How useful is Systems Analysis?

• How useful you feel the module in Systems Analysis has been to you? Give reasons.
The systems analysis module has been quite useful to me. The main reason for me thinking this is because it is all new to me, and although at times not all that thrilling, still intriguing because I’ve never encountered it before.

• Do you think that all Computing and IT courses should have a module in Systems Analysis? Why?
I don’t necessarily think that they Should have this module, but at the same time it would do no harm to learn about it as it is just more knowledge related to ICT.

• Given that most managers use IT systems in their daily work and often are involved in requesting new IT systems. Do you think that it would be useful if courses in Business and Management included a module in Systems Analysis? Why?
I had never thought of this and was unaware that managers had to request new ICT systems, so in that case yes I think that it would definately be useful for them to have a module in systems analysis, as they will know what to expect when putting in their request.

• What topics did you find most useful in the Systems Analysis module? Why?
As I mentioned earlier, all of this module is new to me so I think that all of the topics were just as useful as each other, as each and every one is helping to broaden my knowledge of ICT.

• What topics did you find least useful in the Systems Analysis module? Why?
Same as above, all topics as useful as each other.

• Are there any topics which were not covered which you think should have been?
Again it is all new to me so I don’t know what else is really involved in systems analysis, but all of the topics did their fair share of helping me.

Diagrams

Task 1

I think that the problems caused by written communication is that the systems analyst cannot get their point across as well as they would be able to in a meeting. Meetings are better because you are in person so there is immediately more a relationship built because you are interacting, rather than reading a report written by a person. Also in writing you may be saying something a certain way in your head, but on paper it does not come across that way, so the people don’t get the full effect of what you are trying to show them. Another problem with written communication is that some people may find it harder to understand written documents than they do to understand someone explaining ideas in person. Also in meetings the systems analyst can show their enthusiasm and dedication much more to the panel than they could in just a written document, and this then leads to getting everybody more involved in the whole system which is a major advantage. In saying this though a written document could go well hand in hand with a presentation, but I believe that it should not be the sole way of communication.

Task 2

There are several different methods for a systems analyst to communicate with people other than written documents. One of these methods and probably the most common is Data Flow Diagrams (DFD’s) so I am not going to discuss this type. Instead I will give a some examples of other types of diagrams. In my research I have found a few other types of communication methods including:

Activity Diagrams – show the flow of activities through the system. They are read from top to bottom and have branches and forks to describe conditions.

Flow Charts – are quite common diagrams to use and show the process of the system in various types of boxes, connected up by arrows.

Event-driven Process Chains – are used to lay out business process workflows, using functions, connectors and events.

Use Case – shows use cases, actors, and relationships between them in the system.

Personally I like Use Case diagrams. The example below is from http://www.laynetworks.com/use%20case%20vs.%20dataflow%20diagram.htm (scroll down towards the bottom for the Use Case diagram)

The actors in Use Case diagrams are anyone or anything that interacts with the system. In this example the actors are the customer, bank officer and credit system. The customer is given 6 options to choose from, and depending on which option they select, another “actor” may come into play. For example if they wished to change their PIN then they select “Change PIN” and then the bank officer comes into play in order to help them achieve this, but if they just selected “View Balance” then the system would execute that without needing to go through any other “actors”. The advantage of this diagram is that the customers can look at this diagram and receive a great deal of information. By looking at the use cases, they will know what functionality will be included in the system. By looking at the actors, they will know exactly who will be interfacing with the system. By looking at the set of use cases and actors, they will know exactly what the scope of the project will be. This can help them identify up front any missing functionality. I think that this type of diagram has the detail required to show the business what the system will be doing, but it is also easy enough to understand within minutes of looking at it and studying it. For example the diagram above may be expanded if the Bank Officer is having trouble changing the Customers PIN, they may need to go to another “actor” being their supervisor or manager. This type of diagram in my opinion is much easy to understand, and as a result within a couple of minutes you could scan through and understand what functionality a large system will bring to customers and businesses.

Another type of diagram I would like to discuss is Activity Diagrams. They are made up of the following actions: Start, Fork, Branch, Merge, Join, End. All of the actions are joined by arrows which show the customer the direction the system is going. A Fork is used to indicate that after a certain activity, the next two activities will take place at the same time in parallel. The Branch is used when there are two activities, but only one will be executed, determined by a set of conditions. Merge is used to bring an end to the branched conditions, and then all parallel activities must be joined at the end by a Join. The example diagram below was obtained from http://atlas.kennesaw.edu/~dbraun/csis4650/A&D/UML_tutorial/activity.htm (the first diagram on this web page)

The diagram above shows all of the actions in an Activity Diagram. After activity 1 is completed, there is a Fork so that activity 2 and 3 perform at the same time in parallel. After activity 2 there is a Branch so that either Activity 4 or activity 5 is completed, depending on certain conditions. Then after one of those is completed, they are Merged and are the Joined with activity 3 and then activity 6 can be performed.I think that the activity diagram is also very easy to understand. Once you know what each of the symbols mean, like Join, Fork, Branch and Merge, then you will again be able to go through a large systems activies and understand it all fairly quickly.

I think that these two types of diagrams would be my preferred ways of communicating as a system analyst to a panel of customers or businessmen, as I believe they are the easiest to understand, but also are easy to identify any missing functionality, and contain plenty of detail.

Meetings

Task 1

 

Programmers

The main role of the programmer is to write in code for a computer to perform specific operations. They write, test, debug and maintain the “computer programs” that the computer must follow to perform their desired operation. They would attend daily scrum meetings as would the rest of the team, and other general meetings, which would take up I would think around 20% of their day maximum, but I think that most other meetings they attend would not be a waste of time, but certainly wouldn’t be the best use of their time, as they specialise in writing the code/language for the system they have been asked to create.

Systems Analyst

A systems analyst is responsible for meeting with the people/business for whom the system shall be made for. They are responsible for the research, planning, coordination and recommendation of system software to be used that will meet the people/business’ requirements. Therefore the meetings they attend are justified more and I think that around 30-35% of their day spent in meetings would be a sufficient amount of time for them to find out all details for the people/business, but also implement them fully.

Task 2

The purpose of a Post Implementation Review

A Post Implementation Review, or “PIR” is an assessment and review of a system after it has been implemented. The system would become ‘live’ or in other words will be released to the customers, and normally this is when errors will first crop up, at the very start when lots of people begin to use the system. Therefore the Post Implementation Review takes places normally somewhere between “6 weeks and 6 months” after the system has gone live, according to http://www.epmbook.com/pir.htm. This means when the review comes to take place enough time will have passed to allow them to address the three main purposes of the Post Implementation Review, which are as follows:

• To determine the success of the system and whether it has met it’s objectives, delivered some benefits for the company, and also that it addresses the requirements set out before it was created.

• To determine whether future improvements could be made to the system to improve the benefit it delivers to customer and company

• And to learn lessons for the team, so they can learn how to improve future projects they may come to work on.

There is often a debate as to who should perform the Post Implementation Review, but normally it would be by the team who created the system, as they know what was required, what problems occurred, what was changed as a result of these problems, how to fix the problems, and who all of this was achieved.

The Post Implementation Review leads up to the system delivering maximum benefits for both the customer and the company, as all of the problems will be addressed and the fine tuning of the system completed, so it is in a more than satisfactory state of operation.

Before, During and After a Scrum Meeting

Scrum meetings are also referred to as “Daily Scrums”. They are meetings performed each day so that all of the members of the team know where they stand and what has been completed and is still yet to do. Scrum meetings are a period of time where no one’s time is wasted as all of the information is brief but concerns all attendees. Time for issues, disagreements or details is not included, it is all about what has been done up until then and what shall be done before the next Scrum. They normally last no more than 15-30 minutes and are headed by the “Scrum Master”. Their role is to conduct the meeting, make sure all members of the team report their progress, perform the decision making, and to keep it as brief but focussed as possible. According to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scrum_(development) the other attending members of the scrum will normally answer three questions:

1. What have you done since yesterday?

2. What are you planning to do today?

3. Do you have any problems preventing you from accomplishing your goal?

Lastly Scrum Meetings are held in the same place and at the same time each day, and every member of the team is required to attend, whether it be in person or on the phone.

The roles of “chicken” and “pig” in a Scrum meeting

There are two types of people who attend Scrum meetings, and they are defined as “Pigs” or “Hogs” if they are really hard working, and “Chickens”. The “Pigs” consist of the:

Product Owner – They represent the voice of the customer and ensures that the scrum team work on the correct things from a business perspective.

Scrum Master – out lined above, but also to remove any impediments that may slow down the team’s progress.

And the Team – these are the people who actually perform the work on the system such as the designing, development, testing, technical communication etc.

“Chickens” on the other hand are not directly involved in the Scrum process, but must be take into account, as they are who the system is being built for. They consist mainly of Stakeholders. These are the people who enable the project to take place, and also for whom the project will produce the benefits previously agreed upon between them, which justify its production.

Emma’s Café

Task 1

Below is a link to the survey which I have created to aid Emma. The aim of the survey is to figure out people’s current eating and shopping habits, but also to help Emma determine how many customers she could attract to her café and whether it would be a successful business venture or not. The survey is set out with 8 multiple choice questions asking about the person’s current eating and shopping habits, and whether their eating habits could be changed if a vegetarian café were to be introduced onto the University campus. The 9th question is just a comment box for the person to include any other thoughts that they may have on the subject. I feel that this comment box will help Emma as some people will include more thoughts that they have, that were not covered earlier in the survey. At the minute no matter where you go in Northern Ireland there are very few vegetarian only café’s, so Emma could be onto a winner, as if it turns out successful then she will get more business as she is one of the few vegetarians café’s about, but it is also a risk because it would be new, and possibly difficult to entice people into coming in to try the food to begin with. I think that a vegetarian café on campus could be quite successful as youth nowadays are more likely to try new things, so to begin with it I think it would do quite well, and if the food is good enough then it would continue to do well. The reason I have set out the survey with 7 multiple choice questions is because it is short, and asks what Emma would need to know, and with it being short and also multiple choice then she may be able to get more people to complete it as it would not take much time at all, so more people would be likely to take it i think. As I said i think the comment box at the end is a good idea as people who take the survey seriously could include their thoughts as to whether it would be a good or bad idea and why they think that, and possibly even give some hints or tips as well. The sequence of the questions is really quite simple, the first two questions ask about the person’s eating habits at the moment, then the next two determine whether the person would be open minded about changing their eating habits, and the next four questions focus on whether they eat on campus and whether they would try the vegetarian food, allowing Emma to see how successful she could be as a start up.

Click Here to take survey

Task 2

There are a couple of different observation methods which I would conduct in order to discover how well Emma’s Café would potentially be. The first would to be to go into a few of the different café’s already on campus at the university, and for about an hour at a time just sit and observe what kinds of food people buy, such as how many people buy something healthy, and whether they are old or young, male or female, just to determine what type of person is more likely to go into Emma’s Café to begin with. The reason for this method is because it is in a busy place so there will be plenty of people to observe, but also I would not be bothering anybody  as I would just be sitting taking notes. I would do this a couple of times in each café, then compare all of the results. Another method would be to go into each café and as the people working there if they would be able to note roughly how many people buy healthy food or meat, and whether they are again old, young, male or female, again over an hour period. This would help to determine numbers buying healthy food on a larger scale, as there would be more people working on it than just me, so I could be at one café while the other café’s could be helping. The problem with this method is that it is demanding more from the café employees, as they have enough to do, especially if it is a busy day for them. Lastly I could attempt to arrange some interviews with people and ask them the questions from the survey, because this way I would at least have quite a few surveys that have been taken seriously. The interviews would only be about 10 minutes long and then the person would be on their way again. The problem with this method would be actually getting people willing to come and be interviewed about their eating habits, as some people might see it as unnecessarily invasive. With all of these methods, if they work, I would be able to take all of my results and combine then and give the overall result to Emma, giving her an idea of how many customers she could potentially expect to see, and what type they would be, again old, young, male or female.

ABC Bakeries

Task 1

Dear Seamus O’Kane,

This memo is expressing my views on the Economic Feasibility of the proposed internet based system for ABC Bakeries.

The plan for the internet based system is to provide more profits than the actual shops that ABC Bakeries have open on the street.

The areas I wish to investigate are:

• Setting up the internet based system – premises, hardware, number of developers needed, time period required.
• Costs – price of pastries, price for delivery, number of delivery staff and vehicles required, development costs, testing, premises bills.
• Benefits against problems – fewer staff, maintaining staff morale, good customer service, ease of system use for customer

First of all ABC Bakeries needs to find a premises in which to set up the internet based system, and in this premises they need to set out how many computers they will need and the number of staff required to deal with the demand. They need a premises large enough to house all of the computers and staff, but have some spare room incase they happen to ned to employ more people, depending on the demand from the internet based system. After this they will need to set out a time period for the internet based system to be set up, the quicker it gets done the quicker it can be implemented into the business. To get it done quicker more developers would be needed to create and test the system before it gets launched, and also get customer feedback during the testing period, to see whether it would be beneficial or not. The reason all of this needs to be into consideration is because they will want to be able to create it for as little as possible, but as quickly as possible, so that the revenue from the wholesale and retail sides of the business are covering the cost of the internet based system development, but also bringing in enough profits to keep afloat in the meantime.

With regards costs, ABC Bakeries need to take into consideration the price of the pastries and delivery, will the pastries be of good enough quality and taste to justify the higher retail price PLUS the addition of delivery charges? And if not then can they keep the pastries at the same price as the retail shops and conduct free delivery? On top of that they need to figure out how many delivery drivers they will, need, and will they need large or small vans for delivery. They might also consider selling the pastries online for store pick up, but would the customer use the internet based system when they could just go to the shop anyway in that case? The internet based system also needs to be set up for as little as possible, but make it as fancy looking and easy enough to navigate through for the user, to keep them coming back. All of these costs need to be thought of when considering whether the system be worth it or not.

They then need to weigh up the benefits against problems. With the internet based system they will need fewer staff because it is all automated, but with fewer staff then they need to think of ways to keep the staff morale up so that everything runs as efficiently as possible. They want the customer to be able to use the system easily and quickly so that they will be more inclined to keep using it, but combine this with good customer service, ie getting their order processed and delivered as quickly as possible, with friendly staff to greet them. Is it likely that the internet based system will be popular enough and bring in enough revenue to compensate for the lack of profits made during the development and testing period of the set up?

Overall I will be looking to see if the benefits outweigh the costs during the set up period. The fact of the matter is that more and more people are using the internet to order things that they want or need, so the internet does seem like the most positive way forward for the business, due to the declining wholesale demand. The way to work out all of this is to work out the revenue coming from the wholesale and retail sides of the business, and then work out how much money they are willing to spend on creating the internet based system, including money for premises, staff, and the time required to set it up, leaving enough to keep producing and distributing the pastries to the same high quality that is expected from customers.

Task 2

I think that the team should consist of about 6 people, 2 to analyse, 3 to design, and 1 to implement. The reason I think it should be roughly these number of people is because the business is only small, so there would be no point in hiring a large number of people to create the online system. I would get two analysts so that one could ask the company what they want from the system while the other asks potential customers what they would want, then they could combine their information and pass it onto 3 developers who could work in sync and get it done pretty quick, then the person who would implement the system could get to work and set it all up with the business. Then finally when all of that is done the analysts could once again go to the business, and customers, and see whether it is satisfactory or not.

COM172

In this blog I am going to review the enrolment process here at University of Ulster Jordanstown Campus. This is the process I had to go through to officially register as part of the ICT course.

• How well or badly did the system work?

Personally I think that the enrolment system worked quite well. There was two parts to it, physically filling in forms and then computer based part, both of which proved to be straight forward.

• How easy was it for you to go through?

There were good and bad points to progressing through the enrolment. First was when I received the latter saying what room to go to on the day of enrolment. All I got was a campus map, with no explanation to where the room was located. We got the room locations explained to us when we arrived on the day, which resulted in a lot of people arriving late as they got lost. I think they should have include instructions explaining how to find rooms in the about attending enrolment. Apart from this the rest of the process was smooth sailing, with lots of information provided for us.

• Would it have been harder for someone coming from a non IT back ground? If you entered the course from a non IT background, do you think that made the system harder to use?

I myself came from a non ICT background and I personally found the process uncomplicated to go through. The computers provided enough information for anyone to sail through without any difficulty as it did not require any major ICT skills.

• How well or badly did the manual and the computer based parts of the system fit together?

I think that the manual and computer based parts of the system fitted together well. The manual part included a lot of information from the course director, which was good as they know the most. It also included signing a couple of sheets to verify that our details were correct, and then we had to provide some additional information and get a photo taken for University records.

Then we went to the computer based part of enrolment and that was just doing the same thing, verifying who we were and that our details were correct, and also the course details, with plenty of explanation included to make it straight forward, so we could to it by ourselves.

• Is the user interface well designed?

The user interface was fairly well designed. It was very straight forward, had pages set up in categories and you just fill in the fields for the category, click next and move onto the next category, until you are done. If you do happen to get stuck then there was a “?” beside each field explaining what information was required. I thought this was very helpful for getting through the process as quick as possible.

• Could there have been any improvements made to the process?

When we were released from the room after being talked to by the Course Director, we had to queue up to receive a starter pack. This was done by only two people and took a long time, and the seating area that was too small so there was a long unorganised queue around the foyer area. Also we needed to get a photo taken which everyone was getting done after receiving their starter pack, but it turned out that you could get it done at any time, but this was not explained to us beforehand, so more time was taken up.

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