This is an interview with a management information system (MIS) director. The company that I work for has an IT department that offers information technology services for the entire organization. This interview is about the new application software that was developed by team. The management information system of the organization required an upgrade.
Interviewee name: Mr. John Mark
Organization: J & G export company
- What is the role of MIS director?
“Management Information Systems job is to ensure that the company’s information systems are up and running” this means that he is in charge of all ICT projects and systems.
- What projects is he/she currently working on for the organization What projects has he/she recently completed?
He stated that they have done several projects before such as setting up network for the organization (LAN and WLAN). Currently they are working on developing new MIS system.
- What IT applications has the firm recently implemented?
Fiber optic network infrastructure
- Were the most recently applications developed in-house, were they outsourced development or were they application software packages that were customized and purchased?
There were recently developed in-house project.
- How much time does he/she spend in each of the following activities?
(Since this is a large project the director answered on the time spend by the entire team on the project activities)
- Gathering requirements
The respondent stated that there are many factors to consider in estimating the time required to gather requirements. This is because it is a continuous process based on the type of software development life cycle used. The new application system took two months. This was the estimated time for the system.
- Researching hardware/software options
The task of researching hardware and software options took the team four weeks. Mr. John pointed out that there was hardware infrastructure in place hence it took less time to come up with the software specification. There were ‘experience team members’ he observed; who had developed similar system hence they easily identified software/hardware requirements.
- Documenting
- Programming
Programming comes after the design stage. It is the stage of system coding and it starts immediately after the design stage has been completed. “Programming was done during requirement specification phase of the prototype”. Generally this took about 3 months according to Mr. John’s estimates. Coding was done at different stages both for the interface and database of the new management information system.
- Training and developing training materials/user manuals
“Actually there was a need to train system users”. That was his first lines of the respond to this question. Preparing of training material and the user manuals took about 6 weeks according to the interviewee. This was done parallel to the system analysis stage. The training material was revised after coding was completed for 3 days. The training of the entire users of the system took 2 months. This is because the new MIS system integrated more functionality and was to be implemented in areas that did not have the IT systems before Mr. John explained.
- Customizing existing software
The existing software was upgraded with new MIS system and it took three weeks.
- Software maintenance.
“Software maintenance is a continuous process”. He did not estimate the time dedicated to this process since it is ongoing and will not stop.
Reference
Valenzuela, Dapzury, and Pallavi Shrivastava. "Interview as a method for qualitative research." Presentation http://www. \public. asu. edu/~ kroel/www500/Interview% 20Fri. pdf (2002).
