Lesson 3.5 Systems Analysis Flashcards
Describe options for designing and conducting interviews and develop a plan for conducting an interview to determine system requirements.
Interviews can involve open-ended and closedended questions. In either case، you must be precise in formulating a question in order to avoid ambiguity and to ensure a proper response. Making a list of questions is just one activity necessary to prepare for an interview. You must also create a general interview guide (see Figure 5-2) and schedule the interview.
Explain the advantages and pitfalls of observing workers and analyzing business documents to determine system requirements.
During observation، you must try not to intrude or interfere with normal business activities so that the people being observed do not modify their activities from normal processes. Observation can be expensive because it is so labor intensive. Analyzing documents may be much less expensive، but any insights gained will be limited to what is available، based on the reader’s interpretation. Often the creator of the document is not there to answer questions.
Participate in and help plan a joint application design (JAD) session.
Joint application design (JAD) brings together key users and adds structure and a JAD session leader to it. Typical JAD participants include the session leader، a scribe، key users، managers، asponsor، systems analysts، and IS staff members. JAD sessions are usually held offsite and may last as long as one week.
Use prototyping during requirements determination.
You about read how information systems can support requirements determination with prototyping. As part of the prototyping process، users and analysts work closely together to determine requirements that the analyst then builds into a model. The analyst and user then work together on revising the model until it is close to what the user desires
Select the appropriate methods to elicit system requirements.
For requirements determination، the traditional sources of information about a system include interviews، questionnaires، observation، and procedures، forms، and other useful documents. Often many or even all of these sources are used to gather perspectives on the adequacy of current systems and the requirements for replacement systems. Each form of information collection has its advantages and disadvantages، which were summarized in Table 5-4. Selecting the methods to use depends on the need for rich or thorough information، the time and budget available، the need to probe deeper once initial information is collected، the need for confidentiality for those providing assessments of system requirements، the desire to get people involved and committed to a project، and the potential audience from which requirements should be collected.
Explain business process reengineering (BPR) and how it affects requirements determination.
Business process reengineering (BPR) is an approach to changing business processes radically.
Understand how requirements determination techniques apply to development of Internet applications.
Most of the same techniques used for requirements determination for traditional systems can also be fruitfully applied to the development of Internet applications. Accurately capturing requirements in a timely manner for Internet applications is just as important as for more traditional systems.
During the requirements determination phase، which information source yields the largest number of specific deliverables?
Existing documents and files
True or False? Open-ended questions can be disadvantageous in that they can be tough to summarize.
True
The official way a system works as described in the organization’s documentation is its ___.
Formal system
What is the term for the person assigned to take notes during JAD sessions?
Scribe
