Once again for my Information Systems class, I was asked to answer a few questions on developing an information system. So I will go through and state my answer on the following questions. Feel free to give your opinion or any suggestions.

1. What are some ways that a company can help to minimize the poor project planning, poor cost estimating, poor measurements, poor milestone tracking, poor change control, and poor quality control of software development?

A company can minimize poor project planning in a number of ways, they could hire a few more members to help in the planning department and to make sure that the planning stage goes smooth and that any potential problems are identified, or everyone part of the planning department can make sure that everything will work, go through the project a few more times to make sure there aren’t any bugs with the plan. Poor cost estimating can be minimized by having the members part of the planning stage go through the plans and find out everything that would be required for the system, and then find out the costs of each part. The design team that would go through the blueprint can make sure everything is logical and if anything doesn’t seem right about the measurements, go back to those involved in the planning to correct any miscalculations can minimize poor measurements. Having members of the company keep an eye on the progress of the system can minimize poor milestone tracking. Poor change control can be minimized by having the planners of the system and the main designers go through the stages of the system and make sure everything is going according to plan. Poor quality control of software development can be minimized by having the main members involved in the making of the system check up on each stage of the system to make sure that everything is going well, and have each member of each step report what they did and how everything went.

2. One specific problem in any software development project is testing. Describe some ways in which an organization can help ensure proper testing in software development.

An organization can help ensure proper testing in software development by having instructions on how the software is suppose to work and what it is suppose to do, so when the testers work with it, they know if it is working according to plan. Other ways to help ensure proper testing is to look for all of the bugs that could be corrupting the software or system, and then to report them immediately and to give a detailed description on what went wrong.

3. Evaluate the SDLC phases that seem most important to you and outline specific areas of the software development process that deserve greatest attention.

The phases of the SDLC that I feel are of most importance to me are the planning, analysis, and design. These are the phases where you are planning the system and outline any potential flaws and to correct them, and all of this can be done without having money oozing from the company. In the other phases, if you develop the system and then it’s tested and you find out that there are flaws, then you just used a lot of money for flaws that could have been prevented. I feel the areas that deserve the greatest attention are planning and designing, in these stages are where information systems are born, and where they can be created to perfection.

4. Explain the cost of finding errors later rather than sooner and explain how more time spent in the analysis and the design phases could save money.

Trying to develop a system for your business already costs you time and money. You need to fund to develop a system for your business and it takes time to put the system together. Let’s say that the system didn’t work during the testing period, well, you just wasted so much money in a system that doesn’t work at all, now you need to redevelop the system and strive to pull out more money for the new system, you are simply spending double the amount that you could have saved with better planning. The analysis and design phases may take more time to make sure something goes right, but it would be better than finding out in the later stages that there are flaws and have to go back and redevelop the system, taking more of your time and money.

Okay, I would like to share with you one of the movies that I saw this past weekend, I ended up renting the movie "Mr. Woodcock", I do have to admit it was pretty funny. Mr. Woodcock, who was played by Billy Bob Thorton, reminded me of the insensitive people that I have met, it's crazy. If you like dumb comedies, you will laugh through this. Another film that I watched this past week in my film class was Citizen Kane, I was really impressed with the technicalities of the movie. It was very well done, especially for a film made back in 1941. It is very interesting to find a lot of these old movies and to discover why they are so precious, even today.