A2 ICT: The Role of Different Members in the Project Team

The Role of Different Members in the Project Team

Lots of people are involved in the creation of a new system but the main members are the:

• Programmer
• Project Manager
• Systems Analyst
• Systems Designer
• Tester

One person can do more than one of these roles if the team is small.

Programmer

The programmer makes the software for the system. They will either create completely new software code for a new system or will modify existing code in an existing system.

It is likely that the programmer will be an applications programmer unless the new system to be programmed is very specialised. The programmer will create the system by writing code.

The programmer will be responsible for making the technical documentation for the end user when the documentation stage of the systems life cycle is reached.

Project Manager

The project manager’s job is to plan, oversee and keep control of the project. They also have the role of noticing things that have the potential to be a problem and fixing those things.

The project manager will liaise with the end users and team members at the beginning of the project in order to set realistic and achievable deadlines throughout the project. Doing this ensures:

• An overall understanding of the project progression
• The system will be completed in time
• That tasks can be rescheduled if necessary

Other responsibilities that the project manager has are:

• Ensuring budget constraints are stuck to but informing end users straight away if they’re not kept to.
• Ensuring that all documentation is completed correctly and accurately.
• Making sure that each of the stages in the life cycle are completed before they let their team advance to the next stage.
• Giving the end user progress reports.

Systems Analyst

The main role of the systems analyst is to investigate and analyse the system that is currently in use. They then use the results from their analysis of the current system to determine whether or not it is feasible to upgrade or modify it.

The systems analyst needs to write a plan for creating the new system. This plan must include:

• What manual and computerised procedures will be used
• What methods are involved for data capture
• The software needed in order to process data
• How data can be output
• Any hardware that will be needed
• Staff training

The systems analyst will write the feasibility report and the requirements specification

The systems analyst will work with the staff in the organisation a lot in order to get the best understanding that they can about the current system.

Systems Designer

The systems designer will use the results of the analysis made by the systems analyst to develop a design for the new system. The systems designer and systems analyst will liaise with each other a lot because their roles are really important during the design and implementation/development stages of the systems life cycle. The two roles could be given to the same person, especially in smaller project teams.

The main roles assigned to the systems designer are:

• Designing and planning how hardware and software will interact
• Finishing the analysis of the requirements
• Designing what the system will look like
• Confirming proposals that have been made by the systems analyst
• Creating, documenting and redrafting procedures for designs, tests and quality
• Creating a specification that details the resources needed in terms of hardware, software, staff and data

Tester

The role of the tester is to try and break the system on purpose in order to find any errors and faults. They will test and fix the system before it ‘goes live’.

The tester will test all aspects of the system by sticking to test plans and documenting the results. They will do this in such a way that third parties could carry out the same tests and get the same results. The test plans and test logs are likely to form part of the technical documentation.

Some methods of testing that the tester may use are:

• Blackbox testing (tests the functionality of the system)
• Whitebox testing (tests the internal structures of a system)
• Normal data (data that is correct and shouldn’t cause problems on input)
• Extreme data (data at the highest or lowest boundaries of what would be accepted)
• Erroneous data (data that is wrong or of a different data type)