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Email: goel@albany.edu 		Business Administration 310b
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ITM 602: Enterprise Application Development

Coursework

WEEKLY PROGRESS REPORT

Each group is responsible for a weekly progress report, in which they detail achievements and issues. There are two different documents: one for business plan development (Weeks 1-6) and the other for implementation of the final product (Weeks 7-14). These documents should be continually updated and emailed to BOTH instructors by the end of each week at goel@albany.edu and WBrigham@uamail.albany.edu.

Download the Progress Report for Weeks 1-6

Download the Progress Report for Weeks 7-14

BUSINESS PLAN ASSIGNMENTS

All of these assignments will assist in the creation of the final business plan. All weeks besides the first week, groups are expected to show their work and discuss their ideas briefly with the instructor at the end of the class and email the templates to BOTH instructors. This will give an opportunity for an intermediate review before the final business plan presentation and review grading.

Week 1: Idea Generation

All of the members of your group should develop one web-based service/product idea with a description as well as a contact list with a schedule of times when each member would be available/not available. Decide on the two best ideas (one for the main idea and another as a backup). Detail preliminary reasons why you chose these two.

Download Week 1 Assignment Template

Week 2: Feasibility Analysis & Financial Plan

Based on the two plans chosen, do a thorough feasibility analysis and preliminary financial plan for each. The feasibilty analysis and financial plan should assist in determining what is the best idea to implement.

Download Week 2 Assignment Template

Download Financial Plan Template

Download Amortization Template

Week 3: Human Resources & Marketing

Based on the final plan chosen, develop a human resources plan, competitive analysis, market analysis, and marketing plan.

Download Week 3 Assignment Template

Week 4: Presentation & Review

Please refer to the Projects/Papers section of the course site to get guidelines on the presentation and the final business plan project.

>>Presentation and Review Details

Week 5:Final Business Plan Submission

Please refer to the Projects/Papers section of the course site to get guidelines on the final business plan requirements.

>> Final Business Plan Details

IMPLEMENTATION ASSIGNMENTS

Hands-on code development experience is critical to your success in understanding the complexitities in developing enterprise application systems. There will be a number of a assignments related to code and database development in the second part of the class. These assignments will typically be components of the projects and help you consolidate your learning as well as take you forward in your projects. It is important for the material in these assignments to be as accurate as possible adn as close to your final design since you will use these initial assignments as building blocks for completing later assignments. A lot of rework will slow you down and lead to inefficiencies.

Please submit programming assignments electronically and for a group assignment, only one e-mail should be submitted.

Week 6: Logical Database Design (ERD)

Create an entity-relationship diagram for your service. This is usually where students end up making mistakes and then need to redo later tasks such as SQL queries, database creation, etc. It is essential that you really think about this assignment.

Download Week 6 Assignment Template

Week 7: Database Creation + SQL Queries

In this assignment, first create a data definition table. This will assist in the second part of the assignment which is creation of SQL queries which you believe will be used in your online service.

Download Week 7 Assignment Template

Week 8: Web Interface

Create two different protypes on paper, and then determine what elements from each is preferred to create a template using HTML or XHTML.

Download Week 8 Assignment Template

Week 9: Choreography (Use Cases)

Think about what functions will be necessary in your online service. Create a use case for each of these functions.

Download Week 10 Assignment Template

Week 10: Servlets

For this assignment, create a servlet for authenticating users. It is anticipated you will need more servlets for your online service, but for this assigment only copy the servlet code for authentication.

Download Week 10 Assignment Template

Week 11: Study for Exam

The exam will be towards the end of the class. It is advisable to bring a pencil so that you can easily make changes. The exam will be composed of questions which include those on design documentation, programming, and architecture. The understanding of concepts will be more important than of actual syntax when being considered for grading. Please refer to the Grading section of the course site to get guidelines on exam details.

>>Exam Details

Week 12: Prototype

Students will prepare a demonstration for feedback from the instructor and should be prepared for an individual code review. It is anticipated that students will nearing completion of their systems.

Download Week 12 Assignment Template

Week 13: Final Presentation and Project Review

Please refer to the Projects/Papers section of the course site to get guidelines on the implementation final presentation and project review.

>>Presentation and Review Details

FINAL BUSINESS PLAN & PRESENTATION

The fifth class is a chance for everyone to present their business plan to an evaluation committee (Chamber of Commerce). This committee, in addition to the instructor(s) are responsible for the grading of the project. The project grade will be a collected grade from the initial presentation and executive summary presented as well as the final business plan (edited based on comments from the panel).

1. Presentation and Review

Remember, presentation is important and you will want to make sure you all look your best. For the approximately 20-minute presentation, the following elements should be stressed:
  • Clear presentation of the idea
  • Justification of project
  • Cogency of the financial plan
  • Technical Implementation and Work Plan

2. Executive Summary

You should also prepare to submit an executive summary for every panelist on the review board as well as the instructor(s)on the day of the presentation. This should summarize all the elements of your business plan.

3. Final Business Plan

The final business plan should be submitted the week after the presentation and should include:
  1. Executive Summary - This section includes the purpose of the plan, a brief description of the business, major customers, product/service offering, market potential, management team, and summary of comparative cash flow and income statement results. This section should be written at the end.
  2. The Company: Its Industry and Objectives - This section includes a short description of the proposed company; industry background; long- and short-term goals and strategies (these goals and strategies will be financial and marketing in nature, emphasizing the need to generate sales and make a profit early on); and expected company size, market share, growth, and profit.
  3. Products and Services - This section describes the new product/service offering. It includes a description of the product's/service's value-adding elements (e.g., product and service dimensions that are delivered to customers), proprietary features, trademarks, and royalty agreements (if applicable). It also includes prices, expected sales, and contribution margins.
  4. Product Development and Technical Implementation- This section includes product life cycle, obsolescence issues, plans to meet obsolescence, and proprietary and patent positions (if applicable). It also includes the actual technical components needed for product development.
  5. Market and Marketing Strategy -This section includes:
    • Assessment of market, focusing on opportunities and including overall market size, customer segments or market segments, location of the market segments, growth of the market segments, customer needs, and buying behavior
    • Competitive situation, focusing on potential threats and describing types of competitors and the major competitors, including their size, goals, market share, product/service quality, prices, and marketing strategies
    • Distribution channels, covering their size and importance
    • Macroeconomic environment (e.g., demographic, economic, technological, political/legal, and socio/cultural trends that affect the product's/service's future)
    • Marketing strategy, namely objectives, market segment, positioning strategy, product/service line, pricing strategy, distribution outlets, salesforce, advertising, promotion, and profitability
  6. Service Delivery System - This section includes a description of the service delivery system, including facilities, layouts, extent of subcontracting, suppliers, staffing requirements, capital equipment requirements, associated costs, supporting information technologies, quality control and assurance requirements and processes, and back-up subcontracting arrangements.
  7. Human Resources Plan - This section includes a description of management team, its responsibilities, its skills, principal managers, human resource projections and plans, description of external advisors, and relationships.
  8. Assumptions - This section describes the main assumptions of the plan. These assumptions will be used to test the financial feasibility of multiple plans based on the stipulated assumptions.
  9. Financial Forecasts and Plans - This section includes sales forecasts, cash flow statements, net present value calculations, and income statements for three to four years out. The statements are pro forma statements and will include all significant assumptions for sales, changes in customer base, margin improvements, capital expenditures, and so on.
  10. Proposed Financing (if applicable) - This section includes desired financing, use of proceeds, payback, and collateral.
  11. Work Plan - This section includes the steps necessary to make the venture a success, including milestones, tasks (e.g., staffing, promotions, and advertising), and associated dates.
  12. Future - This section is a commentary and summary on where the company should be going after several years.

IMPLEMENTATION, PRESENTATION, & CODE REVIEW

The final project will consist of those components detailed in the assignments as well as additional code, documentation, presentation and demonstration.

1. Presentation

The presentation should be tailored like a proposal to the committee for seeking capital for launching their business. The presentation should start with a brief overview of the business model and feasibility analysis. Discuss any changes in the anticipated projections from previous submission. The overview should focus on revenue projections based on the market analysis and expenditure plan. The rest of the presentation should show the functionality of the prototype and how the customers would interact with the business. The presentation should be very precise and focused rather than long and rambling! You should get to the point when dealing with investors and venture capitalists (their time is very limited). Please play your assigned roles in the team when you present, for instance, the CEO, the marketing director, technical director, chief financial officer, etc.

2. Demonstration

The demonstration should show the functionality of your website service. You should show the servlets created (if not enough time allows- at least major servlets) as well as demonstrate how a new user would approach the site. Detail why everything was done and make it clear where something is "mocked" (using a static page) and not done using dynamic pages.

3. Application and Documentation

The objectives of the application you are creating should include:
  • Ability to design and implement e-business and e-commerce solutions using the Java programming language
  • Ability to use knowledge and understanding to synthesize J2EE design solution website
  • Menu to both browse and search the website for suitable materials
  • Enough content in the website to demonstrate the functionality of the website
Technical Features:
  • An Access database back end, which holds the content. You must write and read from the database
  • The use of servlets to communicate and possibly control the application
  • The use of JSPs for dynamic content presentation (if possible). These should also include, as appropriate, page includes for your navigation menu and other repeated content on the website
Code Assessment The correctness of the code as well as your adherence to proper code writing style as well as design will be considered while evaluating your projects/code. You should read each assignment description before starting on the project, and clarify any doubts by asking questions in class. The following general criteria will be used in evaluation:
  1. Function Metrics
    • Suitable logic in code
    • Size of the function
    • Proper qualifiers in the function header
    • Comments (Beginning of function and within function)
    • Appropriate use of blank lines
  2. Class Metrics
    • Proper structure of code
    • Appropriate definition of static (or class) and instance variables
    • Organization of the functions and variables in the class
    • Documentation of the class
  3. File Metrics
    • Naming Convention
    • Package and Namespaces
  4. Inheritance
    • Selecting proper abstraction
    • Using inheritance intelligently
  5. Project Metrics
    • Functionality
    • Ease-of-Use
    • Extensibility

Assessment Criteria:

  1. Components Listed Above (Normalized Database, Web Interface, Servlets and/or JSPs)
  2. Ability to compile build and run the application
  3. The greater the sophistication of using these components the higher the grade
B: Basic functionality is implemented in a workable, manner with inefficient code use and very limited code reuse. (1-2 servlets)
B +: A simple website using each of the technological criteria, with good quality code (2-3 servlets)
A -: A well-designed website with extensive reuse of code and wide use of appropriately designed components (> 5 servlets)
A: Excellent code, architecture and web site (should demonstrate ability better than other students in the class). Well-documented code. (> 5 servlets + JSPs)
Copyright © 2011, Sanjay Goel. All Rights Reserved.