Software systems development is, from a historical perspective, a very young profession. The first official programmer is probably Grace Hopper, working for the Navy in the mid-1940s. More realistically, commercial applications development did not really take off until the early 1960s. These initial efforts are marked by a craftsman-like approach based on what intuitively felt right. Unfortunately, too many programmers had poor intuition. By the late 1960s it had become apparent that a more disciplined approach was required.
The software engineering techniques started coming into being. This finally brings us to the SDLC. What evolved from these early activities in improving rigor is an understanding of the scope and complexity of the total development process. It became clear that the process of creating systems required a system to do systems. This is the SDLC. It is the system used to build and maintain software systems. The system development Life Cycle is the process of developing information systems through investigation, analysis, design, implementation, and maintenance.
The systems development life cycle (SDLC) is a conceptual model used in project management that describes the stages involved in an information system development project, from an initial feasibility study through maintenance of the completed application. SDLC Objectives When we plan to develop, acquire or revise a system we must be absolutely clear on the objectives of that system. The objectives must be stated in terms of the expected benefits that the business expects from investing in that system. The objectives define the expected return on investment.
The Term Paper on Information Systems Development Methodologies
This purpose of this paper is to give an understanding of the information systems development methodologies available. A software development methodology or system development methodology in software engineering is a framework that is used to structure, plan, and control the process of developing an information system. Here are some iterative methodologies that can be used especially for large ...
An SDLC has three primary business objectives: – Ensure the delivery of high quality systems; – Provide strong management controls; – Maximize productivity. In other words, the SDLC should ensure that we can produce more function, with higher quality, in less time, with less resources and in a predictable manner. 1. Ensure High Quality Judging the quality of a wine or a meal is a subjective process. The results of the evaluation reflect the tastes and opinions of the taster. But we need a more rigorous, objective approach to evaluating the quality of systems.
Therefore, before we can ensure that a system has high quality, we must know what quality is in a business context. The primary definition of quality in a business context is the return on investment (ROI) achieved by the system. The business could have taken the money spent on developing and running the system and spent it on advertising, product development, staff raises or many other things. However, someone made a decision that if that money was spent on the system it would provide the best return or at least a return justifying spending the money on it.
This ROI can be the result of such things as: operational cost savings or cost avoidance; improved product flexibility resulting in a larger market share; and/or improved decision support for strategic, tactical and operational planning. In each case the ROI should be expressed quantitatively, not qualitatively. Qualitative objectives are almost always poorly defined reflections of incompletely analyzed quantitative benefits. The SDLC must ensure that these objectives are well defined for each project and used as the primary measure of success for the project and system.
The Essay on Project And Quality Management Term Project
1. Establish the project objective, and make a list of your assumptions about the project. Project objectives The project aims to transform the previous annual report done by the research center into a more eye-catching, organized report that can used to effectively promote the ‘not-for-profit’ nature of the center and enable past & potential donors to realize the contribution made by the ...
The business objectives provide the contextual definition of quality. There is also an intrinsic definition of quality. This definition of quality centers on the characteristics of the system itself: is it zero defect, is it well-structured, it is well-documented, is it functionally robust, etc. The characteristics are obviously directly linked to the system’s ability to provide the best possible ROI. Therefore, the SDLC must ensure that these qualities are built into the system. However, how far you go in achieving intrinsic quality is tempered by the need to keep contextual quality (i. . , ROI) the number one priority. At times there are trade-offs to be made between the two. Within the constraints of the business objectives, the SDLC must ensure that the system has a high degree of intrinsic quality. 2. Provide Strong Management Control The essence of strong management controls is predictability and feedback. Projects may last for many months or even years. Predictability is provided by being able to accurately estimate, as early as possible, how long a project will take, how many resources it will require and how much it will cost.
This information is key to determining if the ROI will be achieved in a timely manner or at all. The SDLC must ensure that such planning estimates can be put together before there have been any significant expenditures of resources, time and money on the project. The feedback process tells us how well we are doing in meeting the plan and the project’s objectives. If we are on target, we need that verified. If there are exceptions, these must be detected as early as possible so that corrective actions can be taken in a timely manner.
The SDLC must ensure that management has timely, complete and accurate information on the status of the project and the system throughout the development process. System Development Life Cycle There are two basic definitions of productivity. One centers on what you are building; the other is from the perspective of how many resources, how much time and how much money it takes to build it. The first definition of productivity is based on the return on investment (ROI) concept. What value is there in doing the wrong system twice as fast? It would be like taking a trip to the wrong place in a plane that was twice as fast.
The Essay on Systems Development/Project Management and Outsourcing
The purpose of this assignment is engage in a discussion regarding Systems Development, Project Management, and Outsourcing. The seven phases of the systems development life cycle will be described. Relationships between the systems development life cycle and software development methodologies will be detailed. The phases in the SDLC, including activities associated with planning, analysis, ...
You might have been able to simply walk to the correct destination. Therefore, the best way to measure a project team’s or system department’s productivity is to measure the net ROI of their efforts. The SDLC must not just ensure that the expected ROI for each project is well defined. It must ensure that the projects being done are those with the maximum possible ROI opportunities of all of the potential projects. Even if every project in the queue has significant ROI benefits associated with it, there is a practical limit to how large and how fast the systems organization can grow.
We need to make the available staff as productive as possible with regard to the time, money and resources required to deliver a given amount of function. The first issue we face is the degree to which the development process is labor intensive. Part of the solution lies in automation. The SDLC must be designed in such a way as to take maximum advantage of the computer assisted software engineering (CASE) tools. The complexity of the systems and the technology they use has required increased specialization. These specialized skills are often scarce.
The SDLC must delineate the tasks and deliverables in such a way as to ensure that specialized resources can be brought to bear on the project in the most effective and efficient way possible. One of the major wastes of resources on a project has to do things over. Scrap and rework occurs due to such things as errors and changes in scope. The SDLC must ensure that scrap and rework is minimized. Another activity that results in non-productive effort is the start-up time for new resources being added to the project. The SDLC must ensure that start-up time is minimized in any way possible.
A final opportunity area for productivity improvements is the use of off-the-shelf components. Many applications contain functions identical to those in other applications. The SDLC should ensure that if useful components already exist, they can be re-used in many applications. What we have identified so far are the primary business objectives of the SDLC and the areas of opportunity we should focus on in meeting these objectives. What we must now do is translate these objectives into a set of requirements and design points for the SDLC. STAGES OF SDLC
The Essay on Systems Analysis Project System Phone Calls
Systems Analysis Project Fundamentals of Business Systems Development The company I work for recently met with our primary client in hopes of identifying any potential shortfalls and to gain insight on our customer service ability. During this meeting one concern seemed to dominate the study; the client felt they were not getting adequate personal attention when they called. They also indicated " ...
Preliminary investigation is the first step in the system development life cycle. The preliminary investigation is a way of handling the user’s request to change, improve or enhance an existing system. The objective is to determine, whether the request is valid and feasible before any recommendation is made to do nothing, improve or modify the existing system, or build altogether a new one. It is not a design study, nor does it include the collections of details to completely describe the business system. The following objectives should be accomplished, while working on the preliminary investigation.
In other words, maintenance includes enhancements, modifications or any change from the original specifications. Therefore, the information analyst should take change as his/her responsibility so as to keep the functioning at an acceptable level. Software needs to be maintained not because some of its modules or programs wear out and need to be replaced, but because there are often some residual errors remaining in the system which have to be removed as soon they are discovered. This is an on-going process, until the system stabilizes.
Maintaining and enhancing software to cope with newly discovered problems or new requirements can take far more time than the initial development of the software. Not only may it be necessary to add code that does not fit the original design but just determining how software works at some point after it is completed may require significant effort by a software engineer. About ? of all software engineering work is maintenance, but this statistic can be misleading. A small part of that is fixing bugs. Most maintenance is extending systems to do new things, which in many ways can be considered new work.
