Unit 1 Due Date: 7/12/2015 Deliverable Length: 1-2 Pages

Unit 1 Due Date: 7/12/2015 Deliverable Length: 1–2 pages and project plan

The CIO has informed you that you must select a software development methodology for the company's proposed financial management system. You are to choose from the following methodologies and create a software development plan: traditional (Waterfall, Incremental, Spiral), Agile (Scrum, Crystal, Adaptive, Feature-driven, DSDM), or Extreme Programming (XP). Your chosen methodology will serve as the basis for your assignments throughout the course.

The initial business requirements for the financial management system are outlined below. The system should be an end-to-end enterprise financial management solution designed to meet the needs of complex, multinational organizations. The ERP solution must include a comprehensive set of applications supporting all facets of financial activities, specifically:

• Financial and management accounting, including fixed asset, accrual, bank, cash journal, inventory, and tax accounting; general ledger; accounts receivable and payable; fast close functions; financial statements; parallel valuations.
• Financial supply chain management to streamline receivables and collections processes, reducing operating costs, improving cash flow, and decreasing days' sales outstanding, including credit management, biller direct, dispute management, collections management.
• Treasury applications for cash, liquidity, and risk management, including modules for cash and liquidity management, in-house cash, treasury and risk management, and bank communication management.

Paper For Above instruction

Choosing the appropriate software development methodology is critical to the success of implementing a comprehensive financial management system for a multinational organization. The methodology influences the project planning, execution, adaptability, risk management, and communication strategies. For this large-scale, complex enterprise system, I recommend the Agile methodology, specifically Scrum, due to its flexibility, iterative approach, and emphasis on stakeholder engagement, which aligns well with evolving business needs and the complex requirements outlined.

Agile methodologies, particularly Scrum, promote incremental development through iterative cycles called sprints. This approach allows for frequent reassessment of project priorities and continuous stakeholder feedback, which is essential for a project with diverse modules such as finance, treasury, and supply chain management. Scrum's emphasis on cross-functional teams encourages collaboration across different expert areas, including finance, IT, and compliance, fostering a shared understanding of project goals. Its adaptability to change and focus on delivering functional increments make it suitable for meeting the dynamic requirements of multinational financial systems.

In contrast, traditional models such as Waterfall are less suited given the extensive scope and likelihood of evolving requirements as the project progresses. The Spiral model does incorporate risk management but may result in higher complexity and less flexibility for this project’s scope. Extreme Programming (XP), while highly effective for smaller, highly technical projects, may lack the necessary structure to coordinate the numerous interdependent modules of an enterprise-level ERP system.

Based on these considerations, a Scrum-based Agile approach facilitates better handling of the project's scale by enabling incremental deployment, improved risk management through constant feedback loops, and increased stakeholder involvement. The initial planning would involve defining overarching goals aligned with business needs, establishing prioritized backlogs for each module, and creating sprint schedules. Regular sprint reviews and retrospectives will ensure continuous improvement and adaptability to changing requirements, reducing risks associated with scope creep or technical misalignment.

This methodology also supports iterative testing and validation, ensuring each module—such as accounting, supply chain, or treasury—meets performance and compliance standards before full deployment. Consequently, the project management plan would encompass sprint planning, daily stand-ups, sprint reviews, retrospectives, and continuous integration, aligning project execution with stakeholder expectations and technical standards.

In sum, adopting Scrum as the software development methodology offers a flexible, collaborative, and risk-aware pathway for implementing the enterprise financial management system. It supports the complex and evolving needs of multinational organizations by enabling incremental delivery, fostering stakeholder collaboration, and ensuring continuous process improvement.

References

• Highsmith, J. (2002). Agile Software Development Ecosystems. Addison-Wesley Professional.
• Sutherland, J., & Schwaber, K. (2017). The Scrum Guide. Scrum.org. https://scrumguides.org
• Schwaber, K., & Beedle, M. (2002). Agile Software Development with Scrum. Prentice Hall.
• Boehm, B. (1988). A Spiral Model of Software Development and Enhancement. Computer, 21(5), 61–72.
• Rational Unified Process (RUP). (2010). IBM. https://www.ibm.com/developerworks/rup
• Standish Group. (2015). Chaos Report. https://www.standishgroup.com
• PMI. (2017). A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK® Guide). Project Management Institute.
• ISO/IEC/IEEE 12207. (2017). Systems and Software Engineering — Software Life Cycle Processes.
• ISO/IEC/IEEE 90003. (2018). Software Engineering — Guidelines for the Application of ISO 9001:2015 to Computer Software.
• Diebold, F. X. (2012). The Promise of Electronic Payments. Journal of Banking & Finance, 36(4), 958–971.