Management and development strategy for Visa Commerce system

Management System

To manage and control the development activities for Visa's new system, Visa Commerce, the management system that would perhaps be best applicable is to focus the management and control on the development team that must consist of "just enough" number of members. This includes the team that chiefly handles all the requirements for the new system and the system's IT development team. Since Visa Commerce is a system for global use, it is essential that all development activities for the system must be firmly monitored and controlled. Communication to a team that is not large in number of members, yet enough to complete the system, facilitates this process.

To manage and control the activities for Visa Commerce, an open communication should be available between each member of the development team. If possible, the development team must work as a group in one location. This is important specifically to the I.T. development team of the system since they are the core players in the success of Visa Commerce system. The team that provides the requirements, on the other hand, can be from different locations. However, it is still essential to have a main team, that handles all the project requirements, to work with the system developers. Such team should serve as the communication bridge between global users of the system and the system developers.

Generally, the management approach that is essential in the development process of Visa Commerce should include an open communication between the development team, an organized distribution of tasks, a periodical evaluation of the system's development process, and a periodical evaluation of each member's accomplishments.

Addressing Problems as Technology Changes

To address any difficulties that might arise as technology changes during Visa Commerce's 10-year implementation, it is essential that members of the technical team, such as the systems analysts and programmers, must be keen and updated with technology. This is important during the development and implementation phases of the system. Since technology continually evolves, having an up-to-date knowledge allows anticipation of problems that might exist, which in turn, provides the development team with idea of different solutions schemes that are problem-preventive and self-healing in technology. An example of which is using a dynamic infrastructure in the Visa Commerce system, where system components update themselves by design. As indicated by the GMD Institute for Open Communication Systems, in Marcin Solarski's Dynamic Updating of Software Components in TINA-based Systems, a dynamic infrastructure can provide the following advantages to systems.

an update of a component is transparent to the rest of the system the loss of system functionality during the update is minimized a process of the system upgrade needs minimal human intervention

the update capabilities of software do not significantly impact the effort required to build such software the system update is reliable

Organizing the Worldwide Development Activities of Visa's IT Department

An open communication between the worldwide IT Departments of Visa can facilitate the process of organizing its development activities. Ideally, every development location must have a team leader. He will serve as his location's speaker, and he must have an up-to-date communication with the rest of the team leaders in other locations. Aside from this, providing a strict set of development procedures, and periodically monitoring the development teams, can facilitate the task of organizing the worldwide development activities of Visa's IT Department. It is essential that every development activity worldwide must be tracked to provide references should problems exist. As AT& T. Labs indicates,

Systematic approach to controlling and tracking all changes to a product over its lifetime is vital to product success in the dynamic market place.