CASE: PETRIES ELECTRONICS Systems Planning and Selection Now that the No Customer Escapes project team has been formed and a plan has been devel- oped for distributing project information, Jim be- gan working on the project scope statement, workbook, and baseline project plan. He first drafted the project scope statement and posted it on the projects intranet (see PE Figure 4-1). Once posted on the intranet, he sent a short e-mail mes- sage to all team members requesting feedback. Minutes after sending the e-mail, Jims office phone rang. Jim, its Sally. I just looked over the scope state- ment and have a few comments. Great, replied Jim, its just a draft. What do you think? Well, I think that we need to explain more about how the system will work and why we think this new system will more than pay for itself. Those are good suggestions; I am sure many oth- ers will also want to know that information. How- ever, the scope statement is a pretty high-level document and doesnt get into too much detail. Basi- cally, its purpose is to just formally announce the project, providing a very high-level description as well as briefly listing the objectives, key assump- tions, and stakeholders. The other documents that I am working on, the workbook and the baseline proj- ect plan, are intended to provide more details on spe- cific deliverables, costs, benefits, and so on. So, anyway, that type of more detailed information will be coming next. Oh, OK, that makes sense. I have never been on a project like this, so this is all new to me, said Sally. Dont worry, replied Jim, getting that kind of feedback from you and the rest of the team will be key for us doing a thorough feasibility analysis. I am going to need a lot of your help in identifying possible costs and benefits of the system. When we develop the baseline project plan, we do a very thorough feasibility analysiswe examine finan- cial, technical, operational, schedule, legal and contractual feasibility, as well as potential politi- cal issues my last job was that there are great benefits to fol- lowing a fairly formal project management process with a new system. By moving forward with care, we are much more likely to have the right system, on time and on budget. So, asked Sally, what is the next step? Well, we need to do the feasibility analyses I just mentioned, which become part of the projects base- line project plan. Once this is completed, we will have a walkthrough presentation to management to make sure they agree with and understand the scope, risks, and costs associated with making No Cus- tomer Escapes a reality, said Jim. This is going to be a lot of work, but I am sure I am going to learn a lot, replied Sally. So, let me get to work on the feasibility analyses, said Jim. I will be sending requests out to all the team members to get their ideas. I should have this e- mail ready within an hour or so. Great, Ill look for it and respond as soon as I can, answered Sally. Thanks, the faster we get this background work done, the sooner we will be able to move on to what the system will do, replied Jim. Sounds good, talk to you later. Bye, Sally said. Bye Sally, and thanks for your quick feedback, answered Jim.

Figure 4.1 project Overview: This project will design and implement a customer relationship management system in order to provide superior customer service by rewarding our most loyal customers. Specifically, the system will track customer purchases, assign points for cumulative purchases, and allow points to be redeemed for "rewards" at local stores. The goal of this system is to provide an incentive to customers to choose Petrie's Electronics as their first and only choice for making electronic purchases. The system will provide Petrie's management with improved information on the purchase behavior of our most loyal customers.

Objectives: Track customer purchases Accumulate redeemable posts Reward customer loyalty and provide incentives to customers to remain loyal provide improved management information

Key assumptions: System development will be outsourced Interface will be a web browser system will access existing customer sales databases

Case Questions: 5. If you were assigned to help Jim with this project, how would you utilize the concept of incremen- tal commitment in the design of the baseline proj- ect plan? 6. If you were assigned to Jims team for this project, when in the project schedule (in what phase or af- ter which activities are completed) do you think you could develop an economic analysis of the proposed system? What economic feasibility fac- tors do you think would be relevant? 7. If you were assigned to Jims team for this project, what activities would you conduct in order to prepare the details for the baseline project plan? Explain the purpose of each activity and show a timeline or schedule for these activities. 8. In Question 4, you analyzed the risks associated with this project. Once deployed, what are the potential operational risks of the proposed system? How do you factor operational risks into a systems development plan?