Week 1

Monday, 31 October 2011 10:02 AM

Summary A system analyst solves business problems using information systems technology Problem solving means looking into business problem in great detail, completely understanding problem, and choosing best solution Information system development is much more than writing programs System a collection of interrelated components functioning together to achieve an outcome. Information system outcome solution to a business problem Information systems, subsystems and components interact with and include hardware, software, inputs, outputs, data, people, and procedures System analyst has a broad knowledge and variety of skills, including technical business and people Integrity and ethical behaviour are crucial to success for the analyst Systems analyst encounters a variety of rapidly changing technologies Systems analyst works on strategic plans and then system development projects Analyst's Approach to problem solving Research and understand the problem Verify benefits of solving problem outweigh the costs Define the requirements for solving the problem Develop a set of possible solutions(alternatives) Decide which is best and recommended Define the details of the chosen solution Implement the solution Monitor to ensure the desired results

System Analysis and Design Summary's Page 1

Week 2
Monday, 31 October 2011 10:03 AM

Summary System development projects are organized around the systems development life cycle(SDLC) Some projects use a predictive approach to the SDLC and others use a more adaptive approach to SDLC SDLC phases include project planning analysis, design, implementation, and support. In practice, phases overlap and projects contain many iterations of analysis, design, and implementation. Models, techniques, and tools make up a system development methodology System development methodology provides guidelines to complete every activity in the SDLC System development methodologies are based on traditional approach or object-oriented approach Current trends include: Extreme programming(XP), unified process(UP), and scrum Visual modelling tools are designed to help analysts complete system development tasks. Analyst as a project Manager

System Analysis and Design Summary's Page 2

Week 3
Monday, 31 October 2011 10:05 AM

Summary Analysis phase activities Gather information Define system requirements Prioritize requirements Prototype for feasibility and discovery Generate and evaluate alternatives Review recommendations with management BPRand ZachmanFrameworkcan help with the analysis phase activities Summary (continued) Gathering system requirements Functional and nonfunctional Work with various stakeholders (users, clients, technical staff) What kind of information do I need? What are the business processes and operations? How are the business processes performed? What are the information requirements? Summary (continued) Primary information-gathering techniques Review existing reports, forms, and procedure descriptions Conduct interviews and discussions with users Observe and document business processes Build prototype working models Distribute and collect questionnaires Conduct JAD sessions Research vendor solutions

System Analysis and Design Summary's Page 3

Week 4
Monday, 31 October 2011 10:05 AM

Summary Analysis phase - defines system requirements Models created to further learning process, reduce complexity, communicate with team members, and document requirements Key early step in modelling is to identify and list Use cases (activities) are identified from user goals and business events that trigger elementary business processes Business events are memorable, can be described, and occur at a specific time and place External events, temporal events, and state events Event table records event, trigger, source, use case, response, and destination A catalogue of information about each use case Things are what user deals with and system remembers, such as customer placing an order Traditional approach uses entity-relationship diagrams (ERD) for data entities, attributes of data entities, and relationships between entities Object-oriented approach uses UML class diagrams for classes, attributes, methods of class, and associations among classes Summary Data flow diagrams are used in combination with event table and entity relationship diagram to model system requirements DFDs model system as set of processes, data flows, external agents, and data stores DFDs easy to read - graphically represent key features of system using small set of symbols Many types of DFDs - context diagrams, DFD fragments, subsystem DFDs, event-partitioned DFDs, and detailed process DFDs. Each process, data flow, and data store requires detailed definition Analysts may define processes as structured English process specifications, decision tables, decision trees, or detail process DFDs Detailed process decomposition DFDs used when internal process complexity is great. Data flows are defined by component data elements and their internal structure

System Analysis and Design Summary's Page 4

Week 5
Monday, 31 October 2011 10:05 AM

Summary Object oriented approach has complete set of diagrams that define system requirements Requirements specified using following models Domain model class diagram(chapter 5) Use case diagrams(Chapter 7) Use case detailed models, either descriptive formats or activity diagrams(5 and 7) System sequence diagrams (7) State machine diagrams(chap 7)

System Analysis and Design Summary's Page 5

Week 7
Monday, 31 October 2011 10:05 AM

Summary These activities are primarily project manager responsibilities with support from project team Focus of project changes from discovering requirements to developing solution system Prioritize requirements based on scope and level of automation Scope of new system determines functions it will support Level of automation is a measure of how automated the selected functions will be Application deployment environment Computer hardware, systems software, and networks in which new system will operate Determines constraints imposed on system development alternatives Analyst must define environment to match Application requirements Organizations strategic application plans Organizations technology architecture plans Determine what alternatives are possible for developing solution Implementation alternatives include Building system in-house Buying packaged or turnkey solution Contracting with developer to build system (outsource) Develop recommendations and present to management to make funding decisions

System Analysis and Design Summary's Page 6

Week 8
Monday, 31 October 2011 10:05 AM

Summary For traditional structured approach to systems design, primary input is data flow diagram DFD is enhanced by adding system boundary Designer describes processes within each DFD boundary using one or more structure charts Structure charts developed using Transaction analysis multiple transaction types Transform analysis single transaction from input to output Structure charts may be based on three-layer architecture Modules will be clearly identified by layer Structure chart may be decomposed if layers execute on multiple systems Structured design may also include System flowcharts to show data movement Module pseudocodeto describe internal logic of structure chart module

System Analysis and Design Summary's Page 7

Week 11
Monday, 31 October 2011 10:05 AM

Summary Systems design is driven by use cases, design class diagrams, and sequence diagrams Domain class diagrams are transformed into design class diagrams Sequence diagrams are extensions of system sequence diagrams(SSDs) System sequence Diagrams Capture method signatures Show navigation visibility Summary Systems design is driven by use cases, design class diagrams, and sequence diagrams Domain class diagrams are transformed into design class diagrams Sequence diagrams are extensions of system sequence diagrams (SSDs) System sequence Diagrams Capture method signatures Show Navigation Visibility Package Diagrams show subsystem organization and dependencies Design patterns are useful solutions to standard programming problems Use case controller (MVC pattern) Adapter Factory and singleton Observer

System Analysis and Design Summary's Page 8

Week 12
Monday, 31 October 2011 10:05 AM

Summary Adaptive development methodologies Unified Process (UP) Agile modeling and agile development Flexible in an unpredictable business world EXTREME programming Tests are written first, programmers work in pairs Scrum Defines a specific goal that can be completed within 4 weeks Model Driven Architecture Provides techniques for larger organizations to intergrate all software and all software development across the entire enterprise Software reuse is a fundamental approach to rapid development Object frameworks provide a means of reusing existing software through inheritance Components are units of reusable executable code that behaves as distributed objects.

System Analysis and Design Summary's Page 9

Quiz 1
Monday, 31 October 2011 10:05 AM

Automation boundary: the boundary between the scale of human work and machine work What does a Human Resource Management system support? Employees, clients, customers, etc Description of the integrated IS of business is? Best approach when exact requirements of system/users not know? Adaptive approach The approach that completes a system in one or more iterations is called adaptive development Structured programming constructs? Sequences, decisions, interaction. What kind of skills should an Analyst have? Apart from tech skills, should also have the business skills, and people skills Main components of a strategic plan? Can the two main system development approaches be mixed? Example? No problem mixing object orientated and traditional, but linking them is hard Name one best practice promoted by the unified process: work interactively. Also check quality Name a critical factor in the acceptance of a system nowadays? The user interface, graphic How many critical paths in a project? Any number, depending on the project

System Analysis and Design Summary's Page 10

Quiz 2
Monday, 31 October 2011 10:07 AM

What is a critical component for the user acceptance of a system: the Gooie part What is the most important/critical component of a system modelling and design tool? The central repository What is the main task of a help desk? Customer support What kind of human resources training is required there? People skills What is the critical path of a project? The path that contains the tasks that take the longest time to complete (how much time it'll take for the project to be done Can there be more such paths? Yes What is the slack time of an activity? The extra time to finish the task What is PERT? Program Evaluation Review Technique (optimistic, pessimistic, realistic/6 = estimated time) What is a model? Representation of reality (simplified) What is a methodology? Methods, models and tools What is SDLC and what could spiral SDLC be? System Development Life Cycle, The phases of the system to operate, etc. Spiral: Method where you do things again and again (repetatiiiiiiiiive bitches) aka repetitive life cycle(they keep going back through the same iterations, to keep refining the system)

What SDLC approach is used when the exact requirements of a system are not known/can change significantly? Adaptive
What are the basic structured programming constructs? Sequence, cycle, decision. What is the object oriented design approach? Approaches everything as an object, and shows how the object interacts with the design

System Analysis and Design Summary's Page 11

Quiz 3
Monday, 31 October 2011 10:08 AM

What are the functional system requirements? What the system has to do How about non functional system requirements? Tech, performance, user requirements What are some types of models used in system analysis and design Mathematical, descriptive, and graphical Difference between logical and physical models Logical involves describing, planning, etc, while physical is actually working on it What are typical stakeholders types? Users, suppliers, supporters What is a workflow? Steps you have to undertake What is a common document for this: activity model What is a swimlane in an activity model? Keepings yourself to your lane of activity What are synchronisation bars and when are they used. Used to synchronise activities What are use cases? Things that the system does, in response to user action How are use cases discovered? Asking the user questions What does C.R.U.D. Create, Read, Update, and delete

What is an actor, how about a scenario Actor - something or someone who uses the system Scenario - particular set of steps

System Analysis and Design Summary's Page 12

Quiz 4
Monday, 31 October 2011 10:10 AM

A place on the project schedule that indicates a specific completion point is called a mile stone Each class of things in a hierarchy can have a more general class above it called a Superclass Each class of things in a hierarchy can have a specific classes below it called a subclass A use case postcondition is a set of statements that is true...when? Objectives that should be true after the project is over What is JAD, and what is it used for? Joint Application Design, to share ideas and brainstorm - deals with requirements What do you call a unique path in a use case? Scenario What is cardinality? Number of between objectives What is an associative class? A class associated to another class What is a miracle in traditional approach? Giving an output with no inputs What is a DFD and what is it used for? Data flow diagram What is a source in a dfd, how about a sink Source gives data, sink takes data What is DFD balancing?

System Analysis and Design Summary's Page 13

Quiz 5
Monday, 31 October 2011 10:11 AM

1) 2) 3) 4) 5) 6) 7) 8) 9) 10) 11) 12)

A place where data is held for access by one or more processes is a data store Processes with data elements created out of nothing is called a miracle What is an actor in OO SAD? Something or someone using the system What represents the [ and ] symbols in a system sequence diagrams? Guard condition Why are names underlined in a system sequence diagram? Cus their objects How do we represent actors in a use case diagram? What are the dashed vertical lines in a sequence diagram? time What does a state transition diagram show? States of objects What are horizontal bars used for in activity diagrams? syncbars How many classes in a system sequence diagram? None how is repetition shown in a system sequence diagram? Have arrows returning to their source

System Analysis and Design Summary's Page 14

Quiz 6
Monday, 31 October 2011 10:12 AM

What in as intranet: Private network (can have a wide area network) What is an extranet: Public network What is a client server architecture? (causes all sorts of problems, whatever it is) What are the 4 layers in a client server architecture? Presentation, logic, and storage Which layer contains the main processing preformed by the system? The logic/business Which layer is the most important for user acceptance of the system? Presentation How is the system represented in a system sequence diagram? As an object What are the dashed vertical lines in sequence diagrams: lifelines What are the symbols for a guard condition? [...] What are use cases? Describes the way users interact with the system What are DFD fragments? Fragments of use cases What is a level 0 DFD diagram? The class that everything runs into

System Analysis and Design Summary's Page 15