COMP1648Development, Frameworks and MethodsCoursework Number.docx

COMP1648
Development, Frameworks and Methods
Coursework Number:
1 of 1
Contribution: 100% of course
Coordinator:
Ms Christine Du Toit
Deadline Date:
11/11/2013
This coursework should take an average student who is up-to-
date with tutorial work approximately 50 hours
Learning Outcomes:
A. Critically evaluate the significance of a
methodology/framework within an IS development environment.
B. Apply the principles, concepts and techniques of a RAD
methodology to a given development environment.
C. Appreciate the issues impacting upon the future development
and use of methods in industry.
D. Discuss professional and ethical issues relating to
information systems development
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an individual effort; copying another student’s coursework;
stealing or buying coursework from someone else and
submitting it as your own work. Suspected plagiarism will be
investigated and if found to have occurred will be dealt with
according to the procedures set down by the University.
All material copied or amended from any source (e.g. internet,
books) must be placed in quotation marks and in italics, with a
full reference to the source directly underneath the material.

Your work will be submitted for electronic plagiarism checking.
Any attempt to bypass our plagiarism detection systems will be
treated as a severe Assessment Offence.
Coursework Submission Requirements
· An electronic copy of your work for this coursework should be
fully uploaded by midnight (local time) on the Deadline Date.
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· You must NOT submit a paper copy of this
coursework.Coursework Regulations
1. If no submissions were made before the deadline, coursework
submitted up to two weeks late that meets the criteria for a pass
will be treated as a referral. It will be subject to university
regulations for referral work.
2. Coursework submitted late without an Extenuating

Circumstances claim will receive a ZERO grade.
If you have extenuating circumstances you may submit your
coursework up to two weeks after the published deadline
without penalty but this is subject to acceptance of your claim
by the School Extenuating Circumstances Panel. If your claim is
rejected then you will receive a zero grade for your work.
3. Coursework submitted more than two weeks late will be
given feedback but a grade of non-submission will be awarded
regardless of any extenuating circumstances. However, if your
Extenuating Circumstances claim is accepted then the
Extenuating Circumstances Panel will recommend to the
Progression and Award Board that you be permitted to retake a
different item of assessment at a future assessment point.
4. All courseworks must be submitted as above.
Detailed Specification
You must complete this assignment using the given case study –
The Children Support Agency (CSA) Case Study.
Firstly, read the information given in the case study (which is
attached to this coursework specification).
Then produce all of the deliverables detailed below.
Note that the case study contains a lot of information about
CSA - read it carefully.
Important instructions
Do not use previous student’s coursework as a basis for your
work. It will be identified.
Do not use any material from books, academic papers, the
internet or any other source when writing about the process and
carrying out your critical reflection. It is your own views that

are required.
Any attempt to use other people’s material in your coursework,
whether taken from a classmate from another source, will result
in you receiving a lower mark and possibly being awarded zero.
Do not copy the whole case study into your report. Only submit
the work you have completed.
Deliverables
There are three sections to this coursework. Make sure that you
complete all three sections.
Section A – Management Summary (30% of the marks)
The case study tells us that the IT Consultant, Sebastian
LeFevre, has decided to recommend one of the approaches
associated with Agile Methods to the Chief Executive Officer of
CSA as he thinks that this would be an interesting project for
him to get involved with. The Agile Method that Sebastian has
recommended to the Chief Executive is called DSDM Atern.
Produce a management summary explaining whether DSDM
Atern would be an appropriate method to use within CSA.
Outline any advantages/drawbacks that you perceive. Give
examples from the Case Study to support your answer.
Your answer should be in the region of 750-1000 words.
Section B – High level requirements analysis and MoSCoW
prioritisation (40% of the marks)
Appendix B of the case study provides details (including
minutes) of a Facilitated Workshop session run by the external
consultants and attended by a number of the key staff in the
organisation.
At the end of the session a list of ‘high level requirements’ was

produced.
This list is inappropriate as a set of requirements for developing
a system as a number of the requirements do not meet our
criteria for a ‘high level requirement’.
Remember a high level requirement should be a functional
requirement that can be delivered to the user as part of an
incremental approach using a timebox (or number of
timeboxes).
Using the information given throughout the case study to help
you, complete the following:
B1.
Review the ‘high level requirements’ list given at the end of
Appendix B.
B1.1
Identify any of the requirements that you feel are not
appropriate high level requirements, giving your reasons for
this.
B1.2
Rewrite the list to include between 8-10 high level
requirements that you feel are required for building the system.
Briefly, justify the need for each of your high level
requirements against information you have gathered from the
case study.
Your answer to B1 should be in the region of 750-1000 words
B2.
Use the MoSCoW rules to prioritise the requirements in your
updated ‘high level requirements list’.

B2.1.
Produce an updated ‘high requirements list’ clearly showing the
prioritisation you have given to each of your requirements.
There isn’t a word limit for this answer.
B2.2
Explain how you set about prioritising the requirements and
justify your reasons for
The decisions that you made
Your answer here should be in the region of 500 words.
Section C – Legal, Social, Ethical and Professional issues
(30% of the marks)
C1: CSA needs to start considering Legal,Social, Ethical and
Professional Issues (LSEPI) in relation to its day-to-day
operations. In particular, they need to appoint a Data
Controller. Produce a management summary explaining (a) why
the organisation needs a Data Controller and (b) how a Data
Controller could help overcome some of the legal, social,
ethical and professional issues that CSA may be faced with. As
a part of your answer to (b) provide two practical examples
from the case study that relate to aspects of LSEPI.
Your answer here should be in the region of 500-750 words
C2:Produce a management summary outlining the purpose of the
Code of Conduct for a professional body such as the BCS.
Using the Code of Conduct of a professional body with which
you are familiar as a guide, identify and discuss four
professional issues that a System developer contracted to CSA

may need to consider.
Your answer to this question should be in the region of 500-750
words.
Grading and Assessment Criteria
A
70%-100%
· Demonstrate a thorough understanding of the issues
surrounding the application of RAD/DSDM to a development
environment.
· Demonstrate a thorough understanding of high level
requirements analysis and MoSCoW prioritisation;
· Apply the MoSCoW rules sensibly, demonstrating a clear
understanding of the need for incremental delivery.
· Demonstrate a thorough understanding of the DPA principles
and the practical role of the Data controller.
· Demonstrate a thorough understanding of the role of the
professional and, in particular, the BCS code of conduct.
· Bring original thought to the argument;
B
60%-69%
· Demonstrate a good understanding of the issues surrounding
the application of RAD/DSDM to a development environment.
· Demonstrate a good understanding of high level requirements
analysis and MoSCoW prioritisation;
· Apply the MoSCoW rules sensibly, demonstrating a good
understanding of the need for incremental delivery.

· Demonstrate a good understanding of the DPA principles and
the practical role of the Data controller.
· Demonstrate a good understanding of the role of the
· Bring some original thought to the argument;
C
50%-59%
· Demonstrate understanding of some of the issues surrounding
current development methodology approaches.
· Demonstrate understanding of some of the issues surrounding
· Demonstrate understanding of some the issues relating to high
level requirements analysis and MoSCoW prioritisation;
· Apply the MoSCoW rules in a sensible way demonstrating
some understanding of the need for incremental delivery.
· Demonstrate an understanding of the DPA principles and the
practical role of the Data Controller.
· Demonstrate an understanding of the role of the professional
and, in particular, the BCS code of conduct.
· Identify some practical examples relating to the above
D
40%-49%
· Demonstrate a basic understanding of the issues surrounding

· Demonstrate a basic understanding of high level requirements
analysis and MoSCoW prioritisation;
· Apply the MoSCoW rules in a basic way.
· Demonstrate a basic understanding of the DPA principles and
the practical role of the Data controller.
· Demonstrate a basic understanding of the role of the
Children Support Agency Case Study
The Children Support Agency (CSA) is a national charity based
in the UK that cares for young people (aged 12-24) who require
additional support to help them live their lives effectively.
There are 4 key areas where CSA work: housing, family
support, education & training, and tackling crime. For example,
CSA manages a project to provide safe and affordable housing
for homeless young people. They also run a project in North
London to help tackle knife crime and, from the same office,
manage an IT training course for young people who have
previously committed crime.
Structure of the Children Support Agency (CSA)
CSA have a head office in central London. They have recently
moved there having previously had two main offices, a small
one in London and a larger one on the South Coast of England
in Brighton (about 70 km away). Previously, all of the
administration support and services were based in the Brighton
office with just a small presence in London. Some of the staff
working in Brighton chose not to move to the new London
office and, as a result, CSA have had to employ a number of
new members of staff. In particular, the Human Resources
department has had an almost complete overhaul of staff, with

just one junior member choosing to move to London. The
remainder, including the head of department, are all newly
appointed.
Nationally, CSA run 60 different projects, 10 housing projects,
15 tackling crime projects, 20 education & training projects and
15 family support projects.
To help manage these projects effectively, CSA is split into 3
geographical regions, Northern, South West and South East.
Each region is managed by a Regional Director who is
supported by an administrative team. As well as managing
existing projects, the Regional Director is also responsible for
developing new projects, sorting out the contracts with funding
bodies, identifying project deliverables, and so on. This is done
in partnership with the appropriate Area Manager and the
Contract and Funding Raising Department at Head Office. The
Regional Office staff are based in one of the Area Offices in
their region.
Within each region, there are Area Offices which coordinate the
projects being run in that area. There are 6 Area Offices in the
Northern region, 8 in the South East and 5 in the South West.
Each of these offices is managed by an Area Manager who is
responsible for overseeing the management of all of the projects
being run in that area (typically, an Area Office will be
responsible for 3-4 projects.)
CSA Projects in the community
Some projects are large, looking after a significant number of
young people, resources and budget, whilst others are quite
small. Regardless of size, each project has a Leader Worker,
who is responsible for overseeing and managing the project. In
some cases, where there are a number of small projects grouped
together in one Area Office, there is just one member of staff
managing them all. For larger projects, there is a project team,

normally made up of 4-6 members of staff. The Lead Worker is
responsible for managing the project team.
All projects are funded by outside bodies, either funded by an
appropriate government agency or receiving funds from trusts
which support the kind of work carried by CSA. Each project
has a contract which identifies the budget, the length of time
that the project will run for, how many staff should be
employed and a set of deliverables (such as how many young
people should be supported by this project and what targets
should be set.)
All projects have to produce regular monitoring reports for their
funding bodies, but there is a wide range of the level of
reporting required, depending upon the type of project and who
the funding body is. Some of the projects in the area of
education & training are for running government training
contracts through a government agency, the Learning and Skills
Council (LSC). These are highly regulated and require a
significant amount of reporting back to the LSC on monthly
basis. Much of the funding depends on these reports being
properly made. At the other extreme, some projects funded by
trusts only require an annual or bi-annual report to explain how
it is going.
Central Services
The Head Office contains the Chief Executive and her admin
team, Finance department, Human Resources, Marketing, and
Administrative Services. The ICT department, which is fairly
limited in scope, is managed through the Finance Department.
Administrative Services is responsible for collating the
appropriate management information for the organisation, as
required by the Board of Trustees and the Senior Executive
Group. The Contracts and Fund Raising team are managed
through Administrative Services.

The Senior Executive Group (SEG) is made up of the Chief
Executive, the Finance Director, Head of HR, Marketing
Director, Administrative Services Director and the three
Regional Directors. This is the key decision making body for
CSA, although all decisions need to be ratified by the Board of
Trustees.
Information Systems Provision at CSA
The current information systems provision at CSA Head Office
mainly supports the financial requirements of the organisation.
The Finance Department runs an off-the-shelf payroll system
and a small bespoke funding system that records information
about funds received from outside sources and the internal
projects they are awarded to. Julieanne Black (Information
Quality Officer, Administrative Services Department) attempts
to collect project data every three months, from the local
offices, that could be applied to the Key Performance Indicators
(KPIs) that the external funders are now so keen on. (KPIs are
criteria against which the performance of a project may be
measured. For example, number of young people on a given
training course, number of young people rehoused etc.)
Sebastian LeFevre, an Information Systems Consultant at
Devospire Plc, has recently been contracted to CSA to support
them in the analysis and development of their Information
needs.
He immediately undertook a review of the current use of
information systems within CSA and was greatly concerned by
the following:
· Lack of awareness in relation to the secure storage of data –
both electronically and hardcopy.
· Absence of a Data Controller within the organisation.

· Lack of staff professionalism and ethical awareness in relation
to the collection and dissemination of data within the
organisation
· The existence of an organisation culture which doesn’t foster
the use of IT as a project support.
The second issue that Sebastian considered was the development
approach best suited to CSA. His recent development
experience has been in the use of Agile methods and he has
decided to recommend one of the approaches associated with
Agile Methods to the Chief Executive Officer of CSA as he
thinks that this would be an interesting project for him to get
involved with.
Outline System Requirements
The Senior Executive Group (SEG), supported by the Board of
Trustees, has decided that the time has come to put in place
better management tools to help manage CSA. As a result, they
have requested that a management information system be built
that will help the Head Office to monitor projects. The system
should also provide effective tools to help Regional Directors,
Area Managers and Lead Workers to manage their work. At the
heart of the system will be the recording and monitoring of key
performance indicators (KPIs) for each of the projects managed
by CSA. Each department at Head Office should be able to see
information as it relates to their department. Likewise, the
Regional Directors will need to see the data for their region,
Area Managers for their area and Team Leaders for their
project.
The system is to be developed under the joint guidance of the
Director of Administrative Services and the Finance Director.
The system should also record centrally all contracts that are in
force, to help the contract team manage existing contracts and

develop future contracts for new projects. (see Appendix A –
Contract System.)
Current Position
CSA recognise that there is significant work required to achieve
a successful development of this system. Historically, projects
have been developed and implemented on an almost ad hoc
basis. As a result there is a very wide range of management
styles across the organisation. Each of the Regional Directors
has a very different approach to doing things and there has been
no real guidance from the SEG as to how things should be done.
Also, each project has different requirements for reporting and
deliverables. Therefore, there is no consistent way of running a
project.
Due to the kind of work that they do, the staff are, in general,
very people-centred. Many of them lack any real interest for
information technology and a significant number of staff see
using any form of technology as an unnecessary burden on their
work.
There is no standard way that projects record information about
users of their services. Some projects record their data using a
paper based system whilst others have created simple databases
or spreadsheets to help maintain records. One or two of the
larger projects have invested IT to some extent, building their
own databases (mainly in Access) to meet their requirements.
Requirements Analysis Interviews
The following are some extracts from a number of requirements
analysis interviews that have taken place at CSA in preparation
for building the management information system.
Jim Massey (Administrative Services Director)

“The management information system is my idea. I have been
working here for 12 months now, and I think it is fair to say
that the management of CSA is a mess. There is no consistent
way that things are being done and we need to tackle that. My
job is to make sure that we run efficiently, and show our
funders that we are providing value for money. Unless we do
this we will find it increasingly difficult to obtain new contracts
in the future which will undermine the organisation as a whole.
I want to use the introduction of this system to change the way
things are done throughout the organisation. We can’t afford to
allow everyone to do their own thing. In a way, I want to
introduce centralised management by stealth, forcing staff to
follow a single way of doing things by making them use the
management information system to record core data about the
projects and the young people they are working with.
I also understand that this is a large development project and
critically we need to sort out the core functionality before
adding any of the bells and whistles. At this stage we don’t
want to introduce a case management system for managing the
detail of what goes on in projects. That would be too complex.
The other things that I am concerned about are making sure that
staff are supported properly as we introduce the new system, so
they require proper training, making sure that this is a secure
system as much of the data held is personal data and
confidential, making sure that it is easy to use, a lot of staff
seem terrified of using IT.
The development of this system is jointly managed between
myself and Steve Sutherland, the Finance Director. I’ve had a
chat with him and I think we are in agreement what needs to
happen. It is important that we make this a success as future
funding from the Board of Trustees is dependent on us showing
them that it works.”

Steve Sutherland (Finance Director)
“I’ve been asking for a system like this since I arrived 9 months
ago, and it seems that I have finally got my way. It was quite
clear that Area Managers and Regional Directors haven’t been
providing accurate financial data for some time and that clearly
isn’t good enough. This new management information system
must be about managing the finances of local projects, anything
else is of secondary importance.
Of course there cannot be a hard connection between the
Finance system we use and the MIS as that would open up all
sorts of security risks which we don’t want to open up. Whoever
builds this system must think how we can share data between
the two systems without compromising our finance system.
In fact, security is of utmost importance. A member of staff
should only be able to see data for which they are authorised to
see. We should make sure that that part works properly before
using the system live.
I’ve talked Jim about this and I’m pretty confident that we are
in agreement as to what is required.”
Sally Smith (Head of HR)
“I’m afraid that I cannot help much with this development. I’ve
only just arrived and I have my hands full sorting out the HR
department. The HR software is years out of date, and the data
that we hold is full of errors. I’m more concerned about getting
that fixed. I’ve spoken to the Chief Executive and she seems
confident that we can get the funding for a new HR system in
the next year or so. I’d rather we concentrated on that rather
than playing about with this management information system.

The only thing that I am worried about it is that there is no
connection to our system. And I don’t want personal
information being entered into the MIS about CSA staff. It is
hard enough managing one system, let alone having the same
data in two places.
I want to make sure that Area Managers come to us first to set
up staff records before entering it anywhere else. I’ve already
had problems with Area Managers holding their own staff
records.”
Julieanne Black (Information Quality Officer, Administrative
Services Department)
“I’ve only just been moved to this post. It is my job to make
sure that the projects provide accurate and up-to-date
information so that good decisions can be made centrally. As a
result, Jim has asked me to manage the MIS development as it
has a significant overlap with my job.
If I’m honest, it is something I could do without. I’ve got
enough on my plate trying to persuade projects to send back
accurate KPI information every three months. However, it is a
system that is long overdue so I am totally committed to making
it a success.
Jim and I are in agreement, we need a system that will allow
projects to enter the core data into the system which we can use
to measure KPIs. The system will need to hold basic data about
each young person that we work with as they are central to
measuring performance in each project. So we will need to
record when a young person joins us, and then the same basic
information about who they are, address date of birth, and so
on. After that, it is about recording information that we can use
to measure performance. So for example, one of the KPIs is to
identify that all young people are properly registered with local

health services within a reasonable period. We therefore need to
record that information into the system.
But what we don’t want is to get distracted with providing
projects with a system to manage individual young people’s
cases, records of interviews with the young person and so on.
That would be far too complex at this stage and there are a
number of systems already available to do that job. I’d rather
we look at those and see how we can integrate them into the
MIS rather than writing those parts from scratch.
I’m sure those who work at projects will say they we need a
case management system. We will need to be firm and make
sure that we keep to providing core functionality and leave the
extra parts until later.
An important part of the system is to support the Contract &
Fund Raising Team. One of the problems that we have is that
centrally we have no clear record of which contracts are
currently in force, what the deliverables are required, the
deadlines of each contract and so on. We need to manage this
part of the organisation better and the contract is central the
MIS as each project is linked to a contract being operational. “
Sean McNally (Northern Regional Director)
“I’ve worked for CSA for nearly 20 years and I seen ideas come
and go. I’ll wait and see if this one comes to anything.
What I need is a system that will help me manage my staff in
my region. What I don’t need is a system that allows head office
to continually interfere with what we do. I try to run a well
organised region and I think everyone respects what we do in
our office. We have tried to support the projects from within
our own resources and have invested heavily into things that I
think makes their job easier such as IT and databases. I
wouldn’t like to have yet another system that my staff have to

deal with on top of everything else they do. They are already
overworked.
I also don’t want them to feel that we are spying on what they
do. Much of what they do relies on trust and I want them to
trust us.”
Peter Jackson (Area Manager, Bridlington Area Office)
“I’d be very pleased to be part of any group that will help
develop your new system. I have lots of ideas about what it
should do. I’ve worked here for 18 years, so I know exactly
what is needed. In fact, we have already developed a database
for our office which you might use it as a starting point for
anything you produce. It looks after all of the information we
need to hold about our project users. I’ve written it using
Microsoft Excel as I went on a course. The only problem is that
it takes a while to find individual pieces of data which is always
annoying when we are trying to fill in the returns for
Julieanne’s KPIs. It can often take a couple of days getting all
that data together.
What we really need is something to help us manage projects.
Sue, one of the Project Managers, for example, would like
something that will allow her to record details of any interviews
she has with the young people she is dealing with. This would
be very useful because that would mean we can share the
information amongst the team in Bridlington. The sharing of
information is very important to the work that we do.
We could also do with a system that will produce all of the data
that we have to send to our funding bodies. If you could do
something that will send the correct information directly to
them, then that would be great.”
Sue Williams (Team Leader, Bridlington Tackling Crime

Project)
“I understand that you are going to solve all of my problems!
That’s great because I seem to be spending the whole of my
time doing administration. I chose to work for CSA because I
want to work with children and help them in some way. Now all
I seem to do is to fill in forms, check forms, write reports,
check any amount information being sent to me. Then we get
Julieanne, with her KPIs, phoning up saying, can you just
change this piece of data or add that piece of data. I haven’t got
the time for it. What is a KPI anyway? They don’t seem to be of
any use to me. Just giving me additional work.
It is all very well for those people down in London in their
fancy new offices to tell us what we should be doing, but I
don’t think they realise what it is like running a project like
this. When you have a kid who is about to do something stupid,
I don’t know, break into a house, commit suicide, or whatever
they are about to do, then you have to drop everything and run
to sort out their problem. Admin is the last thing on my mind
when that happens. But now we are being told that admin is our
highest priority which strikes me as completely back to front.
There seems to be something wrong here. Aren’t we, us people
who are working in the projects and dealing with the children,
the people doing the real work for CSA. Yet, it seems to me that
there is a lot of resources going into giving those in London
nice comfy offices and clever databases. Don’t get me wrong, I
realise that these things have to happen, but it would be nice if
someone down there thought about us people first for a change.
Peter does his best to help us with his little database, but to be
honest, I’ve never been very good with technology. Apparently
I keep on entering the wrong information into Excel, is that
what its called, and then Peter has to come and mend what I
have done. Hope you will be training us to use this new
database, you’ll have you hands full in this office!
What I really need is to have a system that will magically do all
of the admin for me, then I can get on with my proper job.”

Appendix A – Contract System - Requirements Overview
Central to everything done at CSA is the contract. Each project
that is run by CSA needs a contract with the funding body. The
contract defines precisely what is required for the project in
terms of deliverables, when and how monies will be paid to
CSA, the length of the project, staff, resources, and so on. It is
a very important object for the successful running of CSA.
Each contract needs to hold the following information:
· CSA Contract Id
· Name of Project
· Date Agreed
· Start Date
· End Date
· Funding Body (name of body, contact details and so on)
· Budget
· Proposed Schedule of payments to CSA (including dates and
amount to be received)
· Deliverables for project
· Area Office
· Lead Worker
· Other staff working on contract
The contract team need to hold this information centrally so that

CSA can manage existing contracts and plan for future ones.
Currently some contract information is being held in regional
offices and, in some cases, Area Offices. This has led to a
disjointed and confused state with information lost and
deadlines being missed.
By holding the information centrally, this will stop separate
offices bidding for the same contracts. In the past, because there
has been no central overseeing of contracts, some Area Offices
have competed with other offices for running a project which
has led to confusion and, in some cases, losing the contract. A
central contract database will overcome this problem.
One of the roles of the contract team is to develop new projects.
They need a record of existing contracts to write bids for future
funding for contracts. They should be able to use the contract
database to identify similar contracts that have been successful
in the past to help write bids for future projects and contracts.
The bidding process is as follows:
A new project starts as a lead. A lead might be a tender from a
government agency to run a particular service (e.g. training or
housing) or a notice that a trust fund is willing to make
available funding for a project in a particular area.
Once a lead has been received then the contract team, in
partnership with the appropriate Regional Office and Area
Office, will identify if it meets the criteria for CSA (i.e. age of
beneficiaries, in one of CSA core areas of work, etc). if this is
ok, there will be an audit of resources to make sure that CSA
are able to meet the requirements of the tender or identify what
would be needed for the project to succeed. The team working
on the bid will then make a Go/No Go decision as to whether to
proceed any further. If not, then the information is put on file.
If it is thought to proceed, then the bid is written to meet the

criteria of the funding body and also goes to SEG for
agreement.
Once the bid is written and checked that the criteria has been
met, it is sent to the appropriate funding body.
There are three possible outcomes from the funding body: yes,
you have won the bid; no, you have failed in your bid; yes,
subject to some changes.
Where the answer is no, the information is put on record along
with the reasons why it has failed.
Where the answer is yes, subject to changes, a decision is made
whether the changes are appropriate and CSA is able to meet
them. If it is felt that this cannot take place then it becomes a
no and the funding body is informed of this. If it is yes, then it
follows the procedure below.
For all agreed bids, a new contract is created. This sets up all of
the relevant information for the contract as shown above. There
is also a series of tasks that occur, including making sure that
the resources are put in place, staff are appointed, a lead worker
is allocated, marketing and publicity occurs to advertise the new
project. This continues until the project starts and the project is
then monitored until its end date. For many projects, CSA is
able to bid for future funding as the project comes towards its
close date. When this occurs it follows exactly the same pattern
as above.
Appendix B –Facilitated Workshop Data
Facilitated Workshop Meeting for Management Information
System
Agenda
1. Introduction and Terms of reference (10 minutes)

2. Requirements exercise (20 minutes)
3. Small group discussion exercise (30 minutes)
4. Feedback and outline requirements plan (30-40 minutes)
Minutes of Meeting held in Meeting Room 1
Present
Jim Massey (Operations Director) (Chair)
Steve Sutherland (Finance)
Julieanne Black (Central Quality Unit)
Peter Jackson (Northern Region)
Priya Patel (London Start again project)
Deborah Green (Secretary to Operations Director) Secretary
Kevin Baxter and Anastasia Mason - External consultants
(MakeASystemWork Ltd)
Apologies
Sally Smith
Sue Williams
Introduction and Terms of Reference
Jim Massey (JM) welcomed all to meeting and noted that Sally
Smith (SSm) was busy dealing with some major problems in HR
department so was unable to attend. He also welcomed Priya
Patel (PP) to the group in place of Sue WIllimas (SW) who felt
it too far to travel for the meeting. JM stated that he had some
notes from both SSM and SW to feed into the discussion.
The consultants were introduced and asked to outline the
purpose of the meeting – to identify the main requirements for

the new system and set the priority and agenda for the future
development.
JM reported that following the recent Trustees meeting, the
Senior Management Team (SMT) had discussed the
requirements of the new system. The trustees were keen to see a
quick return on the investment as they felt the that there needed
to be an early justification of the amount of money being spent.
In particular the trustees wanted to be confident in the data
being presented to them and hoped this system would be able to
provide high quality data. SMT is also keen to improve the
quality of data being provided by projects. SMT have set a
target of getting centres to provide accurate core data to the
centre within 3 months of the start of this project. SMT also set
2 years as the overall development period.
KB and AM outlined the activities for the rest of the meeting.
Requirements exercise
Each person was asked to list their requirements for the new
system on a form given by KB and AM. The following is a
summary of those requirement sheets:
JM
1. Collect data accurately from centres
2. Produce management reports for SMT and Trustees
3. Assist New Development Office in preparing for bids in the
future
4. Record details about contracts held between CSA and funding
bodies
5. Collect demographic data about young people
6. Measure performance against funding body deliverables and

CSA key performance indicators
7. Make sure that the system data is secure
SSu
1. Give better data as to how finances and resources are
allocated
2. Use performance indicators data to make judgements about
where to invest in the future
3. Be able to report to trustees with dependable data
4. Show that staff are being effectively used
5. Demonstrate that CSA is providing a value for money service
JB
1. Improve the quality of data from centres
2. Receive the data on time
3. Allow for reporting for any given time period (rather than the
three month returns I am currently working to)
4. Make the data collection process easier
5. Make sure all projects are collecting data against the same
indicators
6. Allow for changes in indicators (as they always seem to be
changing from SMT)
7. Reduce the time taken by project workers filling in the
information (some have three or four different external systems
to enter the information)
PJ
1. Something similar to what we have in the Northern region

2. Give me an overview of how all projects are performing in
my region
3. Reduce the administrative overhead on my staff – they need
to be focusing on the job they were employed to do rather than
being an administrator
4. Stop staff entering data in more than once
5. Provide me with the data to to help me make bids for new
projects and funding
PP
1. Stop entering information into multiple systems – if we could
have one place where we stored information about young
people, that would be great
2. Help workers to do their job more effectively – can we have
information available through mobile phones?
3. Can we have a calendar which we all share to help make
appointments?
4. Record case notes safely so that we can track a young
person’s progress
5. Be able to pass on information from one project to another
(my young people we deal with are involved in more than one
project)
6. Send messages to young people about events in the area
7. Would it be possible to provide an online website (like
Facebook?) where we can communicate with young people

Overall requirements list
A long discussion was held between the group. There was a
debate about what this system was for. JM reminded the group
that it was an internal management information system to help
monitor performance of projects against performance indicators
set by either CSA or funding bodies. There was a strong feeling
by some people that unless the project workers could see some
benefit in using the system, data would not be properly entered.
There was also concen about whether the data will be held
securely. PP said that many people at her project were excited
about having something that would reduce the administrative
workload. SSu expressed some concerns about giving access to
financial data to users of the system. JB stated that the number
one priority must be reducing the stress on people working in
projects having to make quarterly returns. Just providing a
common template for people to fill in against would make life a
lot easier. JB asked about how existing data would be included
into the new system.
After the discussion, the following High Level Requirement list
was produced.
1. Collect data about each CSA project, accurately and on time,
in a standard format, every 3 months
2. Produce management reports for SMT and Trustees for a
range of time periods and variables
3. Build into the system a standard set of performance
indicators so that projects can be measured (it should be
possible to add new performance indicators and remove old
ones as necessary).
4. Demonstrate projects are value for money
5. Maintain details of the contracts between CSA and funding
bodies for each project

6. Allow projects to store demographic data about young people
in a standard way, visible by central offices
7. Make sure that data is secure but accessible to the right
people at different levels in the organisation
8. Develop a common interface for the Management Information
System and external systems so that data is only entered once
9. Integrate existing data into the system
10. Include a simple case management tool to allow project
workers to record short notes in a secure way
11. Develop an enterprise scheduling tool for managing
meetings with staff and young people
12. Build the system so that is extendable to include additional
features in the future

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