The Systems Development Project is focused on the process

Systems Development Project
The Systems Development Project is focused on the process for determining the feasibility, planning,
determining the requirements, determining the design, executing the development and implementation,
and the means of maintenance for a family budgeting and financial application for a desktop, laptop,
notebook, tablet, or smartphone device. This project is intended to demonstrate your knowledge about
the systems development life cycle, its phases, its processes, and its application to a setting that is
relevant to you. For the purpose of this assignment, it is assumed that you have been hired by a
company to help them select and implement a financial application that will support their small
business. If it helps you write this paper, you can create a fictitious name for the company that has hired
you. You should assume the company is slightly profitable and has no more than 20 employees. They
are looking for an application that will support their business requirements but have minimal impact on
their profit. Each unit’s assignment is submitted in narrative form with a minimum of 750 words in total,
excluding any references. The objectives for each unit’s assignments are exercises that should flow
together to create an APA formatted paper. APA formatted references, references page, and in-text
citations are required. Course materials and other expert sources should be used as references, all with
in-text citations to support the application of the systems development concepts applied to each
assignment. Please note the minimum word count and minimum paragraph per exercise are simply
benchmarks. More than likely, your submission will be greater than the minimums in order to
adequately address and substantiate the content.
Unit 1 Systems Development Assignment
The objectives for this assignment are as follows:
1. What are the major functions that the desired small business budgeting and financial application
should support (e.g. budgeting, online banking, account management, security, payroll, and tax
software integration as just some potential functions)? These will serve as the ‘business
requirements’ that will need to be supported by a budgeting and financial application. A
minimum of 15 to 20 requirements should be identified. The requirements should be functional
requirements only. Security will be identified in a later unit.
2. Explain, in detail, the requirements for each of the functions identified. You are encouraged to
provide enough detail that will allow you to describe how the function actually works in Unit 4.
3. Develop a table that will serve as a checklist for evaluation of each of the selected applications
identified in Unit 2. Your table should have four columns. The first column represents the
function; the next three columns will represent selected applications.
4. Prepare a preliminary detailed plan regarding how you will carry out each of the systems
development phases for this project. Note that selection of the application will not occur until
the design phase and development will focus on the setup of the application. Your textbook
provides an example project plan. You are only required to identify the steps.

1

Unit 2 Systems Development Assignment
Continuing from the Unit 1 assignment, the objectives for this assignment are as follows:
1. Based on feedback from your instructor and the knowledge that you have gained, update your
detailed project plan from Unit 1 with corrections and/or added details.
2. Conduct a search for potential financial and budgeting applications for which the functionality
may meet the needs of a small business. Your search should include applications that will run on
different devices (windows, Mac, mobile), although not necessarily all three for each application.
Identify the applications, briefly describe their functionality, identify their price, and identify
what types of devices upon which each will operate. A minimum of 10 applications should be
identified, though it is encouraged that more be identified. Your description of functionality
should identify key features for each application and should include a minimum of five features
identified.
3. For this assignment, it will be assumed that the device(s) you own equals those used by the
small business. The remaining portion of the assignment will reference the device as that owned
by the small business. Identify the devices (desktop/laptop/notebook, tablet, or smartphone)
that are owned by the company (ones you own). Be sure to identify the brand, device type, and
operating system.
4. Which of the applications are feasible, given the constraint of the types of devices that are
currently owned by the company? Is there any discernable loss in functionality with the
exclusion of the applications that cannot operate with these devices? Please explain.
5. Which of the applications are feasible, given cost or price constraints? Is there any discernable
loss in functionality with the exclusion of the applications that exceed the cost or price
constraints? Please explain.
6. Which of the applications are feasible, given cost or price, and device constraints? Is there any
discernable loss in functionality with the exclusion of the applications that exceed the cost or
price, and device constraints? Please explain.
7. Based on the findings in 3, 4, and 5 above, identify at least three applications that will be the
subject of the next steps in this assignment and project. If three are not identified in #5, select
an additional application(s) that will work with the device(s) owned by the company.
8. Identify the key stakeholders (e.g. executives, owners, accountant, bank, etc.) that should serve
as members of the project team. Please explain the rationale for your selection.
Unit 3 Systems Development Assignment
Continuing from the Unit 2 assignment, the objectives for this assignment are as follows:
1. Based on feedback from your instructor and the knowledge that you have gained, update your
detailed project plan from Unit 2 with corrections and/or added details. In addition, incorporate
any feedback on the table from Unit 1 before proceeding with this assignment.
2. Evaluate each of the three selected applications, selected in Unit 2, using the checklist
developed in Unit 1. Explain your findings. What application should be acquired and
implemented?
3. What type of database do you believe the application that you selected uses? Why?
4. Based on the knowledge that you have gained about logical systems design, diagram one of the
functions of the selected application, using available user documentation on the Web or through
another source. If you have access to Microsoft® Visio® or similar software, you may use that
2

and embed the resulting file in the Word document that you will submit for this assignment.
Otherwise, use the tools available in Word to map out this process, understanding that Word has
some limitations for such diagrams. How does completing this process help create a better
understanding of the functionality of the application that have been selected?
Unit 4 Systems Development Assignment
Continuing from the Unit 3 assignment, the objectives for this assignment are as follows:
1. Based on feedback from your instructor and the knowledge that you have gained, update your
detailed project plan from Unit 3 with corrections and/or added details.
2. Using available user documentation on the Web or through another source, detail the steps that
will be required to set up the selected application, explaining the rationale for each step.
3. Detail the steps that should be taken to test the application before it is implemented. Explain
the rationale for each step.
4. Detail and explain the user training that is necessary as part of the implementation process.
5. Identify and describe how the application and its data should be maintained and be kept secure
after implementation, including a business continuity plan.
6. Based on the assessment in steps 2 and 4 above, what recommendations might be given to the
vendor regarding the documentation and training available?
7. What knowledge gained from this project has had the most impact regarding the systems
development process? Why? How will this knowledge be employed going forward?

3