Systems Analysis and Design Quiz

Course Information

• Course Title: Introduction to Systems Analysis and Design
• Course Number: IS 335
• University: Al-Imam Muhammad Ibn Saud Islamic University
• Department: Information Systems Department

Learning Objectives

• Understand the different roles and skills of a systems analyst
• Grasp the fundamental systems development life cycle and its four phases
• Understand the evolution of systems development methodologies
• Familiarize yourself with the principles of object-oriented systems analysis and design
• Be familiar with the Unified Process and Unified Modeling Language
• Understand the basic characteristics of object-oriented systems

Introduction

• System Analysis: Understanding and detailing what an information system should do.
• System Design: Detailing how the components of an information system are physically implemented.
• Systems Development Life Cycle (SDLC): The process of understanding how an information system supports business needs, designing it, building it, and delivering it to users.
• Systems Analyst: The key person in system development, analyzing business situations, identifying improvements, and designing the information system to implement them.

Why a Formal Process?

• Failures occur frequently
• System creation is not always intuitive
• Projects are often late or over budget
• Fewer features are delivered than planned
• System analyst is crucial to adding value
• Requires a deep understanding of business processes
• A challenging but rewarding Job
• Essential skills are needed

Systems Analyst Skills

• Agents of Change: Identify ways to improve an organization, motivate and train others
• Skills Needed:
  • Technical: Understanding the technology.
  • Business: Knowledge of business processes.
  • Analytical: Ability to solve problems
  • Communications: Communicating with technical and non-technical audiences.
  • Interpersonal: Leadership and management skills
  • Ethics: Dealing fairly and protecting confidential information.

Systems Analyst Roles

• Business Analyst: Analyzes key business aspects, designs business processes and policies, identifies how the system provides value.
• Systems Analyst: Designs the new technologies improving business processes, designs the information system, and ensures the system matches standards
• Infrastructure Analyst: Identifies infrastructure changes to support the system.
• Change Management Analyst: Develops and executes change and user training plans.
• Project Manager: Manages the project team, defines the work plan, monitors and controls the project, communicates with other specialists.

Systems Development Life Cycle (SDLC) Phases

• Planning: Includes project initiation, feasibility analysis, and project management.
• Analysis: Deciding what the system should do, who will use it, and where/when it will be used.
• Design: Determining the specifics of how the system will be built.
• Implementation: Building the system, testing it and training users.

Planning Phase (SDLC)

• Project Initiation: Receiving or developing a system request, performing a feasibility analysis (technical, economic, organizational).
• Project Management: Developing a work plan, staffing the project, and monitoring and controlling the project's progress

Analysis Phase (SDLC)

• Develop an analysis strategy
• Model the current system
• Formulate a new system
• Gather requirements
• Develop a system concept
• Create a business model
  • Business data
  • Business processes
• Develop a system proposal

Design Phase (SDLC)

• Develop a design strategy
• Design architecture and interfaces
• Develop databases and file specifications
• Develop program designs to specify what programs to write, and what each program does.

Implementation Phase (SDLC)

• Construct the system: Building the system and writing code, testing
• Installation: Installing the system
• Training users
• System support (maintenance)

SDLC Methodologies

• Categorized by focus on data, process, or both
• Process centered, Data centered, Object-oriented
• Include structured development, rapid application development, and agile development

Classes of Methodologies

• Structured Development
  • Waterfall
  • Parallel
• Rapid Application Development
  • Phased
  • Prototyping (Throw-away)

Agile Development

• Focuses on streamlining the system development process
• Eliminates overhead for modelling and documentation
• Not suitable for all project types, especially if requirements are unpredictable or developer motivation is low

Object-Oriented Systems Analysis and Design

• Third category of information systems development methodologies
• Balancing data and process
• Unified Modeling Language (UML)
• Unified Process used

Characteristics of Object-Oriented Systems

• Classes and Objects
  • Object (instance of a class)
  • Attributes (information describing the class)
  • State (values at a given point in time)
• Methods and Messages
  • Methods (class’s behavior)
  • Messages (information sent to trigger method)
• Encapsulation and information hiding
• Inheritance
• Polymorphism and dynamic binding.

Unified Process

• Methodology mapping out how to use UML techniques for object-oriented analysis and design
• Two-dimensional process with phases and workflows
• Activities in both phases and workflows will overlap

Unified Process Phases

• Inception: Assessing technical, economic, and organizational feasibility
• Elaboration: Focusing heavily on analysis and design, including other workflows
• Construction: Emphasis on programming (implementation)
• Transition: Focusing on testing and deployment

Workflows

• Detail the tasks/activities developers perform to evolve an information system
• Grouped into engineering and supporting workflows

Engineering Workflows

• Business modeling, requirements, analysis, design, implementation, testing, deployment

Supporting Workflows

• Project management, configuration and change management, environment

Extensions to the Unified Process

• The Unified Process does not include staffing, budgeting, contract management, maintenance, operations, support, or cross-project issues
• Includes a "Production" phase after deployment to handle issues

Unified Modeling Language (UML)

• Common vocabulary for object-oriented terms and diagramming techniques
• Current version is 2.5 with 15 diagrams in two groups:
  • Structure diagrams
  • Behavior diagrams

Test your knowledge on the systems development life cycle, methodologies, and workflows. This quiz covers concepts such as the role of systems analysts, the Unified Process, and UML diagrams. Challenge yourself to see how well you understand systems analysis and design principles.