Systems Analysis Taxonomies



Systems Analysis Taxonomies

Introduction

In order to develop complex information systems efficiently, it is essential to use a systems development methodology. Various system development taxonomies exist, each suitable for particular development applications. All of these taxonomies divide the development lifecycle into several steps. For example, some of these methodologies categorize implementation as an independent phase of development cycle, while others do not. This paper describes some of the system development methodologies and then evaluates the role of implementation in systems analysis. In addition, the paper also suggests that how systems development should be addressed as part of the current course.

Systems Development Life Cycle (SDLC)

SDLC provides an organized way for developing and implementing information system solution. Mostly the methodologies of SDLC follow a sequential list of steps, in which output of each step becomes the input of next step. The major phases of SDLC include the investigation phase, systems analysis phase, system design phase, implementation phase, and finally the integration and testing phase. Thus, SDLC is the taxonomy which defines implementation as a separate phase.

Investigation Phase

Before starting working on any information system project, the first phase is to investigate the requirements of the project, and observe the current working conditions and environment. It is also essential to observe the data input, storage and output processes. This becomes particularly important if the company has been using manual systems in the past, and the purpose of SDLC is to transform the older manual information systems into computerized information systems. This phase also deals with analyzing various types of feasibility of the project such as economic feasibility, operational feasibility, schedule feasibility, legal feasibility and many more.

System Analysis Phase

After collecting information from all the possible means and research, and checking feasibility of the project from various aspects, next phase of SDLC deals with analyzing the system under development. At the end of this phase, the project development team develops and management of the company gets a clear idea, that how the new project is going to help in improving efficiency of the company's business operations.

Systems Design Phase

The purpose of the design phase is to transform the information collected in the previous step into comprehensive system architecture. The major steps of this phase include the design of user interface and output, the design of data and finally the architecture of system. The user interface is designed with the help of requirements collected during the investigation phase. For designing data, Entity Relationship Diagram (ERD) is used to determine the relationships between different objects of the system. For assisting the programmers, the pseudo code is generated during the design phase.

Implementation Phase

Finally, after going through the initial investigation, feasibility study, and design phases, the development team will be in possession of the documents that could be used for coding and implementation of the system. The implementation phase mainly comprises on the coding, in accordance with the system specifications developed in the previous steps.

Coding

This step comes once the computerized equipment and necessary hardware are ...