IS2210: Systems Analysis and Systems Design and Change

1. IS2210: Systems Analysis and Systems Design and Change Email: cathal.doyle@umail.ucc.ie Twitter: @InstCathalDoyle Website: www.cathaldoyle.com

2. Stakeholders • A stakeholder is any person, group, and/or organisation who has an interest in an existing or new information system • For IS stakeholders can be: • System Owners • System Users • Systems Analysts • System Designers • IT Vendors and Consultants

3. What We Intend AIM: Gather requirements and turn these into software Requirements Software

5. Systems Analysis • Understanding and specifying in detail what an information system should do. • A detailed study of how the current system functions • An assessment of what users would like to see in a new systems.

6. Requirements Analysis • This is a very difficult aspect of the IS development • Often the major cause of a project failure • Poor user input • Incomplete requirements • Changing requirements • Often 20%-50% of the original requirements change = miscommunication

7. Difficulties include: • Complex problems • Unknown domains • Nontechnical customers

8. Requirements Gathering • There are three areas under which requirements can be gathered: • Traditional Methods • Modern Methods • Radical Methods

9. How To: Part 1 • Traditional Methods: • Interviews • Surveys • Observation • Study Business Documents

10. Determining Requirements with Traditional Methods

12. Interviews

13. Aim of an Interview • Gather facts, opinions, and speculations • Observe body language and emotions

14. Interview Guidelines • Plan the interview • Checklist • Appointment • Be neutral • Listen and take notes

16. Interview Questions • Open-Ended • No pre-specified answers • conversational, questions with no specific answers in mind • Close-Ended • Respondent is asked to choose from a set of specified responses • structured, questions with limited range of possible answers

18. Questionnaire • Structured Questions • Often more questions than in interviews • These can be open or closed questions

19. Advantages • Lets people to recall information • Is less time consuming then an interview • Allows us to collect more information, from different people, in a short time

20. Disadvantages • No sense and feeling of persons • Not always possible to evaluate accuracy of answers • Less rich than an interview

21. Observation • Directly observe users • This is a good method to compliment interviews • Often difficult to collect unbiased data as people work differently when being observed

22. How It Works • We observe people in their daily routine to gather requirements • This may complement what they say in an interview/survey

23. Analysis of Existing Documents • Types of Information to be discovered • Problems with existing systems • Organisational Direction • Titles and Names of Key Individuals • Rules for Processing Data

24. Documents to be Analysed • Minutes of Meetings • Annual Reports • Business Missions and Strategy • Training Manuals • Flow Chart and Description of Existing Systems

25. How To: Part 2 • Modern Methods • Joint Application Design • Group Decision Support Systems (GDSS) • Prototyping

26. Joint Application Design (JAD) • Collect system requirements simultaneously from key people &reviewing system design • This is to bring a structure to the requirement determination phase of analysis

27. Participants • Session Leader: facilitates group process • Users: active, speaking participants • Managers: active, speaking participants • Sponsor: high-level champion, limited participation • Systems Analysis: should mostly listen • Scribe: record sessions activities • IS Staff: should mostly listen

29. End Result • Documentation detailing existing system • Features of a replacement system

30. Give organisational directions • Explain motivations for system • Explain organisation impact of system • Emphasis support for requirement determination • Emphasis collaboration during SR • Explain their need • How they will use • the system Users Managers • Is a neutral person • Plan meetings • Set agenda • Facilitate discussions • Check completeness of the agenda • Don’t contribute to idea generation & opinions • Resolve conflicts & disagreements • Solicit all ideas JAD leader IT staff Sponsor System analyst • Learn from discussion • Propose idea • Evaluate technical feasibility • Explain limitation of • current system • Limit their participation • Learn from end-users & managers • Don’t run the sessions • Don’t dominate the meeting • Fund the project • Attend beginning and end • Of meetings Roles in JAD

31. Disadvantages • Group meeting doesn’t allow all participants to speak • Outcomes reflect only those who are present • Suffer from the dominance of the leader • Some people are afraid to speak out of fear of being criticised • Most people unwilling to challenge the boss

32. GDSS • GDSS are an electronic meeting system, designed as a collaborative platform • This allows users to interact via a computer rather than speaking • This allows for anonymity to be used

33. Advantages • Less dominance of leaders during discussion • Comments will be criticised but not the person themselves • Important ideas are less likely to be missed • Poor ideas are more likely to be criticised

34. Disadvantages • Difficulties in solving a conflict

35. Prototyping • User quickly converts requirements to working version of a system • This leads to users seeing the requirements, and then asking for modifications, or new ones • Most useful when: • User requests are not clear • Few users are involved in the system

36. How To: Part 3 • Radical Methods • Business Process Reengineering (BPR)

37. Business Process Re-Engineering (BPR) • BPR is the search for, and implementation of radical change in business processes to achieve breakthrough improvements in products and services • In other words, BPR is looking for new ways to perform current tasks

38. Why BPR? • Previous traditional and modern methods for system requirements are used to automate existing business processes by new systems • Changing conditions such as pressure of competition, globalisation, rapid change of customer needs have lead to re-engineer existing processes • Reengineering is driven by improvement in speed, quality, and customer satisfaction

39. How To Perform BPR • We may ask the question: “If we were a new organisation, how would we accomplish this activity?” • Changing the way work is done now, implies to change the way information is shared, stored, and processed • New ways may be radically different from how things are currently done – e.g. Amazon.com

40. Summary • Interviews • Open-ended and closed-ended questions • Preparation is key!!! • Questionnaires • Must be carefully designed • Can contain close-ended, as well as open-ended questions

41. Other means of requirement gathering: • Observing workers • Analysing business documents • Joint Application Development (JAD) • Prototyping

42. Business Process Reengineering (BPR)

43. Thanks • Any Questions?