Key Concepts in Systems Development and Modeling

Initial Visioning

An organizational activity that articulates at a high level the business problem or opportunity that a systems development project will address.

Control Flow

Movement of control within an activity diagram from one activity to another.

Decision node

Specifies a point in the process model in which the control flow of the process moves in a different direction depending on a decision parameter value.

Associative entity

Entity type that represents a many-to-many relationship between two entity types.

Multivalued Attribute

An attribute that may hold multiple values at the same time.

Intelligent modeling

The principle of creating requirements artifacts only when they add value in each project context at a particular stage of the process.

Epic

A user story that summarizes multiple user goals/needs.

User Interface Prototype

Model of an application with limited implementation of key functionality.

Acceptance criteria

Criteria that has to be fulfilled for an implementation of a user story to be acceptable. They serve as constraints that limit acceptable implementation options.

MoSCoW model

An approach to prioritizing user stories (and acceptance criteria) in terms of whether they are a 'must-have', 'should-have', 'could-have', 'wont-have'.

Main Success Scenario

The most basic version of a sequence of process steps where there are no errors.

Extension

Details a variation of or an exception to the sequence of process steps that constitute the Main Success Scenario.

Planning Fallacy

Systematic tendency in information systems projects to underestimate system costs and overestimate business benefits.

Time Value of Money

Principle that money received today is worth more than the same amount of money received later.