System Analysis Midterm 1 (Chapters 1-4)

CEN 3820 - System Analysis & Design

Information Technology

• combination of hardware and software products and services

• used to manage, access, communicate, and share information

Systems Analysis and Design

• step-by-step process for developing high-quality information systems

• Information system - combines technology, people, and data to perform certain business functions

System Analyst

• Investigates, analyzes, designs, develops, installs, evaluates, and maintains a company’s information systems

• Manages IT projects, conducts meetings, deliver presentations, and write memos, reports, and documentation

• Constantly interacts with users and managers within
  and outside the organization

System Analyst Role

• Acts a translators to managers and programmers

• Best line of defense in an IT disaster

• Most valuable skill: ability to listen

• Seeks feedback from users to ensure that systems do not go off track

System Analyst Knowledge, Skills, and Education

• Technical knowledge

• Communication and business skills

• Critical thinking skills

• Education: college degree in information systems, science, or business

• Some IT experience is required

• Certification: helps IT professionals learn new skills and gain recognition for efforts

Systems Analyst Career Opportunities

• Companies will need systems analysts to apply new information technology

• Explosion in e-commerce will fuel IT job growth

• Important factors:

  • Job titles

  • Company organization

  • Company size

  • Salary, location and future growth

  • Corporate culture

Information Systems

• System: a set of related components that produces specific results

• Mission-critical systems: vital to a company’s day-to-day operations

Data (component of an information system)

• All systems require input data

• Data: basic facts that serve as raw material

• Information: data transformed into output that is valuable to users

• Stored in tables

Hardware (component of an information system)

• Physical layer of information system

• Moore’s Law: transistors on an integrated circuit chip double about every 24 months

Software (component of an information system)

• controls hardware

• System software: manages hardware components

• Application software:

  • Support day-to-day business

  • Horizontal, vertical, and legacy systems

Processes (component of an information system)

Describe tasks and business functions performed to achieve specific results

People (component of an information system)

Stakeholders: individuals interested in an information system (includes the management group, users, IT staff members)

Major Trends That Shape Business Today

• Rapidly increasing globalization

• Technology integration for seamless information access

• Rapid growth of cloud-based computing and services

Internet Model

• Internet-based systems

• Ecommerce (electronic commerce)

• A series of web pages that provides a user interface to enable communication between a database management software and a web-based server

  • Mobile devices interact with the system using app

B2C (business-to-customer)

In a single convenient session, customers can:

• Do research and compare prices and features

• Check availability and arrange delivery

• Choose payment methods

B2B (business-to-business)

• Ecommerce was initially carried out using electronic data interchange (EDI)

• Most firms use supply chain management (SCM) software

  • Helps manage inventory levels, costs, and suppliers

Modeling

Produces a graphical representation of a concept or process

Business profile

Overview of a company’s mission, functions, organization, products, services, customers, suppliers, competitors, constraints, and future direction

Business process

Specific set of transactions, events, and results that can be described and documented

Business process model (BPM)

Graphically display one or more business processes

Business process modeling notation (BPMN)

Includes standard shapes and symbols to represent events
processes, workflows, and more

Enterprise computing

• Supports company-wide operations and data management requirements

  • Enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems provide cost-effective support for users and managers throughout the company

Transaction processing (TP) systems

• Processes data generated by day-to-day business operations

  • Customer order processing, accounts receivable, and warranty claim processing

Business support systems

• Provide job-related information support to users at all levels of a company

  • Especially the decision support capability

Management Information Systems (MIS)

• Previously, managers were the primary users

  • Today, employees at all levels need information to perform their jobs

Radio frequency identification (RFID)

Uses radio waves to track physical objects throughout the
retail process

Knowledge management

• Knowledge base: a large database that allows users to find information by entering keywords

• Inference rules: identify data patterns and relationships

User productivity systems

• Technology that improves productivity

  • Email, voice mail, video and web conferencing

• Groupware: runs on a network to enable data sharing in teams

Digital assistants

• Combinations of knowledge management systems and user productivity systems

• Enhanced by artificial intelligence and machine learning

  • Such as Amazon’s Alexa, Apple’s Siri, and Google Assistant

Systems integration

Most large companies require combination of transaction processing, business support, knowledge management, and user productivity features.

Organizational Information Models

• To model business functions and organizational levels

• A systems analyst must understand the company’s organizational model

  • To recognize who is responsible for specific
    processes and decisions and to be aware of what information is required by whom

Top managers (Organizational Information Model)

Develop long-range strategic plans

Middle managers and knowledge workers (Organizational Information Model)

• Middle managers provide direction, resources, and performance feedback to supervisors and team leaders

• Knowledge workers provide support for the organization’s basic functions

Supervisors and team leaders (Organizational Information Model)

Oversee operational employees and carry out day-to-day functions

Operational employees (Organizational Information Model)

• Rely on TP systems to enter and receive data they need to perform their jobs

• Empowered to handle tasks and make decisions that were assigned previously to supervisors

Structured analysis

Uses systems development life cycle (SDLC)

• Plan, analyze, design, implement, and support an information system

Object-oriented analysis

Combines data and processes as objects

Agile methods

Build a series of prototypes and constantly adjust them to user requirements (spiral model)

Prototyping

• Early working version of an information system

  • Disadvantage: important decisions might be made before business or IT issues are thoroughly understood

  • Prototypes based on careful fact-finding and modeling techniques can be extremely valuable

Tools for System Development

Computer-Aided Systems Engineering (CASE) tools

• Computer-aided software engineering

• Provide an overall framework

• Support design methodologies

• Generate program code

Application development (IT Department)

Systems are developed by teams consisting of users, managers, and IT staff members

Systems support and security (IT Department)

Provides vital protection and maintenance services

User support (IT Department)

Provides users with technical information, training, and productivity support (known as a help desk)

Database administration (IT Department)

Involves data design, management, security, backup, and access

Network administration (IT Department)

Includes hardware and software maintenance, support, and security

Web support (IT Department)

Specialists design and construct web pages, monitor traffic, and manage hardware and software

Quality assurance (QA) (IT Department)

QA team reviews and tests all applications and systems changes to verify specifications and software quality standards

Strategic Planning

• Process of identifying long-term organizational goals, strategies, and resources

  • Starts with a mission statement that focuses on long-term challenges and goals

    • Reflects the vision, purpose, and values

    • Critical success factor: a high-priority objective that must be achieved

SWOT Analysis

Strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats

• Commonly used to analyze a company’s technical, human, and financial resources

IT Department Role

• Careful project planning

  • Supports overall business strategy and operational needs

  • Scope is well-defined and clearly stated

  • Goals are realistic, and tied to specific statements, assumptions, constraints, factors, and other inputs

Mind maps

• Starts with a central concept or idea placed in the middle of the page

• Branches extend outward to represent related subtopics or ideas, which can further branch out into more specific details

Balanced scorecards

• A performance metric used to monitor and measure an organization’s performance

• Help organizations translate their vision and strategy into actionable objectives

Gap analysis

• To compare an organization’s current performance with its desired performance

• Allowing for the development of strategies to bridge those gaps

Systems Requests

• Starting point for most information systems projects

• Formal way of asking for IT support

  • Stronger controls to ensure data is secure and accurate

  • Reduced cost

  • More information

  • Better performance

  • Improved service

  • More support for new products and services

  • Often require new types of levels of IT support

Systems Review Committee

• Broader viewpoint enables a committee to establish priorities more effectively

  • One person’s bias is less likely to affect decisions

• Disadvantages

  • Action on requests must wait until committee meets

  • Members might favor projects requested by their own departments

Operational Feasibility

• Proposed system will be used effectively after it has been developed

  • Can be affected by organizational culture

  • Cannot be accurately measured but requires careful study

• Questions that can help predict feasibility

  • Is the project supported by management and users?

  • Will the new system result in a workforce reduction?

  • Do legal or ethical issues need to be considered?

Economic feasibility

• Projected benefits of a proposed system out-weigh total cost of ownership (TCO)

• Determination of TCO requires cost analysis

  • People, including IT staff and users

  • Hardware and equipment

  • Software

  • Formal and informal training

  • Licenses and fees

  • Consulting expenses and facility costs

  • Estimated cost of not developing or postponing

Technical feasibility

• Technical resources required to develop and operate the system

• Questions analysts should ask

  • Does the company have the necessary hardware, software, and network resources?

  • Does the company have the required technical expertise?

  • Does the proposed platform have sufficient capacity for future needs?

  • Will a prototype be required?

Schedule feasibility

• Project implemented in an acceptable time frame

  • Issue: interaction between time and costs

• Additional schedule feasibility issues

  • Can the company or the IT team control the factors that affect schedule feasibility?

  • Has management established a firm timetable?

  • What conditions must be satisfied?

  • Will an accelerated schedule pose any risks?

  • Will project management techniques be available?

Discretionary projects

Projects where management has a choice in implementing them

Nondiscretionary projects

• No choice

• Many are predictable

  • Annual updates to payroll

  • Tax percentages

  • Quarterly changes

Step 1 of The Preliminary Investigation

Understand the problem or opportunity

• Develop a business profile that describes current business processes and functions

• Understand how modifications will affect business operations and other information systems

• Identify the departments, users, and business processes involved

• Consider using a fishbone diagram

Step 2 of The Preliminary Investigation

Define the project scope and constraints

• Define specific boundaries, or extent, of the project

• Create a list with must do, should do, could do, and won’t do sections

• Avoid project creep

• Identify constraints

Step 3 of The Preliminary Investigation

Perform fact-finding

• Gather data about project usability, costs, benefits, and
  schedules

• Analyze organization charts

• Conduct interviews

• Review documentation

• Observe operations

• Conduct a user survey

• Analyze the data

Step 4 of The Preliminary Investigation

Analyze project usability, cost, benefit, and schedule data.

• What information must be obtained, and how will it be gathered and analyzed?

• Who will conduct the interviews? How many people will be interviewed?

• Will a survey be conducted? Who will be involved?

• How much time will it take to tabulate the results?

• How much will it cost to analyze the information and prepare a report with findings and recommendations?

Step 5 of The Preliminary Investigation

Evaluate feasibility to track whether a project is worth the investment.

• Operational feasibility

• Technical feasibility

• Economic feasibility

• Schedule feasibility

Project Manager or Project Leader

• Serve as the project coordinator

  • Assume administrative responsibilities

  • Negotiate with users

• Typically perform four main tasks

  • Project planning

  • Project scheduling

  • Project monitoring and controlling

  • Project reporting

Project Planning

• Identifying tasks

  • The size of the project is important

    • Amount of work and complexity increases and project scope increases

• Capabilities of project team members also affect time requirements

  • Brooks Law: adding manpower to a late software project only makes it later

• Estimating tasks time and cost

  • Person-days: the amount of work that one person can complete in one day

Project Scheduling

• specific timetable

• selecting and staffing the project team

• assigning specific tasks to team members

• arranging for other necessary resources

• Graphical Planning Aids: Gantt chart & PERT/CPM chart

Gantt Chart

• The goal was to show planned and actual progress on a complex project

• Offers a rapid overview

• A horizontal bar chart that represents a series of tasks

  • Display time on the horizontal axis

  • Arrange tasks vertically from top to bottom

    • The position of a bar shows the planned start and end of a task

    • The length of a bar indicates its duration

PERT/CPM Chart

• Program Evaluation Review Technique (PERT)

  • By US navy to manage complex projects

• Critical Path Method (CPM)

  • By private industry to manage complex projects

• Distinctions between them have disappeared. The technique can be called either PERT, CPM, or PERT/CPM

• More helpful than Gantt for scheduling, monitoring, and controlling projects

• A bottom-up technique

  • Know the tasks, their duration, and the order in which they must be performed

  • Calculate the time to complete the project

  • Identify the specifics tasks that will be critical to the project’s on-time completion

Critical Path

• includes all tasks that are vital to the project schedule

• If any task along the critical path falls behind schedule, the entire project is delayed.

Slack Time

The amount of time that a task can be late without affecting the completion date of a project

Project Risk Management

• The process of identifying, analyzing, anticipating, and monitoring risks to minimize their impact on the project

• Every IT project involves risks that systems analysts and project managers must address

Risk Management Plan

• A review of a project’s scope, stakeholders, budget, schedule, and any other internal or external factors that might affect the project

• Should define

  • Project roles and responsibilities

  • Risk management methods and procedures

  • Categories of risks

  • Contingency/response plans

Qualitative Risk Analysis

• Evaluate each risk by estimating the probability of occurrence and the degree of impact

• Can use a formula to weigh risk and impact value

• Can display the results in a two-axis grid

  • Such as a Microsoft Excel XY chart

  • Help a project manager to focus on the most critical areas

    • Where both the risk probability and potential impact are high

Quantitative Risk Analysis

• To understand the actual impact in terms of dollars, time, project scope, or quality

• Can involve a modeling process called what-if analysis

  • Allow a project manager to vary one or more elements in a model to measure the effect on other elements

Project Status Reports

• A project manager must report regularly to his or her immediate supervisor, upper management, and users

• Should explain the handling and monitoring of problems

• Most managers recognize that problems do occur on most projects

  • It is better to alert management sooner rather than later

Software Change Control

• The process of managing and controlling changes to an information system requirements

  • After the document has been submitted and accepted

• Changes to information system requirements are inevitable

Steps of Software Change Control

1. Complete a change request form.

2. Take initial action on the request.

3. Analyze the impact of the requested change

4. Determine the final disposition of the requested change.

Joint Application Development (JAD)

• A popular fact-finding technique

  • Bring users into the development process as active participants

• User involvement

  • Users have a vital stake in an information system (Should participate fully)

  • Successful systems must be user-oriented

• JAD team approach involves a task force of

  • Users, managers and IT professionals

  • Work together to gather information, discuss business needs, and define the new systems requirements

• End Product: a requirement model

Disadvantages & Advantages of JAD

Disadvantages

• More expensive and can be cumbersome

• If the group is too large relative to the size of the project

Advantages

• Allows key users to participate effectively

• When properly used can result in

  • A more accurate statement of system requirements

  • A better understanding of common goals

  • A stronger commitment to the success of the new system

Rapid Application Development (RAD)

• A team-based technique

  • Speed up information systems development and produce a functioning information systems

  • Rely heavily on prototyping and user involvement

    • Allow user to examine a working mod as early as possible

  • A complete methodology with a four-phase life cycle that parallels the traditional SDLC phases

• End product: A new system

RAD: Requirements planning phase

• Combine elements of the systems planning and systems analysis phases of the SDLC

• Users, managers, and IT staff members discuss and agree on business needs, project scope, constraints and system requirements

• End when the team agrees on key issues and obtains management authorization to continue

RAD: User design phase

• Users interact with systems analysts and develop models and prototypes

  • Typically, use a combination of JAD techniques and CASE tools to translate user needs into working models

• A continuous and interactive process allowing users to understand, modify, and eventually approve a working
  model of the system that meets their needs

RAD: Construction phase

• Focus on program and application development tasks similar to the SDLC

• Users continue to participate and still can suggest changes or improvements

RAD: Cutover phase

• Like the final tasks in the SDLC implementation phase

  • Including data conversion, testing, changeover to the new system, and user training

• As a result, the new system is built delivered, and
  placed in operation much sooner

RAD Objectives

• To cut development time and expense

  • By involving the users in every phase of systems development

  • In addition to user involvement, a successful RAD team must have IT resources, skills, and management support

• Especially useful when a company needs

  • An information system to support a new business function

  • To design a system that requires a highly interactive or complex user interface

Disadvantages & Advantages of RAD

Disadvantages

• Might allow less time to develop quality, consistency,
  and design standards

• RAD stresses the mechanics of the system itself and does not emphasize the company’s strategic business
  needs

Advantages

• Systems can be developed more quickly with
  significant cost savings

Agile Methods

• Attempt to develop a system incrementally

  • By building a series of prototypes and constantly adjusting them to user requirement

    • Developers revise, extend, and merge earlier versions into the final product

• A large community of agile-related software and services has evolved

• Many agile developers prefer not to use CASE tools at all

  • Rely on whiteboard displays and arrangements of movable sticky notes

Disadvantages & Advantages of Agile Methods

Disadvantages

• Team members need a high level of technical and interpersonal skills

• May be subject to significant change in scope

Advantages

• Are very flexible and efficient in dealing with change

• Frequent deliverables constantly validate the project and reduce risk

Functional decomposition diagrams (FDD)

• A top-down representation of a function or process

• Also called structured chart

• Can show business functions and break them down into lower-level functions and processes

Data flow diagrams (DFD)

To show how system stores, processes, and transforms data

Unified modeling language (UML)

Use object-oriented design concepts to visualize and document software system design

Use case diagram

Represent the interaction between users and the information system

Sequence diagram

• Show the timing of interactions between objects as they occur

• Can use a sequence diagram to show all possible outcomes or focus on a single scenario

System Requirements

• A feature that must be included in an information
  system to satisfy business requirements and be acceptable to users

• Serve as benchmarks to measure the overall
  acceptability of the finished system

• Fall into five general categories

  • Outputs, inputs, processes, performance, and controls

System Requirement: Outputs

• The Web site must report online volume statistics every four hours, and hourly during peak periods

• The inventory system must produce a daily report showing the part number, description, quantity on hand, quantity allocated, quantity available, and unit cost of all sorted by part number

System Requirement: Inputs

• Manufacturing employees must swipe their ID cards into online data collection terminals that record labor
  costs and calculate production efficiency

• The department head must enter overtime hours on a
  separate screen

System Requirement: Processes

• The student records system must calculate the GPA at
  the end of each semester

• As the final step in year-end processing, the payroll
  system must update employee salaries, bonuses, and
  benefits and produce tax data required by the IRS