Systems Analysis

1. Systems Analysis • Requirements determination • Requirements structuring • Alternative generation & selection

2. Performing Requirements Determination • Gather information on what system should do from many sources • Users • Reports • Forms • Procedures

3. Performing Requirements Determination • Characteristics for gathering requirements • Impertinence • Question everything • Impartiality • Find the best organizational solution • Relaxation of constraints • Assume anything is possible • Attention to detail • Every fact must fit in with every other fact • Reframing • View the organization in new ways

4. Deliverables and Outcomes • Types of deliverables: • Information collected from users • Existing documents and files • Computer-based information • Understanding of organizational components • Business objective • Information needs • Rules of data processing • Key events

5. Methods for Determining Requirements • Traditional • Modern • Radical

6. Traditional Methods for Determining Requirements • Individual interviews • Discover issues with the current system and needs for the future • Questionnaires • Discover issues with the current system and needs for the future • Observation of workers • See how data are handled and what information people need to do their jobs • Document Analysis • Study business policies and rules

7. Interviews • Gather facts, opinions and speculations • Observe body language and emotions • Guidelines • Plan • Checklist • Appointment • Be neutral • Listen • Seek a diverse view

8. Interview Questions

9. Questionnaires • More cost-effective than interviews • Choosing respondents • Should be representative of all users • Types of samples • Convenient • Random sample • Purposeful sample • Stratified sample

10. Questionnaires • Design • Mostly closed-ended questions • Can be administered over the phone or in person • Can be paper or electronic

11. Direct Observation • Serves as a good method to supplement interviews • Often difficult to obtain unbiased data • People often work differently when being observed • Can observe only a limited amount of time, people and sites

12. Analyzing Documents • Types of information to be discovered: • Problems with existing system • Opportunity to meet new need • Organizational direction • Names of key individuals • Values of organization • Special information processing circumstances • Rules for processing data

13. The Appropriate Technique?

14. Modern Methods for Determining Requirements • Joint Application Design (JAD) • Brings together key users, managers and systems analysts • Purpose: collect system requirements simultaneously from key people • Conducted off-site • Prototyping • Repetitive process • Rudimentary version of system is built • Replaces or augments SDLC • Goal: to develop concrete specifications for ultimate system

15. Joint Application Design (JAD) • Participants • Session Leader (Facilitator) • Users & Managers • Sponsor • Systems Analysts & IS Staff • Scribe • End Result • Documentation detailing existing system • Features of proposed system

16. Prototyping • Quickly converts requirements to working version of system • Once the user sees requirements converted to system, will ask for modifications or will generate additional requests • Most useful when: • User requests are not clear • Few users are involved in the system • Designs are complex and require concrete form • History of communication problems between analysts and users • Tools are readily available to build prototype

17. Prototyping • Drawbacks • Tendency to avoid formal documentation • Difficult to adapt to more general user audience • Sharing data with other systems is often not considered • Systems Development Life Cycle (SDLC) checks are often bypassed

18. Radical Methods for Determining Requirements • Business Process Reengineering • Search for and implementation of radical change in business processes to achieve breakthrough improvements in products and services

19. Analysis Strategies • Business Process Automation • Business Process Improvement • Business Process Re-engineering

20. BPR Goals • Reorganize complete flow of data in major sections of an organization • Eliminate unnecessary steps • Combine steps • Become more responsive to future change

21. Business Process Reengineering • Identification of processes to reengineer • Identify key business processes • Set of activities designed to produce specific output for a particular customer or market • Focused on customers and outcome • Same techniques are used as were used for requirements determination • Identify specific activities that can be improved through BPR

22. Business Process Reengineering • To identify activities that can be improved through BPR ask: • How important is the activity to delivering an outcome? • How feasible is changing the activity? • How dysfunctional is the activity?

23. Disruptive Technologies

24. Results of Requirements Determination • Structured according to three views of the information system: • Process • Data flow diagrams • Logic • Structured English & Decision tables • Data • Data modeling