Undergraduate Discussion Rubric Overview Your active participation in the discussions is essential to your overall success this term. Discussion questions will help you make meaningful connections between the course content and the larger concepts of the course. These discussions give you a chance to express your own thoughts, ask questions, and gain insight from your peers and instructor. Directions For each discussion, you must create one initial post and follow up with at least two response posts. For your initial post, do the following:  Write a post of 1 to 2 paragraphs.  In Module One, complete your initial post by Thursday at 11:59 p.m. Eastern.  In Modules Two through Eight, complete your initial post by Thursday at 11:59 p.m. of your local time zone.  Consider content from other parts of the course where appropriate. Use proper citation methods for your discipline when referencing scholarly or popular sources. For your response posts, do the following:  Reply to at least two classmates outside of your own initial post thread.  In Module One, complete your two response posts by Sunday at 11:59 p.m. Eastern.  In Modules Two through Eight, complete your two response posts by Sunday at 11:59 p.m. of your local time zone.  Demonstrate more depth and thought than saying things like “I agree” or “You are wrong.” Guidance is provided for you in the discussion prompt. Rubric Critical Elements Comprehension Timeliness Engagement Exemplary Develops an initial post with an organized, clear point of view or idea using rich and significant detail (100%) N/A Provides relevant and meaningful response posts with clarifying explanation and detail (100%) Proficient Develops an initial post with a point of view or idea using adequate organization and detail (85%) Submits initial post on time (100%) Provides relevant response posts with some explanation and detail (85%) Needs Improvement Develops an initial post with a point of view or idea but with some gaps in organization and detail (55%) Submits initial post one day late (55%) Provides somewhat relevant response posts with some explanation and detail (55%) Not Evident Does not develop an initial post with an organized point of view or idea (0%) Value 40 Submits initial post two or more days late (0%) Provides response posts that are generic with little explanation or detail (0%) 10 30 Critical Elements Writing (Mechanics) Exemplary Writes posts that are easily understood, clear, and concise using proper citation methods where applicable with no errors in citations (100%) Proficient Writes posts that are easily understood using proper citation methods where applicable with few errors in citations (85%) Needs Improvement Writes posts that are understandable using proper citation methods where applicable with a number of errors in citations (55%) Not Evident Writes posts that others are not able to understand and does not use proper citation methods where applicable (0%) Value 20 Total 100% QSO 320 Final Project Guidelines and Rubric Overview Data analysis and communication of data to stakeholders are key factors in effective management. You cannot efficiently manage unless you know if objectives are being met. You can use data and spreadsheets to assess areas of concern and evaluate if progress is being made for key objectives. The process of reviewing the data is not a one-time event; it must be repeated frequently or be continuous. This is where spreadsheets that are linked to sources of data being collected provide an advantage. As the input data values change, the spreadsheets do not need to be changed in order for them to calculate the results. You can use the data to evaluate the efficiencies or inefficiencies of key objectives. In the plan-do-check-act management cycle, management plans a set of objectives, develops processes, and allocates resources that the company will execute (or do). Progress in meeting set objectives is monitored, and feedback is provided (the check). Based on feedback, adjustments to the plans are made (the act). The final project for this course is the creation of an analysis report. The final product represents your ability to logically drill down large amounts of raw data to produce useful reports that can be utilized to ensure optimal allocation of resources to maximize profitability. You will construct a report that includes your analysis of sales, costs, and profit to develop an overall understanding of performance that can be used for stakeholder decision making. The project is divided into two milestones, which will be submitted at various points throughout the course to scaffold learning and ensure quality final submissions. These milestones will be submitted in Modules Three and Five. The final product will be submitted in Module Seven. In this assignment, you will demonstrate your mastery of the following course outcomes:     QSO-320-01: Utilize basic functionality of spreadsheet software for constructing effective databases that evaluate organizational decisions QSO-320-02: Conduct descriptive and inferential statistical analyses of raw data using spreadsheet software for informing processes and operations QSO-320-03: Conduct optimization analyses of raw data using spreadsheet software for reaching solutions that meet organizational objectives QSO-320-04: Present business data analysis using spreadsheet software that clearly communicates specific information to key stakeholders Prompt In the case study, you are constructing a number of spreadsheets to evaluate specific aspects of a winery and its distribution operation. Certain factors, such as increasing wine production significantly or lowering production costs, require significant time to enact. However, making changes regarding distribution can be made fairly quickly using spreadsheets. In the case study, new management wants to understand how efficient their distribution system is functioning. You will analyze the data and present the data in a way that can be clearly communicated to the key stakeholders. Use the following documents for your analysis report:   Case Study Case Study Data Set 1 Specifically, you must address the critical elements listed below. Most of the critical elements align with a particular course outcome (shown in brackets). I. Organizational Sales: For the first part of your final project, you will review raw data sets that summarize the production, sales, and distribution of wine. You will need to analyze the various types of wine and different distribution centers to determine their financial impacts on the organization’s total revenue. All of your analyses need to be submitted in an annotated excel file and include a rationale. A. Using a pivot table, determine the percentage of wine varieties sold from each distribution center. Illustrate your results in the form of a pie chart. [QSO-320-01] B. Generate a labeled bar chart that illustrates the sum of wine varieties sold to each distribution center. [QSO-320-02] C. Using a pivot table, calculate the total amount of revenue generated for each distribution center. Illustrate your results on a bar chart. [QSO320-01] D. Using the IF function, calculate the central tendencies (the mean, median, and mode) of shipment volume for each distribution center. Illustrate your results in a table. [QSO-320-02] E. Analyze frequency of shipments by size using a histogram. [QSO-320-02] F. Create a shipment histogram to show the distribution of shipments for Portland and Riverside. [QSO-320-01] G. Provide a summary statement that describes the inefficiencies in the organizational sales analysis. In your response, explain why this information is important for influencing management decisions. [QSO-320-04] II. Organizational Cost and Profit: For the next part of your final project, use your findings and raw data from the previous section to dive deeper into types of wine and distribution centers. You will need to analyze these factors to determine average costs and profits. All of your analyses need to be submitted in an annotated excel file and include a rationale. A. Calculate costs of shipping to Portland and Riverside by pallets and frequency. Illustrate your results in a table. [QSO-320-02] B. Calculate the cost of production for the wine varieties sold in Portland and Riverside. Illustrate your results in a table. [QSO-320-02] C. Generate a labeled table that illustrates gross profit for each variety of wine for each distribution center. Explain why this information is important for informing operation efficiencies. [QSO-320-04] D. Generate a labeled table that shows the profit after state taxes. [QSO-320-04] E. Provide a summary statement that describes the inefficiencies in the organizational cost and profit analysis, and explain why this information is important for influencing management decisions. [QSO-320-04] III. Optimizing Performance: Finally, you will determine an optimal solution that will maximize the organization’s objectives. You will need to consider the level of sensitivity and uncertainty of alternative solutions in supporting your optimal solution. The analyses need to be submitted in an annotated excel file and include a rationale. A. Determine the values of the constraints to be used to generate the target number when running Solver. [QSO-320-03] B. Using Solver, calculate the level of sensitivity of decision variables and describe the significance of the report. [QSO-320-03] C. Using Solver, calculate the limits of decision variables and describe the significance of the report. [QSO-320-03] 2 D. Discuss solutions that will maximize profits for the organization based on the Solver analysis. [QSO-320-04] Milestones Milestone One: Organization Sales In Module Three, you will submit a draft of the Organizational Sales section of the final project. This milestone will be graded with the Milestone One Rubric. Milestone Two: Organizational Cost and Profit In Module Five, you will submit a draft of the Organizational Cost and Profit section of the final project. This milestone will be graded with the Milestone Two Rubric. Final Submission: Analysis Report In Module Seven, you will submit your final project. It should be a complete, polished artifact containing all of the critical elements of the final product. It should reflect the incorporation of feedback gained throughout the course. This submission will be graded with the Final Project Rubric. Final Project Rubric Guidelines for Submission: Your analysis report should be submitted as an annotated Excel file. All spreadsheet, table, and chart functions must be created within the analysis report. Cutting and pasting spreadsheets, tables, or charts in from another source will result in your work being evaluated as “Not Evident,” as it is important to demonstrate that you utilized the spreadsheet functionality. Spreadsheets and tables must link to the information provided in the Data tab. The rationale used for each task must be provided in the same tab where the task is addressed. Critical Elements Organizational Sales: Wine Varieties [QSO-320-01] Exemplary Meets “Proficient” criteria and demonstrates an insightful rationale for appropriately employed Excel functions (100%) Proficient Uses a pivot table to determine the percentage of wine varieties sold from each distribution center and illustrates results in the pie chart (85%) 3 Needs Improvement Uses a pivot table to determine the percentage of wine varieties sold from each distribution center, but does not illustrate results in the pie chart, or response contains inaccuracies or is missing key information (55%) Not Evident Does not determine the percentage of wine varieties sold from each distribution center (0%) Value 8 Critical Elements Organizational Sales: Distribution Center [QSO-320-02] Exemplary Meets “Proficient” criteria and demonstrates an insightful rationale for appropriately employed Excel functions (100%) Proficient Generates a labeled bar chart that illustrates the sum of wine varieties sold to each distribution center (85%) Organizational Sales: Revenue [QSO-320-01] Meets “Proficient” criteria and demonstrates an insightful rationale for appropriately employed Excel functions (100%) Uses a pivot table to calculate the total amount of revenue for each distribution center and illustrates results in a bar chart (85%) Organizational Sales: Central Tendencies [QSO-320-02] Meets “Proficient” criteria and demonstrates an insightful rationale for appropriately employed Excel functions (100%) Uses the IF function to calculate the central tendencies of shipment volume for each distribution center and illustrates the results in a table (85%) Organizational Sales: Shipments by Size [QSO-320-02] Analyzes the frequency of the shipment by size using a histogram (100%) 4 Needs Improvement Generates a labeled bar chart that illustrates the sum of wine varieties sold to each distribution center, but bar chart contains inaccuracies or is missing key information, or a rationale is not provided (55%) Uses a pivot table to calculate the total amount of revenue for each distribution center, but does not illustrate results in a bar chart, or response contains inaccuracies or is missing key information, or a rationale is not provided (55%) Uses the IF function to calculate the central tendencies of shipment volume for each distribution center, but does not illustrate the results in a table, or response contains inaccuracies or is missing key information, or a rationale is not provided (55%) Analyzes the frequency of the shipment by size using a histogram, but response contains inaccuracies or a rationale is not provided (55%) Not Evident Does not generate a labeled bar chart that illustrate the sum of wine varieties sold to each distribution center (0%) Value 6 Does not calculate the total amount of revenue for each distribution center (0%) 8 Does not calculate the central tendencies (0%) 6 Does not analyze the frequency of the shipment by size (0%) 6 Critical Elements Organizational Sales: Distribution of Shipments [QSO-320-01] Exemplary Proficient Creates a shipment histogram to show the distribution of shipments for Portland and Riverside (100%) Organizational Sales Sales Analysis [QSO-320-04] Meets “Proficient” criteria and response demonstrates a sophisticated awareness of how the inefficiencies impact managerial decision making (100%) Organizational Cost and Profit: Cost of Shipping [QSO-320-02] Meets “Proficient” criteria and demonstrates an insightful rationale for appropriately employed Excel functions (100%) Provides a summary statement that describes the inefficiencies in the organizational sales analysis and explains why information is important for influencing decisions (85%) Calculates costs of shipping to Portland and Riverside by pallets and frequency and illustrates results in a table (85%) Organizational Cost and Profit: Cost of Production [QSO-320-02] Meets “Proficient” criteria and demonstrates an insightful rationale for appropriately employed Excel functions (100%) Calculates the cost of production for the wine varieties sold in Portland and Riverside and illustrates results in a table (85%) 5 Needs Improvement Creates a shipment histogram to show the distribution of shipments to Portland and Riverside, but response contains inaccuracies or a rationale is not provided (55%) Provides a summary statement, but the statement description is cursory, contains inaccuracies, or lacks justification (55%) Not Evident Does not create a shipment histogram to show the distribution of shipments for Portland and Riverside (0%) Value 8 Does not provide a summary statement that describes the inefficiencies in the organizational sales analysis (0%) 4 Calculates costs of shipping to Portland and Riverside by pallets and frequency, but does not illustrate results in a table, or results contain inaccuracies or rationale is not provided (55%) Calculates the cost of production for the wine varieties sold in Portland and Riverside, but does not illustrate results in a table, or results contain inaccuracies or a rationale is not provided (55%) Does not calculate costs of shipping (0%) 4 Does not calculate the cost of production (0%) 4 Critical Elements Organizational Cost and Profit: Gross Profit [QSO-320-04] Organizational Cost and Profit: State Taxes [QSO-320-04] Organizational Cost and Profit: Cost and Profit Analysis [QSO-320-04] Optimizing Performance: Constraints [QSO-320-03] Exemplary Meets “Proficient” criteria and explanation is detailed and well-conceived (100%) Meets “Proficient” criteria and demonstrates a complex grasp of how cost and profit analyses influence managerial decisions (100%) Meets “Proficient” criteria and demonstrates an insightful rationale for appropriately employed Excel functions (100%) Proficient Generates a labeled table that illustrates gross profit for each variety of wine for each distribution center, explaining why this information is important for informing operation efficiencies (85%) Generates a labeled table that shows the profit after state taxes (100%) Needs Improvement Generates a labeled table that illustrates gross profit for each variety of wine for each distribution center, but does not provide an explanation, or explanation is cursory, contains inaccuracies, or lacks justification (55%) Generates a labeled table, but table contains inaccuracies (55%) Not Evident Does not illustrate gross profit through the use of a labeled table (0%) Does not generate a labeled table (0%) 4 Provides a summary statement that describes the inefficiencies in the organizational cost and profit analysis and explains why this information is important for influencing decisions (85%) Determines the values of the constraints to be used to generate the target number when running Solver (85%) Provides a summary statement, but the statement description is cursory, contains inaccuracies, or lacks justification (55%) Does not provide a summary statement that describes the inefficiencies in the organizational cost and profit analysis (0%) 4 Determines the values of the constraints to be used to generate the target number when running Solver, but response contains inaccuracies or a rationale is not provided (55%) Does not determine the values of the constraints (0%) 8 6 Value 4 Critical Elements Optimizing Performance: Sensitivity [QSO-320-03] Exemplary Meets “Proficient” criteria and demonstrates an insightful rationale for appropriately employed Excel functions (100%) Proficient Uses Solver to calculate the level of sensitivity of decision variables and describes the significance of the report (85%) Optimizing Performance: Limits [QSO-320-03] Meets “Proficient” criteria and demonstrates an insightful rationale for appropriately employed Excel functions (100%) Uses Solver to calculate the limits of decision variables and describe the significance of the report (85%) Optimizing Performance: Solutions [QSO-320-04] Meets “Proficient” criteria and discussion demonstrates a sophisticated awareness of the needed solutions based on the needs of the organization (100%) Submission is free of errors related to citations, grammar, spelling, syntax, and organization and is presented in a professional and easy-to-read format (100%) Discusses solutions that will maximize profits for the organization based on the Solver analysis (85%) Articulation of Response Submission has no major errors related to citations, grammar, spelling, syntax, or organization (85%) Needs Improvement Uses Solver to calculate the level of sensitivity of decision variables and describes the significance of the report, but the response contains inaccuracies, or the description is cursory or missing key components, or a rationale is not provided (55%) Uses Solver to calculate the limits of decision variables and describe the significance of the report, but the response contains inaccuracies, or the description is cursory or missing key components, or a rationale is not provided (55%) Discusses solutions that will maximize profits for the organization based on the Solver analysis, but response lacks clarity or solutions are illogical (55%) Not Evident Does not use Solver to calculate the level of sensitivity of decision variables and does not describe the significance of the report (0%) Value 8 Does not use Solver to calculate the limits of decision variables and does not describe the significance of the report (0%) 8 Does not discuss solutions for the organization (0%) 4 Submission has major errors related to citations, grammar, spelling, syntax, or organization that negatively impact readability and articulation of main ideas (55%) Submission has critical errors related to citations, grammar, spelling, syntax, or organization that prevent understanding of ideas (0%) 6 Total 7 100% Undergraduate Discussion Rubric Overview Your active participation in the discussions is essential to your overall success this term. Discussion questions will help you make meaningful connections between the course content and the larger concepts of the course. These discussions give you a chance to express your own thoughts, ask questions, and gain insight from your peers and instructor. Directions For each discussion, you must create one initial post and follow up with at least two response posts. For your initial post, do the following:  Write a post of 1 to 2 paragraphs.  In Module One, complete your initial post by Thursday at 11:59 p.m. Eastern.  In Modules Two through Eight, complete your initial post by Thursday at 11:59 p.m. of your local time zone.  Consider content from other parts of the course where appropriate. Use proper citation methods for your discipline when referencing scholarly or popular sources. For your response posts, do the following:  Reply to at least two classmates outside of your own initial post thread.  In Module One, complete your two response posts by Sunday at 11:59 p.m. Eastern.  In Modules Two through Eight, complete your two response posts by Sunday at 11:59 p.m. of your local time zone.  Demonstrate more depth and thought than saying things like “I agree” or “You are wrong.” Guidance is provided for you in the discussion prompt. Rubric Critical Elements Comprehension Timeliness Engagement Exemplary Develops an initial post with an organized, clear point of view or idea using rich and significant detail (100%) N/A Provides relevant and meaningful response posts with clarifying explanation and detail (100%) Proficient Develops an initial post with a point of view or idea using adequate organization and detail (85%) Submits initial post on time (100%) Provides relevant response posts with some explanation and detail (85%) Needs Improvement Develops an initial post with a point of view or idea but with some gaps in organization and detail (55%) Submits initial post one day late (55%) Provides somewhat relevant response posts with some explanation and detail (55%) Not Evident Does not develop an initial post with an organized point of view or idea (0%) Value 40 Submits initial post two or more days late (0%) Provides response posts that are generic with little explanation or detail (0%) 10 30 Critical Elements Writing (Mechanics) Exemplary Writes posts that are easily understood, clear, and concise using proper citation methods where applicable with no errors in citations (100%) Proficient Writes posts that are easily understood using proper citation methods where applicable with few errors in citations (85%) Needs Improvement Writes posts that are understandable using proper citation methods where applicable with a number of errors in citations (55%) Not Evident Writes posts that others are not able to understand and does not use proper citation methods where applicable (0%) Value 20 Total 100% W17027 PARENTUNE.COM: PARTNERING PARENTS Anupama Prashar wrote this case solely to provide material for class discussion. The author does not intend to illustrate either effective or ineffective handling of a managerial situation. The author may have disguised certain names and other identifying information to protect confidentiality. This publication may not be transmitted, photocopied, digitized or otherwise reproduced in any form or by any means without the permission of the copyright holder. Reproduction of this material is not covered under authorization by any reproduction rights organization. To order copies or request permission to reproduce materials, contact Ivey Publishing, Ivey Business School, Western University, London, Ontario, Canada, N6G 0N1; (t) 519.661.3208; (e) cases@ivey.ca; www.iveycases.com. Copyright © 2017, Management Development Institute Gurgaon and Richard Ivey School of Business Foundation Version: 2017-01-18 Parentune’s vision is to empower parents to do more for their child. Our goal is to be the must-have support for parents and to make parenting a joyful experience. Nitin Pandey, Parentune.com In June 2016, Nitin Pandey, the chief executive officer and founder of Parentune.com (Parentune), a rapidly growing online parents’ community, was reflecting on his company’s eventful journey. Based in Gurgaon, India, Parentune offered an online platform for networking among parents. In addition, it provided expert advice to young and time-pressed parents, helping them make informed decisions related to their child’s care and development. In less than four years of its launch, the online platform had connected more than half a million Indian parents, and was adding 50,000 or more parents to that cohort every month. Realizing that 91 per cent of Parentune’s traffic came through smart phones, the company created an adaptive mobile site, followed by a mobile application (app). With more than 326,000 downloads of Parentune’s mobile app since its launch in September 2015, Parentune overtook BabyCenter, a global parenting network, becoming the most downloaded parenting app from the Internet. Furthermore, with mainly user-generated parenting resources on the platform (more than 90 per cent), the average session duration was an unparalleled nine to 10 minutes per session.1 In addition to supporting online interactions, Parentune facilitated offline connections among parent groups by organizing community meet-ups—events consisting of parent networking, workshops, children’s activities, and interactions with parenting experts. In 2015, Parentune was one of six Indian start-ups in a selection of 250 start-ups from 26 countries featured in the Wall Street Journal’s global start-up showcase.2 In 2014, Parentune was adjudged by an expert jury and online voting as a Hot 100 Indian technology start-up.3 Parentune had an ambitious target of connecting more than 25 million parents by 2020. So far, operating in a niche market segment, the major challenge confronting Parentune was not only to compete with similar digital parenting platforms mushrooming in the online marketplace, but also to remain the most relevant to the millennial parents through its personalized, validated, and real-time parenting solutions, delivered digitally. This document is authorized for use only by Elsie Udo in IT-415-J5352 Advanced Info Systems Design 21EW5 at Southern New Hampshire University, 2021. Page 2 9B17D002 DIGITAL PARENTING SERVICES Digital parenting platforms were the online platforms and communities of parents, teachers, doctors, and parenting experts providing assistance in positive parenting.4 These services had been expanding, owing to the global rise in Internet access (3.2 billion at the end of 2015)5 and an ever-greater social media penetration (2.08 billion active social media accounts in 2015).6 Despite a lower regional Internet penetration in South Asia (19 per cent) as compared to that in Western Europe (81 per cent) and North America (88 per cent), parents in the Asian nations constituted a highly competitive market for the digital parenting platforms According to Asian Digital Mum’s Survey, 2015 (conducted across six Asian countries: India, Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Singapore),7 Asian mothers increasingly preferred online interaction to the offline mode for seeking parenting advice. The survey indicated that 48 per cent of Asian mothers interacted online at least once a week compared to the miniscule 7 per cent who chose offline interactions. This offered a golden opportunity for digital parenting services to establish online communities that encouraged open and useful conversations between parents and experts. With a growing young population, rising household incomes, and integration of technology into everyday lives, India offered a parenting market with great potential for online parenting platforms. According to the United Nations Population Fund’s report in January 2016, India had the world’s largest young population, with 28 per cent of the population aged 10 to 24 years old.8 Within this young population were 4 million women giving birth annually, thus constituting an ever-growing generation of parents. With regard to digital access, 28 per cent (375 million) of the Indian population had Internet access, of which 80 per cent (303 million people) used their mobile devices (smart phones) for access. In terms of social media use, 10 per cent (136 million people) were active on social platforms including Facebook, WhatsApp, and Twitter. Further, the spending of Indian households was ever-increasing and expected to quadruple to US$4 trillion dollars by 2017.9 Sensing the growing opportunities in the digital parenting service segment, many innovative start-ups mushroomed. One global player in the segment, BabyCenter, sponsored by Johnson & Johnson, claimed 45 million parent-users since its inception in 1997. BabyCenter had websites, mobile apps, social programs, and public health initiatives. The companion portal BabyCenter.in had over 1.8 million unique visitors with parenting resources customized for Indian parents (e.g., content translated into Hindi).10 Among the domestic players, India Parenting Pvt. Ltd. had been operating IndiaParenting.com for 14 years, making it the oldest player in the digital parenting marketplace. Promoted as the destination platform for parents, with 60 parenting channels, interactive tools, and communities, India Parenting had 1.5 million unique visitors per month.11 In addition to these seasoned players, the niche segment of parenting services had begun to attract a new pool of technology start-ups. BabyChakra.com, a platform launched in 2014 by start-up Infomoko Technology Private Limited, focused on the maternity–child market, connecting parents with 15,000 neighbouring childcare services, including hospitals, doctors, and daycares.12 ZenParent.in, started in August 2014 as an online parenting advice service, was targeted at new-age parents residing in Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities with children aged three to 14 years. Other than web portals, several smart phone apps offered parenting solutions, further mounting competition in this niche segment of digital parenting services. KIDSS (Kids Social Shell) offered parenting services through a mobile app platform. KIDSS witnessed a 300 per cent growth in daily impressions since its inception in June 2015. The venture received funding of $500,000 from strategic investors for technology upgrades. Another mobile application launched in 2015 by young entrepreneurs called MyChild App was aimed at leveraging technology to help parents track the growth of their children to aid in the early diagnosis of developmental disorders such as delayed motor coordination. This venture raised $100,000 in first round funding to work on its technology and service delivery. Another novel parenting service app, UOLO, This document is authorized for use only by Elsie Udo in IT-415-J5352 Advanced Info Systems Design 21EW5 at Southern New Hampshire University, 2021. Page 3 9B17D002 targeted improved communication between parents and schools with regard to a child’s location, attendance, and school performance. The app connected more than 150 preschools with parents in India’s southern states. Yet another mobile application, the Knit app, focused on enhancing teacher–parent communication through technology. Clearly, digital parenting services had become a competitive segment with the majority of existing platforms gaining traction and raising funds for expansion. Gauging the intensity of competition, Pandey reasoned, “The winner in the online segment will be the one that becomes indispensable to the mothers. It remains to be seen whether Parentune can be the one.” PARENTUNE.COM Founded in November 2012, Parentune was owned and operated by Gurgaon-based Proparent Solutions Private Ltd. The service catered to both mothers and fathers, even though registered mothers substantially outnumbered the fathers—71 per cent versus 29 per cent, respectively. The digital platform was targeted toward supporting expectant, new, and experienced parents of all age groups, at all stages of their parenting, from pregnancy through children’s developmental years. An alumnus of International Management Institute Delhi, Pandey had wide-ranging work experience in early childhood education and child development services. He worked at prominent positions in companies that included Kidzee, India’s first and largest chain of preschools; Learnmile, an educational research and consulting firm; and L’Oréal S.A., a leading fast-moving consumer goods multinational. During his stints in the education sector, Pandey found that the existing early childhood education system in the country lacked a structured and supportive ecosystem for areas beyond educational service delivery. He realized that the gap could only be bridged by developing a deeper understanding of the needs of the customer segment—the parents. Over a period of three months, Pandey interacted with more than 2,000 parents to explore their parental requirements. Pandey described his research: I used to travel across major Indian cities to interact with parents. Everywhere, urban parents seem to have similar concerns as they lack the support that traditionally comes in an [extended] family. Whereas most problems in a person’s life can be fixed with a one-time solution, questions that crop up in a parent’s life require sustained guidance. In 2014, to boost Parentune’s market presence, the company raised funds from Kae Capital. “Whereas [technology] start-ups prefer securing funds after a few months of operations, we wanted to build on the fundamentals before raising the funds,” Pandey said. It was only after the second quarter of 2015 that the company started experimenting with different revenue models. Parentune’s popular service features included “Parent Talk,” “Ask An Expert,” and “Parent Blog.” The service also offered a range of “Proparents”—parents who used and advocated the best parenting practices, and supported other parents by sharing parenting experiences in live chats, webinars, workshop videos, and expert counselling. “Over 7.5 thousand practising doctors are a part of this parenting network as parents,” said Pandey. The Ask An Expert section offered users expert advice in the fields of education, nutrition, and wellness. Parent Talk fostered networking among parents with children in similar age groups. The Parent Blog was the feature intended to put Parentune on the wider web. Member parents wrote blogs with a wide range of subjects including household remedies and food recipes. The blog also covered topical issues for parents, research articles, and excerpts of interviews with celebrities about their parenting experiences. This document is authorized for use only by Elsie Udo in IT-415-J5352 Advanced Info Systems Design 21EW5 at Southern New Hampshire University, 2021. Page 4 9B17D002 HOW PARENTUNE WORKED Parent Verification User registration at Parentune was seamless and safe. “The key is to have a secure place for the parents to interact with trust and overcome the stigma of open networks,” Pandey explained. After validating users’ details in an online registration form, the system sent a one-time password to the registrants on their mobile devices to verify their identities, thereby completing the registration. Finally, either the user was verified by a referring verified parent or the user received a verification call from the helpdesk, thus completing what Parentune called the “onboarding” process. From there, a personalized experience was delivered to the expectant, new, or experienced parents, with technology at its heart. User Profile Once they were members of the Parentune community, parents personalized their profiles with their children’s ages, and their own concerns and interests. Then, in subsequent logins, parents could see their children’s developmental stages on a dynamic child age bar (or timeline) that ranged from pregnancy through the children’s entire life cycles. The personalization was optimized with each parent action, on each visit. This gave parents customized access to parenting information that corresponded to their children’s developmental stages. Navigation The navigation system on the digital platform was designed to reflect parents’ digital experience and access, including cultural and linguistic diversity within and across parent communities in the country. Compared to other digital parent platforms (e.g., IndiaParenting.com), Parentune’s user interface was clean and well spaced. It had the minimum possible advertising clutter on the webpages. The menu tabs were consistent and took the user through the different stages of parenting. In fact, according to the website analytics research company Alexa Internet, Inc. (Alexa), Parentune’s homepage loaded three times faster than the average of its competitors, positively affecting the user experience (see Exhibit 1). Further, site content was grouped in sections devoted to the different stages of a child’s development. For instance, the “Expert Corner” tab presented questions that had been answered by the experts according to a parent’s child’s age group. Content Having thoroughly researched the changing information needs of parents, the content team at Parentune developed reliable, usable, and portable parenting resources. Most of the content on the site was usergenerated, which reflected the active participation of the parent community. “Partnerships and codevelopment are central to creating Parentune content,” Pandey said. The usefulness of Parentune’s content was clear from the service’s bounce rate—the lowest among its Indian counterparts (one-third of IndiaParenting.com and two-fifths of BabyCenter.in), as observed by Alexa (see Exhibit 2).13 The quality of the Parentune content was further substantiated by a measure of the time spent per user daily, again as measured by Alexa (see Exhibit 3).14 Users spent an average of 22.63 minutes per day on Parentune—almost three times the second best time of 8.03 minutes spent by users on ZenParent.in and almost 10 times users’ time on IndiaParenting.com (2.10 minutes) and BabyCenter.in (2.55 minutes). This document is authorized for use only by Elsie Udo in IT-415-J5352 Advanced Info Systems Design 21EW5 at Southern New Hampshire University, 2021. Page 5 9B17D002 The content team scoped, reviewed, and developed new articles, blogs, videos, and interactive content in collaboration with the parents and subject-matter experts. For instance, to develop a food recipe resource for babies, the team closely worked with paediatric nutritionists. “We have empanelled experts from various fields of child development such as neonatology, nutrition, education, clinical psychology, and vision and oral care. These experts validate content before it is shared on the platform,” explained Swati, the content expert at Parentune. To suit users with different preferences, content was published in different formats such as text, graphics, interactive elements, and audio-visual. In addition to selecting the appropriate formats, Parentune listened to, and partnered with, the parents to tailor the messages and presentations to enhance the content usability. The content was developed to be portable (i.e., it was screen-optimized), making the entire website available as a smart phone friendly resource; the website was almost a mirror of Parentune’s mobile app. Privacy Parents’ common concerns when becoming part of a digital parenting community were centred on information privacy and safety. “Parents are usually wary of sharing sensitive details about their children on social networking sites. So, ensuring the security of information is critical,” Pandey added. Parentune had an unambiguous privacy policy regarding the nature of collected user information and its intended use by the company. The profile setting on the platform allowed users to control what information they wanted to keep public or private (e.g., children, spouse, or family details). Parents could add or delete any fellow parent to their community, request that any inappropriate content be removed from the site, or permanently close their account. Personalization Parentune relied on the technology to deliver personalization on a massive scale to the parents. As a registered parent surfed through the web pages on the platform, the analytics team tracked the parent’s information seeking and sharing behaviour using a back end intelligence tool called “Hotspot.” The tool, intellectual property developed by Parentune’s technology team, led by Parentune’s co-founder and chief technical officer, Venugopal, was characterized by a combination of natural language and big data processing. This tool facilitated real-time analysis of large amounts of unstructured, user-generated data on the site including talks, blogs, live chats, and interactive videos. Through these analytics, the team obtained an overview of user actions (e.g., total visits on the website and mobile app), traffic sources (referrals, social media, or search engines), search clouds (most searched topics on the site), user interests (e.g., health, education, or career), and popular content sections (pages, sections, and topics). Analytics were also employed to classify user profiles on the platform into “seekers” (parents asking questions) and “solvers” (parents answering questions). On a given day, if seekers were found to be more active on the site than solvers, relevant notifications were sent to the solvers, encouraging them to increase their participation. Through its analytics, Parentune also identified the most active and helpful parents in the community, naming them the proparents of the month and working hard to cultivate long-term relationships with them. Parentune rewarded the proparents by offering them free participation in live chats together with their involvement in other offline and online events. Community Meet-Ups To strengthen the bond among members of the community, Parentune hosted a number of community meetups on special occasions such as Parents’ Day and Mother’s Day. These community events included This document is authorized for use only by Elsie Udo in IT-415-J5352 Advanced Info Systems Design 21EW5 at Southern New Hampshire University, 2021. Page 6 9B17D002 supportive workshops for parents conducted by top experts from Parentune’s expert panel, and special activities for children. “More than 6,340 parents participated in Parentune’s carnival organized on the eve of Parents’ Day in 2015. It was the largest such parent community meet so far in India,” Pandey said. PARENTUNE BUSINESS MODEL Among the first few to undertake this novel service concept, Parentune focused on growing its user membership and engagement rather than generating revenue during the initial years of its inception. But, since the second quarter of 2015, the company had undertaken three different revenue streams. Parentune ran native advertisements and integrations exclusively for brands that fostered childcare and development. “Banner advertisements are often intrusive and distracting, whereas in-feed native advertisements that match the form and the function of Parentune’s editorial content are a good source of revenue for the company and are more effective in capturing parents’ attention,” Pandey elaborated. These brands included fastmoving consumer goods (e.g., Horlicks, Himalaya herbal babycare, and Dettol), health accessories (e.g., Philips Avent baby feeding and health accessories), and financial firms (e.g., Franklyn Templeton Investments). For instance, Philips Avent integrated native advertisements for its range of breastfeeding products with the editorial content (blog posts) on breastfeeding. “These brand messages work well on any technological platform— desktop, laptop, or smart phone. However, we don’t take parents’ trust for granted and don’t disguise sponsored content. The platform places prominent disclaimers transparently,” Swati said. Another revenue source for the company was brand-supported solutions. This model involved a native integration of brands with services that supported parents with useful solutions. For example, if parents wanted to have a live chat with an expert about some health issues their child was facing, that live chat could be sponsored by a childcare brand. Similarly, a brand might sponsor a parent community meet-up, such as the meet-up that offered free bone density check-ups for mothers that were sponsored by a supplement brand for mothers. The third source of revenue for the company was value-added parenting services, such as one-on-one chats with experts (e.g., a child psychologist). The service was available for a reasonable fee. Broadly, Parentune’s monetization model was centred on targeted advertising and engagement. Parents’ profiles and behaviours, tracked through live chats and Parent Talk, were a gold mine of information for marketers, who could target specific products to support specific parent profiles at different stages of a child’s development. “For a diaper manufacturer, the relevant consumer segment is the parents of newborns to one-year-old children. For nutrition supplements for children, the target consumer is the parents of children in their preteen years. It’s a win–win for parents and brands both, as they are able to connect with what is relevant to them, and has worked for us,” Pandey said. Advertisers employed this information for targeted reach and engagement, though Parentune was always strict about protecting the users’ identities. Once Parentune started monetization, the quarter-on-quarter revenue growth increased to 100–110 per cent. The costs also began to stabilize, suggesting an early operational breakeven for the company, estimated to occur in the next two quarters (see Exhibit 4). Meanwhile, by the end of the second quarter of 2016, the number of registered parents in the community had reached 580,000, with two million sessions per month (see Exhibit 5). This document is authorized for use only by Elsie Udo in IT-415-J5352 Advanced Info Systems Design 21EW5 at Southern New Hampshire University, 2021. Page 7 9B17D002 THE ROAD AHEAD With the entry of plenty of technology start-ups with their novel parenting service offerings, Parentune was no longer the newcomer and had to fight the perception of being a look-alike. However, with the market size for the baby, children, and maternity products growing at 17 per cent annually, the market opportunity was huge. “We have to stay relevant to each parent, continue to be highly differentiated, and move toward becoming a must-have support for parents to retain our leadership,” Pandey said. One of the key challenges for the company was personalization of parenting solutions that met specific user needs in optimal time. With the bulk of online traffic coming from mobile devices, meeting an optimal response time (from request to response) in service delivery was a key metric for Parentune. However, the company had always been firm on its policy of foolproof user verification and resource validation before publishing an expert piece. Achieving these conflicting objectives put heavy demands on the analytics. “Our plan is to bring down the response time to less than a few seconds through extensive use of the technology,” said Venugopal. Another focus area for the company was to scale up its registered user base to make parenting resources available in multiple regional languages. Facilitated by a sound, technology-driven service delivery system, the content team worked with regional editors to translate and adapt the content to regional parenting information needs. “We are going live in multiple languages in the next two months. We will start with one language, and scale it up to many [languages] by the end of 2016,” Pandey stated. Pandey further summarized, “We will continue to be a technology company at the core with a strong understanding of parents’ challenges, and curate superior support for parents to do more for their child,” To date, Parentune’s strengths were in building a community of like-minded parents, and bringing the community and the brands together in a responsible manner. Leveraging these strengths, the company was ready to capture future opportunities. It remained to be seen—with its ever-increasing focus on technology and inevitable pressures for revenue growth—whether the service delivery process of Parentune was apt to meet the challenge of staying relevant to its target audience. This document is authorized for use only by Elsie Udo in IT-415-J5352 Advanced Info Systems Design 21EW5 at Southern New Hampshire University, 2021. Page 8 9B17D002 EXHIBIT 1: SITE LOADING TIME AMONG THE INDIAN PARENTING SERVICE PORTALS (SECONDS) Average Parentune.com 1.392 BeingTheParent.com 8.565 ZenParent.in 1.818 BabyChakra.com 2.854 BabyCenter.in 3.045 IndiaParenting.com 3.502 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Source: “Find Website Traffic, Statistics, and Analytics,” Alexa, s.v. “Parentune.com,” accessed November 9, 2016, www.Alexa.com/siteinfo. This document is authorized for use only by Elsie Udo in IT-415-J5352 Advanced Info Systems Design 21EW5 at Southern New Hampshire University, 2021. Page 9 9B17D002 EXHIBIT 2: BOUNCE RATE AMONG THE INDIAN PARENTING SERVICE PORTALS Average Parentune.com 28.50% BeingTheParent.com 44.90% ZenParent.in 52.30% BabyChakra.com 59.50% BabyCenter.in 65.40% IndiaParenting.com 0.00% 75.60% 10.00% 20.00% 30.00% 40.00% 50.00% 60.00% 70.00% 80.00% Source: “Find Website Traffic, Statistics, and Analytics,” Alexa, s.v. “Parentune.com,” accessed November 9, 2016, www.Alexa.com/siteinfo. This document is authorized for use only by Elsie Udo in IT-415-J5352 Advanced Info Systems Design 21EW5 at Southern New Hampshire University, 2021. Page 10 9B17D002 EXHIBIT 3: DAILY TIME SPENT (IN MINUTES) PER USER ONTHE INDIAN PARENTING SERVICE PORTALS Average Parentune.com 22.63 BeingTheParent.com 7.48 ZenParent.in 8.03 BabyChakra.com 1.95 BabyCenter.in 2.55 IndiaParenting.com 2.10 0.00 5.00 10.00 15.00 20.00 25.00 Source: “Find Website Traffic, Statistics, and Analytics,” Alexa, s.v. “Parentune.com,” accessed November 9, 2016, www.Alexa.com/siteinfo. This document is authorized for use only by Elsie Udo in IT-415-J5352 Advanced Info Systems Design 21EW5 at Southern New Hampshire University, 2021. Page 11 9B17D002 EXHIBIT 4: FINANCIAL OUTLOOK FOR PARENTUNE 700 600 US$, Thousands 500 400 300 200 100 0 Q2‐2015 Q3‐2015 Q4‐2015 Q1‐2016 Q2‐2016 Q3‐2016 EST. Q4‐ 2016 EST. Q1‐ 2017 Costs Revenue Exponential Trendline (Costs) Exponential Trendline (Revenue) Source: Company documents. This document is authorized for use only by Elsie Udo in IT-415-J5352 Advanced Info Systems Design 21EW5 at Southern New Hampshire University, 2021. Page 12 9B17D002 EXHIBIT 5: GROWTH IN NUMBER OF REGISTERED USERS AT PARENTUNE.COM Parent Registrations, (in Thousands) 700 600 500 400 300 200 100 0 2013 2014 Parent Registrations 2015 Q1‐2016 Q2‐2016 Q3‐2016 Exponential Trendline (Parent Registrations) Source: Company documents. This document is authorized for use only by Elsie Udo in IT-415-J5352 Advanced Info Systems Design 21EW5 at Southern New Hampshire University, 2021. Page 13 9B17D002 ENDNOTES 1 Sharika Nair, “Parentune—Web Platform, Community and Way of Life for Indian Parents,” YourStory, October 11, 2016, accessed November 1, 2016, https://yourstory.com/2016/10/parentune. 2 “Six Indian Startups among 250 Global Entries in WSJD Live Global Startup Showcase 2015,” VCCircle, July 22, 2015, accessed June 27, 2016, www.vccircle.com/news/technology/2015/07/22/six-indian-startups-among-250-global-entrieswsjdlive-global-startup. 3 “Hot100 Winners 2014,” Hot 100 3rd ed., KPMG, accessed November 28, 2016, www.hot100.technology/winners-2014.php. 4 Positive parenting is parental guidance to keep the kids on track in a positive way without punishment. 5 Internet.org, State of Connectivity 2015: A Report on Global Internet Access (Facebook, February 22, 2016), accessed June 27, 2016, https://fbnewsroomus.files.wordpress.com/2016/02/state-of-connectivity-2015-2016-02-21-final.pdf. 6 Simon Kemp, “Digital, Social and Mobile Worldwide in 2015,” We are Social, January 2016, accessed June 27, 2016, http://wearesocial.com/uk/special-reports/digital-social-mobile-worldwide-2015. 7 “Asian Digital Mum Survey 2015,” theAsianparent.com, March 19, 2015, accessed June 29, 2016, www.digitalnewsasia.com/sites /default/files/files_upload/Asian%20Digital%20Mum%20Survey%202015%20-%2019%20Mar%202015.pdf. 8 Monica Das Gupta, Robert Engelman, Jessica Levy, Gretchen Luchsinger, Tom Merrick, and James E. Rosen, The Power of 1.8 Billion: Adolescents, Youth and the Transformation of the Future: State of World Population 2014 (United Nations Population Fund, October 2014), accessed June 29, 2016, www.unfpa.org/sites/default/files/pub-pdf/EN-SWOP14-Report_FINAL-web.pdf. 9 Economics Knowledge Banking, YES Bank, Make in India—Pressing the Pedal (Delhi:YES Bank Ltd. and the Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India, May 2015), accessed July 10, 2016, www.assocham.org/userfiles/YES_BANK__ASSOCHAM_Knowledge_Report_-_Make_in_India_-_Presing_the_Pedal.pdf. All currency amounts are in US$ unless otherwise specified. 10 BabyCenter, LLC, accessed November 28, 2016, www.babycenter.in. 11 India Parenting Pvt. Ltd., accessed November 28, 2016, www.indiaparenting.com/aboutus/index.shtml. 12 “About Us,” BabyChakra (Infomoko Technology Private Limited), accessed November 28, 2016, www.babychakra.com/about-us. 13 Bounce rate was the percentage of visits to a website that consisted of a single page view. Lower bounce rates indicated more useful, relevant, and engaging content on the website. 14 Daily time spent on a website (measured in minutes) was the estimated total time a visitor spent on the website daily. More time spent on the website indicated the content was more engaging and relevant for the visitor. This document is authorized for use only by Elsie Udo in IT-415-J5352 Advanced Info Systems Design 21EW5 at Southern New Hampshire University, 2021. Running head: MANAGEMENT INFORMATION SYSTEMS Management Information Systems Student’s name Institution affiliation Course 1 MANAGEMENT INFORMATION SYSTEMS 2 Management Information Systems as a course is one of the backbones of the entire information technology field and computer science. In management information systems, we tend to study about people, organizations, technology and the relationships between them. In turn, professionals who are well versed with management information systems tend to help organizations in realizing maximum benefits from investments, and business processes. After graduation, I don’t intend to be anything short of this. I intend to be the bridge between people, organizations and technology. Under the HBR course pack, I have come across five articles which have been of interest to me. Basically, while all articles have proved to contain crucial information, I found the article on PARENTUNE.COM: PARTNERING PARENTS to be more fascinating. Today, parenting has been made hard by harsh economic times demanding most of the parents’ time in an effort to make ends meet. At the same time, children have been exposed to technology at very tender ages. With the millennial struggle, a network that has interconnected parents to experts has been developed. MANAGEMENT INFORMATION SYSTEMS 3 Reference Management Development Institute. (2017). PARENTUNE.COM: PARTNERING PARENTS PART 1 : In response to your peers, choose those who analyzed a different part of the process. Do you agree with your peers’ assessments? Is there other data that could be used? • PEER 1: the part of the process I chose is sales. sales can make or break a business as we all know so if the data shows sales are not doing to well than we inform the business by showing them the pivot chart. the pivot chart will show all the employees, employees status and their cost which can determine if they need more production being done or if they need to cut some employees. also I would use mean, median and mode as well that also shows the hourly wages and total project hours. these methods will allow the business to see where they stand and how much more the project needs to be complete or how much more money needs to be spent to complete the project. PEER 2: For the final project on the case study about the Vinho Winery, I am going to focus on transportation for this discussion. Transportation costs can be a large expense for companies to make sure they get their product to their wholesalers, which in this case study are four independent wine distributors in Riverside, CA, Oakland, CA, Portland, OR, and Seattle, WA. I would need to analyze data for the cost to transport to each of the four locations both by the truckload and by the pallet, which are the only two ways that Vinho Winery ships. If the cost of shipping multiple pallets is equal to or more than the truckload, they would then go by the cost of the truckload. The cost to transport to each of the four locations will likely be different so data is needed for the cost of each location. In addition, Vinho Winery contracts with a company to fill the truck on the return trip to cut down on cost, but not all the trip may be covered and so this potential expense and what is covered is also important to analyze in case they are not able to fill the return trip. Once a product is created, it needs to get to the market in order to be sold and transportation and logistics is a critical step in that process. PART 2: 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 1; I sometimes (when not being lazy) will freelance design and app development services. My brother was the absolute worst client. :). His mind was all over the place and I always find that the most challenging, when a person can not narrow down their choices. When I went to an accelerated boot camp to become a fullstack developer, one thing I learned was that the enduser is always at the forefront. The end-user can guide you on who will all be using their services or products that you create. You don't want to create a program that's too difficult that the user cannot navigate nor miss certain elements they are needing to be productive. Sometimes when having an end-user involved in dayto-day creation it can be frustrating with constant changes. Kaban boards, scrum masters, and other coordinators are so important with this because not only do they break the job down they serve as a liason between the team and user since developing can be a stressful position. PEER 2: As an accountant for a consulting company, we get new project/jobs at least once or twice a week. It is my job to enter this new project into multiple areas that will track the progress of said project, like Salesforce and Unanet. Without having any type of feedback or information about the project from the sales person I would not be able to do my job at all. It's very important to get the exact contract deals, so that we can keep track of the hours completed for the project, which will also impact our monthly revenue. I think that the end user should be involved in the selection to an extent of at least naming each entity and what information they wish to track within said database because since they will be the once using the database, it should be created around their descriptions. Two advantages of having the end user help design the database, it helps the designer better understand what the user needs from the database and allows the end user to better understand where certain information is within the database. Two disadvantages of having the end user involved in the design, one they may not know much about designing databases and can lead to data redundancy. Second, the end user may not inform the designer of certain needed information for the database to be accurate. If I were interviewing the woman from the video about her needs for a database, id ask: Do you need to keep track of when items last sold in the store? Would it be useful to track how often a certain item is being sold? Cheers PART 3 In your responses to your peers, provide constructive feedback on their project proposals. Do you see any potential obstacles they might come up against? If so, what approaches can they take to overcome these challenges? • PEER 1; For my project I choose the UK National Identity Card which involves the attempt by the UK government from 2002–2010 to relate citizenship with a national identity smartcard. There are different system design methodologies that are used to complete a project, however upon researching the most suitable design methodology for this project is the Agile Methodology. Agile Methodology “aim to deliver the right product, with incremental and frequent delivery of small chunks of functionality, through small cross-functional selforganizing teams, enabling frequent customer feedback and course correction as needed.” (Dignite n.d). Agile Methodology takes a different approach versus the waterfall option, which delivers large products in long periods of time, during which customer requirements frequently changed, resulting in the wrong products being delivered. Furthermore, the use of the Waterfall Methodology also has the disadvantage of the different delegated groups not working together, as the process used is sequential. The Agile methodology uses increments to work through each part of the project and these steps include “Understand, Research, Sketch, Design, Prototype, Test, Refine.” (Fard n.d). This methodology eliminates the issue of having designers work on high-fidelity prototypes at the start of the project which can result in poorly thought-out product. The project at hand requires confidentiality at its highest standard because personal information from individuals across the United Kingdom will be in use. Therefore, it is of vital importance that every aspect of the project is carried out in the most effective way possible. This can be accomplished through the use of small increments, whereby each incremented section of the project is carefully analyzed and completely tested before continuing to another section which will inevitably eliminate the possibilities of errors. There are disadvantages for using Agile Methodology. It is important that these risks be carefully considered to determine if the risk outweigh the benefits being offered. A risk that is associated with using Agile Methodology is the issue of undefined time frame. Having a defined time structure can help to determine the resources needed to complete the project. For example, the cost of the project, along with the raw material that will be needed to complete the project, cannot be determined if a project has an end date. Additionally, depending on the outcome of each section the project can be faced with an infinite revision and refining process. Individuals that work on the project will be limited in moving on to another part of the project, which can sometimes mean workers are left without anything to do because of the wait time to complete small increments before moving on to the next. Reference Digite (n.d). What is Agile Methodology? Retrieved from: https://www.digite.com/agile/agilemethodology/ Fard, Adam (n.d). What is Agile Design and how to apply it? Retrieved from: https://adamfard.com/blog/agile-design PEER 2 ; For my case study, I chose the Aadhaar Unique Identification (UI) System. One of the problems they face is the biometric scan not being sufficient for those with leprosy, those who have suffered accidents or birth defects (missing appendages, missing eyes, etc.), and those whose fingerprints change over time due to manual labor(Dixon, 2017). 2.2% of India’s population is disabled and are unable to provide the biometrics needed (Krishna, 2018).A solution for this problem would allow those with these problems to continue to receive the benefits from having the UI. A potential solution for this would be to use a different kind of biometric scan that wouldn’t be affected by these problems. There is a type of biometric scan that scans the veins in someone’s hand/arm and uses it like a fingerprint (Karlskin, n.d.). The veins in your body are less likely to change over time, and if the scan can be used basically anywhere, then even missing appendages wouldn’t be a problem. The biggest problem that could be faced is the cost. These scanners a lot more costly than fingerprint or retina scanners, and the government of India might not want to fund this. One potential compromise to this would be to only order a small number of these scanners and have them placed in areas that are most affected by these problems. The scanners could also be shared across the country a they’re needed. Another problem would be scope creep. The solution I proposed might still not be feasible for everyone, in which case those residents would still need another way to identify themselves. Both of these issues need to be addressed in order for the project to be successful, though the second issue I mentioned wouldn’t likely cause the project to fail unless the issue caused all stakeholders to deny all funding and other resources. For this project I feel that the Agile methodology would work best. The cost of this project, as well as other inputs and issues that may arise, require this project to be flexible. Agile uses four values when describing its principles; “individuals and interactions over processes and tools; working software over comprehensive documentation; customer collaboration over contract negotiation; and responding to change over following a plan” (Aston, 2021). These values align with my own regarding this project, since, in reality, the only thing that SHOULD matter is the result and how well it works for the individual that is effects. As far as other methodologies go, Scrum wouldn’t be ideal since that is best used with smaller teams. While Waterfall seems like it would also work, it can take a lot longer to get things done, and doesn’t allow for change as easily. Certainly taking different aspects of other methodologies would be beneficial, like gathering all the necessary requirements first and eliminating waste causing problems, however, on the whole, Agile seems like it would be a good fit for this project. I look forward to reading your feedback! 
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