Structured Analysis & Design Methodology

Selecting a methodology is not simple, as no one methodology is always best. Systems nature, constraints, and rules playing a major role in deciding which methodology to use. Structured analysis is a traditional systems development technique that is time-tested and easy to understand. Structured analysis uses a set of process models to describe a system graphically. Because it focuses on processes that transform data into information, structured analysis is called a process-centered technique Whereas structured analysis treats processes and data as separate components, object-oriented analysis combines data and the processes that act on the data into things called objects. The result is a set of software objects that represent actual people, things, transactions and events: Systems Development Methodologies Structured analysis and design

Structured analysis is a set of techniques and graphical tools that allow the analyst to develop a new kind of system specification that are easily understandable to the user. Analysts work primarily with their wits, pencil and paper. [Kendall 1996] Developed in the late 1970s by DeMarco, Yourdon, and Constantine after the emergence of structured programming. In 1989, Yourdon published Modern Structured Analysis. The availability of CASE tools in the 1990s enabled analysts to develop and modify the graphical SAD models.

Philosophy of structured analysis and design

Analysts attempt to divide large, complex problems into smaller, more easily handled ones. Divide and Conquer Top-Down approach, Functional view of the problem. Analysts use graphics to illustrate their ideas whenever possible

Goals of SAD

Improve Quality and reduce the risk of system failure Establish concrete requirements specifications and complete requirements documentation Focus on Reliability, Flexibility, and Maintainability of system

Elements of Structured Analysis and Design

Essential Model: It is the model of what the system must do. It does not define how the system will accomplish its
purpose. It is a combination of the environmental and behavioral model.

Environmental Model It defines the scope of the proposed system and defines the boundary and interaction between
the system and the outside world. It is composed of: Statement of Purpose, Context Diagram, and Event List.

Behavioral Model
It is model of the internal behavior and data entities of the system and models the functional requirements.

It is composed of Data Dictionary, Data Flow Diagram, Entity Relationship Diagram, Process Specification, and State Transition Diagram.

Implementation Model
It maps the functional requirements to the hardware and software and determines which functions should be manual and which should be automated. It defines the Human-Computer Interface and defines non-functional requirements. Tool: Structure Charts

Advantages of Structured analysis and design

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Visual so it is easier for users/programmers to understand. Makes good use of graphical tools A mature technique. Process-oriented approach is a natural way of thinking , Flexible, simple and easy to understand and impalement.

Disadvantages of Structured analysis and design

1. Not enough user-analyst interaction, 2. It depends on dividing system to sub systems but it is to decide when to stop decomposing

Object-Oriented analysis and design

Object-Oriented analysis and design becoming popular because of its ability to thoroughly represent complex relationships, as well as represent data and data processing with a consistent notation. Object-Oriented analysis and design blend analysis and design in evolutionary process. It is process of progressively developing representation of a system component (or object) through the phases of analysis, design and implementation. Object-Oriented systems development life cycle The Object-Oriented development life cycle consists of progressively developing an object representation through three phases analysis, design, and implementation Analysis Phase Object-oriented analysis is a popular approach that sees a system from the viewpoint of the objects themselves as they function and interact .Model of the real-world application is developed showing its important properties Model specifies the functional behavior of the system independent of implementation details Design Phase Analysis model is refined and adapted to the environment,can be separated into two stages: System design: Concerned with overall system architecture Object design: Implementation details are added to system design Implementation Phase Design is implemented using a programming language or database management system.

Structured analysis and design vs. object oriented analysis and design
Similarities
Both SAD and OOAD had started off from programming techniques Both techniques use graphical design and graphical tools to analyze and model the requirements. Both techniques provide a systematic step-by-step process for developers Both techniques focus on documentation of the requirements

Differences
SAD is Process-Oriented while OOAD combines data and the processes OOAD encapsulates as much of the systems' data and processes into objects, while SAD separates between them

SSADM Methodology
SSADM is a waterfall method for the analysis and design of information systems. SSADM can be thought to represent a pinnacle of the rigorous document-led approach to system design, and contrasts with more contemporary agile methods such as DSDM or Scrum. SSADM is one particular implementation and builds on the work of different schools of structured analysis and development methods, such as Peter Check lands soft systems methodology, Larry Constantine's structured design, Edward Yourdon's Yourdon Structured Method, Michael A. Jackson's Jackson Structured Programming, and Tom DeMarco's structured analysis.

SSADM Techniques
The three most important techniques that are used in SSADM are: Logical data modeling This is the process of identifying, modeling and documenting the data requirements of the system being designed. The data are separated into entities (things about which a business needs to record information) and relationships (the associations between the entities). Data Flow Modeling This is the process of identifying, modeling and documenting how data moves around an information system. Data Flow Modeling examines processes (activities that transform data from one form to another), data stores (the holding areas for data), external entities (what sends data into a system or receives data from a system), and data flows (routes by which data can flow). Entity Behavior Modeling This is the process of identifying, modeling and documenting the events that affect each entity and the sequence in which these events occur.

Stages
The SSADM method involves the application of a sequence of analysis, documentation and design tasks concerned with the following:

Stage 0 Feasibility study

In order to determine whether or not a given project is feasible, there must be some form of investigation into the goals and implications of the project. When a feasibility study is carried out, there are four main areas of consideration: Technical is the project technically possible? Financial can the business afford to carry out the project? Organizational will the new system be compatible with existing practices? Ethical is the impact of the new system socially acceptable?

To answer these questions, the feasibility study is effectively a condensed version of a fully blown systems analysis and design. The requirements and users are analyzed to some extent, some business options are drawn up and even some details of the technical implementation. The product of this stage is a formal feasibility study document. SSADM specifies the sections that the study should contain including any preliminary models that have been constructed and also details of rejected options and the reasons for their rejection.

Stage 1 Investigation of the current environment

This is one of the most important stages of SSADM. The developers of SSADM understood that though the tasks and objectives of a new system may be radically different from the old system, the underlying data will probably change very little. This serves many purposes: the analyst learns the terminology of the business, what users do and how they do it the old system provides the core requirements for the new system faults, errors and areas of inefficiency are highlighted and their correction added to the requirements the data model can be constructed the users become involved and learn the techniques and models of the analyst the boundaries of the system can be defined

The products of this stage are: Users Catalog describing all the users of the system and how they interact with it Requirements Catalogs detailing all the requirements of the new system Current Services Description further composed of Current environment logical data structure (ERD) Context diagram (DFD) Leveled set of DFDs for current logical system Full data dictionary including relationship between data stores and entities

In the process of preparing the models, the analyst will discover the information that makes up the users and requirements catalogs.

Stage 2 Business system options

Having investigated the current system, the analyst must decide on the overall design of the new system. To do this, he or she, using the outputs of the previous stage, develops a set of business system options. The analyst may hold a

brainstorming session so that as many and various ideas as possible are generated.The ideas are then collected to form a set of two or three different options which are presented to the user. The options consider the following: the degree of automation the boundary between the system and the users the distribution of the system, for example, is it centralized to one office or spread out across several? cost/benefit impact of the new system

The users and analyst together choose a single business option The output of this stage is the single selected business option together with all the outputs of stage 1.

Stage 3 Requirements specification

This is probably the most complex stage in SSADM. Using the requirements developed in stage 1 and working within the framework of the selected business option, the analyst must develop a full logical specification of what the new system must do. The specification must be free from error, ambiguity and inconsistency. To produce the logical specification, the analyst builds the required logical models for both the data-flow diagrams (DFDs) and the entity relationship diagrams (ERDs).The product of this stage is a complete requirements specification document which is made up of: *the updated data catalog the updated requirements catalog the processing specification which in turn is made up of user role/function matrix function definitions required logical data model entity life-histories effect correspondence diagrams

Stage 4 Technical system options

This stage is the first towards a physical implementation of the new system. Like the Business System Options, in this stage a large number of options for the implementation of the new system are generated. This is honed down to two or three to present to the user from which the final option is chosen or synthesized. However, the considerations are quite different being: the hardware architectures the software to use the cost of the implementation the staffing required the physical limitations such as a space occupied by the system the distribution including any networks which that may require the overall format of the human computer interface

Stage 5 Logical design

Though the previous level specifies details of the implementation, the outputs of this stage are implementationindependent and concentrate on the requirements for the human computer interface. The logical design specifies the main methods of interaction in terms of menu structures and command structures. The product of this stage is the logical design which is made up of: Data catalog Required logical data structure Logical process model includes dialogues and model for the update and inquiry processes Stress & Bending moment.

Stage 6 Physical design

This is the final stage where all the logical specifications of the system are converted to descriptions of the system in terms of real hardware and software. This is a very technical stage and a simple overview is presented here. The product is a complete Physical Design which could tell software engineers how to build the system in specific details of hardware and software and to the appropriate standards.

Advantages and Disadvantages

The main advantages of SSADM are: Three different views of the system Mature Separation of logical and physical aspects of the system Well-defined techniques and documentation User involvement

The size of SSADM is a hindrance to using it in some circumstances. There is an investment in cost and time in training people to use the techniques. The learning curve can be considerable if the full method is used, as not only are there several modeling techniques to come to terms with, but there are also a lot of standards for the preparation and presentation of document

ISO 9000
ISO 9000 is a family of standards related to quality management systems and designed to help organizations ensure that they meet the needs of customers and other stakeholders (Poksinska et al, 2002 ). The standards are published by ISO, the International Organization for Standardization, and available through National standards bodies. ISO 9000 deals with the fundamentals of quality management systems ), including the eight management principles (Beattie and Sohal, 1999; Tsim et al, 2002) on which the family of standards is based. ISO 9001 deals with the requirements that organizations wishing to meet the standard have to fulfill. Over a million organizations worldwide are independently certified, making ISO 9001 one of the most widely used management tools in the world today. Despite widespread use, however, the ISO certification process has been criticized as being wasteful and not being useful for all organizations.

Evolution of ISO 9000 standards

1987 version
ISO 9000:1987 had the same structure as the UK Standard BS 5750, with three 'models' for quality management systems, the selection of which was based on the scope of activities of the organization: ISO 9001:1987 Model for quality assurance in design, development, production, installation, and servicing was for companies and organizations whose activities included the creation of new products. ISO 9002:1987 Model for quality assurance in production, installation, and servicing had basically the same material as ISO 9001 but without covering the creation of new products. ISO 9003:1987 Model for quality assurance in final inspection and test covered only the final inspection of finished product, with no concern for how the product was produced.

1994 version
ISO 9000:1994 emphasized quality assurance via preventive actions, instead of just checking final product, and continued to require evidence of compliance with documented procedures. As with the first edition, the down-side was that companies tended to implement its requirements by creating shelf-loads of procedure manuals, and becoming burdened with an ISO bureaucracy.

2000 version
ISO 9001:2000 combined the three standards9001, 9002, and 9003into one, called 9001. Design and development procedures were required only if a company does in fact engage in the creation of new products. The 2000 version sought to make a radical change in thinking by actually placing the concept of process management front and center. Another goal was to improve effectiveness via process performance metrics: numerical measurement of the effectiveness of tasks and activities.

2008 version
ISO 9001:2008 basically renarrates ISO 9001:2000. The 2008 version only introduced clarifications to the existing requirements of ISO 9001:2000 and some changes intended to improve consistency with ISO 14001:2004. There were no new requirements..

Advantages
It is widely acknowledged that proper quality management improves business, often having a positive effect on investment, market share, sales growth, sales margins, competitive advantage, and avoidance of litigation. Implementing ISO often gives the following advantages: 1. Creates a more efficient, effective operation 2. Increases customer satisfaction and retention 3. Reduces audits 4. Enhances marketing 5. Improves employee motivation, awareness, and morale 6. Promotes international trade 7. Increases profit 8. Reduces waste and increases productivity. 9. Common tool for standardization.

3GL vs. 4GL

The 3rd generation is the first generation that allowed a program to be run on a different machine than the one it was developed on. 3GL languages such as Pascal and FORTRAN use procedural methods to accomplish a task: an explicit sequence of steps that produce a result. 4GL languages are nonprocedural; they concentrate on what you want to do rather than how to do it. This is where objectoriented PL can fall under. An example is SQL. 2. A 4GL language is a programming language having language features that makes it particular suitable for a certain type of programming while the third generation brought refinements to make the languages more programmer-friendly. This includes features like improved support for aggregate data types, and expressing concepts in a way that favors the programmer, not the computerist. 3. 4GL scripts are event oriented while 3gl are not so. 4. 3GL are high-level languages such as C while 4GL are languages that consist of statements similar to statements in a human language
1.