Certification Objective 2.01: Developing a Solution Concept

A solution concept outlines the solution approach at a high level. It should also be detailed enough so that the planning phase can begin. You should consider the following aspects of the solution when coming up with a solution concept:

• Hardware requirements

• Software requirements

• Integration with existing systems

• Performance requirements

Of course, at this early stage of the project, the solution concept should not be too detailed. We will be gathering more exact business and technical requirements in the planning phase of development before designing a proper solution. For now, we are concentrating on generalities.

Even at the earliest stage of the project, you should have a pretty good idea of what business problem you are trying to solve and what approach you will take to solve it. After all, projects do not start without a predefined purpose. Usually, a project begins with a basic goal. From that goal, one or more solution concepts can be derived and the best course of action decided on.

For example, let’s say your boss has asked you to develop an application to track the amount of time employees spend on a per-project basis. Before you jump in and develop detailed specifications for the project, it is a good idea to draw up a couple of good concepts. Your early solution concept for this application might be a web- based solution developed using ASP.NET. The solution concept could also include the ability to link to the human resources database in order to retrieve updated employee information regularly and even the ability to link to the billing system to update customer invoices. There also might be a need for an administrator’s web site to manage the application and run various reports. This is an example of a solution concept.

Exam Watch

Remember, the envisioning phase deals only in concepts. This phase establishes the overall vision for the project and sets the stage for more detailed design in the planning phase.

The construction phase of the project might not be able to create the entire application described by the solution concept in the first release, and that is fine. As we learned at the beginning of the chapter, the MSF process model suggests that the project be broken up into smaller pieces to make them more manageable. As we will see later in the chapter, the project scope uses solution concept to set the tasks to be implemented in the first version of the application.

Let’s look at a case study for an example of how a solution concept is developed.

Case Study: Developing a Solution Concept for the RPM System

Jack is a systems analyst for Bottled Water, Inc. (BWI). Occasionally, BWI offers coupons to consumers that they can use to get a discount on BWI water from their local retailer. Each retailer then turns the coupons in to BWI for a credit on its next invoice.

Currently, BWI uses a manual process to credit retailers for the coupons they submit. A data entry clerk hand-counts the coupons received from each retailer and goes into the accounts receivable (AR) system to apply a credit to the retailer’s account. This makes it very difficult for management to track how many coupons have been used or to perform any sophisticated analysis on coupon usage. The BWI sales and marketing department would also like to embark on other types of promotions involving the retailers, but that would create even more manual work for the data entry clerks. Some type of automated system for managing retailer promotions needs to be developed.

The BWI Solution Concept

Jack is responsible for designing a solution for this problem. Jack decides he will propose a solution concept first, and if his boss likes that idea, Jack can turn it into a formal design. Based on what he knows about BWI’s business requirements, Jack understands that the sales department needs some sort of promotion management system. In his solution concept, he calls this system the Retailer Promotion Management (RPM) system. This system will

• Allow clerks to enter more detail about the number and type of coupons received from each retailer

• Allow sales managers to enable two or three other predefined types of promotions for individual retailers

• Allow sales managers to set limits on the size of the discount individual retailers can earn using promotions

• Automatically link to the AR system to manage monthly credits owed to retailers as a result of these promotions

There may be other requirements, but those will be taken into account during the design phase. Jack believes this system can be run using existing PC and server hardware within the company. BWI will, however, need to develop a custom application for this promotion management system. The application will also need its own database to store its data.

Jack is a good friend of one of the AR system programmers, so he calls her up to ask about integration issues. She assures him that the AR system is already able to receive a nightly feed from any authorized system, so it would not be difficult for the AR system to accept retailer discounts in this manner. She agrees to send Jack the batch interface documentation related to this nightly feed. Jack takes a quick look at the documents and does not see anything that alarms him. The RPM system should be able to send all the data that the AR system requires without difficulty.

Jack also mentions in his solution concept that the RPM system will need to access a database of existing retailers from somewhere. At the current time, he hasn’t determined which database will provide the information, although he’s sure that it won’t pose a problem. Other applications within the company access this information without a problem, so this question can be answered during the design phase.

Lastly, Jack’s solution concept touches on performance issues. Because all of the potential users are connected to the company’s internal LAN, Jack believes network performance won’t be an issue. This application will handle only 50 or so transactions per day, so network or server traffic will have little or no impact on the existing infrastructure.

That is the extent of Jack’s solution concept. He still hasn’t finished the envisioning phase, but he has a good start to what the solution will eventually look like.

On The Job

The envisioning phase is complete when the solution concept has been developed and the project feasibility, scope, and risks have been analyzed.