System Analysis and Design

(CSE 307)
Chapter One
Systems Concepts, System Development Life Cycle &
the Role of System Analyst

Introduction to System Analysis and Design

In the present era of science and technology, organizations are increasing in
size from time to time and the complexity of the activities that are
performed in these organizations is also increasing. To handle such issues,
organizations must implement modern computer-based systems.
Modern computer-based systems that are implemented in an organization to
improve the effectiveness and efficiency of the organization by providing an
improved working environment are called Information Systems (IS).
Information Systems are not ready made gifts from someone or they are not
magic, they are artefacts - meaning they are made by software developers.

Continued
A system can be defined as an organized collection of components that is built to achieve
a pre-defined goals or outputs. Systems are created to solve problems.

It can be considered as organized way of dealing with problems.

System Analysis and Design is a step by step process for developing high-quality
Information Systems.
In the analysis phase, the system analyst determines what activities the system is going
to accomplish.

In the design phase, the analyst determines how the system is going to accomplish its
objectives.
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Detailed definition of a System

A system is an integrated set of interoperable & complementary
elements, each with explicitly specified and bounded capabilities,
working synergistically to perform value-added processing to enable a
user to satisfy mission-oriented operational needs in a prescribed
operating environment with a specified outcome and probability of
success.
An integrated set, is composed of hierarchical levels of components that are
closely linked with each other.
Interoperable & complementary, mean elements within the system must be
compatible and make a good combination.
Explicitly specified and bounded capabilities, mean every element should
work to accomplish some higher level goal or purposeful mission.
Working in synergistically, mean the purpose of integrating the set of
elements is to leverage the capabilities of individual elements.
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Characteristics of a system
Organization: implies structure and order. This means the components of a
system are arranged in a way that helps to achieve its objective.
Interaction: refers to the manner in which each component functions with
other components in the system.
Interdependence: means that the components of the system all depend on
each other. They are coordinated and linked according to a plan.
Integration: different components of the system are combined into a part of
a whole system. The parts of the system work together within the system
even though each part performs a unique function.
Central objective: Every system has a predefined central goal or objective
towards which it works. A system cannot exist without a defined objective.
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Elements of a system

Any system has three basic elements: Input, Processing and Output.
Input: is anything entering into the system from the environment.
Output: is anything that comes out from the system to the environment after
the input is being processed.
Processing: the process involved in converting input into output. It is the
operational component of a system.

The other elements are: Control, Feedback, Boundaries, Environment

and Interfaces.
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Continued
Feedback & Control: In order to get the desired results it is essential to
monitor and control the input, processing and the output of the system. This
job is done by the control. Feedback is very important to know the status of
the system. A given Feedback can be either Positive or Negative.
Interface: the point through which the system interacts with other systems
or with its environment. Users of the system also interact with it using
interfaces. To understand a system fully, you must understand the other
systems with which it interacts.
Boundary: is the limit of the system that separates it from other systems. It
is the container for the components of the system. Beyond its boundary the
system must interact with other systems.
Environment: the area where the system operates on. Everything outside
the systems boundary is called the environment. It is important for a system
to adapt to its environment and the system must change if there is a change
in the environment.
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Continued

Types of Systems
We can divide all systems into two categories: Natural systems and Manmade systems.
Natural system: which is not made by people: they exist in nature and
serve their own purpose. The universe is a system. Then all galaxies are
sub-systems. There are many systems in nature such as water system, wind
system, ecosystem, our body, etc. Even-though many types of systems
appear quite different, they have many similarities like principles,
philosophies and theories.
Man-made Systems: In this system, man and machine assemble all the
components to obtain a pre-defined objective. The purpose of information
systems is to manage data for a particular organization. (Maintaining files,
producing information, reports). An information system produces
customized information depending upon the needs of the organization.
These are usually formal, informal, and computer based.
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Types of Information Systems

Formal Information Systems: It deals with the flow of information
from top management to lower management. Information flows in the
form of memos, instructions, etc. But feedback can be given from
lower authorities to top management.
Informal Information systems: Informal systems are employee
based. These are made to solve the day to day work related problems.
Computer-Based Information Systems: This class of systems
depends on the use of computer for managing business applications.
As a systems analyst, the assumption is that every system that is
observed should be computerized. Some information processing
systems may not be automated because of these common reasons:
Cost; Convenience; Security; Maintainability; Politics.
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Types of Systems
Systems can also be categorized as Open or Closed based on their
interaction with their environment.
Open systems: Systems that interact with their environment. Practically
most of the systems are open systems. An open system has many interfaces
with its environment. It can also adapt to changing environmental
conditions. It can receive inputs from, and delivers output to the outside of
system. In system analysis, Organizations, Applications and Computers are
invariably open, dynamic systems influenced by their environment.
Closed systems: They are theoretical systems that dont interact with their
environment - only the components within the system are assumed to exist
in a self-sufficient state. All the operation is controlled automatically by the
system itself. Example: Chemical reaction in the sealed tube. Completely
closed systems are very rare.
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Information System
An information system (IS) is an arrangement of hardware, software,
data, people, and procedures that are designed to generate information
that supports the day-to-day, short-range and long- range activities of
users in the organization. They are basically needed to support the
problem-solving needs of users and decision making needs of
managers.
Classes of Information System:
- Transaction Processing System

- Management Information System

- Decision support systems

- Expert systems

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Classes of Information System

Transaction processing systems(TPS): An Information system that
captures and processes data that is generated during the day-to-day
activities of the organization. It is used to record and processes the
daily routine transactions necessary to conduct the business.
A TPS collects and stores information about transactions, and controls some
aspects of transactions. A transaction is an event of interest to the organization.
e.g. a sale at a store.

TPSs are of 2 types:

Batch Processing Systems: transaction data is collected over a period of time
and all transactions are processed later, as a group.
Online Transaction Processing (OLTP) Systems: transactions are processed
as they are entered.

Examples: Marketing system, HRMS, Registrar System, Finance

system
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TPS example

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Management Information System

MIS evolved from TPS (converts TPS data into information). MIS provides
meaningful information to management.
A Management information system, or MIS, is an information system
that generates accurate, timely and organized information so managers and
other users can make decisions, solve problems, supervise activities, and
track progress. Because it generates reports on a regular basis, a
management information system sometimes is called a Management
reporting system (MRS).
MIS is an integrated collection of subsystems which accept high-volumes of
transaction data and performs its own processing to generate summarized
reports that are used by middle-level managers.
They are Information systems that provide managers with relevant
information and support effective decision making. They also provide
feedback on daily operations.
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MIS
Examples of reports that are generated by MIS:
Scheduled Reports: are produced periodically (annual budgeting
system.)
Key-indicator reports: summarized the previous days key activities.
Exception reports : generated automatically when an unusual situation
happens
Demand reports: generated at the request of manager(s) and provides
some information to the manager

MIS provides information to the users in the form of reports. Reports

are generated from the accumulated daily transaction processing data.

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MIS

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MIS
Management information systems often are integrated with transaction
processing systems.
Example: To process a sales order, the transaction processing system
records the sale, updates the customers account balance, and makes a
deduction from inventory. Using this information, the related management
information system can produce reports that recap daily sales activities; list
customers with past due account balances; graph slow or fast selling
products; and highlight inventory items that need reordering.
A management information system focuses on generating information that
management and other users need to perform their jobs

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Decision support systems

TPSs & MISs provide information on a regular basis. But frequently, users need
information that is not provided by these ISs to help them make decisions. A sales
manager, for example, might need to determine how high to set yearly sales quotas
based on increased sales and lowered product costs.
A Decision Support System (DSS) is an information system application that
provides its users with decision-oriented information whenever a decision-making
situation arises. A decision support system uses data from internal (sales,
manufacturing, inventory, finance, etc.) and/or external sources (population trends,
raw material pricing, etc.).
Some decision support systems include query language, statistical analysis
capabilities, spreadsheets, and graphics that help you extract data and evaluate the
results.
Some decision support systems also include capabilities that allow you to create a
model of the factors affecting a decision.
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Decision support systems

Special types of decision support systems that are used by executive managers are
called Executive information systems (EIS). Information in an EIS is presented
in charts and tables that show trends, ratios, and other managerial statistics.

To store all the necessary decision-making data, DSSs or EISs often use
extremely large databases, called Data warehouses. A data warehouse
stores and manages the data required to analyze historical and current
business circumstances.
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Expert Systems
An Expert system is an information system that captures and stores the knowledge of
human experts and then imitates human reasoning and decision-making processes for
those who have less expertise. Expert systems are composed of two main components:
Knowledge base: is the combined subject knowledge and experiences of the human
experts.
Inference rules: are a set of logical judgments applied to the knowledge base each time a
user describes a situation to the expert system.
Expert systems are one part of an exciting branch of computer science called artificial
intelligence.
Artificial intelligence (AI) is the application of human intelligence to computers. AI
technology can sense your actions and, based on logical assumptions and prior
experience, will take the appropriate action to complete the task. AI has a variety of
capabilities, including speech recognition, logical reasoning, and creative responses.
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Integrated Information System

Todays sophisticated hardware, software and communications technologies,
it often is difficult to classify a system as belonging uniquely to one of the
information system types.
Application software supports transaction processing and generates
management information. Other applications provide transaction
processing, management information, and decision support. Although expert
systems still operate primarily as separate systems, organizations
increasingly are consolidating their information needs into a single,
integrated information system.

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Integrated Information System

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General System Principle

There are a few general principles that are of particular interest to
people building automated information systems. They include the
following:
Systems are always part of larger systems, and they can always be partitioned
into smaller systems.
Systems grow. This principle could not be true for all systems, but many of the
systems with which we are familiar do grow.
The more specialized a system is, the less able it is to adapt to different
circumstances.
The more general-purpose a system is, the less optimized it is for any
particular situation. But the more the system is optimized for a particular
situation, the less adaptable it will be to new circumstances.
The larger a system is the more of its resources must be devoted to its every
day maintenance.
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Phases of System Development Life Cycle

In many ways building an information system is similar to building a
house. Explain how a house is built in your area?
Nowadays, systems are becoming so big and complex that teams of
analysts, designers, programmers, testers and users must work
together to create the millions of lines of custom-written codes that
drive our enterprises.
Most organizations use a standard and systematic set of steps to
develop and support their information systems in an effective and
efficient manner. This standard and systematic approach is called
System Development Life Cycle (SDLC).
The Systems Development Life Cycle (SDLC) is a conceptual model
that consists of the major steps or phases needed for system
development.
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Phases of System Development Life Cycle

The SDLC is more than simply organizing the project into phases. The idea
of the SDLC includes principles of management, planning, organization,
problem solving, coordination, control, division of labor, scheduling,
and so forth.
Software Development is a process to create software. At first glance to a
developer - this is the coding process.
Communication is very important factor to make sure developers
understand what to be developed, when to start the development, when the
other part of the software that they depend will be developed.
A lot of issues must be synchronize to develop good software. In
communication, The larger the group, the harder it is to communicate to all
the team members.
The most common SDLC contains composed of a series of steps that use
techniques that produce deliverables.
These phases include:
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Preliminary Survey/Initial Investigation

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Preliminary Survey/Initial Investigation

Precisely understand the business problem?
A fundamental process of understanding why such information system
should be built?
Develop Statement of Scope and Objectives of the required solution
Conduct Feasibility Study(Technical, Operational, Economical, Political)

What are the users demonstrable needs?

Is the problem worth solving?
How can the problem be redefined?
Cost/Benefit analysis

Develop work plan

Develop staffing plan - staffing plan considers:
How the staff will be acquired, How long the staff will be needed, The skills required,
What training is needed
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Requirements Analysis
Refines project goals into defined functions and operations of the intended
application.
Analyzes the requirements of the system.
The requirements show clearly what the system will do.
What the system will do? Who will use the system? When and where it
will be used?
Analysis of the current system, its problems, and then ways to design a new
system
Develop analysis strategy
Requirements gathering
Interviews, Questionnaire, Observation, etc.
Analyze this information together with some input from project sponsors to develop a
concept for the new system.
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Requirements Analysis
The gathered information must be reviewed, analyzed and structured so that
an overall understanding of the requirements for the new system can be
reached.
Prioritize requirements so that the most important needs can be included in
the new system. After requirements are prioritized, various alternative
solutions are researched.
Model organizational processes - DFD (Data Flow Diagrams)
Develop ER model
The goal of the requirements analysis is to develop the Software
Requirements Specification (SRS) document.
SRS is a document that completely describes all the requirements of the
system.
Validate the SRS document. This is needed to check that the requirements in
the SRS document actually reflect the real requirements of the user and all
the requirements of the user are collected properly.
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Requirements Analysis

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System Design
Systems Design: Describes desired features and operations in detail,
including screen layouts, business rules, process diagrams, pseudo
code and other documentation.
How must the problem be solved?
How the system will operate in terms of hardware, software and
network infrastructure? Physical system design
Architecture design
Identify Interfaces, forms and reports that will be used
Identify Specific programs, Databases and Files that will be needed

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System Design

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System Design(Implementation)
The purpose of the Implementation Phase is to deploy and enable
operations of the new information system in the production
environment.
How is the solution constructed? A transformation of the design into
an executable form.
The system is actually built.
Code and construct the actual system
Integration brings all the pieces together
Documentation

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System Testing, System Installation & System

Maintenance

System Testing: Check for errors, bugs and interoperability. Interoperability

testing involves testing whether a given software program or technology is
compatible with others and promotes cross-use functionality.
Establish a test team
Prepare test plan
Test each module as well as the whole system

System Installation: The final stage of initial development, where the

software is put into production and runs actual business.
Install the new system
Develop a conversion strategy
Prepare training plan

System Maintenance: What happens during the rest of the softwares life:
changes, correction, additions, and moves to a different computing platform
and more. This, the least glamorous and perhaps most important step of all,
goes on seemingly forever.
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SDLC

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SDLC

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Consideratins for Candidate System

There might be a high demand for computer based ISs without putting into
consideration the resources needed. The resources that are needed by ISs
include: human (computer operators, system analysts, application
programmers, maintenance personnel, project managers, etc.), financial and
technological.
The analyst should be able to convince the management that the benefits of
solving the problem outweigh the cost so that the management will finance
the project.
If solving the problem is feasible, the analyst must develop a set of possible
alternative solutions and decides, in consultation with management, which
possible solution is the best alternative overall.
Political considerations: the right system might not always be
implemented due to political reasons.
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Definition of System Analyst

A systems analyst is a person who conducts methodical study of business
problems and opportunities and translates the system requirements into
specifications, so that these specifications can be implemented by programmers.
To thoroughly understand the problem, the analyst must learn everything possible
about it - who is involved, what business processes come into play, what data
need to be stored and used, what other systems would be affected when
solving this problem.
Designing and implementing IS that suit organizational needs are the functions of
the systems analyst. He/she plays a major role in seeing business benefit from
computer technology.
Analysts are problem solvers, and require communication skills.
Analysts must be ethical with users and customers.
The analyst is a person with unique skills. He/she uses these skills to coordinate
the efforts of different type of persons in an organization to achieve business
goals.
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Definition of System Analyst

A successful systems analyst must acquire four skills:
Analytical Skills
Such skills enable systems analysts to understand the organization and its
functions, which helps him/her to identify opportunities and to analyze and
solve problems.
He should have good skills of identifying problems and assessing their
ramifications, having a grasp of company goals and objectives, and showing
sensitivity to the impact of the system and people at work.

Technical Skills
Technical skills help systems analysts understand the potential and the
limitations of information technology.
The systems analyst must be able to work with various programming
languages, operating systems, and computer hardware platforms.
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Definition of System Analyst

Managerial Skills
System analyst must possess project management skill to complete the job in
time bound manner by evaluating critical activities and events.
The project management by itself requires the management of various
resources like human resource, finance and logistics.
He/she should posses a very strong quality of stress management that is also
an important part of project management.
Management skills help systems analysts manage projects, resources, risk, and
change.

Interpersonal Skills
Interpersonal skills help systems analysts work with end users as well as with
analysts, programmers, and other systems professionals.
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Attributes of System Analyst

The main attributes (characteristics) of System Analyst are:
Authority: The confidence to tell people what to do. Much of this quality
shows in project management and teamwork to meet deadlines.
Communication skills: Ability to articulate (to express sth. clearly and easily)
and focus on a problem area for logical solution.
Creativity: Trying ones own ideas, developing new candidate systems using
unique tools or methods.
Responsibility: Making decisions on ones own and accepting the
consequences of these decisions.
Varied skills: Doing different tasks and handling change.

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Tasks of System Analyst

I. Defining Requirement: The basic step for any system analyst is to
understand the requirements of the users.
II. Prioritizing Requirements: there are a number of users who use
the system in the organization. Each one has a different requirement
and retrieves different information. Due to certain limitations in
computing resources it may not be possible to satisfy the needs of
all the users.
III. Drawing Specifications: The analyst must draw certain
specifications which will be useful for the manager.

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Multi-faceted Role of System Analyst

Among the various roles an analyst performs are change agent,
monitor, architect, psychologist, salesperson, motivator, and politician.
Change Agent: In the role of a change agent, the System Analyst may select
various styles to introduce change to the user organization though he may face
a lot of resistance.
Investigator and Monitor: Investigator extracting the real problems from
existing systems and creating information structures. Monitor programs in
relation to time, cost, and quality. Of these resources, time is the most
important.
Architect: As architect, the analyst also creates a detailed physical design of
candidate systems. He/she aids users in formalizing abstract ideas and
provides details to build the end product- the candidate system.
Psychologist: he/she reaches people, interprets their thoughts, assesses their
behavior, and draws conclusions from these interactions.
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Multi-faceted Role of System Analyst

Salesperson: Sales skills and persuasiveness are crucial to the success of the
system.
Motivator: A candidate system must be well designed and acceptable to the
user. System acceptance is achieved through user participation in its
development, effective user training, and proper motivation to use the system.
The analyst's role as a motivator is that it is obvious during the first few
weeks after implementation and during time when turnover results in new
people being trained to work with the candidate system. The amount of
dedication it takes to motivate users often taxes the analysts abilities to
maintain the pace.
Politician: Politician must have the support of his/her constituency, so is the
analysts goal to have the support of the users staff.

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Thank you!!
End of Chapter One

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