1. Information Systems Development
Chapter 10
Information Systems Development

2. This Could Happen To You: “You’re Not Going to Take Your Bridal Gown into a Porta Potty”
Fox Lake’s facilities can’t handle wedding crowds.
Problems sharing facilities, timely maintenance, and tracking repairs.
Didn’t know how wedding business would impact everything else.
Business analyst, Laura, comes to help
Scenario video
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3. Study Questions Q1: What is systems development?
Q2: Why is systems development difficult and risky?
Q3: What are the five phases of the SDLC?
Q4: How is system definition accomplished?
Q5: What is the users’ role in the requirements phase?
Q6: How are the five components designed?
Q7: How is an information system implemented?
Q8: What are the tasks for system maintenance?
Q9: What are some of the problems with the SDLC?
How does the knowledge in this chapter help Fox Lake and you?
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4. Q1: What Is Systems Development?
Process of creating and maintaining information systems
Involves all five IS components
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5. Q2: Why Is Systems Development Difficult and Risky?
Many projects never finished. Those that finish often 200–300% over budget.
Some projects finish within budget and schedule, but never satisfactorily accomplish their goals.
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6. Five Major Challenges to Systems Development
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7. Q2: Why Is Systems Development Difficult and Risky? (cont’d)
Difficult to determine requirements
What specifically is system to do?
How does wedding planner use new system to reserve a room or building?
What does data entry screen look like?
How does planner add/reduce facilities once wedding scheduled?
What should system do when a wedding is cancelled?
Facility schedule system interface with accounting systems? How?
Does system need to reserve floor or refrigerator space in restaurant kitchen?
Must create environment where difficult questions are asked and answered.
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8. Q2: Why Is Systems Development Difficult and Risky? (cont’d)
Changing requirements
Large, long projects aim at moving target
Scheduling and budgeting difficulties
How long to build it?
How long to create data model?
How long to build database applications?
How long to do testing?
How long to develop and document procedures?
How long for training?
How many labor hours? Labor cost?
What’s the rate of return on investment?
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9. Q2: Why Is Systems Development Difficult and Risky? (cont’d)
Changing Technology
Do you want to stop your development to switch to the new technology?
Would it be better to finish developing according to the existing plan?
Why build an out-of-date system?
Can you afford to keep changing the project?
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10. Q2: Why Is Systems Development Difficult and Risky? (cont’d)
Diseconomies of scale
Brooks’ Law
“Adding more people to a late project makes the project later.”
New staff must be trained by productive members who lose productivity while training new members.
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11. Yes and No Is It Really So Bleak?
Systems development is challenging, but solid methodologies exist that are successful when supported and managed properly.
Yes and No
Systems development life cycle (SDLC), most common process for systems development.
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12. Q3: What Are the Five Phases of the SDLC?
Based on problem analysis and decision solving processes
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13. Q4: How Is System Definition Accomplished?
Team of users and IT professionals
Small business may hire consultant to work with managers and key employees
Fox Lake: Jeff, Laura, Mike, Anne, and other key employees will define system
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14. Q4: How Is System Definition Accomplished? (cont’d)
Purpose: Increase revenue from wedding events
Goals: Eliminate or at least reveal schedule conflicts and improve maintenance tracking
Scope: Specify users or business processes that will be involved, or facilities, functions, events that will be involved
Define scope for new Fox Lake system
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15. Assess Feasibility: Dimensions of Feasibility
Cost feasibility
Approximated, “back-of-the-envelope” analysis
Purpose: eliminate infeasible ideas early
Consider cost of previous projects, operational and labor costs
Schedule feasibility
Ball park estimate
Technical feasibility
Do we have the hardware, software, personnel, expertise to complete project?
Organizational feasibility
Fits customs, culture, charter, legal requirements of organization
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16. Form a Project Team Typical team Team composition changes over time
Systems analyst and/or business analyst
Managers
Programmers
Software testers
Users
Team composition changes over time
Active user involvement is critical throughout
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17. Q5: What Is the Users’ Role in the Requirements Phase?
Review and approve requirements
Laura only person with knowledge of systems development,
she will work with development contractor to help specify Fox Lake’s needs
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18. Experiencing MIS InClass Exercise 10: GardenTraker
Suppose that you and two or three other students have been groundskeepers at Fox Lake, and you have decided to go out on your own and open a business that offers landscaping services. Your goal is to develop a list of clients for whom you provide regular and recurring services, such as mowing, weeding, and pool cleaning, as well as specialty services, such as pruning, garden preparation, tree removal, sprinkler installation and repair, and the like.
Need information system for tracking customers, services you have provided, and services you are scheduled to provide in the future. As a new small business, you want a simple and affordable system based on Excel or Access. The name of the system is GardenTraker.
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19. Experiencing MIS InClass Exercise 10: GardenTraker (cont’d)
1. Explain how you would use the SDLC to develop GardenTraker. 2. Define the scope of your system. 3. Explain the process you would use to determine the feasibility of GardenTraker. List data you need for such an assessment, and explain how you might obtain or estimate that data.
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20. Experiencing MIS InClass Exercise 10: GardenTraker (cont’d)
Consider just the tracking of recurring services, and list all of the requirements that you can imagine for that functionality. Be specific and answer at least the following:
What data will you need?
How will you input that data? Show a mockup of a data entry screen, and describe how it will be used.
Using your mockup, describe how you will modify recurring service data.
Using your mockup, describe how you will cancel a recurring service.
Specify any other requirements you believe are important for tracking recurring services.
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21. Experiencing MIS InClass Exercise 10: GardenTraker (cont’d)
Present your answers to item 4 to the rest of the class and obtain feedback from your classmates.
6. Modify your answer to item 4 based upon feedback you received in item 5.
7. Considering just the recurring services functionality, do you think it would be better to use Excel or Access for this project? List the criteria you used to answer that question. Summarize the consequences of making a poor choice between these two products.
8. What does this short exercise tell you about information systems development? Answer this question in such a way that you could use your answer to demonstrate your critical-thinking skills in a job interview
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22. Q6: How Are the Five Components Designed?
Determine hardware specifications
Purchase it, lease it, or lease time from hosting service
Determine software specifications
Off-the-shelf, custom developed
Database design
Convert data model to a database design
Procedure design
Normal, backup, and failure recovery procedures
Design Job Descriptions
Create and define new tasks and responsibilities
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23. Procedures to Be Designed
Figure 10-7
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24. Design of Job Descriptions
Teams of systems analysts and users determine job descriptions and functions
Duties and responsibilities for new jobs and revised jobs coordinated with human resources policies
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25. Q7: How Is an Information System Implemented?
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26. Q7: How Is an Information System Implemented? (cont’d)
System testing
Test plan
Product Quality Assurance (PQA)
User testing
Develop test plans and test cases
Final say on whether system is “production ready”
Beta testing
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27. Design and Implementation for the Five IS Components
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28. System Conversion Approaches
Pilot
Implement entire system in limited portion of business
Advantage: Limits exposure to business if system fails
Phased
System installed in phases or modules
Each piece is installed and tested
Parallel
Complete new and old systems run simultaneously
Very safe, but expensive
Plunge (“Big Bang”)
High risk if new system fails, no fall back system
Only used if new system not vital to company operation
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29. Q8: What Are the Tasks for System Maintenance?
Failure is a difference between what system does and what it is supposed to do.
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30. Q9: What Are Some of the Problems with the SDLC?
Sequence of non-repeated phases
It rarely works smoothly, causing development team to go back and forth, raising costs and delaying project
SDLC Waterfall Method
Business requirements change
“Analysis paralysis”—projects spend so much time on documentation it hampers progress
Requirements documentation difficulty
Time and cost estimates for large project usually way off
People who make initial estimates know little about how long it will take or cost
Scheduling and budgeting difficulties
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31. SDLC Waterfall Method
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32. How Does the Knowledge In This Chapter Help Fox Lake and You?
Fox Lake teams needs to know:
Basic process for creating and information system
Importance of defining scope
To ask for a feasibility assessment up front
Difficulty (and importance) of providing accurate requirements
You
At some point in your career, you will be running a business unit or a department or a project that needs an information system. You will need to know how to proceed, and knowledge in this chapter will get you started on right path
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33. Active Review Q1: What is systems development?
Q2: Why is systems development difficult and risky?
Q3: What are the five phases of the SDLC?
Q4: How is system definition accomplished?
Q5: What is the users’ role in the requirements phase?
Q6: How are the five components designed?
Q7: How is an information system implemented?
Q8: What are the tasks for system maintenance?
Q9: What are some of the problems with the SDLC?
How does the knowledge in this chapter help Fox Lake and you?
Copyright © 2012 Pearson Education, Inc. Publishing as Prentice Hall

34. Ethics Guide: Estimation Ethics
Contractor agrees to produce system for less than what will really be required
Time and materials contracts
Fixed-cost contracts
In-house projects are often started with buy-ins
Projects often start with hopes of more money later
Team members disagree about costs. Do you report it?
Not all costs included in initial estimates. Do you report it?
Do you buy-in on project schedule if you can’t make that schedule?
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35. Guide: The Real Estimation Process
Estimating is just “theory”—average of many people’s guesses
Project managers take estimates to management
Management negotiates schedule and budget by reducing time by a month or two, which negatively impacts project
Projects start with optimistic schedules and ends up late
Developers begin to not take project deadlines seriously
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36. Case Study 10: Slow Learners, or What?
1974 study of the causes of information systems failures.
Most important factor: Lack of user involvement.
Second: Unclear, incomplete, and inconsistent requirements.
“The CHAOS Report” (1994)
Leading causes of IS failure are, in descending order: (1) lack of user input, (2) incomplete requirements and specifications, and (3) changing requirements and specifications
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37. Case Study 10: Slow Learners, or What? (cont’d)
University of Maryland study (2004) analyzed 19 system failures to determine their cause.
Results indicate causes of system failure: (1) poor requirements definition; (2) failure to communicate with users.
IRS Oversight Board (2003): Primary cause of IRS BSM failure was inadequate business unit ownership and sponsorship of projects, which led to unrealistic business cases and continuous project scope creep.
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38. Case Study 10: Slow Learners, or What? (cont’d)
For over 35 years, studies have consistently shown that leading causes of system failures are:
Lack of user involvement
Incomplete and changing requirements
Many businesses ignore lessons from decades of research about causes of IS failures
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39. Copyright © 2012 Pearson Education, Inc. Publishing as Prentice Hall
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Publishing as Prentice Hall