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Systems Development

The document discusses systems development and the systems approach used by managers and systems developers to introduce management information systems (MIS) to an organization. The systems approach consists of three phases: preparation, definition, and solution. It also discusses the systems development life cycle (SDLC) process which formalizes the systems approach and applies it to developing information systems. The SDLC consists of planning, analysis, design, implementation, and usage phases in a circular process.

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Syed Arslan Ahmad
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38 views

Systems Development

The document discusses systems development and the systems approach used by managers and systems developers to introduce management information systems (MIS) to an organization. The systems approach consists of three phases: preparation, definition, and solution. It also discusses the systems development life cycle (SDLC) process which formalizes the systems approach and applies it to developing information systems. The SDLC consists of planning, analysis, design, implementation, and usage phases in a circular process.

Uploaded by

Syed Arslan Ahmad
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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MANAGEMENT INFORMATION SYSTEMS… Systems Development

In order to introduce MIS to an organization managers and systems developers apply ‘systems
approach’ to solving problems. The systems approach consists of three phases of effort:
preparation, definition, and solution.

Preparation effort consists of viewing the firm as a ‘system’, recognizing the environmental system
and identifying the firm’s sub-systems. Sub-systems can be defined as business areas e.g. marketing,
manufacturing, finance, human resource, information services. Some managers define sub-systems
in terms of levels of management.

Definition effort consists of identifying problems and symptoms of problems. For example a
symptom might be low sales while the root cause would be lack of trained sales force. After this
managers proceed from systems to sub-systems sequentially. Outputs are compared with standards
as defined by management goals.

Solution effort consists of considering feasible alternatives, selection of the best one and its
implementation.

Systems approach can be considered rough work done by managers and systems analyists. When
the systems approach is formalized and applied to specific problems related to developing
information systems in organizations, it is called the ‘systems development life cycle’ (SDLC). SDLC
consists of planning phase, analysis phase, design phase, implementation phase and usage phase. It
is a circular process. SDLC is the oldest traditional approach to systems development.

Prototyping is a refinement of the traditional SDLC approach. It recognizes the advantage of getting
user feedback again and again and responding with systems improvements and continuing the cycle
until the system meets user needs. A further evolution of prototyping is called rapid application
development (RAD). RAD uses prototyping as well as computer-modeling tools that simulate
systems usage to speed up the development process. Prototyping is useful in smaller information
systems and RAD is used more often in large information systems.

An SDLC approach that is currently very popular in project management is the phased development.
In phased development the project is divided into several modules. Each module is developed and
prototyped separately before being integrated into a final construction effort.

Functional quality refers to the measure of what a system does. Technical quality refers to how well
it does it.

Systems often need to be redesigned after usage phase of SDLC due to lack of either functional or
technical quality. When functional quality needs to be improved, re-engineering is done. However
re-engineering does not mean that systems analysts have to start from step one of SDLC, as they
have gained knowledge from the issues and failures of the previous systems.

If technical quality needs to be improved, firms often do reverse engineering. In this they go through
the SDLC process in reverse, and identify issues and document them. Forward engineering is done
mostly to maintain the level of functional and technical quality by completing the loop of the SDLC
by going from usage phase straight to planning phase.
Data flow diagrams (DFDs) have been the most popular modeling tool used in MIS for the past 20
years. DFDs are very effective in giving process overview but not particularly well-suited for
providing process detail. Examples of DFDs include Gantt charts, network diagrams, fishbone
diagrams, and decision tree analysis.

Gantt chart:

Network diagram:

Fishbone diagram:
Decision tree analysis:

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