Week 13

Participants in Sytems Development

Effective systems development requires a team effort. The development team consists
of stakeholders, users, managers, systems, development specialists, and various
support personnel.
The project manager is the person assigned by the organization to do the work of the
project and achieve the project objectives.
Stakeholders are people who will ultimately be affected (for better or worse) by the
systems development project.
Users are the people who will regularly interact with the system as they complete their
work.
A system analyst is a professional who specializes in analyzing and designing
business systems. System analysts play various roles while interacting with the
stakeholders and users, management, vendors, suppliers external companies
programmers, and other IS support personnel. Like an architect developing blueprints
for a new building, a system analyst develops detailed plans for the new or modified
system.
The programmer is responsible for modifying or developing programs to satisfy user
requirements. Like a contractor constructing a new building or renovating an existing

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 one based on the architect’s drawings, the programmer takes the system design from
the system analysis team and builds or modifies the necessary software.
A steering team of senior managers representing the business and IS organizations
that provide guidance and support the project. The number of members on the team
should be limited(three or five) to simplify the decision-making process and ease the
effort to schedule a quorum of these busy executives.

📖 Quorum - the minimum number of members of an assembly or society that

must be present at any of its meetings to make the proceedings of that
meeting valid.

The project sponsor is a key member and leader of the steering team who plays such
a critical role that the lack of this essential individual raises the probability of project
failure. The following are the sponsor’s responsibilities:

Align project goals and objectives with organizational goals and objectives

Obtains budget, people, and other necessary resources for the project

Acts as a vocal and visible champion for the project to gain the support of others

Identifies and removes barriers to project success

Resolves any issues outside the control of the project manager

Provides advice and counsel to the project team

Keeps informed of major project activities and developments

Has final approval of all requests for changes in the project scope, budget, and
schedule

Signs off on approvals to proceed to each succeeding project phase

Information systems planning identifies those information systems development

initiatives needed to support organizational strategic goals.

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 💡 Critical Success Factors (CFSs) factors that are essential to the success of
a functional 12area of an organization

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 Traditional Systems Development Life Cycle(SDLC)
The system development process is also called a systems development life cycle
(SDLC) because the activities associated with it are ongoing. As each system is built,
the project has timelines and deadlines until the last system is installed and accepted.
The traditional development life cycle is a sequential multistage process where work on
the next stage cannot begin until the results of the previous stage are reviewed and
approved or modified as necessary. The phases of the traditional systems development
life cycle might vary from one company to the next, but many organizations use an
approach with six phases:

Systems Investigations
The first phase of SDLC
A system investigation request is completed, ideally by members of the organization
that will be most affected by the potential new or modified system.

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 1. Review systems investigation request

2. Identify and recruit team leader and team

members

3. Develop budget and schedule for investigation

4. Perform investigation

5. Perform preliminary feasibility analysis

6. Prepare draft of investigation report

7. Review results of investigation with steering

team

Identify and recruit team leader and team members

Develop budget and schedule for investigation

Perform investigation

Joint Application Development (JAD) is a structured meeting process that can

accelerate and improve the efficiency and effectiveness of not only the investigation
phase but also the analysis and design phases of a systems development project.
A structured meetigprocess that can accelerate and improve

efficiency

effectiveness

of phases:

Investigation

Analysis

Desing

Functional decomposition is a technique used primarily during the investigation phase

to define the business processes included within the scope of the system.

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 Functional decomposition chart, begin with the name of the system, and then identify
the high-level processes to be performed.

Perform Preliminary Feasibility analysis

A major step of the systems investigation phase is feasibility analysis, which assesses
technical, economic, legal, operational, and schedule feasibility.

Technical feasibility - examines whether the project is feasible is the current limits of
technology
Economic feasibility - determines whether the expected benefits associated with the
project outweigh the expected cost sufficiently to make the project financially attractive.

Legal feasibility - determines whether laws or regulations may prevent or limit a

systems development project.

Operational feasibility - is connected with how the system will be accepted by people
and how well it will meet various system performance expectations.

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 Schedule feasibility - determines whether the project can be completed in a reasonable
amount of time.

Prepare a draft of the investigation report

system investigation report that summarizes the results of the systems investigation and
recomends a course of action:

Continue

Modify

Drop

Review results of the investigation with the steering team

The systems investigation report is
reviewed with the steering team to gain
their input and counsel
• Input is used to finalize the systems
investigation report

System analysis
Purpose: answer the question “What must the IS do to solve the problem?”

Primary result: prioritized system requirements. Steps in the systems analysis phase

1. Identify and recruit team leader and team members

2. Develop budget and schedule for systems analysis activities

3. Study existing system

4. Develop prioritized set of requirements

5. Perform preliminary make-versus-buy analysis

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 6. Identify and evaluate alternative solutions

7. Perform feasibility analysis

8. Prepare draft of systems analysis report

9. Review results of systems analysis with steering team

Data collection methods:

Direct observations

Surveys

Direct observation, one or more members of the analysis team directly observe the
existing system in action.

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 Surveys: When many system users and stakeholders are spread over a wide
geographic area, the use of a survey might be the best method to obtain their input on a
set of standard questions.

Develop Prioritized Set of Requirements

Critical

Medium priority

Low priority

JAD sessions provide an effective way to define system requirements

Using the identified CSFs

Processes must be further defined and individuals/organizations responsible for
process steps identified.

Data-flow diagrams (DFDs) provide a model of a proposed new system.

Databases and ER diagrams

Data modeling is defining the databases that the system will draw data from as well as
any new databases that it will create.

Databases the system will draw from

New databases the system will create

Entity-relationship(ER)
ER diagrams show logical relationships among data entities

Computer-aided software engineering (CASE)

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 CASE can help describe the existing system

System security and control requirements

Access controls

Encryption

Dual control procedures

Monitoring systems

Protection against destruction, loss, or damage

Business resumption procedures

System performance

Timeliness of output

Easy to use

Scalability

System response time

Availability

Reliability

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