Thread 1 - Write a brief project plan.
Thread 2 - Optionally post an outline or a draft of your final paper.
Suppose you have been hired for one year by the Dominican University Information Technology Department. Further suppose you have until March 1, 2009 to make any enhancements you want to make at any system at Dominican (Blackboard, Student Registration, build a new system, add useful information to the web site, or any other project to change systems or processes at Dominican). The only restriction is that your staffing is limited to yourself and one additional person. The additional person can have any skills that you define.
By Sunday , answer the questions below. Between Monday and Wednesday comment on other student's ideas and answer comments made on your idea.
Question 1: What process and system changes will you make during your one year? Remember, you are being paid and you don't have to take any classes during the year.
Question 2: What skills must your assistant have?
Question 3: What will you do and what will your assistant do during the year.
Question 4: What are the biggest risks you see in your project and what will you do to manage them.
Question 5: Name something that you learned in this course that you will apply to your project.
Example:
1. My project will automate as much as possible the conversion of data from Blackboard to the new MyDU learning system. Some professors at Dominican will want to take course information such as tests, homework assignments, and syllabi currently stored in Blackboard and move it to the new MyDU Learning system.
2. My assistant will have knowledge of the structure of the JCIS (MyDu) database which he or she learned while working on the development team at the vendor.
3. My assistant will specify, code and test the MyDu database load and the Blackboard database extract. I will write the overall controlling software that selects what to convert and calls the software written be my assistant to do all the conversion work. I will also work with professors to convert 2 test courses and then produce documentation and training material.
4. The major risk is that my assistant and I will not be able to understand the internals of the two systems well enough to build an effective conversion system. In this event, we will cancel the project after one month and use the remaining 11 months to define and execute a different project.
5. I will develop ERDs for both the source and target databases.
Notes:
1. There was nothing in the rules for the problem that said I had to be realistic about the skills of my assistant. It would be unrealistic to assume that I could quickly hire someone who worked on the JCIS/MyDu development team.)
2. This project would probably require me to work too hard during the year. My only defense against this would be to cut back on the scope by deciding not to convert all types of information once I figure out how big the task is. I'll use iterative development with time boxes of about 6 weeks each. That way, at the end of the year, there will be at least a partial conversion system ready to be used.
3. You can answer this thread by attaching a file. However, don't spend too much time on this discussion unless you are really enjoying it.