1.What do you think are the sources of the information Jim and his team collected?
They conducted interviews with key stakeholders inside the company and also worked with the marketing group to put together some focus groups made up of loyal customers. The intent was to get some ideas about what would be valued in a customer loyalty program. Jim also spent time studying programs from other retail chains and those in other industries as well, such as the airlines, which are known for their customer loyalty programs.
2.If you were looking for alternative approaches for Petrie’s customer loyalty program, where would you look for information? Where would you start? How would you know when you were done?
An alternative approach would be by business process reengineering. It is the search for, and implementation of radical change in business processes to achieve breakthrough improvements in products and services. I would start by identifying key business process that are measurable activities designed to produce a specific output.
3.Why shouldn’t Petrie’s staff build their own unique system in-house?
From the list of requirements it is clear that they should seek outside IT consulting to build their system. It would be too expensive and time consuming as the core system would have already been developed by someone else.
4.Are the DFDs in PE Figures 6-1 and 6-2 balanced? Show that they are, or are not. If they are not balanced, how can they be fixed?
No they are not balanced. Balancing the conservation of inputs and outputs to a data flow diagram process when that process is decomposed to a lower level.
5.Why is it important for the team to create DFDs if they are not going to write the actual system code themselves?
Visuals are a great way to help people understand what the general idea is trying to show. Creating DFDs will help you understand if you are choosing the right system for the program. The diagram will help you understand if all the important points are being covered by the program. Without a visual you might miss a step and it could result in wasted time.
