are several system development approaches and methods that are chosen based on the
nature and type of project and the project requirements. This particular project requires the
development of a number of different features within a limited period of time. Hence, the
recommended approach to systems development is rapid prototyping (Špundak 2014). In this
approach, the different features of the system will be treated as separate projects but will also
executed at the same time. After completion, the features will be integrated within one common
system.
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3. Systems Requirements
There are several functional and non-functional requirements of the system that are required for the
development of the information system.
The functional requirements include sufficient hardware to support the information system, online
registration portal, stock update and others (Laudon and Laudon 2016).
Hardware: The role of this functional requirement is to provide a platform on which the entire
system will run, process and store valuable information. Without sufficiently upgraded hardware, it
will not be possible to run the entire system with all the proposed features.
Online Registration Portal: This functional requirement is required to allow the user to create a
personal profile through which he can make payments, view services, register for modules / services
and others.
Stock Update: This requirement includes updating the stock on a frequent basis so that the
resources are not wasted or there are no shortages of resources. Preferably on a weekly basis, the
stock will be updated so that in case of excess resources, purchase of more resources will be closed
and in case of shortage, orders will be sent to the vendor for providing resource supplies.
The non-functional requirements include regular inventory upgrades, online customer chat system
with fast response, access to online registration form and others. These non functional requirements
of the project are the backbones of the functional requirements and are used to provide support to
the entire system developed in the project.
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4. Project Cost and Benefit Analysis
Project cost benefit analysis is performed in order to determine an estimated range of monetary
benefits that can be earned after a certain period of time post project completion. During the
planning phase, a budget is estimated for the project and to provide such a budget, the organization
needs to procure funds on loan from various sources / sponsors or can invest in the project from its
own funds. However, from every project, the organization needs to earn back the investment as
quick as possible along with a health margin of profit. Cost benefit analysis also helps the
organization to determine whether the project is financially feasible or not.
The cost benefit analysis for the project is done as follows.
Cost Benefit Analysis for ICF
Hardware
$
1,00,000.00
Software
$
40,000.00
Development of the System
$
80,000.00
Employee Training
$
30,000.00
Total Development Cost
$
2,50,000.00
Maintenance
$
7,200.00
Additional Operational Costs
$
5,000.00
Operational Labor
$
8,000.00
Total Operational Cost
$
20,200.00
Savings from Salary
$
60,000.00
Reduction of Wastage of Resources
$
48,000.00
Total Benefit
$
1,08,000.00
Discount Rate Used 10.00%
Project Cost-
Benefit
Analysis
Analysis
Variables:
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Discount Rate
Used
10.00
%
Annual
Benefits
$
1,08,0
00.00
Annual
Operational
Costs
$
20,200
.00
One-Time
Development
Cost
$
2,50,0
00.00
Year of
Project
0 1 2 3 4 5 TOTALS
Economic
Benefit
$0.00 $
1,08,000
.00
$
1,08,000
.00
$
1,08,000
.00
$
1,08,000
.00
$
1,08,00
0.00
Discount Rate 1.0000 0.9091 0.8264 0.7513 0.6830 0.6209
PV of Benefits $0.00 $98,181.
82
$89,256.
20
$81,142.
00
$73,765.
45
$67,059
.50
NPV of all
BENEFITS
$0.00 $
98,181.8
2
$
1,87,438
.02
$
2,68,580
.02
$
3,42,345
.47
$
4,09,40
4.97
$
4,09,40
4.97
One-Time
COSTS $(2,50,
000.00
)
Recurring Costs $0.00 $ $ $ $ $
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(20,200.
00)
(20,200.
00)
(20,200.
00)
(20,200.
00)
(20,200
.00)
Discount Rate 1.0000 0.9091 0.8264 0.7513 0.6830 0.6209
PV of Recurring
Costs
$0.00 $
(18,363.
64)
$
(16,694.
21)
$
(15,176.
56)
$
(13,796.
87)
$
(12,542
.61)
NPV of all
COSTS $(2,50,
000.00
)
$
(2,68,36
3.64)
$
(2,85,05
7.85)
$
(3,00,23
4.41)
$
(3,14,03
1.28)
$
(3,26,57
3.89)
$
(3,26,5
73.89)
Overall NPV $
82,831.
08
Overall ROI
0.2536
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5. Project Schedule
.
FIGURE 1: Work Breakdown Structure of the Project
(Source: Created by Author)
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FIGURE 2: Gantt Chart of the Project
(Source: Created by Author)
A work breakdown structure is a list of various work packages in a project arranged under respective
project deliverables and placed in a particular chronological order as per the requirements of the
project. The work breakdown structure enables the project manager to determine the priorities of
work packages as well as various linkages with different work packages.
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Gantt chart is the diagrammatic representation of the scheduled work packages of a particular
project after an overall time is estimated for the project. Hence, it is evident that the Gantt chart is
directly developed from the work breakdown structure after the work packages are arranged in a
particular order.
As estimated in the Gantt chart, the estimated time required for the project is around 90
days, which is reasonable enough owing to the nature and the scale of the project. Also, the
budget consumed within this period is feasible for the organization and hence, it can
proceed with the project.
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6. System Information Requirement Investigation Techniques
There are a number of stakeholders involved in the project who all have different and specific roles
to play in the project. Some of the main stakeholders involved in the project are project manager,
finance manager, developer and tester. The project manager is responsible for managing and
controlling the entire project while also taking part in change management, monitoring of the
project progress and others. Without his approval, none of the major decisions or requests made
during the project will be allowed to be implemented or executed. The finance manager is mainly
involved in managing the financial aspect of the project including managing budget, allocating funds
within stakeholder groups, assessing additional fund request documents and others.
System information requirement investigation techniques are those which are used to extract from
necessary information from the system including maintenance status, working status, issues and
others (Serrador and Pinto 2015). This is important in order to keep track of the system and solve
any issues that might be faced by the employees working in the system. It is also important to
monitor the systems in order to ensure no illegal work is done in them.
Some common investigation techniques used are questionnaire based survey, direct monitoring and
analysis of daily update reports / documents.
Survey: This technique is executed by conducting a detailed survey of all the employees working in
the organization. After the implementation of the new system, the employees have the first hand
experiences in working with the newly developed systems. Based on their personal experiences,
they can participate in the survey and can freely provide information regarding issues and problems
faced in the system.
Monitoring: Monitoring is another reliable technique that can be utilized for determining issues in
the system.
Analysis of Reports: The investigation can also be conducted based on the analysis of various
progress reports and project logs from which the errors can be detected.
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7. Reflections and Conclusions
This project involves development of an information system for ICF that will have to include several
features like online registration system, printing of online receipts for the sponsors, regular
inventory update, 24 hours customer chat system, secure payment gateway for the sponsors and
others. The project is estimated to be completed in 91 days and the pre set budget to be used in the
project is $250,000.
This project helped me a lot in understanding a large number of concepts and subjects that include
project management, systems development methodology, system information investigation
technique and others. I also learnt several techniques like determination of appropriate project
development method, scheduling of project, determination of budget of project and also the
analysis of cost benefit from the project.
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References
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project success in different project governance contexts. International Journal of Project
Management, 33(6), pp.1377-1392.
Kerzner, H. and Kerzner, H.R., 2017. Project management: a systems approach to planning,
scheduling, and controlling. John Wiley & Sons.
Laudon, K.C. and Laudon, J.P., 2016. Management information system. Pearson Education India.
Marchewka, J.T., 2014. Information technology project management. John Wiley & Sons.
Muller, R., 2017. Project governance. Routledge.
Nicholas, J.M. and Steyn, H., 2017. Project management for engineering, business and technology.
Routledge.
Peltier, T.R., 2016. Information Security Policies, Procedures, and Standards: guidelines for effective
information security management. Auerbach Publications.
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success. International Journal of Project Management, 33(5), pp.1040-1051.
Špundak, M., 2014. Mixed agile/traditional project management methodology–reality or
illusion?. Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences, 119, pp.939-948.
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with a critical look at the brave new world. International Journal of Project Management, 33(2),
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