Was Outsourcing the A/P Project the Right Move for Tegan Given the Other Possible Alternatives - Assignment Example

1. Was outsourcing the A/P project the right move for Tegan given the other possible alternatives? Tegan could have opted for the other possible alternatives had it been possible because its own IT department was quite involved in other critical project of rolling out its huge SAP R-3 on the staff capacity of 100, which was deeply focused on the SAP R-3 and other information technology administration related aspects. Most of the IT specialists of Tegan were working on the SAP R-3 project, leaving only a selected few IT experts free to complete the task of rewriting the system. Besides, no past employee of the initially created A/P was working with Tegan except the only name – Julia Jones because the resource who created the A/P system had retired. The leading issue with Tegan was time to dedicate to the A/P project (Upton and Staats, “Tegan” 2). Out of various alternatives, one alternative with the IT department was to work on an enterprise resource planning system (ERP) to include the financial accounting module in the presently undergoing SAP but the huge investment ( £ 5 million) was a major hurdle in the way (Upton and Staats, “Tegan” 3). The A/P system was based on an old copy of a packaged software system, named Dunnock, which has been tailored to the emerging needs inwardly and outwardly many times. Depending solely on Julia Jones, the only expert left could have been a risky proposition had Tegan decided to manage the A/P project by its own resources. Considering the alternative it seems that outsourcing the A/P project was the right step taken by Tegan (Upton and Staats, “Tegan” 2). 2. What are the tradeoffs involved in having the requirements analysis for a project performed by one of the firms that would ultimately bid on the project? Generally, it does not happen that a project is assigned to the same company that has conducted the requirement analysis. If any trade-offs existed, they were not for a single entity; both the companies knew that leverage could be availed out of this scenario. For Tegan, it was a matter of saving hefty cost on the project if some other company’s bid had been accepted. Engaging the same firm that has worked out the requirements analysis for the project had the trade-offs as it could have better insight on the functionality aspect of the prevailing system to duplicate it on a scalable system by using latest technologies, competent to handle large volumes. It could have eased the work of Hrad, the bidding company to perform a requirements analysis and guess the work load to offer a bid reasonably cost-effective for Tegan to agree on the terms and conditions of Hrad to finish the project. Tegan became assured that bid was not extra-ordinarily high for the given project (Upton and Staats 3). To add on, it offered the opportunity to Tegan to finalize the deal with Hrad on a fixed cost stipulation (Upton and Staats, “Tegan” 4). 3. Given our journeys through the world of system development methods in recent lectures, discuss the choice of development methodology employed by Hrad Technika. Considering the various system development methods, Hrad had a range of various choices over development methodology but it was a critical decision on the part of Hrad to finalize any one out of the available choices. Out of various available system development methods, Hrad employed the formal work breakdown methodology. Such a methodology provided the advantage of the knowledge of Tegan processes to help Hrad bid a reasonable enough figure to get the contract. Hrad could analyze the project details with the experienced staff of Tegan, particular business principles and various customizations as well (Uptron and Staats, “Hrad Technika” 3). Actual work on system development began after the finalization of the draft. All the paper work associated with defined needs was transferred to Tegan for clearing the LLD. Hrad employed the waterfall method to complete the project. Hrad worked on the LLDs first of all and later began the coding work, as it happens in the waterfall method. To save time on the development cycle of the project, Hrad began working on coding as soon as it got clearance from Jones on LLDs (Uptron and Staats, “Hrad Technika” 4). 4. Why did Hrad Technika, the firm that performed the requirements analysis, have scope and requirements problems once the project commenced? The scope and requirement problems started emerging with the start of the project although staff at Hrad Technika conducted many rounds of interview with the users of the A/P system in their desire to measure it. When the work on the project started with the rewriting of the LLDs, the required functionality was conspicuously absent. Revision on the functionality aspect revealed that these did not come in the scope of the project. Nevertheless, as soon as modules were defined, the coding work was done earlier before accomplishing the rest of the design details. Because Hrad started the coding work before finalizing the design work, it could not estimate the issues erupting later; it led to quick overlapping of the waterfall model causing a mistake on the estimation of the scope of the project (Uptron and Staats, “Tegan” 3-4). Designing could not be completed by August 2008 although the project had consumed the half time of its completion. Troubles began because of some problems over system features such as computing and forecasting of algorithms for selecting and ordering payments, which were not part of the previously performed scope analysis. Delay in returning the LLDs by Tegan was yet another issue other than the omitted data from the requirement sheets, which increased the troubles of Hrad (Uptron and Staats, “Tegan” 5). 5. The case writers’ state: "Sadly, Smith knew that “Leadership” and “Commitment”, the paucity of which was blamed for untold IT failures were not the problems here." Critique- do you agree? What do you see as the most important IT management failures here? Leadership and commitment, the paucity of which was blamed for untold IT errors were actually not the causes of the project failure. It was very much clear to Smith. The fault lied elsewhere.The case writers rightly express the feelings of Smith that IT failures were the actual cause and not the leadership and lack of commitment were to be blamed. The deficiency lied in project handling, first of all, by Tegan, as it could not manage the project itself, the reason being it required bulk investment. But it was not the sole reason of project failure. The actual leading cause was that Tegan did not have the insight of experienced professionals on its own A/P project. To further the project, the company Dunnock had enough resources at hand to guide Hrad on its old copy of a packaged software system. Hrad had to depend on the acumen and skills of just one person working at Tegan who had the hands-on experience on the originally developed A/P system. Although she was not forthcoming in assisting the team at Hrad yet she had to cooperate out of compulsion, as by default she was the only resource in Tegan to assist the people at Hrad, as having the knowledge of basics of the A/P system. Most of the staff at Tegan having hands-on experience of the A/P system had left the job and joined some other company while some others had retired causing a shortage of expertise of the resources. This shortage of staff at Tegan was the leading cause of delay of the project to resend the LLDs to Hrad after critical support. It forced the IT team at Hrad to pursue a methodology, known as the “waterfall methodology” hurriedly to overlap the coding before finishing the designing, causing a late diagnosis of certain troubling areas, which were out of the contract, as finalized in the scoping of the project. This was the most critical IT management failure to begin job on coding without finishing the design of the project. 6. Which of the options for moving forward that Tegan identified would you recommend? Tegan had four choices to bring itself out of the crisis. One choice with Tegan was not to interrupt the work being done by Hrad, second option was to make this project a part of its own team working concurrently on its SAP project. Another option was to provide a temporary patch to the system. Lastly, Tegan could think of another vendor doing the job assigned to Hrad. Taking the first option that Tegan identified, it was to not come in the way of Hrad regarding the project reason being that Hrad had finished nearly half the work on development. The other option was to assimilate it in the in-house project, the SAP’s accounts payable module but it was very expensive, which was the leading cause behind outsourcing this project to outside company to save cost. Besides, there was a shortage of people at Tegan to function on additional module to be developed in-house. The third option with Tegan was to patch the system for a short time but being a temporary solution it could not resolve the troubles faced in the A/P functionality over visitors’ rush. Another vendor search could not be recommended as Tegan had released the payments to Hrad on the job done as per the contract stipulations (Uptron and Staats, “Tegan” 6). Therefore, it is highly recommended that Tegan keeps its word with Hrad by granting extra time to Hrad as the fault lied with Tegan of not providing experts to work on LLDs, which had been a leading reason of overlapping and delay. . Read More