Exam 1 INSY 3305 - UTA 2026

Chapter 1

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Systems development life cycle (SDLC)

A conceptual framework that organizes systems projects into phases and workflows used to develop and maintain information systems.

Phases

Major time-boxed segments of a process (e.g., inception, elaboration, construction, transition), each with specific objectives and deliverables.

Inception phase

The phase that establishes the vision, business case, scope, and high-level risks; outputs often include a project charter and initial plan.

Elaboration phase

The phase that refines the architecture, validates critical requirements, and mitigates major risks through analysis, modeling, and early prototypes.

Construction phase

The phase in which designs are translated into working software via coding, unit testing, and integration.

Transition phase

The phase that delivers the system to users, including deployment, training, data conversion, and readiness activities.

Workflows

Organized sequences of tasks that produce specific deliverables within or across phases.

Requirements workflow

Tasks that capture, analyze, validate, and manage stakeholder requirements throughout the project.

Analysis workflow

Activities that build logical models of what the system must do, independent of implementation details.

Design workflow

Tasks that elaborate architecture, components, and interfaces into a blueprint for implementation.

Implementation workflow

Activities for coding, unit testing, integrating, and packaging software components.

Testing workflow

Activities that plan, design, execute, and evaluate tests to verify and validate the system.

Deployment workflow

Activities that package, release, install, and configure the system in target environments.

Environment workflow

Supporting activities that establish tools, standards, and infrastructure for the team.

Project management workflow

Planning, tracking, communication, risk, scope, and change control that guide execution.

Operations and support workflow

Operating the system in production and providing support, incident response, and maintenance.

Configuration and change management workflow

Practices for versioning, baselining, and controlling changes to requirements, code, and other artifacts.

Methodology

A structured collection of principles, practices, roles, and deliverables that guide how projects are performed.

Agile development

An iterative, incremental approach emphasizing customer collaboration, small releases, continuous feedback, and responsiveness to change.

Scrum

An agile framework using sprints, a product backlog, roles (Product Owner, Scrum Master, Developers), and inspect-and-adapt ceremonies.

Extreme programming (XP)

An agile method emphasizing simplicity, pair programming, test-driven development, continuous integration, and small, frequent releases.

DevOps

A culture and set of practices that integrate development and operations to shorten delivery cycles, increase quality, and improve reliability.

Waterfall development

A linear, phase-gated process in which each phase is completed and approved before the next begins.

Rapid application development (RAD)

A family of methods that compress analysis, design, and construction via iterative prototyping, user involvement, and timeboxing.

Prototyping

Creating a partial, quickly built representation of the system to explore requirements, design options, or usability.

Throwaway prototyping

Prototypes built to learn and refine requirements, then discarded rather than evolved into the final system.

Iterative

A development style that repeats cycles of analyze-design-build-evaluate, refining the solution with each iteration.

Incremental

Delivering functionality in small parts so value is realized early and often.

Parallel development

A strategy in which subprojects develop different components simultaneously to reduce schedule length.

Phased development

A release strategy that divides the project into sequential phases, each delivering a subset of functionality.

Architecture-centric

An approach that treats the system's architecture as the primary organizing artifact for design and development.

Architecture design

The high-level structure defining major components, responsibilities, interfaces, and collaboration and deployment patterns.

Object-oriented methodology

A methodology that models systems as interacting objects with state and behavior, emphasizing encapsulation and reuse.

Unified Modeling Language (UML)

A standardized notation for modeling software systems with structural and behavioral diagrams.

Use-case driven

An approach in which use cases guide analysis, design, and testing by focusing on user goals and observable behavior.

Use case

A description of how an actor interacts with the system to achieve a goal, captured as scenarios with normal and alternative flows.

Static view

A perspective that shows the system's structural elements—classes, data, and relationships—rather than behavior over time.

Dynamic view

A perspective that describes system behavior over time—events, interactions, and state changes.

Structural view

A perspective that emphasizes components, classes, and relationships that compose the system's structure.

Behavioral view

A perspective that emphasizes how the system behaves in response to events and interactions.

Feasibility analysis

An assessment of whether a project is viable across technical, economic, schedule, and organizational dimensions.

System request

A formal submission that initiates consideration of a new system or change by describing business need, value, and scope.

System proposal

A document that summarizes analysis findings, alternatives, feasibility, and a recommended approach for decision makers.

System specification

The consolidated, precise requirements and models that describe what the system must do.

Project sponsor

The executive or manager who champions the project, provides funding, and owns the business outcomes.

Project manager

The person accountable for planning, coordinating, communicating, and delivering the project within constraints.

Project plan

The baseline schedule, scope, resources, budget, and control plans that guide project execution.

Support plan

A plan for post-deployment support including help desk procedures, SLAs, and incident/problem management.

Training plan

A plan for preparing users and support staff through training materials, sessions, and job aids to adopt the new system.

Appendix

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Class

A blueprint defining the attributes and behaviors shared by a set of objects.

Object

A runtime entity with identity, state (attribute values), and behavior (methods).

Attribute

A named property of a class that stores data about its instances.

Behavior

The observable actions of an object, realized through its methods in response to messages or events.

Method

An operation's implementation—code that defines how an object responds to a message.

Message

A request sent to an object to invoke one of its operations.

Encapsulation

Bundling data and behavior within a class while exposing only what is necessary through a defined interface.

Information hiding

Concealing internal details and making only essential features visible to reduce coupling and complexity.

Inheritance

A mechanism that allows a subclass to reuse and extend the structure and behavior of its superclass.

Subclass

A class that specializes a superclass by adding or modifying attributes and operations.

Superclass

A generalized class from which subclasses inherit common features.

Polymorphism

The ability for different classes to respond to the same message in type-appropriate ways.

Dynamic binding

Runtime association of a message with the method implementation appropriate to the object's actual type (late binding).

Static binding

Compile-time selection of which method implementation will execute (early binding).

State

The condition of an object at a point in time as defined by its attribute values and lifecycle status.

Instance

A concrete occurrence of a class; a specific object created at runtime.

Abstract class

A class that cannot be instantiated and typically declares abstract operations to be implemented by subclasses.

Concrete class

A fully implemented class whose instances can be created.

Public

A visibility level allowing access to members by any class.

Protected

A visibility level allowing access to members by the class and its subclasses.

Private

A visibility level restricting access to members to the defining class only.

Chapter 2

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Project

A temporary endeavor to create a unique product, service, or result under constraints.

Project initiation

Activities that define the opportunity, scope, feasibility, and secure approval to begin.

Project charter

A document that authorizes the project, names the manager, and summarizes scope, objectives, and stakeholders.

Stakeholder

Anyone who affects or is affected by the project or the resulting system.

Stakeholder analysis

Identifying stakeholders, their interests, influence, and engagement strategies.

Business need

A measurable problem or opportunity that motivates a project.

Business requirement

A high-level statement of what the business must achieve; decomposes into functional and nonfunctional requirements.

Strategic alignment

The degree to which a project supports the organization's strategy and priorities.

Economic feasibility

An assessment of whether expected benefits justify the costs and risks.

Technical feasibility

An assessment of whether the solution can be built with available technology, skills, and constraints.

Organizational feasibility

The degree of alignment with culture, management support, and capacity for change.

Cost-benefit analysis

Comparison of all costs and benefits (tangible and intangible) to assess economic desirability.

Return on investment (ROI)

A financial metric computed as (total benefits − total costs) ÷ total costs, often expressed as a percentage.

Present value (PV)

The value today of a future cash flow discounted at a given rate to reflect the time value of money.

Net present value (NPV)

The sum of present values of benefits minus present values of costs over time.

Break-even point

The time or volume at which cumulative benefits equal cumulative costs.

Program evaluation and review technique (PERT)

A scheduling method that accounts for uncertainty using optimistic, most likely, and pessimistic estimates to derive expected durations.

Critical path method

A technique that identifies the sequence of tasks that determines the minimum project duration.

Critical task

A task on the critical path; any delay to it delays the overall project completion.

Network diagram

A visual that shows tasks as nodes and dependencies as links, used for scheduling and critical path analysis.

Gantt chart

A timeline chart showing task durations, start/end dates, and dependencies.

Milestone

A significant point or event used to mark progress (e.g., phase gate or release).

Work breakdown structure (WBS)

A hierarchical decomposition of project work into deliverables and manageable tasks.

Estimation

Forecasting effort, duration, cost, and size based on scope and historical data.

Use-case points

A size estimation method based on actors, use cases, and adjustment factors.

Unadjusted use-case points (UUCP)

The base size derived from unadjusted actor and use-case weights prior to technical/environmental adjustments.

Unadjusted actor weight total (UAW)

The sum of weighted actor counts (simple/average/complex) used in UUCP.