Business Analyst Assignment

TASK
PT has been engaged by MDC to help revolutionize their IT systems. The company has given PT some background information about itself. Read the following preliminary findings to get an understanding of what the company does, who the key people are, and the project to be undertaken.

Your task is to review the material and develop a simple process model of their current business process. The next step will be to present your understanding of the process and plan a requirements gathering meeting with the stakeholders that you think are relevant.

The goal of the workshop is to get a clear enough sense of the scale of the project that PT and MDC can sign a contract and begin work.

CONTEXT
MDC is an executive helicopter transportation company and was formed three years ago with two ports and two pilots; Chris and Patrick. Two years ago, the company expanded to its current state of three ports, four pilots, and an office with an office manager, Alison. Last year, Chris retired from flying and another pilot was hired. The process for taking reservations and passenger manifests has not changed too much since the beginning.

Now, with sights on further expansion, a new way of managing reservations and scheduling flights is required.

MDC is the brainchild of Chris. Chris is a former military helicopter pilot himself who now concentrates on running the business. He is very much a people person and wants to make sure his customer’s expectations are exceeded. In order for the company to grow, Chris knows he needs to automate things.

Chris’ business partner Rose Crosby is a certified accountant and handles all the financial operations of MDC. Her priorities lay with the back-office systems.

CURRENT SITUATION
Each heli-port location consists of a heli-pad and a small building known as the

“Heli-Shack.” The Heli-Shacks are used as an office for the pilot and as a passenger waiting area. The passenger manifest is sent to a fax machine in the office and is picked up before the flight.

All reservations are called in or are walk-ups. Alison takes all of the calls and enters them into a passenger manifest spreadsheet. Fifteen minutes before the flight, she faxes the manifest to the respective Heli-Shack. Prior to each flight, the pilot picks up the manifest off the fax machine, then verifies the passengers and calls Alison with any “walk-up” passengers so she can add them to the manifest spreadsheet. Passengers can pay by cash, credit cards, and prepaid multi-flight tickets.

FUTURE NEEDS
Chris wants passengers to be able to book and pay for flights through a website. He also wants Alison to be able to manage flight schedules, passenger manifest, and pilot schedules through the website. Alison still needs to be able to add passengers that call in.

Pilots are to receive passenger manifests through handheld devices using

bifurcated-spurgleloops (BS). They also need to add walk-up passengers through this device.

Chris plans to expand to a total of 10 Heli-Ports by the end of next year. He is planning to have the first two open in 6 months from now and needs to get the new reservation system in place prior to the opening of these two new heli- ports.

DELIVERABLES
Please submit the following two documents.

(1) Provide a diagram for the current process in this scenario. The diagram should try to include any existing “pain points” in the process.

(2) Prepare an agenda for the requirements gathering meeting, to be submitted to MDC.

· Please specify attendees that you would like in the workshop.

· Please include a plan for the workshop session which should consider the following points:

· Intended outcome of the meeting

· The key questions you wish to address

· Next steps

Please limit your assignment to a maximum of 2 pages.