Part A:Consider an experience in your personal or professional life when you created something for someone else, be it a memo for your boss, an order for a client, or a project for a friend or relative. In this experience, did the person, or end user, participate in the process of creating the end product? Reflect on what was challenging and helpful about that person’s participation (or lack of participation) in the process and then address the following:To what extent should an end user be involved in the selection of a database management system and the design of a database?What are two advantages and disadvantages to having the end user involved in the selection?If you were interviewing the woman in the video, what two questions would you ask her about what she needs in the database?Part B:In your responses to at least two of your peers, respond to classmates who had a different perception of whether users should be involved in the selection of a database. List an advantage and disadvantage that they did not mention.Peer's post 1: Week one went by quick! For an example of a personal experience putting something together for someone else I have a recent example. Prior to taking over a territory sales position in my current position I managed a service department, upwards of 800 telematics connected machines and two mobile service trucks. Before handing over the position, I created a few spreadsheets to track a number of things. This varied from monthly service agreements, a growing collection of telematics machines, and a master list of company/customer names and contact info for each machine sold from our dealership. In this instance, I did not have any input from anyone. As others have mentioned, there are certainly times when end user input is warranted or helpful and other times when it is counterproductive. Like many things in life, there is a happy balance somewhere in the middle; the difficulty is finding this balance.Two advantages of having an end user involved in the selection process are: 1- the finished product will contain exactly what the end user is looking for. 2 - the format of the final product will meet the needs of the end user (order, rounded amounts for quantitative info etc).Two disadvantages of end user participation are: 1 - finished product caters to the wants/needs of the end user and nobody else. This makes it difficult or impractical to share this product with anyone beside the creator/end user. If a wider audience needed to view this database, it may not be beneficial for everyone. 2- The end user may not understand how the database works, trying to add additional information that may not be necessary based on the abilities of the database to join or cross reference information. If I was interviewing the woman in the video I would ask the following two questions; 1- Who will be using this database the most and what is their skill level in database queries. In many instances as a business grows, they hire personel to manage things like inventory in this case perhaps the inventory/admin person may be the database manager. 2- What information will you be looking to extract from the database, what will be beneficial to keep track of for the store? Conversely, there may be information the woman in the video does not need in the database, this should be discussed as well. Peer's post 2: Professionally, I have been in many situations where I have created various presentations of some sort for a manager, ranging from Power Points and flow charts, to spreadsheets and emails. The level of participation has varied and obviously depended on the specific task, but there is certainly a “happy medium” level that is the most beneficial. If the person is too involved, it can become a tug of war and possibly a question of why they asked someone else to complete the task in the first place. On the opposite end of that, without any direction, it can be difficult to provide the best result. Personally, I once created a meal and workout plan for a friend who was intrigued by my lifestyle and wanted to make some positive changes in her own. When I first presented the plan, the friend seemed appreciative, but I could tell there was a level of hesitation and possibly discouragement. As the conversation progressed, I realized this friend had dietary and physical restrictions that I was not aware of. Had I known this information from the beginning, I could have prepared the plan around those restrictions instead of spending time and energy on something she was not going to use and discourage her in the process. With that being said, there are also various levels of involvement needed in the selection of a DBMS. End users can be an invaluable resource since they most likely know the data and will be utilizing it for reporting and possible future business decisions. However, too much involvement from end users can often create confusion and lead to delays in progress.If I were interviewing the woman in the video to create her database, I would want to ask her 1 – What is the main intent for the database. Based on the video, I understand she wants to be more organized and track information about her consignors as well as the items in her store. 2 – I would need to know the specific information she would like the database to contain, such as Consignor Name, Item Type, and Cost of that item. Through conversation, she may realize new ideas and ways to best use the data.

The president of the Best Buy Co. Inc. has hired you to manage a new project to implement chatbots like the ones shown in the videos associated with this assignment. You can decide exactly what the chatbot will do. Put together a high-level implementation plan and operational policies for this chatbot project. The plan should describe the business goals, the scope of the effort, the timeframe for the implementation, what resources are needed for the project. Please explain how the new chatbot will be used by your business and customers. You should also analyze the risk factors of using chatbots (e.g., deteriorated morale among customer service representatives, poor service for customers) and how those risk factors can be mitigated. In the operational policies, you should describe when people will use chatbots and what other options will be available. For instance, will a chatbot be the required first stop for all customers, or one of many mechanisms for customers to interact with your business? Will “preferred” customers have additional service options? If so, please describe the process for identifying “preferred” customers. The paper should be an executive summary, that is 3 – 5 pages, not including the title and reference pages. The paper should be in APA format, Times New Roman 12-point font, and double spaced. You should include at least one paragraph for each item below. (A paragraph in academic writing normally has at least three sentences: beginning, middle, and end.) Business Goals – What is the business strategy and how does the chatbot fit with the strategy? How does this project potentially give the business a competitive advantage?Scope of Project – What is the chatbot expected to do? What is out of scope for this project, meaning what will the chatbot not do? (For instance, the chatbot might document a customer’s problem, but notify the technical service group to actually solve the problem.) Will the chatbot be targeted at all customers, or a specific subset? How many people in your business are expected to interact with the chatbot? Will your bot be English only or multilingual? Will the chatbot use text or voice recognition or both?Project Timeframe – How long do you expect the project to take? Will the chatbot be rolled out for the whole business at once, or will it be piloted for a small group first? If your business is large, will it be rolled out for specific regions or certain product lines? Will certain features be rolled out first and other features implemented later?Implementation Resources – Who will implement the chatbot? Will company resources or outside resources by required? If training is needed, who will do that?Expected Benefits – What specific benefits, such as increased sales, improved product quality, higher customer satisfaction, reduced costs, do you expect? How is the chatbot expected to deliver those benefits? What is the timeframe for achieving the benefits? How will this system give your business a competitive advantage?Communication Plan – What groups in the business need to be informed about the progress of the project? How will each group receive updates, e.g. weekly meetings, newsletter, emails, webinars, project website, etc.?Risk Analysis – What could go wrong with the chatbot project? How will you avoid or minimize those risks?Operational Policies – What will be the terms of service for use of the chatbot once it is implemented? Who can access the chatbot data? How will customer information in the chatbot be secured to protect the privacy of the customer?Critical Success Factors – What criteria will you use to judge the success or failure of this project? How are the critical success factors for this project tied to the business strategy and business goals? Resources:Chapter _9