Presentation: search for examples of consulting company reports, your assignment should have a professional look and feel; put your name, student number, course and semester only on the cover sheet - the rest of the assignment should look like a professional Business Analyst's report.
Word length: a guide is that for assignment tasks requiring a written response you would expect around 1 page; brevity and clarity is more important than volume of words. As noted above you should pay particular attention to use of subheadings, fonts and other ways of improving readability, Business Analysis is all about clarity of communication.
Finding a Case Study:
- if you are linked to an organisation (sporting or social club for an example) ask what the need for new systems is, choose the highest priority eg membership registration and work around that
- do you have any family or friends involved in business, or do you know anyone with a business? Does your local grocer have a need eg for re-ordering (keep it simple, you can't solve all their problems)
- otherwise do you have any friends with ideas for a business? what would be the major need - an e-commerce web-site for e-tailing, financial transactions and despatch of orders?
- if you are studying at a campus through one of the USQ partner organisations do they have a need for eg. classroom scheduling, facilities maintenance, rostering of staff, registration of students
- Don't try to solve all the problems for a business in the few weeks you have and focus on one business process - only do one of eg recruitment, web-site customer interface, back-orders/SCM, billing etc.
ASSIGNMENT
TASK 2.01 Project Journal
Develop and maintain a project journal for this phase of your project with date, summary of activities undertaken, actions completed and actions planned. Use a table with columns for activity number, date, activity, description and status. The journal will serve as the diary of your project.The journal should be attached as an Appendix to your report
TASK 2.02 Background
Briefly introduce your organization in terms of name, the industry it operates within, products and services, clients, suppliers, major competitors and competing products/services, major processes, ownership, key personnel and key issues/challenges.
TASK 2.03 Draft a System Vision statement
Explain what function or process you have selected for your assignment and produce a Sysem Vision statement (see example in the text)
TASK 2.04 Define options to address problem/opportunity
Structure options in a table with option, description/explanation, pros, cons, risks, expected costs and benefits. Indicate which is the preferred option and why.
TASK 2.05 Write the key Objective(s) and a brief scope statement list what is in-scope and what is out of scope for your new system
TASK 2.06 Conduct stakeholder analysis identify all persons, groups and institutions who may have an interest in the project and the nature of their interest
TASK 2.07 Develop a work breakdown structure (WBS)
Analyse the project and produce a 1-page Work Breakdown Structure
Task 2.08 Draft an agenda for your first interview with the Client as part of your analysis, search on-line for examples (10 Marks)
TASK 2.09 Write a list of the key functionalities of the system (a functional and non-functional specification)
TASK 2.10 Presentation (cover letter, cover sheet, clarity, professionalism)