Allsports Club: Proposed Automated System Development Report Analysis

This report details the proposed automated system development for the Allsports Sports Club, aiming to improve member engagement and newsletter publication. It begins with an introduction outlining the current operational problems and proposes a new system with membership management, event tracking, and publication management capabilities. The report then explores the approach to systems development, comparing the current and proposed systems, followed by a section on system requirements, including functional and non-functional aspects. A cost-benefit analysis is presented, detailing both one-time and recurring costs, and the expected return on investment. The project schedule is outlined using work breakdown structures and Gantt charts. The report also discusses system information requirement investigation techniques, emphasizing the importance of stakeholder involvement and various data collection methods. Finally, it concludes with reflections on the project's implications and future adaptability, highlighting the use of agile methodologies to accommodate changing business needs. The report references various sources to support its analysis.

Table of Contents
1.Introduction.......................................................................................................................................2
2. Approach to Systems Development..................................................................................................2
2.1 Current System............................................................................................................................2
2.2 Proposed system.........................................................................................................................2
3. Systems Requirements......................................................................................................................3
3.1 Member engagement and management.....................................................................................3
3.2 Functional requirements.............................................................................................................3
3.3 Non-functional requirements......................................................................................................4
4. Project Cost Benefit Analysis.............................................................................................................4
5. Project Schedule................................................................................................................................5
6. System Information Requirement Investigation Techniques.............................................................7
7. Reflections and Conclusions..............................................................................................................8
References.............................................................................................................................................8
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1.Introduction
Allsports Sports Club organises sports and games for its members. Everyday members
engage in various sporting events and record their activities. In order to inform and
inspire the members, the club publishes a newsletter, ‘The Sport Report’, with ten articles
written and edited by the members. The president of the club coordinates the
production of the newsletter.
For enhancing the publication of the newsletter and improve its quality, a computerised
system is proposed. This report provides information regarding the current operational
problems of the club, Information system structure description about the proposed
scheme, its cost-benefit analysis, project resource management and work schedules. The
new system is intended to improve managing the member profile and the newsletter
production.
2. Approach to Systems Development
2.1 Current System
Because the newsletter has to be published weekly, there is tremendous pressure on the
president to release the newsletter on time. At present, the president has to collect ten articles
from the members regarding the sporting events in the previous week (covering Monday to
Sunday), obtain five advertisements, and allocate the editorial job. Though this activity seem to
be simple and elementary, it is critical for the business; the newsletter must be released every
Wednesday. Off late, there are delays in the publication of the Sport Report. Some of the reasons
for the inefficiency are lack of tracking of the sports events, article collection and management of
the editorial activities.
The club is using word processors and spreadsheets which are outdated and ineffective in
handling the present volume of members. Also, identifying members who have contributed the
articles and acted as editors is difficult. The pressure of managing the costs and arranging the
advertisements are also adding to the problem.
2.2 Proposed system
The new automated software is expected to be an effective membership management and
communication platform for the members. It is intended to organise daily sports events, improve
communication and empower members to connect, communicate and collaborate the club
activities. The proposed system will have membership management, event tracking, online
communication platform, and a publication management system.
The project is planning to use agile software development tools to reduce the risks of developing
quick programs. Iteration is critical in agile approach and each iteration is for improving the
system. Interaction with all stakeholders is critical in using agile methodology and, practicality and
quick benefits are the criteria for evaluating software (Desharnais, Kocaturk,. and Abran 2011).
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3. Systems Requirements
Apart from hardware installations required for the proposed information system, the
following are the software specifications.
The proposed system will have the following requirements
3.1 Member engagement and management
Registration: Completing member registration process
Login: Every member can login with username and password
Sports list: the sports activities carried out in the club
Event tracking: the practice of recording the sporting activities of a member
Sports gallery: a member and an administrator can update about the events, outcome of
sports activities, upload photos and videos of events, etc.
Newsletter management: Members can voluntarily post their article online for review and
the editor can track the progress of the article and advertisement collections. The editor also
can coordinate the design and production of the newsletter management.
3.2 Functional requirements
This section is based on the requirements uncovered in the system analysis and is organized
and integrated to enhance the system and production of each requirement can be tracked using the
project management tools.
The functional requirements of the project include the following.
Member registration (complete name, address and contact details of the members)
Authentication (issue of user name and password to the members)
Accessibility administration (depending on the roles of the members provide rights
to access the information)
Interface to record sporting participation and results (type of sport, duration of
activity, results of the games, photo, videos and other description of the sport events)
Interface to post, edit and publish the newsletter articles
Interface to post advertisement details
Deadline notification (an automatic system to notify the deadline and expedite the
member responses)
Access to archives (facility to search, review and print the published newsletter)
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Communication platform (a facility to distribute the newsletter in electronic format,
receive feedback and respond to the members’ queries)
Offline distribution (tracking of offline distribution of newsletter)
Reporting (Report generation for the analysis and evaluation of the sports activities,
newsletter editorial activities and publication data)
3.3 Non-functional requirements
The non-functional requirements of the automation project include the following.
 Secure member Authentication
 Faster data retrieval, storage and updating
 user friendly interfaces
 Scalability features
 Data Backup and protection
 Safe and secure transactions and communications
 Accurate report generation
4. Project Cost Benefit Analysis
Cost benefit Analysis is a tool in decision making to compare the cost and benefit of the
automated information system (Nas 2016). The business owners can determine whether the
project is economically beneficial or not.
In Allsports club, to implement the automated information system, the costs include
hardware resources, software costs, and limited additional resources. The benefits of the
proposed system include the following.
 Freeing up of staff time
 Reduction in time needed to track member activities and sports events
 Achievement of increased speed of retrieval and accuracy of the information
 Management of members’ communication is easier
 Management of article collection and publication is easier, and delays in circulation
of newsletter can be reduced
The president has expected a saving $3000 per month through this project.
A systematic cost benefit analyse is provided below which compares the Net Present value
(NPV) of the cost and the future returns (Return on Investment, ROI).
FIGURE 1: Cost benefit analysis of the project
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There are two types of cost in this project:
One-time cost – which includes the initial investment to complete the project
Recurring cost – it is a cost that repeats after fixed or variable intervals
With a initial investment of $80,000, the Break Even Analysis (BEA) indicate that the investment
achieves break even at the start of the second year and the overall ROI is 0.68. In five years the total
cost of the project can be recovered.
5. Project Schedule
Project scheduling is a method to allocate resources and control the progress of a project. A typical
project schedule is a document that depicts the order, sequence and timing of various activities
(Slowinski & Weglarz, eds. 2013). A project consists of many tasks and every task has a beginning
and an end with specific results or outcomes. There are various techniques and tools to manage
project schedules. Works breakdown structure and Gantt chart are two popular tools in project
scheduling.
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A work breakdown structure (WBS) is a hierarchical mode of representing the tasks involved in
completion of a work. It breaks down the key jobs into subtasks that can be scheduled, performed
and controlled. The project may be subdivided into key activities such as system analysis, system
requirements, project scheduling, testing, etc. The key activities sub-divided into critical tasks such
as interviewing the stakeholders, understanding the project needs, developing requirement plans,
etc. By breaking the work into smaller components, the project manager will be able to estimate,
perform and control the work and its cost and time required for completion.
FIGURE 2: Work breakdown structure of the project
Gantt chart allows a project manager to assign tasks and allot time for completion of each task.
Gantt chart is a graphic tool to represent activities with start time, elapsed time and expected
completion time and is useful for tracking progress in a project (Baker & Trietsch 2013).
FIGURE 3: Gantt chart of the project
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Depending on the complexity of the project and the methodology used i.e. agile approach, the
schedule of the project can be followed without much deviation. The work structures are based on
the realistic analysis of the work flow.
6. System Information Requirement Investigation Techniques
System requirements must be based on the needs of the business and interactions with the
stakeholders of the project.
The stakeholders of the project include the following.
 The business owner of the club
 The president of the club
 The club members
 The club staff
 The project implementers (system designer, system developer, User interface
creators, programmers and web site developers)
The project managers have identified four methods to collect information about a system
requirement i.e. questionnaire, observation, interview, and document analysis methods.
Questionnaire method involves getting responses from the stakeholders through printed
questions or online set of questions. After receiving the responses from the stakeholder, the
project manger would analyse the requirements.
Observation is examining the actual work that is carried out by the people in the
organisation. This will enable the system analyst to understand the activities of a business.
Based on the observations, a project manager can develop a set of requirements.
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Interviewing is engaging in face to face conversations with the stakeholders of the project
regarding their needs and expectations. This method is time consuming but rich in
indentifying the actual needs of the stakeholders.
Document analysis is reviewing the documents available in the organisation such as reports,
manuals, brochures, etc.
Every method has advantages and disadvantages, the project managers must choose the
most suitable method. In the project of Allsports club, interview, observation and document
analysis are most appropriate. Because the club has several thousand members and
newsletter is a critical part of the business multi-modal investigations are required.
7. Reflections and Conclusions
The implementation of automation project at Allsports is not a complex one but involves
huge data base management i.e. of members with their sporting profiles. It is likely that the
needs of the business are changing as the lifestyle of the members and the technology
changes. In order to accommodate the future requirements, the software development is
based on the agile technology. The proposed software system is sufficient to handle the
requirements of the membership management, newsletter production and publication.
The president of the club can manage the publication of the newsletter with efficiency and
effectiveness.
References
Baker, K.R. and Trietsch, D., 2013. Principles of sequencing and scheduling. John Wiley & Sons
Desharnais, J.M., Kocaturk, B. and Abran, A., 2011, November. Using the cosmic method to evaluate
the quality of the documentation of agile user stories. In Software Measurement, 2011 Joint
Conference of the 21st Int'l Workshop on and 6th Int'l Conference on Software Process and Product
Measurement (IWSM-MENSURA) (pp. 269-272). IEEE.
Nas, T.F., 2016. Cost-benefit analysis: Theory and application. Lexington Books.
Slowinski, R. and Weglarz, J. eds., 2013. Advances in project scheduling. Elsevier.
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