Fluent Essays

Week 1 Planning an IS Project Determine a business or organization in need of information systems. You’ll be using this concept throughout the course so give it some thought. In this lab: 1.    Define your business and determine what information systems and personnel will be necessary. 2.    Is this a startup or a business converting to or upgrading its business model and systems? 3.    What types of data do you think will you be working with? 4.    How big a staff do you think will be needed and in what capacity? 5.    What initial security, ethical, or legal concerns might you have? You can adjust this later but based on this week’s readings, make your best estimate. We’ve briefly touched on many different concepts and will look at them in greater depth later, so don’t worry about knowing everything now. We’ll revise and re-estimate as we go. Address each of these areas and submit as a Word document and embed any tables, diagrams, or images you may want to include. Be sure to run spellcheck and keep quotes to a minimum with credit given to sources. Include any references used. Submit to dropbox in Blackboard. Week 2 Project Plan: Moore’s Law and Software/Hardware Revisit your initial ideas for a business to which you’ll be developing or converting to include information systems. 1. After this week’s readings on hardware and software, determine the kinds of hardware you think you’ll need to get the business up and running. 2. Research, if necessary, to help justify your choices and arrive at an estimate of what these items may cost. Again, you’ll get the chance to revise this information as you learn more and perhaps adjust your initial ideas but try to keep the totals realistic based on your current understanding. 3. Also, look at Moore’s law in Chapter 3. Investigate the probability that your business will have significant competition in the next 18 months? 4. Does competition exist now and how will you make your product or service stand out? Address each of these areas and submit as a Word document. Be sure to run spellcheck and keep quotes to a minimum with credit given to sources. Include any references used. Submit to dropbox. Week 3 Project Plan: Data 1.    Create at least 3 tables to illustrate the kinds of data your company will deal with. They can be related or separate types, internal or external. Consider your headings and which might work as primary keys – remember primary keys must be unique. Highlight or bold the primary key for each table. See Chapter 5, Section 1b for examples. 2.    Create a diagram illustrating data flow (see Chapter 5 figures for examples). It doesn’t need to be complex at this point, just a breakdown of the system or systems you’ll be using to handle data. Where does external data enter the system? Where does it go and who will have access? Is internal data like employee information directed to one department or person? Why? Where will data be stored – on a local server, the cloud, or something else? 3.    Lastly, address how you will handle PII (Personally Identifiable information). In what ways can you ensure only those who need access to such information can retrieve and view it? Address each of these areas and submit as a Word document with the required tables and diagrams embedded. Be sure to run spellcheck and keep quotes to a minimum with credit given to sources. Include any references used. Submit to dropbox. Week 4 Project Plan: Cloud and Networking Needs An information system is limited in its capabilities without access to the internet. Data and communications must flow smoothly and reliably. 1. What kind of infrastructure will be necessary to support your business? Consider the options discussed in Chapter 6 reading and videos and determine what kind of network and storage will be necessary to support the business. 2. Will you start small and expand or get everything in place from the beginning? What are the cost and other benefits of each?   3. Are there any risks or legal issues that preclude a specific option? 4. What about cloud services? Can SaaS, DaaS, or other cloud-based tools be more economical than traditional ones? Do you foresee a need for occasional upscaling of services in times of increased usage like sales, inventory cycles, or holidays? If you decide against cloud services or storage, discuss why you made that decision. Revisit your data flow diagram from last week. Do your choices now affect your original design? If so revise to include the new decisions. Address each of these areas and submit as a Word document. Be sure to run spellcheck and keep quotes to a minimum with credit given to sources. Include any references used. Submit to dropbox. Week 5 Project Plan: eCommerce and/or mCommerce We’ve learned a lot about eCommerce this week and it’s time to look at where it will fit with your business. 1. What types of commerce will fit with your business (B2B, B2C, C2C or a blend)? How? Even if it isn’t an immediate concern, proceed as if it will be in the future. See section 7-1 for details on each. 2. Create a feasibility plan for eCommerce, mobile, and/or traditional commerce. How will they interact with one another and how will data be handled? Will everything go to a central location to help track availability and inventory? Sections 7-4 and 7-5 will be of help here. 3. Discuss how you’ll go about creating a web and/or mobile presence. 4. Sketch out or using a photo editing program to envision what your website or app might look like. Address each of these areas and submit as a Word document with your image or sketch embedded. Be sure to run spellcheck and keep quotes to a minimum with credit given to sources. Include any references used. Submit to dropbox. Week 6 Project Plan: Using data mining, business intelligence, AI, Expert systems or knowledge management As mentioned before, a business generates and relies on massive amounts of data. In many cases, this data be useful in business intelligence and analytics to help make decisions going forward. 1. Discuss preliminary ideas on how you can make use of the data you collect to continue to grow your business (chapter 9). 2. Will you use live data or datamining or some combination? Explain (chapter 9). 3. Are there any ethical or legal concerns with its use? Explain (chapter 9). 4. What about knowledge management (Ch. 10, section 1)? Expert systems or AI (Ch 10, section 2)? Do they fit in your business plan? Detail which and how. If you don’t think they will fit, discuss why not. Address each of these areas and submit as a Word document with any required tables, diagrams, or images embedded. Be sure to run spellcheck and keep quotes to a minimum with credit given to sources. Include any references used. Submit to dropbox. Week 7 Project Plan: Agile, Waterfall, DevOps, SWOT 1.    Perform a SWOT analysis on your business. Define strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. Use table 11-1 as a guide. 2.    Expand on your analysis with a strategic plan to address each area. How do you protect or ensure strengths and opportunities while mitigating risks and threats? The strategic planning pyramid in figure 11-2 will be helpful. Each level is described below the pyramid. 3.    After reading more about DevOps, consider where it fits with your organization. What principles and practices would you consider useful to adopt? Why? (MindTap assignment as well as section 12-5)/ 4.    Also consider the Agile and Waterfall models as well as Scrum. Again, which would you adopt? Will more than one work for different aspects of the business? Figures 12-1 and 12-17, tables 12-2 and 12-10. 5.    Create a diagram or flowchart detailing how the model or framework you chose would work within your structure. Figures mentioned above can provide models. Address each of these areas and submit as a Word document with requested diagrams embedded. Be sure to run spellcheck and keep quotes to a minimum with credit given to sources. Include any references used. Submit to dropbox. Week 8 Project Plan: Risks and Threats 1.    In the last portion of our project, perform a risk assessment based on learning and experience. What risks can you identify? What can be done to address them? Are any of them considered acceptable risks? Why and what will it cost if the risk becomes reality? (Chapter 13, section 2). 2.    Discuss or expand on threats and plans to address them. Are your plans for security, both locally and online, sufficient? If not, what else can you do to protect your systems as well as your data? (Chapter 13) 3.    Will you require training in ethics for employees? How will you respond to or enforce breaches due to employee error or deliberate misbehavior? (Chapter 14). 4.    Finalize or refine anything in your previous labs that needs it, add appropriate diagrams, tables or images you’ve created, then combine everything into one document, save, and submit.