Download Systems Development: Investigation and Analysis and more Summaries Information Systems in PDF only on Docsity!
CHAPTER 12: Systems Development: Investigation and Analysis
Effective systems development requires a team effort from stakeholders, users, managers, systems development specialists, and various support personnel, and it starts with careful planning. The systems development team consists of stakeholders, users, managers, systems development specialists, and various support personnel. The development team determines the objectives of the information system and delivers to the organization a system that meets its objectives. Stakeholders are people who, either themselves or through the area of the organization they represent, ultimately benefit from the systems development project. Users are people who will interact with the system regularly. They can be employees, managers, customers, or suppliers. Managers on development teams are typically representative of stakeholders or can be stakeholders themselves. In addition, managers are most capable of initiating and maintaining change. For large-scale systems development projects, where the investment in and value of a system can be quite high, it is common to have senior-level managers be part of the development team. A systems analyst is a professional who specializes in analyzing and designing business systems. The programmer is responsible for modifying or developing programs to satisfy user requirements. Other support personnel on the development team include technical specialists, either IS department employees or outside consultants. Depending on the magnitude of the systems development project and the number of IS development specialists on the team, the team might also include one or more IS managers. At some point in your career, you will likely be a participant in systems development. You could be involved in a systems development team—as a user, as a manager of a business area or project team, as a member of the IS department, or maybe even as a CIO. Systems development projects are initiated for many reasons, including the need to solve problems with an existing system, to exploit opportunities to gain competitive advantage, to increase competition, to make use of effective information, to spur organizational growth, to settle a merger or corporate acquisition, and to address a change in the market or external environment. External pressures, such as potential lawsuits or terrorist attacks, can also prompt an organization to initiate systems development. Information systems planning refers to the translation of strategic and organizational goals into systems development initiatives. Benefits of IS planning include a long-range view of information technology use and better use of IS resources.
Planning requires developing overall IS objectives; identifying IS projects; setting priorities and selecting projects; analyzing resource requirements; setting schedules, milestones, and deadlines; and developing the IS planning document. IS planning can result in a competitive advantage through creative and critical analysis. Establishing objectives for systems development is a key aspect of any successful development project. Critical success factors (CSFs) can identify important objectives. Systems development objectives can include performance goals (quality and usefulness of the output and the speed at which output is generated) and cost objectives (development costs, fixed costs, and ongoing investment costs). Systems development often uses tools to select, implement, and monitor projects, including net present value (NPV), prototyping, rapid application development, CASE tools, and object-oriented development. The five phases of the traditional SDLC are investigation, analysis, design, implementation, and maintenance and review. Systems investigation identifies potential problems and opportunities and considers them in light of organizational goals. Systems analysis seeks a general understanding of the solution required to solve the problem; the existing system is studied in detail and weaknesses are identified. Systems design creates new or modifies existing system requirements. Systems implementation encompasses programming, testing, training, conversion, and operation of the system. Systems maintenance and review entails monitoring the system and performing enhancements or repairs. Advantages of the traditional SDLC include the following: It provides for maximum management control, creates considerable system documentation, ensures that system requirements can be traced back to stated business needs, and produces many intermediate products for review. Its disadvantages include the following: Users may get a system that meets the needs as understood by the developers, the documentation is expensive and difficult to maintain, users’ needs go unstated or might not be met, and users cannot easily review the many intermediate products produced. Prototyping is an iterative approach that involves defining the problem, building the initial version, having users work with and evaluate the initial version, providing feedback, and incorporating suggestions into the second version. Prototypes can be fully operational or nonoperational, depending on how critical the system under development is and how much time and money the organization has to spend on prototyping. Rapid application development (RAD) uses tools and techniques designed to speed application development. Its use reduces paper-based documentation, automates program source code generation, and facilitates user participation in development activities. RAD can use newer programming techniques, such as agile development or extreme programming. RAD
Systems development starts with investigation and analysis of existing systems In most organizations, a systems request form initiates the investigation process. Participants in systems investigation can include stakeholders, users, managers, employees, analysts, and programmers. The systems investigation is designed to assess the feasibility of implementing solutions for business problems, including technical, economic, legal, operational, and schedule feasibility. Net present value analysis is often used to help determine a project’s economic feasibility. An investigation team follows up on the request and performs a feasibility analysis that addresses technical, economic, legal, operational, and schedule feasibility. If the project under investigation is feasible, major goals are set for the system’s development, including performance, cost, managerial goals, and procedural goals. Many companies choose a popular methodology so that new IS employees, outside specialists, and vendors will be familiar with the systems development tasks set forth in the approach. A systems development methodology must be selected. Object-oriented systems investigation is being used to a greater extent today. The use case diagram is part of the Unified Modeling Language that is used to document object-oriented systems development. As a final step in the investigation process, a systems investigation report should be prepared to document relevant findings. Systems analysis is the examination of existing systems, which begins after a team receives approval for further study from management. Additional study of a selected system allows those involved to further understand the system’s weaknesses and potential areas for improvement. An analysis team is assembled to collect and analyze data on the existing system. Data collection methods include observation, interviews, questionnaires, and statistical sampling. Data analysis manipulates the collected data to provide information. The analysis includes grid charts, application flowcharts, and CASE tools. The overall purpose of requirements analysis is to determine user and organizational needs. Data analysis and modeling is used to model organizational objects and associations using text and graphical diagrams. It is most often accomplished through the use of entity- relationship (ER) diagrams. Activity modeling often employs data-flow diagrams (DFDs), which model objects, associations, and activities by describing how data can flow between and around various objects. DFDs use symbols for data flows, processing, entities, and data stores. Application flowcharts, grid charts, and CASE tools are also used during systems analysis. Requirements analysis determines the needs of users, stakeholders, and the organization in general. Asking directly, using critical success factors, and determining requirements from the IS plan can be used. Often, screen and report layout charts are used to document requirements during systems analysis. Like traditional analysis, problems or potential opportunities are identified during object-oriented analysis. Object-
oriented systems analysis can involve using diagramming techniques, such as a generalization/specialization hierarchy diagram
