SDLC

System Development Life Cycle

What is SDLC?
•SDLC stands for system development life cycle. It is a set of different setps that are
performed to develop a system. It is an organized way of developing successful systems.
It consists of different phases. These phases are as follows:
•1. Preliminary Investigation
•2. System Analysis
•3.System Design
•4.System Coding
•5. System Testing
•6. System Implementation
•7. System Maintenance
1. Preliminary Investigation
• Preliminary investigation is the first phase. In this phase, the system is investigated. The objective of
this phase is to conduct an initial analysis and findings of system
• 1. System Identification
• This phase is used to identify the need for a new system. It is very important step. Everything
performed in future depends on this phase.
• 2. System Scope
• The scope of the system is defined at this stage. The scope of a system can be reduced due to financial
and political problems etc.
• 3. Alternate Solutions
• A system may be developed by many ways. This step identifies all possible ways to develop a system. It
is used to select the best solution that fulfills the requirements.
• 4. Feasibility Study
• A system must be affordable and acceptable for the organization. A feasibility study is used to find
whether the proposed system is feasible. This decision depends on different issues such as financial
and time limits.
• 5. Preliminary Plan
• Preliminary plan consists of all findings in written form for approval. It is also called feasibility report. It
is normally submitted to the top managers of the organization. They may accept, modify or reject the
report.
2. System Analysis
• In this phase, the current business system is studied in detail to find out how it
works and how to improve it. The analyst conducts the following activities:
• 1. Need Analysis
•Need analysis is also called requirements analysis. It consists of all requirements of the
system from users and managers. The developed system must fulfill all these
requirements determined in this step.
•2. Data Gathering Techniques
•Data gathering techniques are used to collect detailed information about system. These
techniques are written documents, interviewing, questionnaries, observation and
sampling.
Data Gathering Techniques
•a. Written Documents
•The written documents of the current system are important source of information for the analyst. The analyst
can study these documents to find out the problems in the system. The documents include reports, forms and
business plans etc.
•b. Interviewing
•Interviewing is used to get information from managers and users by discussing the problems. The analyst asks
questions to understand the problems in a system. The questions asked in interview must be simple and
relevant.
•c. Questionnaires
•Questionnaires are used to collect information from a large number of people. It is very useful when interviews
of many users cannot be conducted. It is also very simple and quick method of collecting information.
•d. Observation
•Observation is a process of watching the people while they are working. It helps the analyst to detect problems
in the current system. It also enables the analyst to understand the working of the system more clearly.
•e. Sampling
•Sampling is a method of selecting users or units for getting information. A system in a large organization may
involve many users. It is not possible to interact with all users. Sampling is very useful in such situation.
3. Data Analysis
• Data analysis is a process of analyzing the data to obtain accurate information.
Many tools are used for this purpose such as data flow diagram and flowcharts etc.
•4. Analysis Report
•Analysis report is produced at the end of system analysis. It is submitted to the top
management for review. The report should consist of the following parts:
•It must explain the current system.
•It should explain the problems in the current system.
•It should describe the requirements and recommendations for new system.
Design
•In this phase of SDLC, the analyst works on the preliminary (Logical) design, detail
(Physical) design, and then writes a detailed report.
•Logical design: It describes the general functional capabilities of a proposed system. It
reviews the system requirements and considers the major system components. Case
tools and project management software (MS-Project, Gantt chart, PERT chart etc) may
be used to accomplish this task. You will learn about these tools and software in some
advanced course.
•Physical design: It describes how a proposed system will deliver the general capabilities
described in the Logical design. It will address the following points: Output
requirements, input requirements, storage requirements, processing requirements, and
system control and backup/recovery.
• Report: A detailed report on logical, physical design is to be submitted to the higher
management along with some sort of presentation, explaining them the details of the
proposed system.
Coding
• This is the core area of the system development process.
• It consists of writing the segments and programs, which will be coupled together in
the shape of a complete system. It needs a lot of time, effort and budget to acquire
a workable system.
• The program specifications, algorithms, flowcharts are given to the programmers/
software engineers to code the required programs.
• Off-the-Shelf-Components (already written programs) can also be used and
embedded in the system to save time and effort.
5. Testing
•Having proper hardware acquired, the programs can be tested in two stages:
• Unit-testing: It is also called modular testing where individual modules, programs can
be tested using test (sample) data.
• System-testing: In this, parts or modules are linked together to test their workability as
a one system. Actual data may be used to do the system testing and at the same time,
erroneous data can also be used to check whether the system fails or not.
•If the system passes all the tests, we can implement the system on the servers, so that
the organization and other clients can use it.
Implementation
•This activity consists of transferring the hardware, software and data (files, database
etc) to the new working environment (server). Users of the system are also trained in
this phase. Implementation may be achieved in five approaches.
• Direct Implementation: In this way, the users start using the new system right away
and stop working on the old one.
• Parallel Implementation: Using this approach, the new and old systems are used
side by side until it is felt that the new system is quite reliable.
• Phased Implementation: In this approach, parts of the system are implemented
from time to time, until the whole system is implemented
• Pilot Implementation: This type of implementation allows us to implement the
complete system but to a selected group of users or selected departments.