Maple Ridge Engineering

Maple Ridge Engineering Is exercisey ou will be playing the role of a Business Analyst who has been selected to work for Snowden Evans and his Systems and Training Group. Initially Snowden had asked you to undertake a review of progress on a system they call GEMS that is under development at present. Snowden has asked you to consider and report on the “business” rather than the “technical” aspects of its progress. That is he wants you to report on whether or not the systems as it has been designed will meet the business needs of Maple Ridge you can assume that the technical design will implement the business requirements (as currently defined) adequately. Your Assignment will require you to understand and document the requirements and processes within Maple Ridge, identify and describe various problems and opportunities within the company and finally propose ways to progress these. In this first stage your focus will be primarily on Operational requir ements. In the second stage of the Case Study the focus changes to Strategic considerations. Maple Ridge Maple Ridge is the subject of the “Hypercase” from Kendall & Kendall. There is a good deal of information about Maple Ridge on - line. And it is refer red to often within the text. Your initial starting point for information gathering should be the p48 of the text. This page refers to a web - site for Maple Ridge, you can go there and click through or type in the direct url ... http://vigstage.pearsonhighered.com/hypercase/hypercase2.8/ You will find the site has instructions and suggestions – have a browse around, noting what you find (and cannot find). From time to time the sit e may not function perfectly, if you believe something is not working note this in the discussion board for Part 1 (as well as anything else interesting you find ) . After you feel comfortable with the general layout of the Hypercase site you should start o n creating some Rich Pictures documenting the company . And of course what do you (as a good analyst/problem Solver/communicator) do when, even after investigating all of these sources you still have questions/concerns? You seek further clarification and a dvice from the users. I will be playing the user roles for this exercise so if you have any questions ask me what you would like to know. You may ask any questions about Maple Ridge or if you have any technical questions about fact finding, drawing Rich Pictures, process and procedural documentation and so on . Y ou are also encouraged to discuss your findings with me and other students . Note that I am encouraging you to discuss all of the things you find with your fellow students, those who share their t houghts and findings with others will receive recognition for this in their marks for this component. Deliverables This Phase Soft copies of your documentation and recommendations relating to the GEMS system. Snowden has suggested th at Rich Pictures, Use Cases Diagrams, Activity Diagrams and ER models would be good – together with some commentary and recommendations for further steps. We will talk about the case study each week in class. General Comments When you are trying to work out what is happening a t Maple Ridge, what problems exist and how you could address them you WILL find the process confusing, contradictory and frustrating..... almost always you will be told lots that you do not need to know, and little of what you do need to know, often you will even be told things that turn out to be inaccurate! Welcome to the (virtual) real world. It is your job to sort out what is needed and what is accurate! It is a frustrating job, but once you have done it a very rewarding one! And finally remember that I will expect to see mention of your progress on MRE in your Journal.