Week 2
As the analyst for this project it is my responsibility to ensure that all the information needed is obtained and passed along to the developers in an organized and prompt fashion. The first step in which I will proceed to gather information from is by selecting which individuals inside the Riordan manufacturing company I will choose to gather information from. The individuals will vary from the CEO all the way down to the frontline employees. Currently for this project we will interview the individuals who the new program will affect as well as their managers and direct supervisors. Since the new program that is being analyzed and updated deals with the actual production line, I will be interviewing the production line team as well as the supervisors and managers for the production department. It is important to hear the issues with the current systems from the people that use the program everyday and experience the issues first hand rather than say get the information from someone like the CEO who rarely steps foot in the plant and does not know half of the issues that take place on a day to day basis. After I interview the first tier employees I will then interview the supervisors who are next up on the chain to gather any information from them. It is always key to hear multiple peoples side of things and make sure you see that current flaws from every tier and every persons point of view. The supervisors play a great role because they are the bridge between the tier one employees and the department managers. When the tier one employees have an issue, they bring it to the supervisors who will then assess the situation and determine if it should be brought up to the department managers. Next I would interview the department managers as most if not all serious issues should be reported by the supervisor to the managers. The managers are the bridge between the department director or plant manager who runs the whole plant. They will know of most issues and might have a more broad view on some of the issues and might be able to offer more insight as to what causes the issues. I say this because most of the higher up managers have been working with the machines for years and know them inside and out compared to some of the tier one employees who know their jobs well but might not understand the technical details of what causes the issues. The last person I would interview would be the plant manager as he or she runs the plant and could possibly have some valued insight on some of the issues.

When gathering information it is vital that you not just ask questions but observe as well. For example if the machine jams and you have to push the mold line down to un-jam, currently you would have to manually turn the turn wheel to push the line down which requires an employee to manually turn the wheel which could lead to injury. With the new program you could implement a button within the system on the control panel that would allow you to press the button and it automatically pushes one mold or as most people refer to it as “Jog” the machine. This would reduce the number of injuries and strains per year to 0 for that area. This is something that most people would not have mentioned in the interview process but rather something you observe when the issue does arise and they are dealing with it as you watch. Another technique I would use would be a hand on approach. I would have one of the operators show me fist hand the current program UI (User Interface) and how it works to get a better understanding of how things are right now and some changes that could take place to make things much easier to navigate. For example to do a task right now you have to click 8 or 9 different times to different screens where as in the new program you could reduce that to one or two clicks which would save 10 seconds. That 10 seconds can add up and potentially save the company time and money.
One key factor that I would make sure is in place before I start my investigation and interviews would be to make sure I have pre planned detailed questions for when I do the interviews, as well as guidelines I follow while on the floor observing. I want to make sure I am prepared and have all the tools I need before I start my information gathering. Another key factor would be organization of data retrieved and categorized issues and concerns with current systems. I want to make sure that everything is not mixed together in one big pile after I gather the information. Such as something that deals with the UI and things that deal with the actual operation of the machine. All issues and suggestions should be sorted by category that way when presented to the developer team, they do not get confused with everything.

Project scope is the process of the planning stage that deals with how the new project will play out. It deals with costs, time, and gathered information being prepared in an orderly fashion as well as the deadline. In the analysis phase of the SCLC you would examine all the data gathered or rather gather the information that will be used for the project. This allows the flow of the project and the actual building of the new system to go more smoothly if you have all relevant information. If you have all information the project, feasibility or be easily done because all relevant information is presented at the early stage of the SCLC. If I was to not gather all the proper information from the analyst part, the project would lack feasibility and therefore would not go as planned. We would be presented with a lot of bugs and changes. And using the waterfall SCLC method, we would most likely have to restart from scratch on the project.