Advanced Studies and Analytical Support

ASM provides feasibility studies, requirements analyses, cost benefit analyses and other studies and analytical support.

Feasibility Studies:
Feasibility studies may be a stand-alone project, but they are always a key component of every development effort we undertake for our customers. We have performed feasibility studies for major COTS implementations and for custom applications. In addition to performing feasibility studies on a specific topic, we manage each project as a series of feasibility studies. In the IT area, there are always multiple courses of action, multiple tools, multiple databases, etc. We do not subscribe to the philosophy that “one size fits all.” It is our belief that different projects have different needs, and it is imperative to evaluate the feasibility of each project against the customers’ measurements of effectiveness, to determine the optimal solution. Often the newest technology is an improper solution.

Cost-benefit Analyses (CBA):
The CBA is a logical follow-up to the feasibility study. ASM has a highly trained senior staff that supports this requirement across projects. The key to performing a good CBA is to develop the appropriate measures of effectiveness. Cost is often the criteria, but for our systems supporting the GWOT, accuracy and timeliness are most critical. Using the wrong effectiveness criteria typically results in bad selections. Getting the right measures requires an intimate knowledge of the customer, and the functional requirements of the system, and is another reason why we include SME’s on our project staff.

Requirements Analyses:
We provide direct support to a wide range of agencies on information sharing and procedure modeling. The development of data displays, reporting tools, and system interfaces enables us to transform user requirements into documented solution recommendations with real results. We build every team with a management analyst who is the subject matter expert for that project. Customers have difficulty stating their requirements because of the constant demands of their jobs coupled with their limited ability to understand how technology can support them. Some of the techniques and processes we employ are:

• Define and establish procedures to guide the capture, documentation, confirmation, and implementation of user requirements and their relative importance, using various tools including VISIO, Rational Rose, and UML Modeling.
•  Schedule, organize, manage, and create minutes for meetings with various functional and technical user communities.
•  Develop documentation at both an overview and detail view of defined requirements for users, requirement managers, and the leadership.
•  Manage requirements and modification of requirement prioritization using reports and lists generated by software tools.
•  Create and document test plans to ensure defined requirements by software changes and establish a repository to store test plans.
•  Establish review procedures (Peer Review, Supervisor Review and Manager Review) to verify documentation and satisfaction of requirement.