Systems Analysis and Design Methods PDF

SYSTEMS ANALYSIS AND DESIGN METHODS 6th Edition Whitten Bentley Dittman C H A P T E R 2 INFORMATION SYSTEM...

SYSTEMS ANALYSIS AND DESIGN METHODS 6th Edition Whitten Bentley Dittman C H A P T E R 2 INFORMATION SYSTEM BUILDING BLOCKS Irwin/McGraw-Hill 2-1 Copyright © 2004 The McGraw-Hill Companies. All Rights reserved SYSTEMS ANALYSIS AND DESIGN METHODS 6th Edition Whitten Bentley Dittman Chapter Two Information System Building Blocks Differentiate between front- and back-office information systems. Describe the role of information systems architecture in systems development. Identify three high-level goals that provide system owners and system users with a perspective of an information system. Name three goal-oriented perspectives for any information system. Identify three technologies that provide system designers and builders with a perspective of an information system. Describe four building blocks of the KNOWLEDGE goal for an information system. Describe four building blocks of the PROCESS goal for an information system. Describe four building blocks of the COMMUNICATIONS goal for an information system. Irwin/McGraw-Hill 2-2 Copyright © 2004 The McGraw-Hill Companies. All Rights reserved SYSTEMS ANALYSIS AND DESIGN METHODS 6th Edition Whitten Bentley Dittman Chapter Map Irwin/McGraw-Hill 2-3 Copyright © 2004 The McGraw-Hill Companies. All Rights reserved SYSTEMS ANALYSIS AND DESIGN METHODS 6th Edition Whitten Bentley Dittman Front- and Back-Office Information Systems Front-office information systems support business functions that extend out to the organization’s customers (or constituents). – Marketing – Sales – Customer management Back-office information systems support internal business operations of an organization, aw well as reach out to suppliers (of materials, equipment, supplies, and services). – Human resources – Financial management – Manufacturing – Inventory control Irwin/McGraw-Hill 2-4 Copyright © 2004 The McGraw-Hill Companies. All Rights reserved SYSTEMS ANALYSIS AND DESIGN METHODS 6th Edition Whitten Bentley Dittman Information Systems Architecture Information systems architecture - a unifying framework into which various stakeholders with different perspectives can organize and view the fundamental building blocks of information systems. Irwin/McGraw-Hill 2-5 Copyright © 2004 The McGraw-Hill Companies. All Rights reserved SYSTEMS ANALYSIS AND DESIGN METHODS 6th Edition Whitten Bentley Dittman Focuses for Information Systems Knowledge — the raw material used to create useful information. Process — the activities (including management) that carry out the mission of the business. Communication — how the system interfaces with its users and other information systems. Irwin/McGraw-Hill 2-6 Copyright © 2004 The McGraw-Hill Companies. All Rights reserved SYSTEMS ANALYSIS AND DESIGN METHODS 6th Edition Whitten Bentley Dittman Information System Building Blocks Irwin/McGraw-Hill 2-7 Copyright © 2004 The McGraw-Hill Companies. All Rights reserved SYSTEMS ANALYSIS AND DESIGN METHODS 6th Edition Whitten Bentley Dittman KNOWLEDGE Building Blocks Irwin/McGraw-Hill 2-8 Copyright © 2004 The McGraw-Hill Companies. All Rights reserved SYSTEMS ANALYSIS AND DESIGN METHODS 6th Edition Whitten Bentley Dittman Views of KNOWLEDGE System owners’ view – Interested not in raw data but in information that adds new business knowledge and information that help managers make intelligent decisions. – Business entities and business rules. E.g.: www.uwgb.edu/research System users’ view – View data as something recorded on forms, stored in file cabinets, recorded in books and binders, organized into spreadsheets, or stored in computer files and databases. – Tend to focus on the business issues as they pertain to the data. – Data requirement – a representation of users’ data in terms of entities, attributes, relationships, and rules independent of data technology. System designers’ view – Data structures, database schemas, fields, indexes, and constraints of particular database management system (DBMS). System builders’ view – SQL – DBMS or other data technologies Irwin/McGraw-Hill 2-9 Copyright © 2004 The McGraw-Hill Companies. All Rights reserved SYSTEMS ANALYSIS AND DESIGN METHODS 6th Edition Whitten Bentley Dittman PROCESS Building Blocks Irwin/McGraw-Hill 2-10 Copyright © 2004 The McGraw-Hill Companies. All Rights reserved SYSTEMS ANALYSIS AND DESIGN METHODS 6th Edition Whitten Bentley Dittman Views of PROCESS System owners’ view – Concerned with high-level processes called business functions. – Business function – a group of related processes that support the business. Functions can be decomposed into other subfunctions and eventually into processes that do specific tasks. – A cross-functional information system – a system that supports relevant business processes from several business functions without regard to traditional organizational boundaries such as divisions, departments, centers, and offices. E.g.: ERP Systems, like PeopleSoft & SAP Continued... Irwin/McGraw-Hill 2-11 Copyright © 2004 The McGraw-Hill Companies. All Rights reserved SYSTEMS ANALYSIS AND DESIGN METHODS 6th Edition Whitten Bentley Dittman Views of PROCESS (continued) System users’ view Concerned with work that must be performed to provide the appropriate responses to business events. Business processes – activities that respond to business events. E.g., Registration: Late add or drop. Process requirements – a user’s expectation of the processing requirements for a business process and its information systems. Policy – a set of rules that govern a business process.: Approvals Procedure – a step-by-step set of instructions and logic for accomplishing a business process. Is it documented real well? E.g.: Late Add? Work flow – the flow of transactions through business processes to ensure appropriate checks and approvals are implemented. Wouldn’t it be nice if we could digitally sign documents and route them electronically, guided by the system, and send Email notifications when “it’s your turn”, and when “it’s complete”? Continued... Irwin/McGraw-Hill 2-12 Copyright © 2004 The McGraw-Hill Companies. All Rights reserved SYSTEMS ANALYSIS AND DESIGN METHODS 6th Edition Whitten Bentley Dittman Views of PROCESS (continued) System designers’ view – Concerned with which processes to automate and how to automate them – Constrained by limitations of application development technologies being used – Software specifications – the technical design of business processes to be automated or supported by computer programs to be written by system builders. System builders’ view – Concerned with programming logic that implements automated processes – Application program – a language-based, machine-readable representation of what a software process is supposed to do, or how a software process is supposed to accomplish its task. – Prototyping – a technique for quickly building a functioning, but incomplete model of the information system using rapid application development tools. Irwin/McGraw-Hill 2-13 Copyright © 2004 The McGraw-Hill Companies. All Rights reserved SYSTEMS ANALYSIS AND DESIGN METHODS 6th Edition Whitten Bentley Dittman COMMUNICATION Building Blocks Irwin/McGraw-Hill 2-14 Copyright © 2004 The McGraw-Hill Companies. All Rights reserved SYSTEMS ANALYSIS AND DESIGN METHODS 6th Edition Whitten Bentley Dittman Views of COMMUNICATION System owners’ view – Concerned with communications scope of an information system. Who (which business units, employees, customers, and partners) must interact with the system? Where are these business units, employees, customers, and partners located? What other information systems will the system have to interface with? System users’ view – Concerned with the information system’s inputs and outputs. Continued... Irwin/McGraw-Hill 2-15 Copyright © 2004 The McGraw-Hill Companies. All Rights reserved SYSTEMS ANALYSIS AND DESIGN METHODS 6th Edition Whitten Bentley Dittman Views of COMMUNICATION (continued) System designers’ view – Concerned with the technical design of both the user and the system-to-system communication interfaces. – Interface specifications – technical designs that document how system users are to interact with a system and how a system interacts with other systems. – User dialogue – a specification of how the user moves from window to window or page to page, interacting with the application programs to perform useful work. System builders’ view – Concerned with the construction, installation, testing and implementation of user and system-to-system interface solutions. – Middleware – utility software that allows application software and systems software that utilize differing technologies to interoperate. Irwin/McGraw-Hill 2-16 Copyright © 2004 The McGraw-Hill Companies. All Rights reserved