System development lifecycle

Question 1

Stages of a system development lifecycle

Answer 1

1. Planning
2. Analysis
3. Design
4. implementation

Question 2

What is the planning stage?

Answer 2

Understanding why a system should de designed and planning how it will designed and delivered

Question 3

What is the analysis stage?

Answer 3

Understanding who will use the system, what the system will do and where/when it will be used

1. Understand existing situation
2. Identify improvements
3. define requirements

Question 4

What are the PACT questions?

Answer 4

People - what are the intended user’s characteristics and skills?
Activities - how is the activity currently carried out? Why? What can be improved?
Context - What is the environment of the activity?
Technology - what tools are being used currently? How might new developments be used?

Question 5

What is the design stage?

Answer 5

• How the system will operate; deciding how to build it
• Design of architecture and interface, development of database and file specifications

Question 6

What is the implementation stage?

Answer 6

• Building the system
• testing the system
• System construction, installation and support plan (maintainability)

Question 7

Testing

Answer 7

• Unit testing - testing each unit of program module separately
• Integration testing - Checking that things that work together do so without error
• Acceptance testing - does the system meet requirements
• User testing - system tested with users

Question 8

What are the different models for the system development lifecycle?

Answer 8

• Waterfall development
• Rapid application development

Question 9

Waterfall development

Answer 9

Each stage of development is completed before moving to the next

Question 10

Advantages and disadvantages of waterfall development

Answer 10

Advantages:
- Requirements identified at the start; limited change requires later
- Better for high security needs
- Easy to arrange tasks
Disadvantages:
- Time consuming
- Inflexible
no working software until late
- Can’t adjust to changing requirements
- Difficult to measure progress

Question 11

Rapid application development

Answer 11

• Feature oriented, not activity oriented
• Less planning
• Focus on prototyping
• Design, implement, review and then adapt it

Question 12

Advantages and disadvantages of rapid application development

Answer 12

Advantages:
- Cheaper and easier during process
- Requirements can change
- Get user feedback earlier
- Quicker delivery

Disadvantages:
- Planning can be difficult
- Can be difficult to scale for large systems
- Less documentation