software solution

Using tools and concepts learned this week to design a software solution to a problem in your life.

Your response should include at least 350 words and have a drawing, flow chart or mind map that documents your solution.

Create your assignment as a document that could be given to a programmer to write the application to perform the task you describe.

ManagementInformation Systems – Week 7 Lecture 1

Investigation & Analysis
Chapter 12 Systems Development: Investigation and Analysis
Businesses use systems and employees become knowledge workers as they perfect using these systems
but how are these systems developed? In this unit you will see how a software application is developed,
do not worry, all the technical part has been left out. These are the basic concepts of how systems are
developed, it is mostly research and project management.

Some of the participants in Systems Development are:
Development team – programmers that do the program writing, testers, quality assurance analysts,
database analysts, network engineers and other folks such as system analysts that perform
technical tasks

Project Manager – a person skilled in the area of maintaining focus of the development team and
users, to keep everyone on track

Stakeholders – users, the departments that depend on the project result
Information systems planning is critical to the success of a project developing systems software. It is
critical that the planning aligns corporate and IS goals. One of the main purpose to creating software is to
develop a competitive advantage. If a business can create a quality product at a faster pace than a
competitor, they will win the vote of the consumer. There are many Critical Success Factors (CSFs) that
are monitored during the development cycle. There are several approaches to what is called the Systems
Development Life Cycle. Here are few:

Traditional Systems Development Life Cycle
Systems investigation

Systems analysis

Systems design

Systems implementation

Systems maintenance and review

Prototyping both operational prototype and nonoperational prototype
Rapid application development (RAD) – where individuals work on several pieces of the project
at once in order to deliver small functional units to the user (as compared to building the entire
project and delivering at one time).

Additional considerations in software development are outsourcing, on-demand computing and cloud
computing. Outsourcing may be a way to save money, on-demand may mean hiring consultants to build
applications that your business needs, cloud computing is a great way for remote workers to collaborate
and share files on the internet (cloud).

There are many factors that affecting systems development success such as the degree of the change.
Training and planning will help with the implementation of new systems. A Business owner cannot
understate the importance of planning especially for larger projects or it will surely fail.

Project management tools exist that use many terms, here are a few:
Project schedule – a plan of what will happen when.
Project milestone – a point of time at which a certain thing is planned to happen
Project deadline – a (usually firm) date of when something must happen.
Critical path – the series of events that must happen in a certain order that will determine the
delivery date of the project.

Program Evaluation and Review Technique (PERT) – a specific type of diagram that helps
control the development process

Gantt chart – a different type of chart diagram that controls the development process
Systems investigation or systems analysis is an organized approach to getting the ball rolling on a
project. Some key activities are:

Gathering data on existing system

Determining requirements for new system

Considering alternatives

Investigating feasibility of solutions

Each of these activities should be broken into many parts, for example the feasibility analysis can be
broken into:

Technical feasibility

Economic feasibility

Legal feasibility

Operational feasibility

Schedule feasibility

Systems analysis is a key part of the success of the project development life cycle. Think of it as doing
your homework before writing a paper. You have to do your research before you can write a research
paper. The first step of doing a project is to do the requirements gathering to determine if the project is
important enough to continue. From a business point of view, a project is often deemed to be important
enough to continue if it will make money for the company.

ManagementInformation Systems – Week 7 Lecture 2

Development & Improvement
Chapter 13 Systems Development: Design, Implementation, Maintenance,
and Review
You have learned about information systems and seen a little about how the project is run to create a new
system. This week you will focus on the actual systems design process. This will help you whether you
become a programmer, systems analyst or are a department manager. There are countless articles on
this subject on the internet and some great YouTube videos so take a moment to do some extra research
and learn more about systems development.

When an IS manager sits down to design a system they look at several areas and have many special
tools at their disposal.

A systems engineer or senior developer will first look at the logical design. This usually means that they
look at the user request and determine what they really mean! Once they have clarification they will create
a physical design. This might be object-oriented (using code that has already been created) or mock ups
showing interface design and controls. This is sometimes called storyboarding. This image is an example
of creating a new user interface:

System design time is an investment for the business, it will help by preventing, detecting, and correcting
errors prior to the application software being written. It will generate systems design alternatives. One
alternative is to ask software developers to create the application for the business, this is done by creating
a request for proposal (RFP). Software vendors will then propose several options at various price points.
The business can then review the proposals, do a cost benefit analysis and select an appropriate plan of
action.

Once a project has started it is a good idea to freezing design specifications using a contract, and even a
design report called a Functional Design Document. This process is intended to allow the development
team to focus on creating a specific application and not have to try to hit a constantly moving target. As
the application is being developed it is also time to acquire the hardware that will be needed. If the
application requires a headset with microphone for voice input or a super-fast computer, this is the time to
make sure the application will be functional when it is implemented.

Types of IS hardware vendors include:
General computer manufacturers

Small computer manufacturers

Peripheral equipment manufacturers

Computer dealers and distributors

Chip makers

While the application is being developed and the hardware acquired, in a perfect world the personnel will
be hired and trained and any preparations will be done for the site and data requirements (additional disk
drives for databases or could computing). One of the phases of software development is the testing
phase. It really cannot be considered the final stage because it may result in some additional planning,
programming or other modifications. It can be considered to be the last step in the cycle.

Forms of testing:
Unit testing

System testing

Volume testing

Integration testing

Acceptance testing

Alpha testing

Beta testing

Once the testing and modifications are complete the user is presented with the product. In some
methodologies such as Agile development, the user is presented with several smaller implementations
rather than one large one at the end. If the development phase. Once the user has implemented the
application, the development team is finished with their work. A maintenance team is assigned to fix any
errors or add enhancements that are required over time. Of course in smaller organizations there is no
hand off, the development team and the maintenance team may in fact be the same people.

The maintenance phase is sort of like the senior citizen phase of an application’s life cycle. If the
development team did a nice job and the user requested the correct features in the application, the
solution may last for a long time with few maintenance patches or fixes. The good news is that if they are
needed, the maintenance team is there to help.