System Planning and initial

Investigation
Priti Dimri
• The most critical phase of managing a systems
project is planning.
• To launch a system investigation we need a
master plan detailing steps to be taken, the
people to be questioned and the outcomes
expected.
• Initial investigation has the objective of
determining whether the user’s request has
potential merit.
• Major Steps include:
– Defining user requirements,
– studying the present system to verify the problem.
– Defining the performance expected by the
candidate system to meet the user requirements.
Result:
System Proposal summarizing the findings and
recommendations of the analyst
• First step in developing and managing
systems.
• Understanding MIS Planning functions and
their relationships to SAD is crucial to
successful computer installations.
 Bases for Planning in System Analysis
• Information is now recognised as a vital resource and must be managed.
• More and more financial resources are committed to information
systems. As computer systems are becoming more integral to the
business operations Top management is paying more attention to their
development
• Growing need for formal long range planning with information systems
that are complex, require months , years to build use common
databases.
Then objective is to map out the development of major systems and
reduce the number of small isolated systems to be developed and
maintained.
Proper planning ensures that he role played by the system will be
congruent with that of the orgarnsiation
 Dimensions of Planning
.Following conditions dictate today’s business strategies.
High interest rates make it more important that business
realizes a good ROI.
Inflation puts pressures on profit when it occurs.
Growing trend toward guaranteed employment suggests
that costs are becoming fixed and the commitment to
business expansion may not be easily changed.
Resources shortage impede expansion
 Impetuous for System Change
• Information systems add value to products
and business operations at lower costs.
Therefore they must be carefully planned.
 Strategic MIS Planning
• Must be done within the framework for the
organisations overall MIS Plan
• May be viewed from two dimensions:
– Time Horizon: specifies short range , medium
range or long range
– Focus : whether the primary concern is strategic,
managerial or operational.
 Strategic MIS Planning
• An orderly approach that determines :
– the basic objectives for the user to achieve ,
– The strategies and policies needed to achieve the objectives,
– tactical plans to implement the strategies.
• Strategic planning is a tool for organizing the present on the basis of the projections of
the desired future.
• That is, a strategic plan is a road map to lead an organization from where it is now to
where it would like to be in five or ten years.
• The plan must be:
• 􀂁 simple
• 􀂁 written
• 􀂁 clear
• 􀂁 based on the real current situation
• 􀂁 have enough time allowed to give it a time to settle. It should not be
• rushed. Rushing the plan will cause problems
 Tasks
• To set the MIS objectives and the results expected.
– Must deal with their fit in the organization's strategic plan,
– Type of systems and services offered
– Role of users in system development
– Technology to be used
• Define MIS Policies as guideline to be used in carrying
out strategy.
• This is translated into long range, medium range and
short range plans for implementation.
• Long range:general courses of action to
achieve strategic objectives
• Medium range: Actions priorities , standards
and goals to achieve strategic objectives
• Short range: Performance targets, task
schedule to achieve strategic objectives
– In determining MIS strategic plan several questions
need to be asked at start
– What MIS Objectives and strategies can be derived
from corporate strategic plan?
– Who will review and approve the plan?
– How long is the planning horizon
– What will the plan contain
– What will the plan focus on (eg new technology,
computer security, new application development etc.
 Managerial and Operational Planning
• Managerial Planning integrates the strategic with
operational Plans.
• Is a process in which specific functional plans are
related to a specific number of years to show how
strategies are to be carried out to achieve long range
plans
• Next step is to device short range plans that spell out
the day today activity.
• Ex. Operating expense budget, human resource
budget, time tables for implementing a new system
MIS operating plan requires the heaviews user
involvement to define fully the system
requirement.
System development must support
organizational MIS objectives as laid out in the
corporate plan and identify and select
applications that are the organizations
priorities
 Initial investigation

• The first step in the SDLC is the identification of a

need and because there is a likely stream if such
requests , standard procedures must be established
to deal with them
• The initial investigation is one way of handling this.
• Objective is to determine whether the request is
valid and feasible before a recommendation is
reached to do nothing , improve or modify an
existing system or to build a new one.
• Users request form specifies the following:
• User assigned title of work requested
• Nature of work requested (problem definition)
• Date requested was submitted
• Date job should be completed
• Job objectives-Purpose of job requested
• Expected benefits to be derived from proposed change
• Input/output description-quantity and frequencies of input
and output of proposed change
• Requesters signature , title, department and phone number
• User request identifies the need for change and
authorizes the initial investigation.
• It may undergo several modifications before it
becomes a written commitment.
• Once the request is approved the following
activities are carried out
• Background investigation fact finding and
analysis and presentation of results- called
project proposal
• The proposal once approved initiates a
detailed user oriented specification of system
performance and analysis of the feasibility of
the candidate system.
 Needs Identification
• Step is intended to help the users and the
anlayst understand the real problem rather
than its symptoms
• User or the analyst may identify the need for a
candidate system
Objective question
What is the objectives of a
city library
Why do most people buy
furniture
Objectiove of two car
garage
Typical objective Real objective
To impart wisdom of the Majority of books checked
ages to the uneducated out are for enjoyment
rather than fact finding
To furnish new homes, Marketing informs us that
apart ments, to sit on eat people discard old
oon furniture not because it is
non fucational but because
it does not look good any
more
To store two automobiles Families desire to park one
car only and save room to
store more important
equipment
 Determining user’s information
requirement
• Shared , complete and accurate information
requirements are essential in building
computer based information system.
• Unfortunately determining the information
from each user is a difficult task.
• Association for computing machinery
curriculum committee on computing
education for management recognized this by
suggesting two distinct job titles: Information
Analyst and system designer
 Reasons for this difficulty
• System requirement change and user
requirements must be modified to account for
these changes
• Articulation of requirement is difficult, except
for experienced users
• Functions and processes are not defined
• Pattern of interaction between the user and
analysts is complex
• Users and analysts do not share a common
orientating toward problem definition .
• Strategies used by users who try to define
requirements with the analysts' view:
– Kitchen sink –user’s lack of experience in the area
– Smoking strategy: reflects users experience in
knowing what he/she wants.
– Same thing: user is lazy , lack of knowledge or
both.
 Limitations of Humans in specifying
information requirements
Human as information processors
Human bias in data selection and use: users are
influenced more by the recent events that by the
past. Thus the information need that was discovered
recently tends to carry greater weight age.
Human problem Solving behavior. They have limited
capacity for rational thinking. It means that
rationality for determining information requirements
is limited by training, prejudice and attitude of the
user.
 Strategies for determing information
requirements
• Asking
• Getting information from existing IS
• Prototyping
 Asking
• It assumes a stable system where users are
well informed and can overcome biases in
defining their problem.
– Questions
– Brainstorming
– Group consensus
 Question
• May be open ended or closed
• Open : allow as the respondent to formulate a
response
• Ex: How do you evaluated the latest addition
to your hardware?
• Closed :requests one answer from a specific
set of responses
 Brain storming
• Technique used for generating new ideas and
obtaining general information requirements
 Group consensus
• Asks participants for their expectations
regarding specific variables
 Getting information from existing IS

• Determine information from an existing

application has been called the data analysis
approach.
• It simply asks the user what information is
currently received and what other information
is required.
• Here the analyst is primarily involved in
improving the existing flow of data to the user
• Decision Analysis: breaks the problem into two parts
which allows the user to focus on critical issues
separately
• It also determines policy and organizational
objectives relevant to the decision areas identified
and the specific steps required to complete each
major decision.
• Anlyst and the user refine the decison processes and
the information requirements for final statement.
 Prototyping
• When the user cannot establish information
needs accurately before the IS is built.
• This iterative discovery approach captures an
initial set of information requirements and builds
a system to meet these requirements. As the user
gains experience in its use they request additional
requirements of modifications in the system.
• Information requirements are discovered by using
the system