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Sports Qits Company

Sports-Qits is a small company specialising in replica sports kit. The business was set up by four college students in the late 1990's.

1.1The following are possible business aims of Sports-Qits

• To improve on/offer better customer service and maintain the existing customers and potential customers and with repeated sales this will lead to increase sales hence increased in profits and Increase market shares

• Open merchants accounts with banks, this will enable Sports Qits borrow loans as well as used by customers for payments of sports kits goods.

• Open 24 hours call center that will handle customers queries about products and all customers to pay for buy and pay for goods on phone transactions where users can pay for goods by of bank card numbers

• To widen markets to national level and provide customers with up to date and accurate information about products

• Develop online system that extents business time 24 hours, 7 days a week making information available outside office hours and offering accurate sale literature

• Shorten transaction periods and to reduce on the dispatch time so that good and invoices are delivered to customers with 2-3 working days as all the transaction and invoices will be automated

• To widen markets to national level for example this will enable customer's nation wide to order making it easy for Sport Qits product to reach a wider market.

• To offer online services that is available always (I am assuming that the system would be web based) as started in the text, “the company has proposed developing a new information system to resolve many number of operational problems”

• To introduce other methods of paying like point of service, online payment so that money is taken from the customers account within a few day. (I am assuming that other methods of payment could be one of the aims of Sports-Quits because it stated that “customers normally pay by cheque; these are consistently late, and many customers pay up to six months late”)

1.2 System requirements

System requirement determines what the system will do and how it will do it (Robertson and Robertson, 1999). Getting system requirements right is very important for Sports- Qits as an organistation because of cost and time that may be required to address the requirements again, according to Leffingwell (1997) requirement error accounts for between 70 and 85 per cent of reworks costs.

1.3 The possible information system requirements for Sports-Quits are;

• The system should provide user online registration

Rationale: This information would be useful in determining the numbers of customers that Sports-Qits has and how to advertise, sending catalogues and dispatching ordered products to customers

• The system should provide some means of authenticating users by requiring use of username and passwords

Rationale: This is to provide proof that the user logging into the website to access various resources is who they claim to be providing access security to the application and user

• The system should have a database which used to store information

Rationale: To store users details and as well as products details that Sports-Quits has available and this should be kept up to date as possible and should be only used for reasons intended to.

• The system should allow users to search for products by various ways for example by product number and product size

Rationale: This makes it easy for customers to find what they are looking for and makes shopping easy or search for new products without going through all the products

• The system should provide users with a shopping basket which clearly show the quantity of the item, cost of the item and means of removing itemsfrom the shopping basket

Rationale: The shopping basket allows users to know what items they have bought andamount to be paid on the item or remove from the basket in case it's not wanted

• The system should allow some from of payments online and detailing what kind of bank cards is acceptable

Rationale: For payments of products bought online

• They should provide online help to users

Rationale: The online help to guide users on how to user the site maximally for user benefit for example it should show clear how users can search for products by use of item number and product code

• The system should be able to provide user with confirmation of purchase including customer reference number, date of purchase and from of contact be it by phone or email

Rationale: This is helpful to a customer in case he/she needs to follow up on products purchased or to make further enquiry to the company

1.4 Technical constrains

This identifies the functionality of the system for example what a system will do and below are some of the technical constrains of the system.

The system should automate and print customer's transactions this is a priority and time sensitive because it makes it easy for customers to know what they have bought as well as for invoice to be sent to customer on time.

The system should be able to check customer credit rating this especially when a direct debit payment method is used

The system should send reminders to customers quickly, this is a priority and costly because if customer receive reminders and pay as soon as possible they will not be charged.

Information capture is a high priority and time consuming for example it might take an analyst a long time to gather enough information about the new system and people who are given interviewed to gather information may be reluctant

The information system requirement gives a strict specific requirement upon which a system will work for example the system will work on a given infrastructure though this is good enough technology changes, making the system inflexible to change and this change cost money

1.5 Non technical constrains

The non technical constrains this describes how the system will perform. Russell (2004) categorized non technical constrains into two parts and below are some of the non technical constrains.

The availability requirement though possible there are times that the system may fail to be available 24 hours 7 days a week, for example when their is a network failure, too many users accessing the site slows it down so that other users are unable to access it hence priorities of availability may not be meet.

Integrity the system should be able to maintain transactions detail and accurately and all the time, this is a high priority and if the systems fails to maintain the transactions detail, this may be time consuming to rectify and cost a lot of money.

The system should be secure to prevent unauthorized access to the system this a high priority because if unauthorized person gaining access to the system, he/she may prevent others from using the system and may cost a lot of money and time to bring the system working again

The cost of training staff is high in the beginning and this should be put as high priority before information system is set up running and it also time consume but it make it easy for staff to use the system

The ease with which a software system or component can be modified to correct faults, improve performance, or other attributes, or adapt to a changed environment. The maintainability of information system is on going and it takes time and money to keep it well running.

Task 2

2 Soft System Methodology is an approach of analysing complex problem situations where there are various view points of what the problem definition is and where the situation problem is unstructured and poorly defined in the really world.

According Peter Checkland, Soft System Methodology is a qualitative technique that can be used for applying System Thinking to non system situation. This classic view form of Checkland (1981) model consists of seven stages that are widely used today and it's this model that is going to be used in developing of Sports-Qits new proposed information system.

2.1 Soft Systems Methodology Key Stages

• The problem situation unstructured

The main concern of this stage is to find out more about the problem situation and the degree of the situation in the Sports-Qits company. To understand Sports-Qits situation information by gathering and reviewing the available information for example reviewing the case study given, interviewing staff of Sports-Quits to gain a good knowledge of how Sports-Qits company's politics and culture works, observing how Sports-Qits staff carry out activities and hearing and listening ear to all the various views of Sports-Qits problematic work situation while focusing on only important aspect of Sports-Qits problem.

• The problem situation expressed.

With the back ground to Sports-Qits and understanding of the problem situation, the problem will be expressed. The unstructured problem expressed in a structured manner which will start the beginning of the analysis stages and identify the roles of everyone that might be affected by the actions being undertaken, the three roles in this stage are;

• In stage 1 analysis of Sports-Qits

The client role will be identified and these are the owners of Sports- Qits, the managers and staff of the various departments within Sport-Qits Company who might have proposed the development of the new information system. The 'would be problem solver' in Sports-Qits will also be identified this will be the analyst who will analyse and understand the problem area of the company then the ‘problem owner' for example staff of the company, shareholders, banks and anyone likely to be affected by the situation.

• In Stage 2 analysis

Observe and detail notes of the social and cultural aspects of the organization are taken for example by observing how the top managers or the owners of Sports-Qits interact with the operational staff members, check out how different teams in department work together to achieve a task and try to add this values to the information system that is proposed.

• In analysis 3

Find out and ensure that Sports-Qits politics are embedded in the system such, Checkland refers to political powers as `commodities`, this may include individual with great knowledge, decision makers and those who command resources among others.

The mostly widely used tool to express what is happen within Sports-Qits is rich picture which will be used as communication technique showing people involved, controlling bodies, problem areas and areas of conflicts.

• Root Definition is a concise, tightly constructed description of a human activity system which stated what the system is (Chekland, 1981)

At this stage the relevant aspects of the new proposed Sports-Qits Information system is looked at from the systematic point that is noted down in the rich picture for example the relevant system should be able to offer solution to the problems that has been identified for example The system should provide some means of authenticating users by requiring use of username and passwords

This is to provide proof that the user logging into the website to access various resources is who they claim to be and providing user access privileges to information under system control.

A root definition is created by using six checklists that are used and these are;

Customer this is any one who may gain from and be affected by new proposed Sports-Qits system; this can be members of staff, the external customers who will be placing orders external using the online application.

Actors these are people who will be activity involved in using the system in Sports-Qits this can be staff member updating sales literature contained on the system

Transformation the is process of conveying inputs into out puts for example in Sports-Qits automatic generation of product or sales report from data entered on the system.

World View this in Sports-Qits this the real world as is seen by the staff which makes the transformation process relevant

Owner this is a person who has the power to shutdown the system and in Sports-Qits these will be owners of the company

Environment these are external contains that affect the operation of the system for example does the system fit in with Sports-Qits company policies, how efficient will the system work

• Building conceptual models

These are built when problem owners and problems solvers agree that root definition is well formed and defined. Sports-Qits conceptual model will express the functions of the system and other supporting functions which are defined to determine the effectiveness of the system. for example conceptual models of the would be new proposed Sports-Qits new system will show what function to perform, defined performance measures, monitors and the right action taken.

• Comparing conceptual models with reality

In this stage, problems found in the Sports-Qits case study identified on stage I and stage 2 are compared with the built models to fine out whether the system can work in real world or if changes are found then how to amend or work around these changes with people responsible to bring about solutions solving the problem

• Accessing feasible and desirable changes

The feasible and desirable stage will be looking at how the possible propose changes in stage five will affect Sports-Qits for example how change will fit with the culture of Sports-Qits, how long will the change take place and what effect this will have on Sports-Qits in terms of costs and time and on desirability

2.2 Project Plan

Sports-Qits has number of problem that identified by staff and customer such as no product line available, in accurate sales literature, IT system could be very expensive among others. These problems will be over come as below

Feasibility study stage

Feasibility study of the current is system is studied to ascertain if needs old system is not meeting it's intended requirements , the new requirements and other alternative, this will solve the problem of IT system could be very expensive because from the recommendation if it economical in terms of buying hardware and software then decided upon by management.

Investigation of the application area

Information gathered through interviewing Sports-Qits staffboth managers and operational, by use of questionnaires to obtain more facts from staff, observation of how staff carry out their task and reading of case study material. The information gathered will help in identifying the relevant requirement of the new system and constraints for example online facilities can be identified as a new requirement and this will solve the problem of no product lines available because with the new system all resources will be online and up to date

System Analysis

The present system is analysed by identifying what problems exit for example no on-line ordering and unable to get information outside office hours. The methods used in the in carrying out task and possible alternative methods may be identified, with the aim of finding out the requirements of the new system.

System Design

During this stage, facts gathered from feasibility stage the new design are laid out both the computer and manual parts of the system this may be similar to the old system but avoids the problems of that are identified in the old system. The computer and the manual system will show clearly the input and out put out of data entered in the system, processes that the computer program carries out, system structure and system testing and implementation plans.

Implantation stage

At this stage, program codes are written for and tested, new hardware and software are bought and installed if not available within the organization the design and coding is done by programmers or purchased to make the part of the new system. The main aims of these stage are quality control, where all whole system is tested to users needs as well as the analyst, documentation of all manual procedures will be tested and security procedure and training of staff especially where there is lack of IT skills

Review and Maintenance

The review and maintenance are done some point in time when the new system is operational, this can be a contract base review between the company and the developers. The aim of the review and maintenance is to find out if the system is working as per its requirements or if there is a change in technology that the company uses or if some errors are found that news to be corrected.

See appendix (I)

2.3Time and Resource allocation

The allocation of resource and time scales is very important in project planning because for a project to be successful it should be delivered on time and within allocated resources otherwise the project will be over due and over ran. Project can be divided into smaller tasks and then time and resources are the allocated, this ensures that each task is allocated enough time as well as resources for its completion as well as being monitored and controlled from start to completion with the given time scale and budget.

Time and resource allocation for each stage as below

In the initiation stage, feasibility stage, 2 week are allocated for the stakeholders to initiate the plans by looking at the current problems faced by Sport Qits

Investigation stage 1 week is allocated for the system analyst to find out the problem areas in Sports-Qits, this time scale is given because the company is small and has only 20 staff members that the analyst need to interact with to gain a good understand of the problem situation by interviewing ,questioning and observation staff

System requirement stage 1 week is allocated for the task of root definition to be done, this because the analyst have enough knowledge of what system is and all he/she needs to do is a identify the relevant system with staff members to help in identifying the relevant part of the system they want.

See appendix (ii)

Task 3

3. Leadership is the process of planning, directing, implementing and motivating people in a group or teams to achieve a given goal or task.

Lewin, K., LIippit, R. and White, R.K. (1939), Kurt Lewin and colleagues carried out an experiment and identified three different styles of leadership in regard to decision making. These leadership styles are Autocratic, Democratic and Delegate leadership

3.1 Autocratic leadership

This is a type of leadership style where power is bestowed upon one person who makes all the decision without consulting people under his/her leadership. According to Lewin K (1939) there is neither motivation nor creativity from the group members. In the real world this kind of leadership is not the best way to lead as most people will feel they are being controlled and bossed around and this lows productivity and as well as moral.

3.2 Democratic leadership

In democratic leadership style, individuals are free to participate in decision making and there is greater freedom in the way tasks are carried out, more satisfaction to individuals involved in achieving a given task and the leader motives his/her team to be the best they can and the final decision rest with the leader of the team. In the real working environment most leaders do favor democratic leadership because not doe it only give the group a sense of belonging but the leader gets to know his/her team better .

3.3 The Laissez Faire Leadership Style

This style of leadership individuals are left to carry out tasks with no sense of direction and sometimes roles are not well defined, the leader leaves his/team to carry on their task with no interference as regards to motivation and decision making. This works best if the team is small and everyone in the team is highly skilled for the task at hand other wise this type of leadership will not work because people will lose focus and moral of the task at hand. Daniels, V. (2003) Kurt Lewin notes. Sonoma State University

I believe that a leader who leads using the democratic type of leadership is an effective leader and achieve most of the goals sets and his team strives to achieve the set goal because they feel their opinions are valued and, they are guided and well motivated.

3.4 Effective leader should have these qualities

• Has a clear vision

• Negotiation skills

• Have great organisation and planning skills

• Knowledgeable and share information freely

• Have motivational skills

• Effective communication skills

• Good negotiation skills

• A good leader should be restraint.

3.5 The implementation can be effected by so my facts from resistant from staff for fear of change, lack of information about the plan being implemented to fear f losing jobs due to the change in the methods of carrying out task

• Clear vision

This can over come the problem of uncertainty of where the business is heading with the new system being implemented for example the Sports-Qtis vision of increasing market can only be realized by using the new system will make it easy to increase production which in turns increases sales hence increase in market share.

• Planning skills

Careful planning can overcome problem of lack of skills to use the new system for example during implantation, time schedule for implementing can be drawn and based on this time schedules, staffs can be trained on the system for example this can be done from department to department till all the staff members are cable of using the system efficiently.

Planning skills can also be used to over come the problem of change in job roles and responsibilities for example with careful planning for application phase off the new system, it can be used a along side the old system, this will give staff a chance to get use to the new system and when confident enough to use the system, implantation phase off can then take place

• Communication skills

This can over come the problem of IT system being used to make staff redundant for example when implementing I will listen openly and with empathy to the other person fears and try as much as possible to explain the reason for implementation and the benefits that she/he will achieve from the system, for example I will point out the benefit of using a compturised system which will change the way as opposed to old system and the other jobs that they new system may create.

• Negotiation skills

Negotiation skills can be use to over come the problem of the IT system could be very expensive, lack of IT skills to use the system, by observing and identifying what's happening and find a logical approach during implementation for example during production using the old system, it will make it easy to negotiate with staff the benefits of the new system like easy of production and increase output

Task 4

4. Communication is a two way process of sending and receiving information through various means for example through written emails, orally , visually or spoken. T Lucey (1997) defines the following basic principles of communication among others.

• Relevant for the purpose

• Accurate for the purpose

• Communicated to the right persons

• Communicated in the right time

• Use proper channel

• Understandable by the users

In the case studies, some problems have been identified like lack of skills to use the new system, fear of change in roles and IT system could be very expensive among others. Using the principles of communication to address this problem, the following can be some of the possible solutions.

The cost of software and hardware can be very expensive when designing information system but by explaining the relevant purpose of how the system will make work faster and easy to finance department backing it up with statistics from other company whose use of information system has increased production and profits may make it easy finance for hardware and software resources needed for at the design stage.

The various channel of communication can be used to gather much information for Sport-Qits staff and the analyst and the end user must be in agreement for over the meaning of each message for example orally explaining the design to of the system to the staff in plain English what happens when for example when a user interacts with the system.

When having a meeting with staff to address their fears of lack of skills, staff needs to be assured that they will be given sufficient training that will enable them use the system effectively. Training can be done in various ways for example by shadowing and structured walkthroughs can be done by analyst with all members of the teams giving staff a chance to get to know the system better which means teams can easily work from each other.

Relevant to solve the problem for example from the interviews and questionnaires manager can make decisions on job enlargement to staffs whose roles may change by adding more tasks but will less responsibility. For staffs who are wiling to take a redundancy package a possible pay and other benefits can also be addressed during the meeting.

Questionnaires as a mean of gathering more information from the staff about how they feel about the design and what possible changes that can be made, this will help in ironing out information that might have been taken from granted during initial investigation.

Listening used effectively when both analyst and staff talk about the requirements of the system for example during design, analysts express his views while at the same time listen tentatively to the Staff about their fears of the changes taking place the organization and what they would like to see change, information gathered through the process of listing will them solve the some of the problems faced.

Effective communication should be detailed enough for the purposed for example for the analysts, and Sports-Qits stakeholders make decisions on what infrastructure will be suit online content management for online facilities it can only be effective if what is communicated to acted upon and has positive end results.

Time of communication for it to be effective enough it should be communicated in time for example during implantation, data should be processed and information shared with the staff about what id happening, this will greatly make it possible for the system designed to be in line with what the user really requires.

4.1 Mentoring and Coaching

Mentoring is a close relationship between two people where the mentor guides the mentee to believe in themselves to be the best they can in whatever field they are in. This is based on mutual trust between two parties and the relationship is long term.

While coaching on the other hand is an on going professional trust between two people where the aim to bring out the best in the person being coached and it tends to be more task or job specific, this relationship is short term

Dubrin 2005 identifies key factors a person might process to be an effective mentor and a coach and this factors, these includes

• Trust building,

• Empathy, listening,

• Communication

• Monitoring performance

• Feed back

• Encourage positive action

These factors are going to be used here to solve the problems during implementation in the following ways

By working together with Sports- Qits staff, mentoring during performance review will help discover areas in which training is needed and then this will be proved, staff will be encouraged to train in the relevant areas.

Mentoring will help in better assessment of the new system for example during implementation, assessments can be carried out with staff in area where improvement need to be done in terms of easy of use of system and performance.

Mentoring can overcome potential problem during implementation staff of low confidence, with mentor encouragement, staff will gain more confidence and this will motivate them to work harder hence increase in production

Trust building use in mentoring brings about integrity by mentor being open when communicating and passing on knowledge to staff who will have the abilities and capabilities of working independently. This factor will greatly solve the lack of skills in operating the system.

Active listening can be used during coaching ensuring there is distraction this will help solve the problem during implantation when a coach listens and understands staff members and indirectly helps staff on how to use the new system then they will learn and carry the task own their own.

Empathy can be used to solve the problem of fear of job change during implementation by a coach providing more information about the new system and ask for information that shows that he /she understands staff fear and offer solutions such as positive solutions

Influence tactics used during coaching can help solve the problem of implementation of the plan for example being persuasive and communicating the benefits of achieving task fast using the new system will be both beneficial to the staff and organization in terms of

faster production time and easy of work as well as increase in sales hence high profits better pay

Positive feed back used during coaching used will help the staff set goals clearly how beneficial it will be, for example during feedback staff can be shown how they system works and learning from the coach they will able to perform tasks as required.

Appendix (i)

Project Plan for Sports-Qits

Appendix (ii)

Time and Resource allocation

Bibliography

Checkland, P. (1981) System Thinking, System Practice, John Wiley &Sons

David Avison, Guy Fitzgerald (2006) 4^th Edition Information system Development Methodologies, Techniques & Tools

T Lucey (1997) 8^th Edition Management Information system

Barbara C. Mcnurlin, Ralph H. Sprague, Jr (2002) Information System Management In practice 5^th Edition

Andrew Dubrin (2004) Coaching and Mentoring Skills (NetEffect Series)

Stewart Clegg, Martin Kornbegger, Tyrone Pitsis 2^nd Edition Managing and Organisation

NCC slide notes

http://www-staff.it.uts.edu.au/~jim/bpt/ssm.htm (18th Feb 2008)

http://collopy.case.edu:16080/MBAC423F05/lectureNotes/SoftSystems.pdf (15th March 2008)

http://www.psychology.sbc.edu/Kurt%20Lewin.htm (12March 2008)

http://www.oscm.co.uk/who_we_are.htm (Accessed 02nd Feb 2008)

http://www.oystercorp.com/assets/pdf/newsletter.pdf (Accessed 10th May 2008)

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