Aqua America’s Software Methodology Justina Khuu The majority of Aqua America’s software is developed using the waterfall method, whether it is in-house or through contractors. Oftentimes there is a meeting set for requirements gathering between the developers and the managers or directors of the department that is to benefit from the software development, and then minimal contact between the two groups until the product is delivered. While this results in the least amount of upfront cost by minimizing the amount of time spent by human resources, it ends up resulting in larger costs later on. Perhaps the developers made some incorrect assumptions during the project life cycle, or the departments did not fully comprehend what they needed and
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If Aqua America ended up designing a TPS program that could only be delivered in 2022 when end of life of Windows 7 is in 2020, the entire project would have been a waste of time as the company needs both a functioning transaction processing system as well as a supported operating system. This can also be kept in check with careful planning and a well-chosen facilitator to mediate and keep the JAD session focused. If Aqua America were to make the decision to switch to JAD to develop a new transaction processing system, the company would first have to work with the executive sponsor to establish a goal or goals and the limitations of the project such as deadlines or budget. They would then have to hire a third party facilitator, someone who has a history of managing JAD sessions successfully. An orientation session would need to take place in order to ensure that all participants fully understand the goal of the session as well as how to make the session as productive as …show more content…
A prototype may be presented as well. The executive sponsor would then approve or deny the design and the project would move onto development from there, working off of an agreed upon list of requirements gathered during the session. The finished product should cover all the requirements as decided upon by all participants, and ideally Aqua America would push to production a software that would enable the company to dedicate less time to training and more time to customer service and transactions. While joint application development would greatly improve many of Aqua America’s software development projects, there is a place for waterfall methodology in the company. There are still projects that would take too long using JAD, or participants who cannot coordinate their schedules for whatever reason, or projects that touch too many departments and thus have too many participants. However, it would benefit the company to consider utilizing the JAD methodology for projects like the Banner CIS upgrade so Aqua America could maximize output for what resources and efforts it puts into the
If Aqua America ended up designing a TPS program that could only be delivered in 2022 when end of life of Windows 7 is in 2020, the entire project would have been a waste of time as the company needs both a functioning transaction processing system as well as a supported operating system. This can also be kept in check with careful planning and a well-chosen facilitator to mediate and keep the JAD session focused. If Aqua America were to make the decision to switch to JAD to develop a new transaction processing system, the company would first have to work with the executive sponsor to establish a goal or goals and the limitations of the project such as deadlines or budget. They would then have to hire a third party facilitator, someone who has a history of managing JAD sessions successfully. An orientation session would need to take place in order to ensure that all participants fully understand the goal of the session as well as how to make the session as productive as …show more content…
A prototype may be presented as well. The executive sponsor would then approve or deny the design and the project would move onto development from there, working off of an agreed upon list of requirements gathered during the session. The finished product should cover all the requirements as decided upon by all participants, and ideally Aqua America would push to production a software that would enable the company to dedicate less time to training and more time to customer service and transactions. While joint application development would greatly improve many of Aqua America’s software development projects, there is a place for waterfall methodology in the company. There are still projects that would take too long using JAD, or participants who cannot coordinate their schedules for whatever reason, or projects that touch too many departments and thus have too many participants. However, it would benefit the company to consider utilizing the JAD methodology for projects like the Banner CIS upgrade so Aqua America could maximize output for what resources and efforts it puts into the