CHAPTER ONE

THE SYSTEM DEVELOPMENT

ENVIRONMENT

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 INTRODUCTION
 Information systems analysis and design is a complex,
challenging, and stimulating organizational process
that a team of business and systems professionals uses
to develop and maintain computer-based information
systems.

 ISAD is an organizational improvement process.

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 INTRODUCTION
 Systems analysis and design is a proven methodology that
helps both large and small business reap the rewards of
utilizing information to its full capacity.
 The systems development life cycle (SDLC) is central to the
development of and efficient information system.
 We will highlight four key SDLC steps.

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 INTRODUCTION
 Planning and selection
 Project identification and selection
 Initiating and planning
 Analysis
 Requirement determination
 Requirement structuring
 Design, and
 Implementation and operation.

 Be aware that these steps may vary in each

organization depending on its goals.
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 System Analysis and Design
 The major goal of ISAD is to improve organizational systems.
(manual or automated)
 Often this involves developing or acquiring application software and training
employees to use it.

 Application software, also called a system, is designed to support a

specific organizational function or process, such as inventory
management, Registrar software….
 The goal of application software is to turn data into information.

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 System Analysis and Design
 In addition to application software, the information
system includes:
 The hardware and systems software
 Documentation and training materials, The specific job roles
associated with the overall system,
 Controls, which are parts of the software written to help prevent
fraud and theft.
 The people who use the software in order to do their job
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 System and its Components
 A system is an interrelated set of components with
an identifiable boundary, working together for
some purpose.
 A system has nine characteristic.
1. Components
2. Interrelated components
3. A boundary
4. A purpose
5. An environment
6. Interface
7. Input
8. Output
9. Constraints

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 System and its Components
 A system is made up of components
 A component is either an irreducible part or an aggregate of
parts, also called a subsystem.
 The simple concept of a component is very powerful.
 Just as with an automobile, we can repair or upgrade the system by
changing individual components without having to make changes
throughout the entire system.

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 System and its Components
 The components are interrelated; that is, the
function of one is somehow tied to the functions of
the others.
 A system has a boundary, which in which all of its
components are contained and which establishes
the limits of a system, separating the system from
other systems.
 Components with in the boundary can be changed
whereas things outside the boundary cannot be
changed

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 System and its Components
 All of the components work together to achieve some
overall purpose for the larger system: the system's
reason for existing.
 A system exist with in an environment- everything
outside the system’s boundary.

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 System and its Components
 Usually the system interacts with its environment,
exchanging, in the case of an information system, data
and information.
 The points at which the system meets its environment
are called interfaces, and there are also interfaces
between subsystems.
 Because an interface exists at the point where system
interact its environment, the interface has several
special, important function.
 An interface provides:
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 System and its Components
 Security, protecting the system from undesirable elements
that may want to infiltrate it.
 Filtering unwanted data, both for elements leaving the system and
entering it
 Encoding and decoding incoming and outgoing messages
 Detecting and correcting errors in its interaction with the
environment
 Buffering, providing a layer of slack between the system
and its environment, so that the system and its environment
can work at different speeds.

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 System and its Components
 Because interface functions are critical in
communication between system components or a
system and its environment, interfaces receive much
attention in the design of information system.
 You will spend a considerable portion of time in
systems development dealing with interfaces:
 especially interfaces between an automated system and its
users and interfaces between different information
systems.
 It is the design of good interfaces that permits
different systems to work together without being too
dependent on each other. 13
 System and its Components
 A system must face constraints in its functioning
because there are limits on:
 what it can do and how it can achieve its purpose within its
environment.

 Some of these constraints are imposed inside the system

(a limited number of staff available) and others are
imposed by the environment (due dates or regulation)

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 System Concepts
 Once we have recognized something as a system and
identified the system’s characteristics, how do we
understand the system?
 Further, what principles or concepts about systems
guide the design of information systems?
 A key aspect of a system for building systems is the
system’s relationship with its environment.
 Some systems, called open systems, interact freely with
their environments, taking in input and returning output.

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 System Concepts
 As the environment changes, an open system must
adapt to the changes or suffer the consequences.
 A closed system does not interact with the
environment; changes in the environment and
adaptability are not issues for a closed system.
 However, all business information system are open, and in
order to understand a system and its relationships to other
information systems, to the organization, and to the larger
environment, you must always think of information systems
as open and constantly interacting with the environment.

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 System Concepts
 There are several other important systems concepts
with which systems analysts need to become familiar:
 Decomposition
 Modularity
 Coupling
 Cohesion
 In addition you need to understand the difference between
viewing a system at a logical and at a physical level:
 each with associated description concentrating on different aspects
of a system.

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 System Concepts
 Decomposition deals with being able to break
down a system into its components.
 These components may themselves be systems
(subsystem) and can be broken down into their
components as well.
 Decomposing a system allows us to focus on one
particular part of a system,
 This makes it easier to think of how to modify that one
part independently of the entire system.

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System Concepts

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 System Concepts
 Finally, cohesion is the extent to which a subsystem
performs a single function.
 A logical system description portrays the purpose and
function of the system without tying the description to
any specific physical implementation.
 The physical system description, on the other hand, is
a material depiction of the system, a central concern
of which is building the system.

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 Benefiting from Systems Thinking
 The first step in systems thinking is to be able to
identify something as a system.
 This identification also involves recognizing each of the
system’s characteristics:
 for example identifying where the boundary lies and all of the
relevant inputs.
 Visualizing a set of things and their interrelations
ship as a system allows you to translate a specific
physical situation into more general, abstract terms.

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 Benefiting from Systems Thinking
 From this abstraction, you can think about the
essential characteristics of a specific
situation.
 This in turn allow you to gain insights you might
never get from focusing too much on the
details of the specific situation.

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 Applying System Thinking to Information System

 IS can be seen as subsystem in larger organizational

systems, taking input from, and returning output to,
their organizational environments.
 Let’s examine one fast-food restaurant information
system as a special kind of system.

The information system take customer orders, send

the orders to the kitchen, monitor goods sold and
inventory, and generate report for management.
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 A fast-food restaurant’s customer order information
system
Customer order Kitchen order
customer Kitchen
Receipt
1.0

Process
customer
2.0 Food order 3.0
Update Update
Goods Goods Inventory Inventory
Formatted Formatted
Sold file sold Data file
goods sold inventory
data data
4.0
Goods sold file Daily goods Produce Daily inventory Inventory file
sold Amount management Depletion Amount
report

Management reportRestaurant
Management
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 Applying System Thinking to Information System

 As the diagram illustrate, The fast-food customer order

system contains four components or subsystems:
 Process Customer Food Order
 Update Goods Sold File,
 Update Inventory File, and
 Produce Management Reports.
 The arrows in the diagram show how these subsystems
are interrelated.
 The first process produces four outputs: a Kitchen
Order, a Receipt, Goods Sold data, and Inventory
Data. The latter two outputs serves as input for other
subsystems.
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 Applying System Thinking to Information System

 The dotted line illustrates the boundary of the

system.
 Notice that the Customer, the Kitchen, and the Restaurant
Manager are all considered to be outside the customer
order system.
 The specific purpose of the system is to facilitate:
 customer orders,
 monitor inventory, and generate reports;
 The system’s general purpose is to improve
the efficiency of the restaurant’s operations. 26
 Applying System Thinking to Information System

 The illustrated information system is smaller in

scope and purposes.
 We have limited the environment to those
three entities that interact with the system.
 Two constraints on the system is apparently
show in the diagram.

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 Applying System Thinking to Information System

1. There is no direct data exchange between the

customer order system and information systems
used by the restaurant’s suppliers;
2. Inability to provide on-line, real-time information
on inventory levels, limit the manager to receive
nightly batched reports
 The first level of analysis and description of
the customer order system is a logical analysis
and description.
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 Applying System Thinking to Information System

 The logical description focuses on the flow and

transformation of data.
 For the logical information system description, it is
irrelevant whether the customer’s order shows up in
the kitchen as a pieces of paper or as lines of text
on a monitor screen.
 What is important is the information sent to the
kitchen.

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 Applying System Thinking to Information System
 Therefore, the physical system is the one possible
implementation of the more abstract, logical information
system description.
 The way we draw information systems shows how we think
of them as a systems.
 (DFD)Data flow diagram clearly illustrate inputs,
outputs, system boundaries, the environment, subsystem,
and interrelationships.
 Purpose and constraints are much more difficult to
illustrate and must therefore be documented using other
notations.

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 Fundamentals of Information Systems
 An information system (IS) is a set of interrelated
elements or components that collect (input),
manipulate (process), and disseminate (output) data
and information and provide a feedback mechanism
to meet an objective.
 In information systems:
 Input is the activity of gathering and capturing raw data
 processing involves converting or transforming data into
useful outputs.

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 Fundamentals of Information Systems
 Output involves producing useful information,
usually in the form of documents and reports.
 In information systems, feedback is output that
is used to make changes to input or processing
activities.

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 Types of Information System Overviews
 Until now we have talked about information
systems in generic terms, but there are actually
several different types or classes of information
systems.
 These classes are distinguished from each other on
the basis of:
 what the system does or by the technology used to
construct the system.
 You are responsible to determine which kind of
system will best address the organizational problem
or opportunity on which you are focusing.
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 Classification of Systems
 System can be classified based on the
following categories
 Natural Vs Manmade or Artificial systems
 Open Vs Closed Systems
 Simple Vs Complex Systems
 Stable Vs Dynamic Systems
 Permanent Vs Temporary Systems
 Deterministic vs. Probabilistic Systems
 Types of Information System Overviews
 As a systems analyst working as part of a
team, you will work with at least 4 classes of
information systems:
 Transaction processing systems
 Management Information Systems
 Decision support systems (for individuals,
groups, and executives)
 Expert systems

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Types of Information System Overviews
 Transaction Processing System
 A transaction processing system (TPS) automates the
handling of data about business activities or transactions.
 Data about each transaction are captured, transaction are
verified and accepted or rejected, and validated
transactions are stored.
 Reports may be produced immediately to provide
summaries of transactions.

 The analysis and design of a TPS requires you to focus on

the firm’s current procedures for processing transactions.
 How does the organization track, capture, process, and output
data?
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 Management Information System
 A Management information system (MIS) a computer
based system that takes the raw data available through a
TPS and converts them into a meaningful report
/aggregated report form.
 E.g. The MIS system can therefore direct the manufacturing
department on what to produce and when.
 Developing an MIS calls for a good understanding:
 what kind of information managers require
 Management information systems often require data from
several TPS

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 Decision Support System
 A decision support system (DSS) is designed to help
decision makers with decisions by combining data,
sophisticated analytical models and user-friendly
user interface.
 A DSS provides an interactive environment in which
decision makers can quickly manipulate data and
models of business operations. (What if?)
 A DSS has three parts.
 A database
 Mathematical or graphical models of business processes.
 A user interface (or dialogue module)

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 Decision Support System
 DSS software supports certain decision-making
activities (from problem finding to choosing a course
of action).

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 Expert Systems
 An expert system is a computer based system that
contains knowledge of experts in a particular domain.
 If-then-else rules or other knowledge representation
forms describe the way an expert would approach
situations in specific domain of problems.
 The focus on developing an ES is acquiring the
knowledge of the expert in the particular problem
domain.
 Knowledge engineers perform knowledge acquisition;

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Expert Systems
Expert Systems
 System and System Analyst- A
key resource
 A systems analyst(s) facilitates the development of
information systems and computer applications.
 The systems analyst performs systems analysis and design.
 Systems analysis is the study of a business problem
domain for the purpose of recommending
improvements and specifying the business requirements
for the solution.
 Systems design is the specification or construction of a
technical, computer-based solution for the business
requirements identified in a systems analysis.

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 System and System Analyst- A
key resource

 Organization change themselves to combat

their environment.
 Whenever organizations change themselves
they will also change their business process,
hence their information system as well.
 Changing the information system require a
system analyst.
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 Who is a systems analyst?
 In simple terms, systems analysts are people who
understand both business and computing.
 Systems analysts study business problems and
opportunities and then
 Transform business and information requirements of the
business into the computer-based information systems.
 The system analyst also bridges the communications
gap between those who need the computer and those
who understand the technology.

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 Who is a systems analyst?
 The role of systems analyst is splitting into two
distinct positions or roles, business analyst and
application analyst.

 A business analyst (more of analyst)is a systems analyst

that specializes in business problem analysis and
technology-independent requirements analysis.

 An application analyst (more of designer ) is a systems

analyst that specializes in application design and
technology-dependent aspects of development.
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 Skills of a System Analyst
 Problem-solving skills
 Take a large business problem, break down that problem
into its component parts, analyze the various aspects of the
problem, and then assemble an improved system to solve
the problem.
 Interpersonal communications skills
 analyst must be able to communicate effectively, both
orally and in writing.
 Interpersonal relations skills
 systems analysts must be extroverted or people-oriented.

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 Skills of a System Analyst
 Systems analysis and design skills
 Systems analysis and design skills can be
conveniently factored into three subsets:
 Concepts and principles
 Tools
 Techniques

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 Personal Qualities and Knowledge
required

 Working knowledge of Information Technology

 The analyst must be aware of both existing and emerging information
technologies and techniques so that he can show end-user and
management how new technologies can benefit their business and its
operations.
 Computer Programming and Experience
 They must know how to program because they are the principal link
between business users and computer programmers.
 General Business Knowledge
 Systems analysts should be able to communicate with business experts to
gain knowledge of problems and needs.

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 Personal Qualities and Knowledge required

 Project management
 Effectively managing projects is crucial to a systems analyst’s job.
 Flexibility and adaptability
 There is no single, magical approach or solution applicable to systems
development.
 Character and ethics
 The nature of the systems analyst's job requires a strong character and
sense of ethics.
 Systems analysts gains assess to sensitive and private data and
information about customers, suppliers, employees, and the like
 The analyst must be very careful not to share such feelings or
information with the wrong people.

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