IT Development and Implementation

Question 1

System Development and Implementation

Answer 1

An organization’s IT may indicate it intends to develop or buy software within certain domains or units - insource vs outsource SDLC framework applies to either insource or outsourced development processes

Question 2

Developing a Business Application

Answer 2

Without a clear plan for defining, developing, testing, and implementing the system, it can cost a lot.

Question 3

Purpose of the SDLC method (Systems Development Life Cycle)

Answer 3

Provides structured approach to the systems development process:

1) Identify key roles in the development process and defining their responsibilities
2) Establishing a set of ctricial actives to measure progress towards the desired result
3) Requiring a project review and approval at critical points through development process

Question 4

ROLES in SDLC

Answer 4

1) IT steering committee - Are selected from functional areas across organization; duty is to approve and prioritize systems proposals for development

2) Lead systems analyst - Manager of programming team
A)responsible for direct contact with end user
B) responsible for developing the overall programming logic and functionality

3) Application programmers - team, under direction of lead, write and test programs
4) end user - employees who will use the program to accomplish their tasks

Question 5

Stages in, and Risks to, SDLC

Answer 5

Stage 1 - Planning and Feasibility Study - when application proposal is submitted for consideration proposal is evaluated in terms of 3 aspects

1) Technical feasibility
2) Economic feasibility
3) Operation feasibility

After feasibility, project plan developed and establishes
A) Critical success factors - things project must complete in order to succeed
B) project scope.- high-level view of what project will accomplish
C) project milestones and responsibilities

Stage 2 - analysis - system analysts work with end users to understand business process and document the requirements f the system; collaboration of IT personnel and end users to define the system is known as joint application development (JAD)

3) Design - Technical specifications of the system are established; design specification has 2 primary components

A) Technical architecture specification - identifies hardware, system software, and networking tech system will run on

B) system model- Graphical models (flowcharts) to establish ineraction of systems processes and components UI ALSO

4) Development.- programmers use systems design specification to develop the program and data files

A)Hardware and IT infrastructure identified during design phase and purchased through development phase
B)Development process must be monitored to ensure compatibility; things become more costly after this phase **

5) Testing - system evaluated to determine whether it mets specs;
1. Testing procedures must project expected results and compare actual results with expectations:
a. Test items should confirm correct handling of correct data and data that includes errors.
2. Testing most be performed at multiple levels to ensure correct intra- and inter-system operation:
a.
Individual processing unit – Provides assurance that each piece of the system works properly.
b.
System testing – Provides assurance that all of the system modules work together.
c.
Inter-system testing – Provides assurance that the system interfaces correctly with related systems;
d.
User acceptance testing – Provides assurance that the system can accomplish its stated objectives with the business environment.

6) Implementation - before system moved into production, old data must be converted to new system format. Alll users must be trained on new system, can occur in 4 ways -
A) Parallel implementation - new system and old system are run concurrently until it is clear new system is working properly
B) cold turkey - old system dropped and new system put in place ASAP
C) phased implementation - system divided into modules that are brought online one or two at a time
D) pilot implementaiton- similar to phased but users are divided into smaller groups and are trained on new system one group at a time

7) Maintenance -