BUS 362 - Week 1

Systems development life cycle (SDLC)

Determining how an information system can support business needs including system design, building and delivery to users

• Phases: Planning, Analysis, Design, Implementation → system success

Planning Phase

The Why

• Project initiation: system request & feasibility analysis

• Project Plan: Work & staffing plan

System Request

Describes business reasons, key elements and system’s expected project value

Elements:

• Project Sponsor: person who initiates/drives the project, specifies business requirements, determines business value, & submits the system request

• Business Need: business reason for the system → why it exists (problem/opp)

• Business Requirements: new/enhanced capabilities the system will provide → what it will do

• Business Value: benefits the system creates for the organization

  • Tangible Value: quantified & measurable

  • Intangible Value: hard to measure (people/perception-related)

• Special Issues/Constraints: factors that affect the approval decision (ex. deadline)

Analysis Phase

Who, What, Where, When

• Determine strategy: study current system

• Determine/Gather requirements → most critical step as to-be system is still easy to change (no rework)

  • Understand “As-is” system → Identify Improvements → Develop “To-be” system

  • Create models

• System Proposal

• SP is presented through a system walkthrough & approval decision is made by the sponsor/steering committee

System Proposal

Summarizes requirements & analysis results → use cases, models, feasibility analysis & work plan

Design Phase

How the system works

• Design strategy: Build/buy/outsource

• Produces System Specification: describes how the system will be built → design components needed

• Present to steering committee for approval

Implementation Phase

System Construction (programming & testing), installation (training & conversion) & On-going system support (fixes)

Systems Analyst

Analyzes the business situation, identifies opportunities for improvements, and designs an IS to implement improvements

• Goal: Create value (profits)

• Need technical, business, analytical, interpersonal, management and ethical skills

Why Large project fail

Delays in decision-making, high turnover

System Analyst Roles & Focuses

• Systems Analyst: IS issues

• Business Analyst: Business issues

• Requirements Analyst: Requirements gathering

• Infrastructure Analyst: Technical infrastructure

• Software Architect: organization's overall IT environment and application design decisions

• Change Management Analyst: People and management issues

• Project Manager: project being completed on time, within budget, and delivers value

What Happens Before the SDLC?

Project Identification and initiation → to fulfill a business need or BPM identified

Business Process Management (BMP)

Methodology used to continuously improve business processes

BPM Cycle:

1. Map the process

2. Create step improvements to add value

3. Remove non-value-adding steps

4. Create/Adjust workflows

Business Process

set of steps/activities to acheive a goal

Business process automation (BPA)

Using technology to automate an existing process/workflows

Business process improvement (BPI)

Studying business processes and making moderate improvements to the process workflows or structure

Business process reengineering (BPR)

Complete redesign/overhaul of a process → entire workflow changed

Feasibility Analysis

whether a project should proceed → technical, economic & organizational feasibility