Reference no: EM132266253

Discussion Thread

The Agile methodology can be applied to many projects within the business world that can improve the quality of products, customer satisfaction, control of project, reduce risk, and increased return of investment (Haines, Idemudia, & Raisinghani, 2017). The project to be developed and implemented during this course is the improvement of the respite care process for veterans.

In prior courses when developing a more effective and efficient way to reduces the wait times for veterans in the respite care process, there were many components that needed performed in shorter more defined and detailed sprints. This discussion board will address the project to be developed and the benefits of using the Agile methodology to ensure success.

The objective of this project is to reduce the wait times for veterans to increase their satisfaction of the services that are provided to them through the Veteran's Administration.

The scope of the project is to improve the admissions and intake process for the veterans to receive respite services, so that veterans will have the ability to be placed into respite care or receive respite services to improve their satisfaction and reduce the overall wait times associated with the services requested.

To improve this system, it will take at least 2 months to analyze the current system and implement the changes that reinforces the deliverables of the project. This project will cost $50,000 to transform the current system and increase the satisfaction of its consumers. The assumptions are stakeholders are available and willing to take the risk to improve the current veteran's system to increase their wellbeing.

The customers in this project are the veterans that are currently using respite care services, as well as the veterans that are in the process of applying for these services and future veterans. The stakeholders of the project will ideally be veterans since they have a firsthand experience with the veteran's systems and persons that have a strong desire to increase the benefits of persons receiving veteran care.

The Agile methodology will be useful in this project to improve the quality of products and/or services provided to the veterans in the area, satisfy the consumer, and display effective project strategies (Haines, Idemudia, & Raisinghani, 2017). Agile can be used to help set the direction, align individuals, obtain resources, and provide motivation for the project.

The agile methodology relies on the technical excellence and simple designs of software developers to create business value to the consumer through delivering working software to users in short intervals (Dingsøyr, Nerur, Balijepally, & Moe, 2012). This project will consist of redesigning the current admissions and intake process through eliminating redundant tasks and improving the software of the current process each performed at a specific interval. Through implementing the agile methodology, it will create a collaborative environment that emphasizes the importance of co-laboring with customers and stakeholders.

This process will break the norms of the traditional project processes, but actively using the input of customers and stakeholders to shape and guide the evolution of the final software product or service (Dingsøyr, Nerur, Balijepally, & Moe, 2012). The final product will be a system that works effectively to reduce the wait times for veterans and has the ability to use information from the consumer to provide a better experience with the VA systems.

The project will be monitored by the project manager and key team members of the project that have expertise in the associated tasks. Projects are monitored to advert many potential problems that can become costly and ensures that project is performing and meeting the goals and expectations of the project.

To monitor the project many aspects will be implemented to ensure successful implementation. One monitoring system that will be used is burn down charts.

The burn down charts will indicate how the project is progressing and if the project is performing on schedule, and if changes need to be made within the project (Miranda & Bourque, 2010). This system allows the team to focus on the areas that need more attention and balances the different activities of the project. The project will be monitored from its conception to closure and the information obtained will be communicated to all necessary parties.

When implementing a project, there are many risks that can deter the successfulness of a project. In these situations, it is important at the beginning of the project to determine the risks that are

References

Associated with the project and ways to mitigate these issues if they arise (Elbanna & Sarker, 2016). For this project, one risk is not enough capital to effectively change the current system and implementing an ineffective system for the admissions and intake process. With the admissions and intake process, many of these features will be computer based so it is important to have a system that can handle the processing of data and traffic that will be used for the project.

To alleviate the malfunctions that can occur within the system, there can be testing of the system to determine functionality and assessment tools provided to determine if the changes implemented will affect the wait times of the veteran. Through monitoring, the project manager will be able to successfully meet the needs of the customer.

Some of the leading causes of unsuccessful implementation of a project include: poor communication, lack of user involvement, failure to manager user expectation, misinterpretation of requirements, and failure to accommodate changes in scope (Elbanna & Sarker, 2016).

Dingsøyr, T., Nerur, S., Balijepally, V., & Moe, N. B. (2012). A decade of agile methodologies: Towards explaining agile software development. The Journal of Systems & Software, 85(6), 1213-1221. doi:10.1016/j.jss.2012.02.033

Elbanna, A., & Sarker, S. (2016). The risks of agile software development: Learning from adopters. IEEE Software, 33(5), 72-79.

Haines, T., Idemudia, E. C., & Raisinghani, M. S. (2017). The conceptual model for agile tools and techniques. American Journal of Management, 17(3), 77-88.

Miranda, E., & Bourque, P. (2010). Agile monitoring using the line of balance. The Journal of Systems & Software, 83(7), 1205-1215.

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