System Analysis Flashcards

Flashcards for System Analysis lecture review.

System Analysis

The study of a system and its components; a prerequisite to system design.

System Owners

Individuals whose business concerns drive systems analysis; their knowledge, processes, and communications are addressed.

Systems Analyst

Facilitators of systems analysis who document and deliver information stored in a repository.

Repository

A network directory, CASE tool dictionaries, printed documentation, or an intranet Web site used to store documentation and deliverables produced by systems analysis tasks.

Model-Driven Analysis

A problem-solving approach that emphasizes drawing pictorial system models to document and validate existing or proposed systems.

Structured Analysis

A traditional approach to system analysis focusing on the flow of data through business and software processes; it is process-centered.

Data Flow Diagram

A key tool used in structured analysis to model processes, depicting existing and/or proposed processes in a system along with their inputs, outputs, and data stores.

Information Engineering (IE)

A traditional approach focusing on the structure of stored data in a system rather than on processes; it is data-centered.

Entity Relationship Diagram

The key tool to model data requirements in information engineering, widely used in designing relational databases.

Object-Oriented Approach

Views information systems as a collection of objects that encapsulate data and processes (methods).

Unified Modeling Language (UML)

A complete suite of modeling tools used in the object-oriented approach.

Accelerated Systems Analysis

Approaches that emphasize the construction of prototypes to rapidly identify business and user requirements for a new system.

Discovery Prototyping

Uses rapid development technology to help users discover their business requirements.

Rapid Architected Analysis

An accelerated analysis approach that also builds system models, made possible by reverse-engineering technology.

Reverse Engineering

The use of technology that reads the program code for an existing database, application program, and/or user interface and automatically generates the equivalent system model.

Scope Definition Phase

Phase concerned with the system owners' view of the existing system and the problems or opportunities that triggered the project.

Project Charter

A document that defines the project scope, plan, methodology, and standards; the final deliverable for the preliminary investigation phase.

Preliminary Problem Statement

Consists of the problems, opportunities, and directives that were identified during the scope definition phase.

Problem Analysis Phase

Phase that provides a thorough understanding of the problems, opportunities, and/or directives that triggered the project.

Context Diagram

A pictorial model that shows how the system interacts with the world around it and specifies in general terms the system inputs and outputs.

Cause-and-effect analysis

A technique in which problems are studied to determine their causes and effects.

Objective

A measure of success; something you expect to achieve, given sufficient resources.

Constraint

Something that will limit your flexibility in defining a solution to your objectives; essentially, constraints cannot be changed.