Factors such as; a more informed user community, need for new systems with enhanced functionality and a shift towards cooperative systems developments have shaped the role of a system analyst in recent days (Graf & Misic, 1993).
In organizations that range for small-scale businesses to multinational corporations there is a constant change in the external environment in which they operate that poses both threats and opportunities. This mandates companies to have an eye for opportunities and re-engineer their current business processes to accommodate changes to achieve a competitive advantage. According to me, Information System Analysis and Design is the process that is employed to implement improvements that help organizations adapt to
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But in most cases, companies want custom made software that best satisfies their requirements. As discussed by (Zhang, 2014) in class, there is no single off the shelf software application that can cater to the functional requirements of organizations. Hence, as mentioned by (Hoffer, George & Valacich, 2008), I believe that system analysts adopt system analysis and design process to develop application software that is tailor made to accommodate the expectations or requirements of the client.
ROLE OF A SYSTEM ANALYST IN SYSTEMS DEVELOPMENT LIFE CYCLE
There are specific methodologies that organizations follow to develop and maintain their information systems. Systems Development Life Cycle (SDLC) is a conventional methodology that organizations adopt for system analysis and design. This life cycle contains five phases such as planning, analysis, design, implementation and maintenance (Hoffer, George & Valacich, 2008). At every stage of the SDLC, system analysts cooperate with other business professionals, programmers, professionals and testers to determine the progress of the system analysis and design.
During the planning phase, the information needs of the organization are analyzed and translated into the project plan. An important outcome of the planning phase is the formulation of the project boundary or scope by the system analyst. Hence, this phase necessitates the collaboration between the project manager and system analysts
The system development life cycle is a formal four-step process that can be followed in order to identify a problem and solve it. The first step is
The information system’s requirements in the systems planning phase are based on a case summary, potential interview questions, and the systems analyst’s experience in systems planning. One must not only generate requirements based specifically on what users’ state they want or need. Analysts must also generate requirements based on insight into the overall organization and project goals.
Big Corporations and Health care organization are always looking to improve their information systems to save time, money, and people lives. One most used information system would be the System Development Lifecycle (SDLC). A system development can sometimes run over budget or the corporation and organizations will never receive full satisfaction if their goals are not accomplish.
The next step in the process is system analysis. This second stage involves gathering requirements, such as documenting the strengths and weaknesses of the current system, having discussions with the users to understand their roles and needs. This is an integral part of the life cycle as employees are the most important asset a company has. Baya, Gruman, & Mathaisel state, “information technology
The system developer will analyze requirements for all users in the company including clients. He will research, design and write new programs for the company. The developer will also test new programs and find their weaknesses. He will be responsible for evaluating software and systems running in computers. He will also develop existing programs through analysis and identify modification areas
System Analysis is the study where detailed information about the components and requirements of a system, the information needs of an organisation, the characteristics and current components of the systems and the user functional requirements of the systems that is proposed system.
In this class, we’ve stressed the importance of various system analysis and design tools and techniques. By now you should have a “toolbox” full of useful design and analysis tools. List the tools in your toolbox and then write one short paragraph on how you can/will apply them in your careers, lives,
It is both hard to distinguish origins of system analysis and to tell exactly what it stands for in spite of its broad usage. In our opinion, the term suffered a paradigm shift, presumably not once, as we tend to create new, more complicated abstractions.
Systems analysis refers to a problem solving technique where a business or procedure is studied and the goals are identified in order to create information systems to help the business achieve their goal more efficiently and easier. Systems analysts obtain feedback from the system users in various ways e.g. interviews, questionnaires etc. More importantly they find out from the users what their specific requirements are regarding the proposed system and then use the information obtained to formulate requirements for the system, the system is then written ensuring that all the requirements and expectations are met.
System development can generally be thought of having two major components: systems analysis and systems design. In System Analysis more emphasis is given to understanding the details of an existing system or a proposed one and then deciding whether the proposed system is desirable or not and whether the existing system needs improvements. Thus, system analysis is the process of investigating a system, identifying problems, and using the information to recommend improvements to the system. System design is the process of planning a new business system or one to replace or complement an existing system.
Computer system plays an important role in solving human problem in their daily life. There are standard steps in order to develop information system called System Development Life Cycle (SDLC). SDLC is the framework available to build a complete system. There are five phases in SDLC which are planning, analysis, design, coding, testing and maintenance (refer to Figure 1 in Appendix 1).
6. Feasibility analysis, final specifications, hardware and software study, system design, system implementation, system evaluation, system modification. 7. Role of systems analyst – attributes of a systems analyst – tools used in system analysis 8. Information gathering, strategies, methods 9. Case study/documenting study, system requirements specification, from narratives of requirements to classification of requirements as strategic, tactical, operational and statutory. Example case study 10. How to formulate project goals and quantify them 11. Examining alternative solutions and evaluating proposed solutions a) Technical feasibility b) Operational feasibility c) Economic feasibility 12. Cost benefit analysis, Documenting feasibility report 13. Developing Data Flow Diagrams (DFD) a) What are DFDs? b) Symbols used in DFD c) Rules of data flow d) Good style
SDLC methodologies are the steps that a developer works by to have a highly structured procedure running during the development of any software. (Massey and Satao,2012)
System engineering is an involvement or combination of more than one discipline to achieve customer requirements within constraints. It develops a system which solve complex engineering problem with the contributions of different discipline perspective and produce the optimal solution in order to meet the requirements. System engineering prioritize in the customer needs and acquire functionality early in the development process[4]. It then proceeds into the design phase and validate the system as a whole complete problem[4]. System engineering incorporate all discipline and turn them into a group effort and goes from a concept to production to operation[4]. System engineering is important in a complex problem because it able to turn an initial idea into a fully descriptive system with all the essential elements integrated into a complete whole system[2]. These can then serve as a basis of decision making. In other words, it serve as a starting point to solve a complex engineering problem. It can also helps to maintain project going in the right direction in an orderly manner. Moreover, system engineering able to minimize error in a project because it considers every aspect that might affect the project and evaluate it as a whole. The term was first seen in 1940s back in the Bell Telephone Laboratories[1]. It is difficult to determine the exact origin of system engineering but many agree that it was introduce after World War II[3]. During this time both the race
They may also devise ways to apply existing systems’ resources to additional tasks. Most systems analysts work with specific types of computer systems- for example, business, accounting or financial systems or scientific and engineering systems –that vary with the kind of organization.” (Computer Systems Analysts, 1)