Chapter 1

Question 1

What is SDLC?

Answer 1

The systems development life cycle (SDLC) is the process of understanding how an information system (IS) can support business needs by designing a system, building it, and delivering it to users.

Question 2

What is a systems analyst?

Answer 2

The key person in the SDLC is the systems analyst, who analyzes the business situation, identifies opportunities for improvements, and designs an information system to implement them.

Question 3

What are the 4 fundamental phases of SDLC?

Answer 3

planning, analysis, design, and implementation

Question 4

What is the planning phase?

Answer 4

The planning phase is the fundamental process of understanding why an information system should be built and determining how the project team will go about building it.

Question 5

What is project initiation?

Answer 5

Identifying the system’s business value to the organization

Question 6

What is a system request?

Answer 6

A system request presents a brief summary of a business need, and it explains how a system that supports the need will create business value.

Question 6

Feasibility analysis

Answer 6

The feasibility analysis examines key aspects of the proposed project:

The idea’s technical feasibility (Can we build it?)
The economic feasibility (Will it provide business value?)
The organizational feasibility (If we build it, will it be used?)

Question 7

What is project management?

Answer 7

During project management, the project manager creates a workplan, staffs the project, and puts techniques in place to help the project team control and direct the project through the entire SDLC.

Question 8

What is a project plan

Answer 8

The deliverable for project management is a project plan, which describes how the project team will go about developing the system.

Question 9

2 steps of planning

Answer 9

project initiation and project management

Question 10

What is the analysis phase?

Answer 10

The analysis phase answers the questions of who will use the system, what the system will do, and where and when it will be used. During this phase, the project team investigates any current system(s), identifies opportunities for improvement, and develops a concept for the new system.

Question 11

3 steps of analysis

Answer 11

analysis strategy, requirements gathering, system proposal

Question 12

What is analysis strategy?

Answer 12

An analysis strategy is developed to guide the project team’s efforts. Such a strategy usually includes an analysis of the current system (called the as-is system) and its problems and then ways to design a new system (called the to-be system).

Question 13

What is requirements gathering?

Answer 13

interviews or questionnaires

Question 14

What are business analysis models?

Answer 14

describe how the business will operate if the new system is developed. The set of models typically includes models that represent the data and processes necessary to support the underlying business process.

Question 15

What is a system proposal?

Answer 15

The analyses, system concept, and models are combined into a document called the system proposal, which is presented to the project sponsor and other key decision makers (e.g., members of the approval committee) who decide whether the project should continue to move forward.

Question 16

What is the design phase?

Answer 16

The design phase decides how the system will operate, in terms of the hardware, software, and network infrastructure; the user interface, forms and reports; and the specific programs, databases, and files that will be needed.

Question 17

What steps are in the design phase?

Answer 17

Design strategy, architecture design, database and file specifications, and program design.

Question 18

What is design strategy?

Answer 18

It clarifies whether the system will be developed by the company’s own programmers, whether the system will be outsourced to another firm (usually a consulting firm), or whether the company will buy an existing software package.

Question 19

What is architecture design?

Answer 19

Describes the hardware, software, and network infrastructure to be used.

Question 20

What is interface design?

Answer 20

specifies how the users will move through the system (e.g., navigation methods such as menus and on-screen buttons) and the forms and reports that the system will use.

Question 21

What are database and file specifications?

Answer 21

These define exactly what data will be stored and where they will be stored.

Question 22

What is program design?

Answer 22

defines the programs that need to be written and exactly what each program will do

Question 23

What is system specification?

Answer 23

This collection of deliverables (architecture design, interface design, database and file specifications, and program design) is the system specification that is handed to the programming team for implementation.

Question 24

What is the implementation phase?

Answer 24

The final phase in the SDLC is the implementation phase, during which the system is actually built (or purchased, in the case of a packaged software design).

Question 25

What steps are in the implementation phase?

Answer 25

construction, installation, support plan

Question 26

What is construction?

Answer 26

The system is built and tested to ensure it performs as designed.

Question 27

What is installation?

Answer 27

Installation is the process by which the old system is turned off and the new one is turned on.

Question 28

What is a training plan?

Answer 28

to teach users how to use the new system and help manage the changes caused by the new system.

Question 29

What is a support plan?

Answer 29

This plan usually includes a formal or informal post-implementation review as well as a systematic way for identifying major and minor changes needed for the system.

Question 30

What is a methodology?

Answer 30

A methodology is a formalized approach to implementing the SDLC (i.e., it is a list of steps and deliverables).

Question 31

Process -centred methodology

Answer 31

A process-centered methodology emphasizes process models as the core of the system concept.

Question 32

Data-centered methodology

Answer 32

Data-centered methodologies emphasize data models as the core of the system concept.

Question 33

Object-oriented methodology

Answer 33

object-oriented methodologies attempt to balance the focus between process and data by incorporating both into one model.

Question 34

What are the different classes of system development methodologies?

Answer 34

structured design, rapid application development, and agile development.

Question 35

What are the structured design methodologies?

Answer 35

Waterfall Development and Parallel Development

Question 36

What is waterfall development?

Answer 36

the analysts and users proceed in sequence from one phase to the next. The key deliverables for each phase are typically very long (often hundreds of pages in length) and are presented to the project sponsor for approval as the project moves from phase to phase. Once the sponsor approves the work that was conducted for a phase, the phase ends and the next one begins.

Question 37

2 key advantages of waterfall development

Answer 37

it identifies system requirements long before programming begins and it minimizes changes to the requirements as the project proceeds.

Question 38

2 key disadvantages of waterfall development

Answer 38

the design must be completely specified before programming begins and that a long time elapses between the completion of the system proposal in the analysis phase and the delivery of the system (usually many months or years).

Question 39

What is parallel development?

Answer 39

Parallel development methodology attempts to address the problem of long delays between the analysis phase and the delivery of the system. Instead of doing design and implementation in sequence, it performs a general design for the whole system and then divides the project into a series of distinct subprojects that can be designed and implemented in parallel. Once all subprojects are complete, the separate pieces are integrated and the system is delivered

Question 40

Advantage of parallel development

Answer 40

it can reduce the time to deliver a system; thus, there is less chance of changes in the business environment causing rework.

Question 41

Disadvantages of parallel development

Answer 41

the approach still suffers from problems caused by paper documents. It also adds a new problem: Sometimes the subprojects are not completely independent; design decisions made in one subproject can affect another, and the end of the project can require significant integration efforts.

Question 42

What is Rapid Application Development (RAD)?

Answer 42

RAD-based methodologies attempt to address both weaknesses of structured design methodologies by adjusting the SDLC phases to get some part of the system developed quickly and into the hands of the users. In this way, the users can better understand the system and suggest revisions that bring the system closer to what is needed

Question 43

Advantage of RAD-based methodology

Answer 43

The combination of the changed SDLC phases and the use of these tools and techniques improves the speed and quality of systems development

Question 44

Disadvantage of RAD-based methodology

Answer 44

Owing to the use of the tools and techniques that can improve the speed and quality of systems development, user expectations of what is possible can change dramatically. As a user better understands the information technology (IT), the systems requirements tend to expand. This was less of a problem when using methodologies that spent a lot of time thoroughly documenting requirements.

Question 45

3 RAD categories

Answer 45

Phased Development, Prototyping, Throwaway Prototyping