ITEC 4010: Systems Analysis

and Design II
Week 1: Introduction
 What is a System?
• A computer application is a
computer software program that
executes on a computing device
to carry out a specific function or
set of related functions.
• An information system is a set
of interrelated computer
components that collects,
processes, stores (usually in a
database), and provides as
output the information needed
to complete business tasks.
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Why is System Analysis and Design Important?

I would like to adjust planning,

capturing the vision, What should I code?
I need a system to image before
upload images… uploading… under- standing details,
specifying needs …

Users/Customers Developers

• Systems analysis and design (SA&D) is about providing the tools and
techniques to developers so you can understand
• the business need, capture the vision, define a solution, communicate the
vision and the solution, build the solution and direct others in building the
solution, confirm that the solution meets the need, and launch the solution
application.
System Analysis and Design (SA&D)
• Systems analysis consists of those activities that enable a person to understand
and specify what the new system should accomplish.
• describes in detail the “what” that a system must do to satisfy the need or to solve the
problem.
• Systems design consists of those activities that enable a person to describe in
detail the system that solves the need.
• describes in detail “how” the system will work.
• Skills required
• Soft Skills
• Communication skills
• …
• Hard Skills
• Detail specifications
• Design solutions
• …
Project and SDLC
• Initial development of a new system is usually done as a project.
• the activities required to develop a new system are identified, planned,
organized, and monitored.
• Project: a planned undertaking that has a beginning and an end and produces
some definite result.
• A project management framework to guide and coordinate the work
of the project team.
• Systems Development Life Cycle (SDLC) is the entire process
consisting of all the activities required to build, launch, and maintain
an information system
System Development Life Cycle
• 6 core processes/phases
• Initiation. Identify the problem or need and obtain approval to proceed.
• Planning. Plan and monitor the project—what to do, how to do it, and who
does it.
• Analysis. Discover and understand the details of the problem or the need.
• Design. Design the system components that solve the problem or satisfy the
need.
• Implementation. Build, test, and integrate system components.
• Deployment. Complete system tests and then deploy the solution.

Initiation Planning Analysis Design Implementation Deployment

Information Systems Development Process
• Information systems development process is the actual approach
used to develop a particular information system
• Waterfall model
• Traditional approach
• Predictive approach
• Assumes all phases can be
completed sequentially
with no overlap.
Waterfall Model Variants
• Waterfall model with overlap
• Allow overlaps between phases
• Provides more flexibility and efficiency
Waterfall Model Variants (V-Model)
• V-model
• Pays more attention to testing
• Testing are defined during
analysis and design phase.
• Helps to ensure high quality.
Adaptive/Iterative Models
• Spiral model
• An adaptive SDLC approach that cycles over and over again through
development activities until completion
The Unified Process (UP)
• A cycle generally ends with a release of the system as a product to a
customer.
• Analysis, Design, Implementation, Validation
• Each cycle can be in one of
four phases:
• Inception
• Elaboration
• Construction
• Transition
• Each phase can consist of a
number of iterations
• Several activities are
performed in parallel in each
iteration.
Adaptive/Iterative Models
• Rapid Application Development (RAD)
• System prototyping
• Provide a “quick and dirty” prototype for performing evaluation and collecting
feedbacks.
Agile Development
• Agile development
• is a philosophy and set of guidelines for developing information systems in an
unknown, rapidly changing environment, and it can be used with any system
development methodology.
• Manifesto for Agile Software Development
• Value responding to change over following a plan
• Value individuals and interactions over processes and tools
• Value working software over comprehensive documentation
• Value customer collaboration over contract negotiation
• Popular methods
• Scrum
• eXtreme Programming (XP)
Agile Development
• Extreme programming
• Emphasizes customer satisfaction and teamwork.
• Communication, simplicity, feedback, and courage are core values.
• Project teams are kept small.
• For small projects with highly motivated, cohesive, stable, and experienced
teams
SDLC summary
• 6 core processes/phases
• Development methods
• Predictive models
• Iterative/adaptive models
• Agile methods

Initiation Planning Analysis Design Implementation Deployment

Project Initiation
• Identify the problem
• to respond to an opportunity
• Increase market share, open up new markets, etc.
• Can be identified with strategic plans.
• to resolve a problem
• Usually requested by middle managers inside organizations.
• New sales commission schedule, new report to assess productivity, etc.
• to respond to an external directive
• E.g., respond to legislative changes that require new information/reports.
Project Initiation
• Define the problem
• Develop a System Vision Document
• a document to help define the scope of a new system
• System Vision Document
• Problem description
• Business benefits
• the benefits that accrue to the organization; usually measured in dollars
• System capabilities
• the required capabilities of the system
Project Initiation
Problem Statement
Obtaining Approvals
• Criteria to be considered
• Estimated Time
• Estimated Cost
• Anticipated Benefit
Project Selection
• Cost/benefit analysis
• compare the estimated costs with the anticipated benefits to calculate
whether investing in the project will be beneficial
• Net Present Value (NPV)
• the present value of dollar benefits and dollar costs of a particular investment
Net Present Value (NPV)
• Break-even point
• the point in time at which dollar benefits offset dollar costs
• Pay-back period
• the time period after which the dollar benefits have offset the dollar costs
Tangible/Intangible Cost/Benefit
• Tangible cost/benefit
• cost/benefit that can be measured or estimated in terms of dollars

• Intangible cost/benefit
• Cost/benefit that accrues to an organization but that can’t be measured
quantitatively or estimated accurately
• E.g., increased customer satisfaction, reduced employee morale, etc.
Determining Project Risk and Feasibility
• Aspects
• Organizational
• Fear of change of job responsibilities
• Technological
• Complex/new technology with uncertainty
• Resource
• Limited resources
• Schedule
• Tight deadlines
Planning Phase
• Project Planning
• Project Scope Statement
• Work Breakdown Structure (WBS)
• Project schedule (Gantt chart)
• Risk register
• …
Work Breakdown Structure (WBS)
• Work Breakdown Structure (WBS)
• The list or hierarchy of activities and
tasks of a project
• used to estimate the work to be done
and to create a detailed work schedule
• Guidelines for creating WBS
• There should be a way to recognize
when the task is complete.
• The definition of the task should be
clear enough so one can estimate the
amount of effort required.
• As a general rule for software projects,
the effort should take one to five
working days.
Gantt Chart
• Gantt chart
• A bar chart that shows the activities as bars on a horizontal timeline
• Critical path
• Tasks that must stay on schedule.
• If any of the critical path tasks cause a schedule slip, then the entire project is
delayed.
Software System Development
• System development methodology
• a set of comprehensive guidelines for the SDLC that includes specific models,
tools, and techniques
• provides guidelines for every facet of the systems development life cycle.
• Models
• Tools
• Techniques
Models
• In project initiation & planning phases
• NPV analysis
• Gantt chart
• In system development
• A representation of an important aspect of
the real world.
• Abstraction
• Representations of
• inputs, outputs, processes, data, objects, object
interactions, locations, networks, and devices,
among other things.
• Graphical Models
• Diagrams and charts
Tools
• Software application that assists developers in creating models or other
components required for a project
• Integrated development environments (IDEs)
• a set of tools that work together to provide a comprehensive development and
programming environment for software developers
• Visual modeling tools
• tools that help analysts create and verify graphical models and may also generate
program code
• CASE Tools
• Computer-Aided Software Engineering
• Upper-CASE: analysis phase
• Lower-CASE: design phase
Techniques
• Guidelines that helps an analyst complete an activity or task.
• often includes step-by-step instructions for creating a model
• might include more general advice on collecting information from system users
Software Development Approaches
• Different companies could have different methodologies
• Two general approaches
• The Structured Approach (traditional approach)
• Structured analysis
• Structured design
• Structured programming
• The Object-Oriented Approach
• Object-oriented analysis
• Object-oriented design
• Object-oriented programming
The Structured Approach
• Structured
Programming
• Guidelines to improve
the quality of
computer programs.
• Each module has one
start point and one
end point and uses
sequence, decision, and
repetition constructs
only
The Structured Approach
• Top-down programming
• Divides complex programs into a hierarchy of program modules.
• Modules on the top of the hierarchy controls program execution by “calling”
lower-level modules
The Structured Approach
• Structured Design
• The design process of organizing a program
into a set of modules and organizing those
modules into a hierarchical structure
• The modules and the arrangement of
modules are shown graphically by a
structure chart
• Two main principles: program modules
should be
• Loosely couple
• Each module is as independent of the other
modules as possible
• Allows each module to be designed and
modified without interfering with the
performance of others
• Highly cohesive
• Each module accomplishes one clear task
• Easier to understand what each module does
• Changes to the module will not affect others
The Structured Approach
• Structured Analysis defines
• what the system needs to do (the
processing requirements)
• what data the system needs to
store and use (data requirements)
• what inputs and outputs are
needed
• how the functions work together
to accomplish tasks.
• Data Flow Diagram (DFD)
• a structured analysis model
showing inputs, processes,
storage, and outputs of a system
• Process, flow, store, external
entity
The Structured Approach
• Entity-Relationship Diagram (ERD)
• A model of data needed in the system
• Illustrates the relationship between data entities
The Object-Oriented Approach
• System development based on the
view that a system is a set of
interacting objects that work
together
• Object
• a thing in an information system that
responds to messages by executing
functions or methods
• E.g., Customers, employee, button,
menu, request, response, etc.
The Object-Oriented Approach
• Object-oriented analysis (OOA)
• the process of identifying and defining the use cases and the sets of objects
(classes) in the new system
• Object-oriented design (OOD)
• defining all of the types of objects necessary to communicate with people and
devices in the system, showing how objects interact to complete tasks, and
refining the definition of each type of object so it can be implemented with a
specific language or environment
• Object-oriented programming (OOP)
• programming using object-oriented languages that support object classes,
inheritance, reuse, and encapsulation
Unified Modeling Language (UML)
• UML
• Provides a standard notation that can be used by all object-oriented methods
• Use case diagrams
• Class diagrams
• Interaction diagrams
• State machine diagrams
• Activity diagrams

A class diagram
The Object-Oriented Approach
• Benefits
• Naturalness: it is natural/intuitive for people because we tend to think about
the world in terms of tangible objects.
• Reusability: classes can be reused.
• almost all systems with graphic interface use menus, dialog boxes, windows, and buttons
• many systems within the same company also use customer, product, and invoice classes.
Summary
• Software Development Life Cycle
• Information Systems Development Process
• Project Initiation
• Project Planning
• Software Development Approaches