Project Management Case Study: Willowbrook School - System Development

This case study examines the strategic planning and system development needs of Willowbrook School. It begins with a memo outlining the importance of strategic planning for an information system, detailing preliminary system investigation stages. The assignment then identifies key stakeholders and fact-finding techniques used, including research, questionnaires, and interviews. It analyzes the impact of internal and external factors on information system development, emphasizing the significance of internal resources. Finally, the case study provides recommendations for the successful implementation of an information system, including security, software licensing, and technical support. The assignment concludes with a bibliography of relevant sources.

Running head: PROJECT MANAGEMENT
Case Study- Willowbrook School
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author’s Note

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1. Memo to Victoria detailing about the needs of strategic planning and
discussing preliminary systems investigation
Willowbrook School
Address: <Please Fill>
31st October 2017
To: Victoria
From: < Please Fill your name>
Subject: Memo that details the need of strategic planning as well as the stages of preliminary
system investigation
Strategic planning for development of information system within the Willowbrook
School is defined as a procedure that helps in creating a portfolio that is basically dependent on
the utilization of information system for achieving the organizational goals as well as objectives.
Strategic planning is generally done in organizations for ensuring that the information system is
helpful in accomplishing the goals and also helps in gaining competitive advantage. The strategic
planning is helpful in establishing proper realistic goals and objectives related with mission and
vision of the organization. It generally helps in providing a base with which the progress can be
measured easily. The Willowbrook School can easily manage the increased enrollments as well
as other operation of the school quite properly after the development of information system.
Preliminary investigation is required to be done before the development of the
information system and it is considered as one of the first step in the system development
project. It is defined as one of the way with which the requests of the users are handled for

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enhancing as well as improving the operation of the organization. The system investigation
generally includes the following:
Understanding the problem: It is quite important to understand the problem of the
organization so that significance of current system can be identified for making modifications
within the existing operation.
Defining scope and constraints: The scope as well as constraints of the project must be
defined in order provide clear idea about the project.
Performing fact finding: This technique must be performed for collecting proper
information with the help of the new information system in the school.
Analyzing cost, benefit as well as usability: It is quite important to analyze the data of
the project in order to estimate the cost, benefit as well as usability of the system properly.
Evaluating feasibility: The feasibility study of the information system is very much
important for ensuring that the project can be easily handled by the users.
Providing recommendations: Proper recommendation must be provided in order to
estimate the time as well as cost of project development.
2. Conducting fact-finding
The lists of people who are interviewed are provided below:
 Director (Victoria Owens)
 Principal (Kathy Gillard)
 Vice Principal (Susan brown)

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 Administrative assistant (Michelle Madrid)
 Full time teachers
 Part time teachers
 Financial committee
Various fact finding techniques are as follows:
Research: this fact finding technique is utilized for examining the problem that is
previously solved by other sources.
Questionnaires: This fact finding technique is utilized for collecting information from
large number of users of the Willowbrook School.
Interviews: Interview is one of the techniques that is utilized for collecting information
from face to face interviews. The interview is utilized for finding, verifying as well as clarifying
requirements for developing information system.
Prototyping: This fact-finding technique helps in collecting the various requirements
facts of the system.
3. Affect on the information system by internal and external system
The external factors that affect the information system development include social,
political, economical as well as technological whereas the internal factors like funding,
investment opportunities,, physical resource, presence of resources as well as facilities affect the
development of the information system

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It is identified that internal factor affect the development of information system more in
comparison to external factors because if Willowbrook School does not arrange the equipments,
funding, resources properly then the implementation of the information system will not be
possible. In order to implement the information system it is very much significant to organize the
funding as well as resources for the project properly for making it successful.
4. List of recommendations
The lists of recommendations that are quite important for development of the
information system for the Willowbrook School are as follows:
Proper security System: Proper security must be provided so that sensitive data should
not be misused.
Software license: Proper software licensing is present so that all the applications related
with the information system must run on the system.
Technical support: Proper technical equipment as well as support must be present in
order to develop the information system for the Willowbrook School.

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Bibliography
Alston, P., & Knuckey, S. (Eds.). (2016). The transformation of human rights fact-finding.
Oxford University Press.
Cassidy, A. (2016). A practical guide to information systems strategic planning. CRC press.
Gordon, K., Pohl, J., & Bouchard, M. (2014). Investment Treaty Law, Sustainable Development
and Responsible Business Conduct: A Fact Finding Survey.
Kalyva, A. E., Vagia, E. C., Konstandopoulos, A. G., Srinivasa, A. R., T-Raissi, A., Muradov,
N., & Kakosimos, K. E. (2017). Particle model investigation for the thermochemical
steps of the sulfur–ammonia water splitting cycle. International Journal of Hydrogen
Energy, 42(6), 3621-3629.
Wolf, C., & Floyd, S. W. (2017). Strategic planning research: Toward a theory-driven
agenda. Journal of Management, 43(6), 1754-178