Coursework Specification
You are an independent consultant and have been given the task of preparing for the implementation of a new information system to support the customer-order processing of Asia Paradise Movies (APM) Ltd. Feasibility and systems analysis studies have already been carried out which showed that there was no suitable existing off-the-shelf software available in the market that would support APM’s needs. These studies also concluded that the system could probably be implemented using an internet based solution (such as an intranet + an e-business platform) and a good web database package. Based on the analysis performed during September and January last year, your job is, to present a thorough change management plan for implementation, use and maximisation of the new system in APM. This planning process is to be done concurrently with the programming and testing phases and needs to be in place before the installation phase of the project planned for July 2016. The specific characteristics of the new system were defined in the business system options (BSO) as well as the respective technical system options (TSO) of the analysis report.
You are provided with a set of documents from the company and you should use your analysis report approved in January 2016. Some initial interviews have been carried out with various personnel involved with the company and the transcripts are available to you. Your brief is to use these documents to clearly identify the user requirements of the new information system, anticipate changes caused by this new information system in the company at organisational, technological and individual levels, plan for the respective interventions and present a thorough change management report to be approved and implemented by APM. This change management planning will result in a set of separate deliverables as outlined below.
Base your analysis on the information that is available to you. You will discover from the documents that the system that is required is in fact a sub-system of the organisation’s entire information system, which covers the customer details, order details, stock control and deliveries part of the organisations activities.
There is no totally ‘right’ answer to this exercise, although there are clearly some wrong answers.
Your job is to come up with a suitable analysis of problems that may emerge with the implementation of the new system and propose a change management plan that aims at minimizing and addressing those problems in order to satisfy the requirements outlined by the Managing Director and his staff.
The purpose of this coursework is to provide you with an opportunity to act as an independent consultant using the theoretical concepts discussed in the lectures. The criteria for marking are based on the quality of your analysis of potential problems, the appropriate use of theoretical constructs to minimise those and the demonstration of good report writing.
You are provided all the key documentation, however and because you do not have access to the users you will have to make certain judgements based upon your interpretation of the material. Describe and record these decisions in the project report. Try as far as possible to work to the information provided.
This coursework process replicates the operational mode used by professional consultants in the industry. Therefore, the final report should contain a structure not too dissimilar to the following:
Executive Summary (250 words);
Introduction, Problem Domain Description, and List of User Requirements (250 words – NOT marked);
Change Management Analysis (main body of the report, as long as necessary);
i. Definition of Anticipated Problems
1. Organisational Level;
2. Technological Level;
3. Individual Level.
ii. Change Management Interventions
1. Techno-structural Interventions;
2. Human Interventions.
Summary and Conclusions (500 words)
Bibliography.
You are supposed to use academic references in support of your proposal in sections ii 1 and ii 2. The remaining components of your report do not require the use of references as they are the product of your analysis, interpretation and reflection.