Business Information Management - Week 10

Business Information Management - Week 10 (Lecture 1)

• Systems development, also known as the application development lifecycle, is a process used in systems engineering, information systems and software engineering. It involves planning, creating, testing, and deploying an information system.
• A software lifecycle model is a standardized format for planning, organizing, and running a new development project.
• A lifecycle model describes the activities carried out in a software engineering project and their relative order.
• Many different lifecycle models exist, some being variations of a small number of basic models.
• Software engineering projects typically have a fixed budget, and time constraints are often crucial. Other issues, like staff availability, are also project constraints.
• Project planning involves scheduling activities across time, space, and personnel to optimize factors like project risk, profit, customer satisfaction, worker satisfaction, and long-term company goals.
• A project plan necessitates a description of needed resources (people, money, and equipment), dependencies and timetables, and delivery rates. It's impossible to measure progress without a reference plan.
• Software engineering projects, unlike some other engineering fields, lack physical visibility. This necessitates using deliverables to track progress, such as design documents, prototypes, reports, project/status meetings, and client surveys.
• Systems development projects are difficult and often fail in terms of time, cost, and functionality. Failure rates have been reported in several studies.
• Common problems include poor communication, analysis or design quality, and management issues.
• Systems development phases include initiation, analysis, design, development, implementation, and maintenance. Each phase has a purpose, inputs, processes, and outputs.
• The initiation phase focuses on deciding on the system, with inputs like business rationale, and outputs like a go-no-go decision and a project plan.
• In the analysis phase, requirements are defined, using business and user requirements, leading to requirement specifications, goals, and testing plans.
• During the design phase, specifications are created by evaluating design options, and the outputs include system architecture and system design.
• Development implements the design in code and leads to the creation of the information system.
• Implementation focuses on deployment, using system components and a test plan. It includes installation, training, and data migration, ultimately leading to a live, active system.
• The maintenance phase keeps the system running, handles user input, and involves monitoring, software engineering, patches and training.
• The waterfall model is a lifecycle model that proceeds in a sequential way, moving from initiation to analysis, design, development, implementation, and maintenance in a linear format. This can be inflexible for projects with changing requirements.
• Prototyping is an approach to system development that involves building and testing small parts incrementally, adapting to feedback to improve the development process. It prioritizes user input and promotes adaptability.

Explore the essentials of systems development and the application development lifecycle in this quiz. Understand various software lifecycle models and their importance in planning and executing software engineering projects. Test your knowledge on project constraints and planning strategies critical for successful project completion.