Information Systems Development

PART 1

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

• Systems Development Life Cycle • Application Development Methodologies • Project Management • Systems Acquisition • Development Phases in a Structured Process

APPLICATION DEVELOPMENT

• Application that is built correctly can transform as the organization and its business transforms • Application that effectively meets employee needs will help an organization become more productive and enhance decision making • Application that does not meet employee needs may have a damaging effect on productivity and can even cause a business to fail

APPLICATION DEVELOPMENT . . .

• As organizations’ reliance on application software grows, so do the business-related consequences of application software successes and failures including: – Increase or decrease revenue – Repair or damage to brand reputation – Prevent or incur liabilities – Increase or decrease productivity

The Need for Structured Systems Development Process

• The process of defining requirements, designing, building, and maintaining information systems – Standardized development methods • • Best practices to follow Consistent quality – Software engineering

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THE SYSTEMS DEVELOPMENT LIFE CYCLE (SDLC) Systems development

life cycle (SDLC) – The overall process for developing information systems from planning and analysis through implementation and maintenance

The Systems Development Life Cycle

1. Planning phase – Establishes a high-level plan of the intended project and determines project goals 2. Analysis phase – Involves analyzing end-user business requirements and refining project goals into defined functions and operations of the intended system (WHAT) – Business requirements – Specific business requests the system must meet to be successful

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The Systems Development Life Cycle . . .

Design phase – Establishes descriptions of the desired features and operations of the system including screen layouts, business rules, process diagrams, pseudo code, and other documentation (HOW) Development phase – Involves taking all of the detailed design documents from the design phase and transforming them into the actual system

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The Systems Development Life Cycle . . .

Testing phase – Involves bringing all the project pieces together into a special testing environment to eliminate errors and bugs, and verify that the system meets all of the business requirements defined in the analysis phase Implementation phase – Involves placing the system into production so users can begin to perform actual business operations with it

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The Systems Development Life Cycle . . .

Maintenance phase – Involves performing changes, corrections, additions, and upgrades to ensure the system continues to meet its business goals

APPLICATION DEVELOPMENT METHODOLOGIES

• • • • • • Waterfall (Structured Process) Agile Rapid application development (RAD) Extreme programming Rational unified process (RUP) SCRUM

Waterfall Methodology

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Waterfall

methodology – A structured sequence of phases in which the output of each phase becomes the input for the next

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Agile Methodology

Iterative development – Consists of a series of tiny projects Agile methodology – Aims for customer satisfaction through early and continuous delivery of useful application software components developed by an iterative process using the bare minimum requirements

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Rapid Application Development (RAD) Methodology

Rapid application development methodology– Emphasizes extensive user involvement in the rapid and evolutionary construction of working prototypes of a system to accelerate the systems development process Prototype – A smaller-scale representation or working model of the users’ requirements or a proposed design for an information system The prototype is an essential part of the analysis phase when using a RAD methodology

Extreme Programming Methodology

• Extreme programming (XP) methodology – Breaks a project into tiny phases, and developers cannot continue on to the next phase until the first phase is complete

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Rational Unified Process (RUP) Methodology

Rational Unified Process (RUP) – Provides a framework for breaking down the development of software into four gates – Gate One: Inception – Gate Two: Elaboration – Gate Three: Construction – Gate Four: Transition

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SCRUM Methodology

SCRUM – Uses small teams to produce small pieces of deliverable software using sprints, or 30-day intervals, to achieve an appointed goal • Under this methodology, each day ends or begins with a stand-up meeting to monitor and control the development effort

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DEVELOPING SUCCESSFUL

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APPLICATION

Primary reasons for project failure Unclear or missing business requirements Skipping SDLC phases • • Failure to manage project scope

Scope creep Feature creep

Failure to manage project plan Changing technology

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Developing Successful Application

expensive it is to fix!

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MANAGING SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT PROJECTS

• Analysts predict investment in MIS projects worldwide is over $1 trillion • 70 percent will be lost due to failed projects • The consequences of failed projects include – Damaged brand – Lost goodwill – Dissolution of partnerships – Lost investment opportunities – Low morale

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Managing Software Development Projects

Project – Temporary activities undertaken to create a unique product or service Project management – The application of knowledge, skills, tools, and techniques to project activities to meet project requirements Project manager – An individual who is an expert in project planning and management, defines and develops the project plan, and tracks the plan to ensure the project is completed on time and on budget

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Managing Software Development Projects . . .

Project deliverable – Any measurable, tangible, verifiable outcome, result, or item that is produced to complete a project or part of a project Project milestone – Represents key dates when a certain group of activities must be performed Project management office (PMO) – An internal department that oversees all organizational projects

PROJECT CONSTRAINTS

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The Triple Constraint

• Benjamin Franklin’s timeless advice - by failing to prepare, you prepare to fail - applies to software development projects The Hackett Group analyzed 2,000 companies and discovered – Three in 10 major IT projects fail – 21 percent of the companies state that they cannot adjust rapidly to market changes – One in four validates a business case for IT projects after completion

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PROJECT PARTICIPANTS

Project stakeholders - Individuals and organizations actively involved in the project or whose interests might be affected as a result of project execution or project completion – Owner (What information system can provide) – User (What tasks to be done) – Designer (What to do to build system, How IT do it) – Developer (Build system according to specs)

Executive sponsor -

The person or group who provides the financial resources for the project

Role of Users in Systems Development Process

 User Requirement Discovery : What the system should do to assist users  User Participation : Develop “system ownership”: the system is theirs  User Acceptance : The system does what users need effectively, efficiently  User Satisfaction : The success of a system !!!

Project Management Role

CHOOSING STRATEGIC PROJECTS

• Three common techniques for selecting projects 1. Focus on organizational goals (vision, strategy) 2. Categorize projects (visibility, urgency, benefit) 3. Perform a financial analysis (cost/benefit)

Understanding Project Planning

• After selecting strategic projects and identifying a project manager the next critical component is the project plan • Building a project plan involves two key components – Project charter – Project plan

Understanding Project Planning . . .

• Project charter - A document issued by the project initiator or sponsor that formally authorizes the existence of a project and provides the project manager with the authority to apply organizational resources to project activities and includes – Project scope statement – Project objectives – Project constraints – Projects assumptions

Understanding Project Planning . . .

• SMART criteria are useful reminders on how to ensure that the project has created understandable and measurable objectives

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Understanding Project Planning . . .

Project plan – A formal, approved document that manages and controls project execution – A well-defined project plan should be Easy to understand and read – Communicated to all key participants – Appropriate to the project’s size, complexity, and criticality – Prepared by the team, rather than by the individual project manager

MANAGING PROJECTS

• Managing a project includes – Identifying requirements – Establishing clear and achievable objectives.

– Balancing the competing demands of quality, scope, time, and cost – Adapting the specifications, plans, and approach to the different concerns and expectations of the various stakeholders

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In-Sourcing Vs. Outsourcing Projects

In-sourcing (in-house-development) –Uses the professional expertise within an organization to develop and maintain its information technology systems • Outsourcing – An arrangement by which one organization provides a service or services for another organization that chooses not to perform them in-house

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Outsourcing Projects

Factors driving outsourcing growth include – – Core competencies Financial savings – Rapid growth – The Internet and globalization

Outsourcing Projects

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Onshore outsourcing

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Nearshore outsourcing

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Offshore outsourcing

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Outsourcing Benefits

Outsourcing benefits include

– Increased quality and efficiency of business processes – Reduced operating expenses for head count and exposure to risk for large capital investments – Access to outsourcing service provider’s expertise, economies of scale, best practices, and advanced technologies – Increased flexibility for faster response to market changes and less time to market for new products or services

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Outsourcing Challenges

– – – Outsourcing challenges include Length of contract 1. Difficulties in getting out of a contract 2. Problems in foreseeing future needs 3. Problems in reforming an internal IT department after the contract is finished Threat to competitive advantage Loss of confidentiality

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