Assignment 2: Requirements and Designs

Change Assessment (20%)

Purpose
The purpose of this assignment is to perform requirements and designs change
assessment by implementing change assessment techniques.

How to Proceed
1. Read through the case-study provided below.
2. Create a change assessment document (500-word maximum). Your
document should include:
0.a definition of business needs;
a. a statement of desired outcomes (i.e., evaluation criteria);
b.the identification and assessment of alternatives; and
c. recommendation of a solution.
3. Include one appendix to support your analysis and recommendations. The
appendix can include calculations or tables.
4. Submit your document to the Assignment 2 dropbox on UM Learn.

Case Study
This case study is built on the PrivateWealth case study provided in Assignment 1.
The text is extracted for you as background information for this case-study.
From Assignment 1

PrivateWealth Inc.
PrivateWealth Inc. is a financial planning and investment management company that serves
over half a million individual Canadians, from coast-to-coast. The company provides
tailored financial planning and a wide range of investment products to its clients via a
network of 2,000 financial advisors. The main focus of the company is to help its clients to
achieve their personal goals (e.g., saving, retirement, tax and estate planning) via detailed
financial planning and then matching their plans with the company's investment product
offerings. The company also offers various insurance, mortgage, and short-term loan
products.

External Environment
PrivateWealth is exposed to various changes and risks. Federal fiscal and monetary policies
greatly impact the investment industry where PrivateWealth operates. When major local and
international economic, or political, events occur, they usually affect the company's bottom
line. Technological advancements disturb the sector, by creating opportunities to cut costs
and provide better services to the clients.

Private Wealth also operates in a highly regulated industry. Investment Industry Regulatory
Organization of Canada (IIROC), Mutual Fund Dealers Association (MFDA), Canadian
Securities Administrators (CSA), Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions
(OSFI), and the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) are some of the main federal regulatory
organizations.

Finally, the competition level in the industry is very high. Large banks, credit unions, and
other investment dealers/brokers compete with PrivateWealth for a share in the private
wealth management market of Canada. The competition and other external factors require
PrivateWealth to always stay agile and flexible in its day-to-day and long-term operations.

Competitive Advantages
A network of financial advisors is a crucial element in PrivateWealth's business model. It is
the advisors' personalized interactions with clients that put PrivateWealth apart from other
big, one-size-fits-all players. At the same time, the company has to offer a wide range of
products to address the personalized needs and plans of the customers. The advisors'
superior service and innovative product offerings are the main reasons that PrivateWealth is
different from other investment, insurance, and mortgage brokers.

Main Contributors
Comprehensive commission strategies, policies, and systems are key contributors to the
financial advisors' superior service and the company's bottom line.

These strategies, policies, and rules are the responsibility of the following key business
units:

 Advisor Commission and Support is the main department responsible for

incentivizing and supporting Financial Advisors' practice. The department owns the
existing commission system.
 The Field Office Operations department is responsible for supporting advisors in the
field. They update advisors' information and enter clients' transactions. Most of the
administrative and manual tasks related to the advisors' commission is performed by
this department.
 The Head Office Operations department is responsible for supporting the Advisor
Commission and other departments in the HO. The department investigates and
corrects Advisors Commission related issues and adjustments. The department is
also second level support for the Call Center and Field Office Operations.
 The Financial Advisor Compliance department is responsible for monitoring the
advisors' and clients' financial activities. They ensure that the regulators' rules and
the organization's best practices are followed.
Multiple highly integrated applications (see  Figure 1) make up the system component of
the solution:

 The Commission system calculates and pays commissions to financial advisors.

Advisors pay-slips and CRA forms are generated from the Commission system. The
system can provide all necessary operational and management reports.
 The Advisor Data Administration system provides the capability to enter and manage
financial advisors' names, addresses, certifications, training, tenure, achievements,
subordinates, office information, team information, personal choice benefit
information, etc. All necessary information is passed to the commission system for
calculations.
 The Client Account Administration system is used to manage the clients' accounts.
The system maintains client account balance, transaction, and investment/product
information. It generates all the necessary reports and statements.
  The Product Management system is used to combine and manage client investments.
Investment products and instruments are created in the product management system.
 The Advisor Web Portal is a central information access point for the financial
advisors. Advisors can find all the necessary information on the portal.

Figure 1. Current State. Created by Bekzod Ruzimatov for Extended Education, 2019. Used with
permission.

Time for a Change

Although business policies and rules are constantly reviewed and updated, PrivateWealth's
existing commission system is outdated. It was built and is maintained on 30-year-old
technology. PrivateWealth's leadership recognizes that its age creates considerable
operational risks and decides to replace the old commission system with a modern
application.

The leadership initiates a commission system modernization project, deciding that there
must be one-to-one replacement of the existing solution and it must be completed within one
year. Additionally, the initiative must not impact day-to-day operations and should not be
visible to advisors.

Text common to Assignment 1 ends

Project Scope and Constraints

Replace the existing commission system with a newer solution. The same
commission calculation logic, rules, and processes must be reproduced in a new
system. Calculations and payments must be accurate and timely. The business
should be able to perform the task as they do with the existing system.

Project Plan
The Lead Project Manager has prepared the following project schedule to start on
January 1:

It has been decided that the project will follow the waterfall approach. The highly
predictable nature of the project allows for planned roll out, with minimal disruption
to the business processes.

Based on the defined scope, solution, and estimated work, the project manager has
identified the following requirements for the resources:

The Project Analyst has estimated an average of $150/hour run-rate across all
disciplines (i.e., project, management, analysis, development, etc.) This run rate
includes both personnel, hardware, and software costs.

In addition to the average run-rate, it is estimated that there will be a one-time fixed
cost of $150,000 for licensing and vendors engagement; no other additional charges
are expected. If overtime is required, it is paid at hourly pay rate X 1.5.

It is estimated that each business unit will allocate the following full-time equivalent
(FTE) resources:
No budget for the business stakeholders has been allocated. They will have to
deliver the project outcomes, while keeping up with their day-to-day activities. All
business units are at 90-100% capacity, performing their day-to-day functions. The
following periods are especially busy for the stakeholders:

 Operations (Head Office, Field Office, and Contact Center) are busy during
tax and RRSP seasons.
 Q3 is busy for the Compliance department. They file reports with the
regulators.
 Q2 and year-end are busy with the Finance department.

Consider the following alternative to the original solution design and create a change
assessment document. Your change assessment must include a comparison of both
options and recommendations:

 PrivateWealth's Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system has a human

capital management (HCM) module, which can replace the advisor data
administration system and payroll functionality of the commission system.
 The HCM module is a comprehensive, reliable, and modern application. It has
been used by PrivateWealth's Human Resources department to manage
employee data and payroll for more than ten years. The system has always
paid employees accurately and timely. The ERP system is regularly
upgraded with new features and functionalities.
 Most of the regulatory and operational reports are already built or provided as
part of the HCM module standard package. The build of new functionalities
can be done via system configurations. System configurations require less
coding and unit testing. PrivateWealth's existing ERP support staff can
configure the system to deliver advisor commission and personal data
administration functionalities.
 If the ERP alternative is chosen, it is expected that the projects' initial systems
analysis, development, and testing efforts will drop by 25%. The cost of
building new functionality in the ERP will be $500,000. Also, additional user
licenses will be required for $50,000 annually.
 The ERP system will require new interfaces from the commission and advisor
data administration systems. The ERP systems will also need to send data to
the Advisor Web-Portal. The existing interface from the commission system
to ERP will no longer be required.
 Although the ERP is used by the Human Resources, Finance, and
Compliance departments, HO and Field Office operations have had limited
 exposure to the system. The user experience in the ERP is different than the
experience in the commission or advisor data administration systems.
 From the scheduling perspective, replacing the advisors data administration
system and payroll functionality of the commission system will take an
additional three months.

Grading
You will be assessed by the following rubric.

5 3 1 0

Business needs Business needs

are identified and Business needs Business needs have not been
prioritized. Correct and success and measures identified.
success measures measures have have been Business
Business Need
have been defined been correctly identified, with measures are not
& Measures
and prioritized. identified. some flaws. provided.

Alternatives have
Alternatives have been mostly Alternatives have
been clearly clearly defined been somewhat Alternatives have
Alternative
defined and and reasonably defined, with not been identified
Analysis
analyzed in depth. analyzed. marginal analysis. and analyzed.

Outstanding Reasonable Recommendations Recommendations

Recommendati recommendations recommendation contain flaws and are missing.
 are supported by s are supported
outcomes of in- by some are not supported
ons
depth analysis. analysis. by analysis.

Writing
Conventions 2 1 0

Author articulates
Author articulates their meaning in a
their meaning in relatively concise
a concise manner, and It is challenging for
manner, and content is the reader to
content is easily generally easily understand the
understood by understood by the author's main point
the reader. reader. or argument.

There is a number
of spelling and
There are only a grammar errors
handful of There is a that take away
spelling and significant number from the
grammar of spelling and understanding of
mistakes. grammar errors. the assignment.

The formatting of
the paper does not
APA formatting is follow APA
followed standards
throughout the throughout the
entirety of the assignment. There
assignment, are several errors
including in (or missing
appropriate title entirely) the
page, font size, appropriate title
spacing, font style, page, font size,
in-text references, spacing, font style,
and references in-text references,
list, with minimal and references
errors. list.