Overview of the entire IDT project

As noted in my previous blog post, the aim of our CSC project was to produce a better system for managing the flow of customers to IDT's units. This was both to improve customer experience and to more efficiently utilize the units.

The first week of the project was the investigative stage, where we met with the key stakeholders in the organization's headquarters in Benfica  - specifically, the head of strategy (Antenor), the head of the IT unit (Viliberto), the system analyst (Breno) - and visited several of IDT's units. We were ably assisted by our translator, Manu, who works as a software developer with IDT - with me helping out in my (poor) Portuguese when I could.  During this initial stage, we identified and documented a number of issues with the current system for managing flow of clients to the various units. Together with our stakeholders, we agreed that IDT required a new Unit Scheduling System ("USS"). We then decided on a number of deliverables - 

1. A set of Functional and Non-Functional Requirements Documents for the new system.
2. An Architecture Description Document describing the architecture of the new system.
3. Staff training on implementing the new solution.
4. Action plan for the project highlighting the resourcing requirements and next steps.
5. Strategic process improvement recommendations for IDT. 
6. Education on software development process best practices –with this being provided via experiential learning throughout the project. 

In the second week, we focused on gathering requirements - both functional and non-functional (e.g. security, scalability, performance, etc.). My colleagues (Rene and Andrea) gathered the functional requirements through interviewing the key stakeholders. I assessed the non-functional requirements - again, through interviewing - and surveyed the existing IDT's existing IT landscape.

In the third week, we worked on producing the deliverables. I worked on the Architecture Description, while  Rene and Andrea put together the action plan, process improvement recommendations, and key presentations. We all worked closely with the project stakeholders when producing these. 

In the final week, we first presented draft versions of the deliverables to the IDT IT team. After making revisions to the drafts, we presented to the president and directors of IDT. 

Presenting to the IDT president and directors

With the president, directors, and staff of IDT

We then spent one day training the entire IDT development team on the system requirements, architecture, and recommendations. 

The CSC17 IDT team together with the entire IDT ICT team

Finally, on the last day of the CSC engagement, all of the CSC sub-teams came together to do a short presentation on each of our projects to the all of the clients. 

Presenting our project to all of the CSC clients

On stage, presenting our project