Assignment 2: Strategy Analysis, Requirements Analysis and Design Definitions, and Solution Evaluation (35%)

Purpose

The purpose of this assignment is for you to demonstrate your knowledge of the tasks and techniques associated with Strategy Analysis, Requirements Analysis and Design Definition, and Solution Evaluation by analyzing a case and building BA deliverables based on the information from the case.

How to Proceed

Read the Case Study below.

Complete the questions for Part A, Part B, and Part C in a single document.

If external references are used to help illustrate justification in any BA deliverable, please follow APA format.

Submit your assignment to the Assignment 2: Strategy Analysis, Requirements Analysis and Design Definitions, and Solution Evaluation dropbox in UM Learn.

Case Study

The Loft Decor and Furniture

The Loft Decor and Furniture is a relatively new national housewares and home dcor chain store that has seen steady growth since its establishment two years ago. The Loft offers affordable, yet stylish dcor, household items, and small pieces of furniture. The Lofts founder and CEO, Roger Needham, has managed to offer reduced costs for customers by stocking merchandise in a warehouse-type stocking system with a small and comfortable showroom. When customers wish to purchase an item in the showroom, they call over a sales associate who takes their order of items on a pad of paper and walks it to the warehouse to be fulfilled. Warehouse staff will prepare the customers order and meet them at the loading dock to assist them in loading their vehicles.

Roger is pleased with the store chains recent growth, but customer complaint data indicates that there are growing concerns with errors in customer orders and in the promptness of orders being fulfilled. Root cause analysis indicates that with the growth of business, sales associates are spending considerably more time with customers and do not have time to walk their paper-recorded orders back to the warehouse leading to delays. Further analysis reveals that transcription errors frequently lead to errors in customer orders. The Loft Decor and Furniture has a business need to reduce the amount of time taken to get orders from sales associates to the warehouse staff and to reduce the number of errors in order transcription.

The Solution

Order Builder is a commercial off the shelf (COTS) software solution used in several retail and food service locations world-wide. Order Builder replaces the need to manually write customer orders on a notepad and run them to the warehouse, with sales associates instead recording an order on an app running on a tablet computer and sending the order via the Internet to the warehouse staff. The warehouse staff then review the order on their own tablets, prepare the order, and indicate to the sales associate when the order is ready on the loading dock.

The solution is easy to use and highly configurable. A user who is designated as an Administrator may set profiles for each sales associate, menu items that sales associates may select on their tablet when taking a customer order, and menu pages that group menu items together for quick look-up.

When taking a customers order, the sales associate will use the menu pages to quickly jump to the items that the customer is requesting. The sales associate will then add items requested by the customer to their order. At any time, the sales associate may tap the View Order button to switch to the Order Screen where the customers order can be reviewed, revised, or notes can be added. If the order is correct, the sales associate will enter the customers name into the page, so that the warehouse can identify them at the loading dock. The sales associate will then tap the Send to Warehouse button to send the order to the warehouse. The warehouse has a larger tablet where the warehouse staff review inbound orders. Once the warehouse has prepared the customers order, they will send an alert to the sales associates tablet indicating that the order is ready to be picked up at the dock. The sales associate will alert the waiting customer that their order is ready.

Order Builder Functions

A review of the manual for Menu Manager app reveals the following functions:

Create new order;

Add item to order;

Remove item from order;

Add note to item;

Cancel order;

Send order to warehouse;

Acknowledge order pick-up;

Review new order;

Alert order is ready;

Set menu items (Configuration);

Set menu page categories (Configuration); and

Set sales associate profiles (Configuration).

Hardware Requirements

The software is hosted by the vendor, so the business does not need to host any software on-site. The user interfaces are delivered via apps that can be installed on tablet computers that connect to the vendors servers via a wireless Internet connection. Configuration of the software, including setting menu items, menu pages, server profiles, and bar tables, is best performed on a desktop computer.

The Project

Pragmatic Solutions, an IT consulting company, has been contracted by Roger Needham to deliver the solution at The Loft Decor and Furniture. Before investing in implementation at each The Loft Decor and Furniture nationally, Roger has asked that a pilot be tried at one location to determine requirements and to demonstrate the value of the solution. Pragmatic Solutions deployed a project team to work with one of the more popular locations and deploy the pilot there.

Unfortunately, the business analyst on the project team has taken a leave of absence, and you must take over for them on the project. The previous BA completed some stakeholder analysis, wrote an incomplete current state description, and has elicited some requirements. You must continue creating deliverables for Strategy Analysis, Requirements Analysis and Design Definition, and Solution Evaluation. Your requirements and designs will be provided to the vendor for configuration of the solution, to The Loft Decor and Furnitures IT department for purchasing tablets and hardware, and to Pragmatic Solutions training team who will develop a training program for sales associates, warehouse staff, and store managers on how to use the new system.

Stakeholder Analysis

Stakeholder/ Stakeholder Group	Attitudes	Decision Making Authority	Level of Influence	Collaboration Plan	Communication Needs
Sponsor (Roger Needham, CEO)	Positive	All decisions	High	3-Days advance notice to book an appointment	Updates on project milestones Delivery: Email
Store Manager (Candace Lee)	Neutral	Provide input to configuration requirements	Med	In-person meetings preferred in store team room	Updates on BA activities and approvals Delivery: Email
Store Customers	Neutral	None	Low	None	None
Sales Associates	Neutral	None	Low	Book through store manager In-person meetings only	Store manager will provide updates during staff meetings
Warehouse Staff	Positive	None	Low	Book through store manager In-person meetings only	Store manager will provide updates during staff meetings
Order Builder Vendor	Positive	None	Low	Contact as needed Remote meetings only	Completed requirements and changes to requirements Delivery: Email
The Loft IT Department	Neutral	Provide input to hardware requirements	Med	Contact as needed Remote meetings only	Completed requirements and changes to requirements Delivery: Email

Initial Requirements

Req ID	Requirement Description	Priority	Status
0001	Store Managers will be the only users who perform configuration of menus and sales associates.	Must Have	Approved
0002	Configuration will be performed on the existing desktop computers in the store offices.	Must Have	Approved
0003	Warehouse staff will be provided 1 large wall-mounted tablet to review new orders and send alerts when orders are ready.	Must Have	Approved
0004	Each sales associate will be provided a small tablet to capture orders.	Must Have	Approved
0005	The entire store requires full Wi-Fi coverage for the tablets to connect to the Internet.	Must Have	Approved
0006	It must not take more time than the current state to record an order in the new system.	Must Have	Approved
0007	Any new wireless network access points must be installed at the same time that renovations to the store are being completed next month.	Should Have	Approved
0008	Sales associates shall be able to set up their own profiles.	Should Have	Approved

Current State Description

Current State Description: The Loft Decor and Furniture (Incomplete)

Scope of the Change

The change will include the departments, processes, systems, technology, and people in at each The Loft Decor and Furniture location with the aim of fulfilling the following business requirements:

Reduce the amount of time taken to get orders from serving staff to the warehouse staff; and

Reduce the number of transcription errors in orders.

Capabilities in Scope

Capabilities TBD Include any capabilities involving customer orders

Processes in Scope

Capture new order

Receive new order

Serve order

Other processes? TBD

Resources in Scope

Sales associates

Warehouse staff

Others? TBD

Policies

None identified

Technology and Infrastructure

1 desktop computer per location used in the store office

Internet connection is wired, no Wi-fi access

Culture

The environment is fast-paced staff must multi-task and work quickly.

Staff are generally happy and want to work toward solutions.

Current Performance

Indicators TBD

Promptness of receiving their orders is a concern.

Time spent walking to the warehouse to provide the warehouse with orders is a concern.

There are errors in transcription.

Dependencies

TBD

External influences

TBD When are peak sales months when a change should not happen in the store?

Assumptions

None

Current State Business Architecture

Incomplete

Questions

Part B: Requirements Analysis and Design Definition (20 marks)

Create a basic Requirements Architecture to guide you in identifying the elements of the solution and business in scope for the change and the techniques that you will use to model each.

Using the information provided about the solution, create a functional decomposition (2 to 3 levels) of the solution to identify each of its components. A tree diagram or table may be used to express the functional decomposition.

Based on the solution components and areas of the business that are in scope, create a table listing each individual IT and business element where requirements must be elicited and the techniques that you will use to model each component.

Where the case does not provide enough information for you, you may make assumptions and list them under the Assumptions section, with the intention the project will confirm them as soon as possible.

Create a future state business process for taking a customer order, sending it to the kitchen, and picking up the completed order that incorporates the IT solution. At the very least, this model should contain all of the following 5 elements: Activity, Event, Directional Flow, Decision Point, and Role(s)/Swimlanes. Where the case doesn't provide enough information, you may assume steps in the process that you will confirm with the stakeholders when you review the model with them. The process should include individual swimlanes for:

the sales associate;

the customer; and

the warehouse staff.

Based on the information in the case and the functions of the solution, create a Roles and Permissions Matrix that will guide how the permissions in the IT solution are configured.

Part C: Solution Evaluation (4 marks)

Identify at least 2 indicators that you recommend using to measure the solution performance. Describe how you will measure metrics for each indicator before and after the solution is implemented.