Information Systems Analysis And Methodologies

Published Date: 02 Nov 2017

a) Describe what is meant by a Knowledge Management System and explain the benefits of implementing one at the call centre.

b) Describe TWO (2) types of information gathering methods that you will use to analyse the information system and explain your reasons for choosing each of these methods.

c) Explain the purpose and benefits of the systems development lifecycle.

(13 Marks)

What is meant by a Knowledge Management System?

Knowledge Management (KM) is able to mean dissimilar things to an organization depending winning the nature of the proposal. KM, as we all recognize, is not a expertise or a set of methodologies… it's truly a practice or discipline that involves people, processes and technology. And, if implemented properly with cultural buy-in from users and management, plus clearly defined goals, a KM proposal can improve the productivity and efficiency of an whole organization.

Consider a Knowledge Management System (KMS) certainly it is based mainly knowledge. And also it is a computerized system designed to support the design, storage, and distribution of information. Such a system contains a central storehouse of information that is well structured and employs a diversity of successful and easy to use search tools that users can use to find answers to questions speedily. A good knowledge management makes certain that we don’t reinvent the wheel every time a customer asks a question. Without a doubt, good knowledge management let the customers to immediately identify a solution to the trouble, if one exists, lacking having to ever contact the support organization. But not all knowledge management proposals are successful. So what can you do to ensure that your proposal will succeed and you will pick the right technology?

Start with the Process

Technology is very important, but never as important as defining a strong process. Yet the best technology in the world will not write knowledge base documents for you! Before making any technology result, you have to identify in advance how new documents will be created and, very important, how you will supervise updates and obsolescence. As well as too many knowledge bases develop into cluttered over time with outdated and clearly incorrect documents that they befall unfeasible. The knowledge specialist come close to works well for lower-complexity support organizations. The decentralized approach is best for higher-complexity organizations.

Bring the People on Board

Now imagine you are a service or support rep and you are asked to write down everything you know for the knowledge base. Would the suspicious side of you think that management is just trying to press out your knowledge so it can get clear of you? And in any case wouldn’t you refuse to accept require that you now must fit knowledge management into your plan on top of all the case resolution work you have to do? A great procedure and great knowledge will certainly fail if you don’t get the team to squeeze them. Use time to change particularly the influential nay-Sayers to the knowledge management proposal. Obtain them concerned. Incorporate their ideas.

Look to the CRM

Thus following pleasing care of processes and people you can lastly look at the tool. The first discontinue should be with your CRM system. Will the knowledge management module meet your needs? If your needs are relatively modest, chances are attractive good that you can purely use the CRM. The CRM tool has the great benefit of being included with the case-tracking side of the business. This means that you can more with no trouble mine case data and change it into knowledge base articles. It also means that searching the knowledge base from the case-tracking screens should be easy.

Build or Buy?

If your needs are more complex, or if the limits of using the CRM knowledge management module are insufferable, you will want to look out of afield. Typically at this point you will have a choice of either purchasing a new, purpose-built tool, or cobbling together a solution yourself. This is an important decision and one that you should consider jointly with the IT team, as the performance differentials between the two can be as large as the differences between the price tags. What if the main focus is a true knowledge management issue? It’s purely also hard to produce documents, in particular if all support reps are supposed to do knowledge management in their extra time, and it’s even harder to maintain documents. In this state a purpose-built tool is ideal. With a hard user interface the task of writing and maintaining documents is much easier and that will very much get better the probability that knowledge management will get done. Consequently do you go for an included solution (knowledge creation, search, and metrics) or do you fetch collectively the pieces yourself?

Benefits of implement one at the call CENTRES.

A Call centre is all about getting customers the information they need, as speedily as probable. To meet this objective, the knowledge resources of a call centre must be managed in a coordinated and included way. Knowledge management has a range of practical tools and approaches for meeting these challenges. Discover ways in which these can be applied within this organization call center. Take all necessary steps to ensure that your staffs have access to correct, up-to-date, easy to use, and complete information. Doing so will make rewards for both the call centre, and their customers.

Actually call centre provide many business advantages, including: improved effectiveness, improved hours of process, reduced costs and greater suppleness. Maybe the greatest challenge of running a call centre, however, is ensuring that customers are provided with the right information in a timely fashion. Knowledge management (KM) has a number of practical tools and strategies for meeting this challenge, and call centre managers have much to increase by exploring KM principles.http://twimgs.com/nojitter/ehk/bellman-fig1a.gif

However a call centre is faced with a number of significant challenges. They are;

Potentially large variety of customer enquiries.

Authorized responsibility for information provided to customers.

Customers wait for ‘instant’ answers to questions.

High pressure work environment for call centre operators.

High staff earnings.

Large and complex body of knowledge to be learned by new staff.

Regular force to reduce call handling times.

Continuous tracking and evaluation of efficiency measures.

Every call centre will have unreliable needs, depending on size, activities, and level of knowledge. This part should consequently be seen as a starting point for your own investigate and planning. When develop the knowledge management system for a call center we must consider the below considerations. Such as;

Build a call centre intranet

There is much information to put on this intranet, including latest product or business updates sales support information, including current company brochures, FAQs and pricing details, company directions and messages from management.

Knowledge repository

A knowledge repository is an online information resource that is comprehensive, correct and up-to-date, clear, easy and well-organized to use, widely hypertext linked, supported by tools such as searching, indexes and browsing aids, created and maintained using a content administration system, or corresponding.

Develop online solutions

Use web-based technologies wherever potential. These can be incorporated into a single, seamless, and reliable border for users. This leads to reduced workforce training time, and greater effectiveness.

successful searching and browsing

Call centre staff usually have only a minute (or maybe two) to discover the information requested by their customer. Under this force, it is critical that staff have efficient and efficient ways of locating answers. A well-designed search engine is a essential first step towards meeting this objective. Spend time designing and configuring the search engine: it must be simple to use, but still go back a practical set of results

In meeting these challenges and above factors knowledge management has the probable to deliver some (or all) of these benefits:

Reduced training time and costs for new staff.

Improved call handing and response times.

Increased staff satisfaction and morale.

Greater consistency and accuracy of information provided to customers.

Greater flexibility in handling changing business processes, products, and information.

Fewer calls to second-level support or the help desk.

Describe TWO (2) types of information gathering methods that you will use to analyse the information system and explain your reasons for choosing each of these methods.

One-on-one interviews

The mainly common technique for gathering requirements is to sit down with the clients and ask them what they need. The conversation should be planned out in front of time based on the type of requirements you’re looking for. There are many good ways to plan the interview, but normally you want to ask open-ended questions to get the interviewee to start talking and then ask probing questions to uncover requirements.

Doing a one on one interview with a potential client has many advantages. Firstly, the client or interviewee might feel relaxed in one on one interview and tell more openly and give more information in terms of open-ended questions. One on one interview may provide a relaxing, less official environment for the client so they may feel less self-conscious.

The interviewer has the opportunity to get detailed information about the client’s feelings, awareness and opinions along with asking more detailed questions and clarifying ambiguities and pressing on for full answers or following up on incomplete answers. The interviewer may also use accurate wording and tailor it to each client and explain certain questions as requested by every client. Also, questions can be delved into deeper until the interviewer gets a full intellect of what skills the client can provide relevant information for interviewer for his support.

Information in a one on one interview is detailed and regular. The interviewer has the opportunity to watch the client’s facial expressions and body language which in turn will give the interviewer a clearer suggestion of the client’s accurate, direct feelings and therefore can pass a clearer and stronger judgment of the client as they are face-to-face and thus present real time advantages. The use of these social cues (i.e. voice, intonation, body language, facial expressions) can give the interviewer a lot of information that can be added to the verbal answers given by the client.

There is also no significant time delay between question and answer; the interviewer and interviewee can directly react on what the other says or does. Furthermore, one on one interviews occupy only one interviewer which frees other senior staff members to think on running the business. Lastly, one on one interviews give each client and equivalent chance to show that they have the required skills and experience for the job.

As well as with the advantages, there are various disadvantages to one on one interview. One on one interviews give only one person from a company the opportunity to hire the best client in their opinion.

One on one interviews do not provide the best environments to test the client’s ability to face serious situations such as a panel interview might. One on one interviews can also be very costly and time-consuming; the interviewer has to review all applications, design and prepare interview questions, set up interview times with the best qualified clients, do the interview, analyze each candidates skills after the interview, provide feedback to other staff members, and finally pick the best suited candidate.

On top of all this, the interviewer has to take into consideration all of the ethical and legal issues and requirements involved when conducting an interview. Furthermore, different interviewers may understand and regard a candidate in various ways, thus a good candidate for one interviewer may be the worse candidate according to another interviewer.

Prototyping

JAD application concept is based on 4 ideas. They are;

The users who do the job have the best understanding of that job.

The developers have the greatest understanding of how expertise works.

The business procedure and the software

Development procedure work the same basic way.

The best software comes out of a process

that all groups work as equals and as one

Team with a sole goal that all agree on.

As well as JAD is a technique that allows the developments, management, and customer groups to work together to build a product. It is a series of very prepared interviewed, sessions expected at reaching consensus on a project’s goal and scope and generally JAD project is from 3 to 6 months .And also this JAD include ;

Sponsor

To give complete bear to the systems development by hopeful designated users to willingly and actively participate in the JAD session

Facilitator

Maintain executive sponsors concerned and participants functioning jointly Lead the discussion of issues, give confidence the attendees to actively participate, resolve issue conflicts that may arise, and make certain the goals and objectives of the meeting are fulfilled. Establish the "ground rules" that will be followed through the meeting and ensure that the participants abide by these rules.

End users: 3 to 5, and Managers

These participants are normally chosen by the project sponsor.

Scribes

Scribers are responsible for keeping records pertaining to the whole thing discussed in the meeting. These records are published and disseminated to the attendees without delay following the meeting in order to maintain the energy that has been established by the JAD session and its members.

Most JAD sessions distance a three- to five-day time stage and infrequently last up to two weeks. The success of any JAD session is dependent in the lead appropriate planning and effectively carrying out that plan. And also for successfully perform the gathering, the leader be supposed to follow these guidelines:

Avoid the use of technical terminology.

Apply disagreement resolution skills.

Allow for sufficient breaks.

Give confidence group consensus.

Encourage user and management contribution devoid of allowing individuals to control the session.

Make sure that attendees stand for by the recognized ground rules for the session

On the other hand JAD have few disadvantages. They are;

People aren’t up-front or have secreted agendas

Slow communication and extended feedback time

feeble or no support from upper management

Bad documentation

purpose and benefits of the systems development lifecycle

Most IT projects use the System’s Life-cycle approach to developing a new system. This approach consists of several distinct stages, which follow one after the other. During the development life-cycle, a team is not permitted to go back to a previous stage – this could cause the project to over-run in terms of both cost and time.

The stages in the System’s Life-Cycle are as follows:

Problem identification

The problem identification is a statement of the existing problems and description of user requirements as outlined by the customer. An accurate problem definition is needed so that the developers know exactly what is expected from the system. This means that the system that is delivered is going to be what the customer expected. Without an accurately defined problem, it is likely that the software that is developed will not fully satisfy the needs of the end users. Note that there has to be a two-way dialogue between the analyst and the users because:

The users do not know a lot about computers and their capabilities;

Programmers will not know very much about the way the business works, for which they are developing the software

Feasibility Study (Initial investigation)

A feasibility study is an initial investigation of a problem in order to ascertain whether the proposed system is viable, before spending too much time or money on its development .After the problem/task has been defined and before a complete detailed study of exactly what is needed within a new system, a feasibility study is undertaken to verify that the system that is required is, in fact, viable and that it is worth proceeding. There are five factors that are considered in a feasibility study:

• Technical feasibility – this investigates whether the hardware and software exists to create the system that is wanted.

• Economic feasibility – this investigates the cost of developing a new system (including the purchase of new hardware) and then determines whether the benefits of a new system would outweigh the costs.

• Legal feasibility – investigates if there is a conflict between what is wanted and the law. For example, would the new system satisfy the requirements of the Data Protection Act?

• Operational feasibility – investigates whether the current working practises within the organisation are adequate to support the new computer system. It is possible that the new system would require employees to perform duties in a different way –this may not be acceptable!

• Schedule feasibility – this investigates the amount of time that the new system is likely to take to develop and determines whether it can be developed within the timescale that is available.

Analysis (detailed investigation)

The analysis is a detailed, fact-finding, investigation of the existing system in order to ascertain its strengths and weaknesses and to produce the list of requirements for the new system. The deliverable at the end of analysis is documentation that shows an investigation into the current system and a list of system requirements for the new one. These requirements need stated in a clear, specific and measurable way.

In order to ascertain these requirements, the systems’ analyst needs to examine the current data structures and relationships between them. They must also trace the flow of data through the existing system – this will begin by determining the source of the various data, identifying the ways in which the data is processed; and finish by identifying the destinations of the final outputs. The analysis documentation will contain the following:

• Identification of existing and prospective users;

• Identification of current data and its structure;

• Identification of inputs, outputs and processes within the current system;

• Identification of data flows including the sources and destinations of the data;

• Identification of the strengths and the weakness of the current system;

• Listing of objectives.

Therefore we can used many tools for analysis the system such as

Data Flow Diagram

A data flow diagram is a drawing that depicts the transformation of data within an existing system by using three different graphical symbols connected by labelled, directed lines.

A data flow diagram is an analysis tool that represents what a system does, not how it does it. They are:

• Graphical – eliminating thousands of words;

• Logical representations – not physical models;

• Hierarchical – showing systems at any level of detail; and

• jargon less – allowing user understanding and reviewing.

System Flowcharts

A system flowchart shows an outline of how a system operates.

Design

The deliverable at the end of the design stage is documentation that could be used, unaided, by a third-party programmer to create the system as the designer intends. This means that each section of the design must be detailed and clear. Explanations of what must be done and why this method is chosen need to be included. The design documentation will contain the following:

user interface designs (input forms and menus);

specification of data structures (including the relationships between different types of data);

validation procedures;

output/report designs;

algorithms;

security methods.

User interfaces

Humans will need an interface that allows them to

give instructions – Print, Save, Open, Delete, Copy, Paste etc.

enter data – file names, number of pages to print;

make choices – Yes, No, Cancel etc.

Computers need ways to:

inform of errors – illegal operation, invalid data input, printer out of paper, wrong password:

tell on progress – copying, deleting, installing, downloading:

display the results of processing

ask for options – e.g. number of pages to be printed, which file to open.

provide help with performing tasks – this help could be in the form of Status bar text, yellow Tip boxes, an Office Assistant or even a full-blown help file accessed via the Help menu.

The user interface designs will need clearly annotated drawings to tell the programmer exactly what is to be done.

Coding (software development)

Coding is the creation and editing of the interfaces, code and reports so they look and work as indicated in the design stage. This user and technical documentation will also be produced during the coding stage.

Testing

Testing is the process to ensure that the system meets the requirements that were stated in the analysis and also to discover (and eliminate) any errors that might be present .Testing is undertaken to ensure that a system satisfies the user’s requirements and to discover any errors that might be present. Test needs to be undertaken by both the programming team and by the end-users. This testing a program can never adequately prove or demonstrate the correctness of the system – it can only reveal the existence of errors. Testing by the programming team Testing by the programming team is ongoing as the system is developed, but it is still very important to undertake tests at the end, after the programming team believe that the system is finished. This formal testing at the end of development is known as alpha-testing.

Alpha-testing

This is the formal testing at the end of development. It:

• is undertaken by the programming team;

• uses data that the programmers perceive to be realistic;

• is designed to ensure that the requirements/objectives have been met.

Beta-testing

Beta testing is when the software is tested under real conditions, using real data, by a selection of real end-users.

This phase of testing is necessary because software developers will probably not anticipate all the combinations of conditions that will occur when the software is in use in its ‘real’ environment.

This is the stage of testing where problems with different hardware combinations are usually discovered, as are problems with ‘clashing’ software.

During beta testing, users generally agree to report problems and bugs to the developers. These will then be corrected and the software may then undergo a second round of beta testing before the package is eventually released.

These end-users who test the system during beta-testing:

• use the system with realistic volumes of real data;

• use the system with a variety of different hardware and configurations;

• Report faults/errors back to analyst;

• check that there is a reasonable response time;

• ensure that the user interface is clear;

• ensure that the output as expected.

Acceptance testing

Acceptance testing is where the customer specifies tests to check that the supplied system meets his/her requirements as specified at the analysis stage and that the system works in their own

Conversion

Review (Evaluation)

Maintenance