Question

Suppose that you are an analyst for the ABC Company, a large consulting firm with offices around the world. The company wants to build a new knowledge management system that can identify and track the expertise of individual consultants anywhere in the world on the basis of their education and the various consulting projects on which they have worked. Assume that this is a new idea that has never before been attempted in ABC or elsewhere. ABC has an international network, but the offices in each country may use somewhat different hardware and software. ABC management wants the system up and running within a year.

• Given the situation, what methodology would you recommend that ABC Company use? Why?
• Support or Oppose the above statements with arguments

Answer 1

Solution for the problem is provided below, please comment if any doubts:

Here the critical thing is the new system that is going to be developed is a novel system, it hasn’t been implemented or tested anywhere. The new knowledge management system needs to implemented in the offices that located around the world and each office has different hardware and software configurations.

The recommended methodology is: System prototyping and implementation

Explanation to recommendation:

• The system going to be developed is novel, so the requirements are not clear and the actual outcomes and future developments are not estimated.
• The prototyping of the system will create a miniature model of the system that is going to be developed and it can be made for each offices.
• By implementing the prototype we can understand the actual problems that going to face after actual implementation, and we can make solution for those problem effectively before implementation phase.
• The risk and cost will be less with prototyping, thus potential loss can be reduced before implementation.
• The optimization of requirements and other objectives can be made through prototyping.
• Various tests can be performed since the actual implementation is not yet been performed, thus it will not affect the normal working.