Pretend that you are a Finance person in a large dynamic company. Your dream is to become CFO someday, so you want to make good financial decisions. You know something about the SDLC phases that IT uses, and you like them because they will help you make good financial decisions at the right points during the project, working closely with IT. You have been assigned to investigate this project request. The VP from manufacturing wants to (1) have the IT Department build a new business application for tracking all activities in her department, and (2) she also wants to order a "SUN Supergiant9000 Server" (costs $250,000) right away to run it on. Assume that you are part of the decision-making process on funding (or not funding) the project.
A. Who are some of the key people you should you talk to, and why?
B. What kinds of questions should you ask to help decide if the project should be funded?
C. In which specific SDLC phase should hardware actually be ordered (if it is still needed at that point)?