SE101.

3 Systems Analysis and Design

Topic 1
What is systems analysis and design, and why is it
important?

Chalani Oruthotaarachchi
1-0
 Module Overview

▪ No of Credits: 03

▪ Assignments : 40%
▪ Examination: 60%
 Required Text Book
• Systems Analysis and Design in a Changing
World, Sixth Edition By John W. Satzinger,
Robert B. Jackson, and Stephen D. Burd

• System Analysis And Design, Fifth Edition

by Alan Dennis, Barbara Haley Wixom, and
ROBERTA M. Roth
 Outline
▪ The systems analyst.
▪ The Systems Development Life Cycle
(SDLC).
▪ Information system project identification
and initiation.
▪ Work Breakdown Structure
▪ Feasibility analysis.
1-3
 Important terms
▪ Computer Application (app)
– A computer software program that executes on a
computing device to carry out a specific function
or set of related functions

▪ Information System
– A set of interrelated computer components that
collects, processes, stores, and provides as output
the information needed to complete business
tasks
1-4
 Important terms contd.
▪ Systems analyst
– The person who is able to understand and capture the
vision of the persons funding the project.

▪ Systems analysis and design (SA&D)

– Systems analysis
• those activities that enable a person to understand and specify
what the new system should accomplish
– Systems design
• those activities that enable a person to define and describe in
detail the system that solves the need

1-5
 THE SYSTEMS ANALYST
▪ Plays a key role in IS development projects.
▪ Works closely with all project team members so that the
team develops the right system in an effective way.

▪ Understand how to apply technology in order to solve

problems.

▪ Serve as change agents who

– identify organizational improvement needed, design systems to
implement those changes, and train and motivate others to use the
systems.

1-6
 Exercise 1

▪ Identify skills needed by a systems analyst to

efficiently perform his/her role.

1-7
 Systems Development Life Cycle
(SDLC)
▪ The process of determining how an information
system (IS) can support business needs,
designing the system, building it, and delivering
it to users.

1-10
(cont’d)
▪ The SDLC is composed of four fundamental phases:
• Planning
• Analysis
• Design
• Implementation

▪ Each of the phases is composed of steps, which rely on

techniques that produce deliverables (specific
documents that explain various elements of the
system).
1-11
 Pre-Project Activities
▪ Before the project actually begins, the client can
work with a systems analyst to identify and
document the specific business need as well as
define a specific project objective.

▪ Goals:
– Identify the problem and document the objective of the solution
system
– Obtain approval to commence the project

▪ System Vision Document

1-12
 System Vision Document

▪ Defines the high-level

scope and purpose of
a program, product,
or project.

1-13
 Exercise 2

▪ Select any systems development project that

you prefer and create a system vision
document for it.

1-14
 SDLC- Planning
▪ The fundamental process of understanding
– why an information system should be built, and
determining
– how the project team will go about building it

▪ Two steps:
– Project identification and selection
– Project initiation and planning

▪ Outcomes:
– System request, Feasibility report
1-15
 SDLC- Analysis
▪ The analysis phase answers the questions
– who will use the system
– what the system will do
– where and when it will be used

▪ Steps
– Study of the current system (as-is system)
– Requirements gathering

▪ Outcome:
– System proposal
1-16
 Contd.
▪ Content of system proposal
– Title page of project.
– Table of contents.
– Executive summary (including recommendations).
– Results of the systems study with appropriate
documentation.
– Systems alternatives (three or four possible solutions).
– Systems analysts’ recommendations.
– Proposal summary.
– Appendices (assorted documentation, summary of phases,
correspondence, and so on).
1-17
 SDLC- Design
▪ Decides how the system will operate,
– in terms of the hardware, software, and network
infrastructure; the user interface, forms, and reports
that will be used; and the specific programs, databases,
and files that will be needed.

▪ Four steps
– Design Strategy
– Architecture Design
– Database and File Specifications
– Program Design

▪ Outcome
– Systems specification 1-18
 SDLC- Implementation
▪ The system is either developed or purchased
(in the case of packaged software) and
installed.
▪ Usually the longest and most expensive part
of the process.

▪ Three steps
– System Construction
– Installation
– Support Plan
1-19
End of the session

1-20
SE101.3 Systems Analysis and Design

Planning an Information Systems Project

Chalani Oruthotaarachchi

1-0
 What we do
▪ Feasibility Analysis
▪ Selecting Project Methodology
▪ Time Estimation
– Create a GANTT Chart
▪ Managing the Project Scope
– Work Breakdown Structure (WBS)
▪ Staffing the Project

1-1
Feasibility Study

1-2
 FEASIBILITY ANALYSIS

▪ Guides the organization in determining whether to

proceed with a project.

▪ Identifies the important risks associated with the

project that must be managed if the project is
approved.

1-3
 Importance of Feasibility Study

▪ Exploring Reality
▪ Possibilities of Alternate Ways
▪ Knowledge of Financial Risks
▪ Understanding Possibility of Business
Operation

1-4
 Exercise
▪ Discuss whether below projects are feasible
or not:
– Upgrading a University's Building which was built in the
1970s—was outdated.

– Technical team is working on creating a Self-Driving Car

with Top Speed up to 300 KMPH

– Starting up a restaurant in your town as a family business.

1-5
 Key Areas to Cover

▪ Most include techniques to assess three areas

related to Software development projects :
– Technical feasibility
– Economic feasibility
– Operational feasibility
– Schedule feasibility

1-6
 Technical Feasibility
“Can we build it?”

– Users’ and analysts’ should be familiar with the

application.
– Familiarity with the technology
– Project size
– Compatibility of the new system with the
technology that already exists

1-7
(cont’d)
▪ Risks can endanger the successful completion
of a project. The following aspects should be
considered:
– Users’ and analysts’ should be familiar with the
application.
– Familiarity with the technology
– Project size
– Compatibility of the new system with the
technology that already exists
1-8
 Operational Feasibility
▪ Operational feasibility of the system is how well the
system ultimately will be accepted by its users and
incorporated into the ongoing operations of the
organization.

“If we build it, will they come?”

▪ Stakeholder analysis

1-9
(contd.)
▪ A stakeholder is a person, group, or
organization that can affect a new system
- Project champion
- System users
- Organizational management
- Other stakeholders

1-10
 Schedule Feasibility
▪ The probability of a project to be completed
within its scheduled time limits by a planned
due date.
▪ If a project has a high probability to be
completed on-time, then its schedule
feasibility is appraised as high

– “Is it possible to complete on time?”

1-11
 Economic Feasibility
▪ Economic feasibility analysis is also called a
cost-benefit analysis, that identifies the costs
and benefits associated with the system.

“Should we build the system?”

▪ Cost-benefit analysis
1-12
 Identify Costs and Benefits
▪ The costs and benefits and be broken down in
to four categories:
– Development costs
– Operational costs
– Tangible benefits
– Intangibles

1-13
 Feasibility Study Process
Several Steps are included
1. Information Collection
2. Information Assessment
3. Feasibility Report writing

1-14
 Practice exercise
▪ Think of any life event as you prefer and
conduct a feasibility study (covering technical
feasibility, operational feasibility, schedule
feasibility, and economic feasibility). Produce
your answers as a short report and upload to
the given link in LMS.

1-15
End of the session

1-16
SE101.3 Systems Analysis and Design

Planning an Information Systems Project:

Selecting Project Methodology

Chalani Oruthotaarachchi

1-0
 What we do
▪Feasibility Analysis
▪Selecting Project Methodology
▪Time Estimation
– Create a GANTT Chart
▪Managing the Project Scope
– Work Breakdown Structure (WBS)
▪Staffing the Project
1-1
 CREATING THE PROJECT PLAN
▪ Project management phases consist
of
- initiation
- planning
- execution
- control, and
- enclosure.
 Project Methodology Options
▪ A methodology is a formalized approach to
implementing the SDLC.

- Waterfall Development
- Parallel Development
- V-model (variation of the Waterfall Development)
- Rapid Application Development (RAD)
- Iterative Development
- Prototyping
- Agile Development

2-3
THE SYSTEMS DEVELOPMENT LIFE
CYCLE (SDLC)

1-4
Waterfall Development

2-5
Parallel Development

2-6
V-model

2-7
 Rapid Application Development
(RAD)
▪ A combination of
– CASE (computer-aided software engineering) tools,
– JAD (joint application development) sessions
– Fourth-generation/visual programming languages
(e.g., Visual Basic.NET), and
– Code generators

▪ Disadvantage:
– May occur scope creep and/or feature creep.
2-8
RAD: Iterative Development

2-9
RAD: System Prototyping

2-10
RAD: Throwaway prototyping

2-11
 Agile Development
▪ A group of programming-centric methodologies that
focus on streamlining the SDLC.
▪ Includes face-to-face communication
▪ Cycles are kept short (one to four weeks)
▪ Fast failure is a desirable aspect
▪ Several popular approaches to agile development,
including
– extreme programming (XP),
– Scrum, and
– dynamic systems development method (DSDM)
2-12
Agile Development

2-13
 Scrum Methodology
▪ Most widely preferred agile software development
approach.
▪ Scrum teams work in sprints, which is a period that
could last anywhere between 2 to 4 weeks

2-14
Lean Methodology

2-15
 Lean Methodology contd.
▪ Focus is on taking an initial idea and
developing a minimum viable product (MVP).
▪ Feedback on the MVP is generated in two
forms:
– (1) direct observation and discussion with the users, and
– (2) usage statistics gathered from the software itself.

▪ Based on the feedback, a final product is

completed.
▪ Lean methodology vs. other methodologies
2-16
 Lean Methodology contd.
▪The Lean model follows a set of
seven principles
– Eliminate waste
– Amplify/Refine learning
– Decide as late as possible
– Deliver as fast as possible
– Empower the team
– Conceptual integrity
– See the whole/Operating from the top-level
2-17
 DevOps Methodology
▪ It emerged from two trends:
– application of Agile and Lean practices to operations work
– collaboration between development and operations staff
at all stages of the SDLC

▪ Features:
– Updates to products are small but frequent
– Continuous feedback and process improvement
– Automation of manual development processes

2-18
 Selecting the Appropriate
Development Methodology
▪ Important factors to consider in selecting the
development methodology
- Clarity of User Requirements
- Familiarity with Technology
- System Complexity
- System Reliability
- Short Time Schedules
- Schedule Visibility
End of the session

2-21
SE101.3 Systems Analysis and Design

Planning an Information Systems Project:

Time, scope, and staff management

Chalani Oruthotaarachchi

1-0
 What we do
▪ Feasibility Analysis
▪ Selecting Project Methodology
▪ Time Estimation
– Create a GANTT Chart
▪ Managing the Project Scope
– Work Breakdown Structure (WBS)
▪ Staffing the Project
▪ The Work Plan
▪ CASE tools
1-1
Estimating the Project Time Frame
Estimating Project Time Using Industry Standards
 Developing the Work Plan
▪ Identify Tasks
 Managing the size of the project :
Work Breakdown Structure (WBS)
▪ A "deliverable oriented hierarchical
decomposition of the work to be executed by
the project team.“

▪ It provides the framework for all deliverables

throughout the project life cycle.

1-4
Example

1-5
(cont’d)
▪ Work Breakdown Structure

© Copyright 2011 John Wiley

2-6
& Sons, Inc.
 Exercise
▪ Imagine you are a project manager that is
working with a web site development project.
Create a simple WBS for this project. You are
allowed to make any assumption.
 Managing the time of the project:
Gantt Chart
• A type of bar chart that illustrates a project schedule.

2-8
 Exercise 1
▪ Create a Gantt chart for the project including activities in the
below table.
– The project will be started on Monday (02nd May).
– The first day of a week in the Gantt Chart should be Sunday.
– Saturday and Sunday should be considered as holidays.

1-9
 STAFFING THE PROJECT
▪ Staffing Plan
- Staffing levels will change over a
project’s lifetime
- Adding staff may add more overhead
than additional labor
- Using teams of 8-10 reporting in a
hierarchical structure can reduce
complexity
(cont’d)
Reporting structure
(cont’d)
▪ The staffing plan describes the kinds of
people working on the project
▪ The project charter describes the project’s
objectives and rules
▪ A functional lead manages a group of analysts
▪ A technical lead oversees progress of
programmers and technical staff members
 The project work plan
▪
 Coordinating Project Activities
▪ CASE (computer-aided software engineering)
tools – A category of software that automate
all or part of the development process.
- Upper CASE
- Lower CASE
- Integrated CASE

▪ CASE repository
End of the session

1-16
Systems Analysis and Design

Requirements Determination

Chalani Oruthotaarachchi

2-0
 Outline

▪Requirement determination.
▪ Requirement elicitation
techniques.
▪ Requirement analysis strategies.
THE ANALYSIS PHASE

2-2
THE ANALYSIS PHASE
▪ The basic process of analysis involves three
steps:
- Understand the existing situation (the as-is system)
- Identify improvements
- Define the requirement for the new system (the to-be
system).

▪ The final deliverables of the analysis phase is

the system proposal.

3-3
Relationship Between Information
Gathering and Model Building

4
 What is a Requirement?
▪ A requirement is a statement of what the system must
do or what characteristics it needs to have.

▪ Requirements describe
- what the business needs (business requirements)
- what the users need to do (user requirements)
- what the software should do (functional requirements)
- characteristics the system should have (non-functional
requirements)

3-5
Requirements contd.

2-6
More about functional
requirements

2-7
 Exercise
Requirements for Proposed System:
The system should…
1. Serve the web users. 11. increase market share
2. include the company logo and color scheme. 12. shorten order processing time
3. connect all the branches. 13. reduce customer service costs
4. include actual and budgeted cost information. 14. lower inventory spoilage
5. provide management reports. 15. improve responsiveness to customer
6. have 2-second maximum response time for service requests
predefined queries and 10-minute maximum 16. schedule a client appointment
response time for ad hoc queries. 17. place a new customer order
7. display information from all company 18. re-order the inventory
subsidiaries. 19. determine available credit of clients
8. print subsidiary reports in the primary language 20. look up account balances
of the subsidiary.
9. provide monthly rankings of salesperson
performance.
10. include sales information that is updated daily.

Categorize these requirements into business, user, functional, and non functional
2-8
requirements.
REQUIREMENTS ELICITATION TECHNIQUES

2-9
 (1) Interviews
▪ Structured vs. unstructured interviews
▪ Basic steps:
– Selecting Interviewees
– Designing Interview Questions
– Preparing for the Interview
– Conducting the Interview
– Post-Interview Follow-up

3-10
Criteria for Selecting interviewees
▪ Who has the relevant information?
▪ Who is accessible?
▪ Who is willing to give relevant information?
▪ Who is most able to give the information?

2-11
Designing interview questions

3-12
Face-to-face or ‘remote’ interviewing?

2-13
 Exercise
▪ Whom could you interview to find out more about following
programs/projects?

1. Recently there's been a great deal of concern over high school and
college students downloading past papers from "paper mill" websites.
Students then put their names on the papers and submit the papers
for course credit. You are conducting a research on this topic.

2. The CEO of your company has decided to fund a program for the arts
in the local junior high schools and has chosen you to lead the project.

3. Your team is assigned to build an information system for managing

figure-print based lecture attendance management system for a
university.
2-14
 (2) Questionnaires
▪ A questionnaire is a set of written questions for
obtaining information from individuals.

▪ Good questionnaire design

3-15
 Questionnaire practice
Organize yourselves into small groups. Have each person develop a short
questionnaire to collect information about any process the group prefers
(e.g., working on a class assignment, making a sandwich, paying bills, getting
to class). It should collect information about;
– the frequency in which group members perform process
– how long it takes them
– how they feel about the process
– opportunities for improving the process
Once everyone has completed his or her questionnaire, ask each member to
pass it to the right and then complete his or her neighbor’s questionnaire.
Pass the questionnaire back to the creator when it is completed.

QUESTIONS:
1. How did the questionnaire you completed differ from the one you created?
2. What are the strengths of each questionnaire?
3. What would you change about the questionnaire that you developed?
2-16
(3) Joint Application Development (JAD)
▪ JAD allows the project team, users, and management
to work together to identify requirements for the
system.

▪ It can reduce scope creep by 50%,

▪ JAD is a structure process in which 10 to 20 users
meet under the direction of a facilitator skilled in
JAD techniques.
3-17
JAD facility

2-18
 (4) Document Analysis
▪Document analysis is used to
understand the as-is system.

▪Forms, reports, policy manuals,

organization charts describe the formal
system that the organization uses.

3-19
 (5) Observation
▪ Observation – the act of watching processes being
performed.
▪ It is a powerful tool to gain insight into the as-is
system, and to check the validity of information
gathered from other sources.
▪ Nonetheless, people tend to be extremely careful in
their behaviors when they are being watched.

3-20
 Activity for you…

▪Identify the pros and cons of each

requirement elicitation technique
discussed in the lecture.

2-21
Selecting the Appropriate Techniques
Comparison of Requirements Elicitation Techniques

3-22
 Activity for you…
▪ Suppose that you are the analyst charged with
developing a new system for the university
bookstore with which students can order
books online and have them delivered to their
hostel and off-campus housing. What
requirements-gathering techniques will you
use? Describe in detail how you would apply
the techniques

2-23
End of the session

2-24