Steering Committee Case Study

Submitted By sacretus
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Pages: 4

wk4_HW
Chapter 13.
1. Steering Committee is a body of senior managers or executives that discusses high level and long-term issues in the organization. The primary responsibility of this committee should be to focus on the overall current and future information needs of the company. The steering committee should be responsible for overall planning and control of the systems development effort of the company. The company has 50% annual growth rate. But still company is running by small mainframe computer, which runs batch applications for all five departments. The steering committee has to form a study team. The study team has to identify strength and weakness of current system and they have to find out solution. Planning for IT include constant monitoring of current system. The study team has to do preliminary investigation. They have to find out alternatives to the current system, each department needs, estimate the cost and benefits of its proposed solution. Then they have to submit a solution or alternative report and recommendation to the steering committee. Then the steering committee will do the final determination. The steering committee may decide to disband the study team and do nothing, perform additional preliminary investigations, or proceed to the formal analysis stage of the system study. The study team will familiarize itself with the company’s current accounting system, identify specific input and outputs, identify system strength and weaknesses, and eventually make recommendations for supplementary work to obtain a more complete understanding of the company’s current operational information system and its environment. After the completion of survey work, it must analyze the result. Then the study team submits final systems analyses report, which signals the end of the analysis phase of the system study. Once steering committee approves the system analyses report, the design team must perform a detailed investigation of different potential systems. The first of these is feasibility evaluation, in which the design team determines the practicality of alternative proposals. Once the steering committee approves the feasibility of project, the design team can begin work on a detailed systems design.
2. Every systems development process goes through essentially the same systems development life cycle. Traditionally, we can identify four major steps of stems study. Neglecting any portion of the life cycle may have serious consequences. Following are the major steps.
a. Planning and investigation: this step involves organizing a system study team, performing a preliminary investigation of the existing system, and developing strategic plans for the remainder of the study.
b. Analysis: This step involves analyzing the company’s current system to identify the information needs, strengths, and weaknesses of the existing system.
c. Design: In this step, an organization designs changes that eliminate the current system’s weak points while preserving its strengths.
d. Implementation, follow up, and maintenance: This phase include acquiring resources for the new system as well as training new or existing employees to use it. Companies conduct follow up studies to determine whether the new system is successful and, of course, to identify any new problems with it. Finally, businesses must maintain the system, which means that they correct minor flaws and update the system as required.
Chapter 6
1.
1. Document flowcharts: traces the physical flow of documents through an organization that is, the flow of documents from the departments, groups, or individuals who first created