Kudler Fine Foods

Introduction

At the direction of Yvonne Reynolds, Director of Store Operations, a project has been initiated to utilize the existing customer demographic database to generate a monthly newsletter containing coupons for promotional products. The project is to also provide reporting on coupon usage and product sales. As of August 24th, the project is behind schedule and lacking planning details. Addendum 1 addresses the potential impact of the project being behind schedule. The following addresses how the project team proposes to put the project back on schedule and provides a detailed plan of action for completion to the satisfaction of Ms. Reynolds and Kudler Fine Foods.

Problem Definition

The Kudler Fine Foods coupon project will require detailed definition and planning to avoid development and deployment problems. The precise planning will also guarantee that the project stays on track and that we meet all deadlines. Any deadline being missed could cause significant delays with the remainder of the project and could have harmful effects on customer service.

The first step in problem definition will be to conduct interviews with management, specifically, Ms. Kudler and the store operations manager, Yvonne Reynolds. We need to understand their requirements for the project before we can begin. During this meeting we will also determine the budget that we have for the project, which is critical before any project planning can be done.

After we have a thorough understanding of the requirements and budget we can define project milestones and draft the project plan. We will identify the team and develop a project charter to identify roles and responsibilities.

Analysis

The first phase of project execution will be a more detailed requirements gathering inquiry. We will meet with marketing staff and conduct customer interviews. We will work with marketing to conduct focus groups to determine what customers want in the monthly newsletter and which products are more likely to attract customers, if they are discounted with coupons.

Database modifications need to be identified next. We will perform a complete analysis of the existing database and determine changes required. We need to identify what data is currently stored in the database and we need to make arrangements to preserve customer demographic information. Possible database additions include added fields, tables, reporting abilities, and macros. Once we determine the modifications, we can establish whether the existing equipment will support the new database. We will identify required storage space, memory usage, hardware, and software requirements. This will allow us to determine whether the existing hardware and software can be retained to support the new database or if purchases will be required.

During project analysis, we will also meet with end users of the system to determine what functions they require in the front end of the system. Ease of use, help features, and reporting abilities will be determined. This will allow us to determine a design that will be satisfactory to the users, as well as meeting customer needs. It will also help us later determine an avenue of technical support for the database, as well as create a training plan.

Design Solution

The design phase will begin with spending a day creating the database relation diagram, in order to assist the design team in visualizing the scheme for the tables and fields to be used in the newsletter and coupons.

Over the next seven days, the team will create templates for the newsletter and coupon, design the database tables and fields, and finally, the reports. Working from the information gathered during interviews, the analysis phase will be a key element in adopting a design that will serve the needs of Kudler Fine Foods. Once a design is agreed upon by the team, it will seek approval from Yvonne Reynolds, Director of Store Operations, before proceeding. After getting approval for the templates, the team will design test data for the templates, to assure that the templates will perform as needed when actual data is imputed. It is anticipated these initial tasks will take only two days to complete.

The team will then proceed to creating the database schema for the tables. What we want to accomplish in this task is to have the newsletter and subsequent reports pull data from customer and sales tables of the company database, so updates can be made near real time. The coupon program is being implemented to target sales of specific products, as well as increase sales overall. Near real time reporting will give Kudler the ability to monitor sales on an hour-by-hour basis, if they so choose.

Working simultaneously, another team will be designing the fields that will be active in the database. Our main question at this task is what properties do we need to have present and how will they be inputted. We believe this can be accomplished in one day, with two teams working concurrently, and dependent upon getting approval for the designs before moving ahead.

We then will design a prototype database to test how data flows through the system. Assuming success at this point, the team will get final approval for the database portion of the design.

Next, we will create a template for the reports that will be generated during this marketing program. We are going in expecting management to need reports on store sales, combined sales across all the locations, product mix sales, and possibly the ability to track sales by zip code. Yvonne Reynolds will be the team's primary contact in seeking and getting approval for the design of the reports and the overall approval of the design phase. Once she has signed off on all designs, the team can move on to implementation.

Implement Design

When all the above has been accomplished, we can start to implement the design. The new equipment will be installed during the first week of August and should only take approximately three days, including configuration. Then, the DBA will be able to create the database and the tables/fields and relations to the other tables within the database. Our Report Writer can then start creating the requested reports. Also, the DBA will be able to create the interfaces to feed data into the new system. All of this is planned to be completed by August 23rd.

Once the coding is complete, the system will need to be tested for functionality and configuration. The QA department has been scheduled to perform the appropriate tests starting on August 24th and ending on August 30th. Once the system has passed QA testing, we will