Question 1: Project Scope
Project Scope is one of the first things that must be defined when planning for an Information System Project. Providing a project scope is very important because it defines what the project must deliver or what it contains. It contains the sum total of the features of the information to be developed. The Work Breakdown Structure is the most common tool used to visually describe the scope of a project. Without a well defined project scope, a project cannot completely identify its user and system requirements as well as the projects functional and non-functional requirements. This will eventually affect the overall management ad output of the project.
For this case specific case (Payroll System for Last Chance Securities), the scope could be identified as the following:
Objectives:
The objective of the project is to improve the existing traditional payroll system through the creation of a computerized payroll system. Specifically, a computerized payroll system will be developed to reduce significant processing time and reduce errors, and increase the morale of the employees working in the payroll department.
Organizational Impact:
The new system will not only give tangible benefit to the company by decreasing the needed manpower to process payroll and reducing errors but will also provide intangible benefits by increasing the morale of the employees working on the organization because they are able to work with a computerized system. Likewise, employees are able to be serve in a timely manner.
Schedule:
The new payroll system must be installed by January 1.
Question 2: Constraints and Characteristics
Question 3: questions to ask in determining feasibility
The following questions can be asked to determine the feasibility of the project?
- How much budget is the company willing to give for the project? Will it be sufficient?
- Are all the users receptive to the project? What are their views about the project?
- What are the benefits of the project? Are the benefits enough to make up for the required expenses?
- What happens if the system was not able to deliver on time?
- Is it technically and operationally feasible?
- Are there internal and external issues that may affect the proper implementation of the system?
Question 4: Shortening preliminary investigation
Because of the time constraints in coming up with the new system, the typical preliminary investigation process can be shorten. Anyway, the listed steps in conducting preliminary investigations are serves as guides to information required in order to determine the feasibility of a project but one can do away with some parts especially when the developers of the system are from within the organization and are well-knowledgeable regarding the background of the organization. The longest method which is the fact-finding can be shortened. Only important and necessary fact-finding methods can be done and other fact-finding methods like surveys can be skipped if the information needed can be acquired though other easier and faster methods like observations of interviews.
