Systems planning and requirements analysis

  1. What is systems planning?
  2. What is project management and its relationship to systems planning?
  3. What is requirements analysis?
  4. What are the techniques and skills for requirements analysis?

 

Systems planning

àto develop a schedule, resource plan, and budget for project activities to ensure project success

 

Top Ten Project Risk Factors (CACM, Nov. 1998)

Project management

The task of planning and controlling IS project activities

  1. Select team members
  2. Assign team members to projects
  3. Task time estimation
  4. Task scheduling
  5. Project monitoring
  6. Activities rescheduling

Tools: Gantt chart (Figure 3.7) and PERT (Figure 3.11)

Skills:

  1. Seek a balance between working on tasks and maintaining relationships within the team.
  2. Set reasonable productivity goals for tangible outputs and process activities.
  3. Motivate team members through participative management.

 

Requirements analysis

àto understand and discover business needs and systems requirements by gathering facts on:

  1. Users’ view,
  2. Existing written information such as mission statements, policies, reports, and documentation,
  3. Data: what, when, how, and by whom the data are collected, transformed, and stored; rules governing data handling; key events affecting data values.

 

Systems Analysis I, II, III

Requirements determination/requirements analysis (Analysis I) à user needs?

Requirements structuring/systems analysis (Analysis II) à systems needs?

Requirements fulfillment/design strategies development (Analysis III) à alternative solutions

 

Requirements analysis techniques

Technique

Purpose

Details

Information sought

Documents/

Hard data

To reveal where the organization has been and where it is going

Quantitative documents

  • Reports, e.g., sales
  • Performance report (Figure 4.4)
  • Records (Figure 4.5)
  • Forms

Qualitative documents

  • Memos
  • Posted signs
  • Corporate web sites
  • Manuals
  • Policy handbooks

·        Facts and figures

·        Financial information

·        Organizational contexts

·        Document types and problems

Interview

To collect information from limited number of users in an one-on-one basis

·        Understand the background of the interviewees and the organization

·        Establish interview objectives

·        Decide whom to interview

·        Prepare the interviewee

·        Structure the interview (Figures 5.8-5.10)

·        Design questions (Figures 5.3-5.6)

·        Record the interview

·        Prepare follow-up report within 48 hours

·        Opinions

·        Goals

·        Feelings

·        Informal procedures

JAD

To collect information simultaneously from key users in a group setting

·        Select participants

·        Select a site

·        Participate in presentations, discussions, consolidation of information gathered

·        Augment with GDSS

·        New solution to a typical problem

·        Joint problem-solving culture

 

Questionnaire

To gather information from many users in a relatively short time without the personal intervention of the interviewer

·        Design questions

·        Construct scales

·        Design the questionnaire

·        Administer the questionnaire

·        Analyze the data

·        attitudes

·        beliefs

·        behavior

·        characteristics

Direct observation

To obtain first hand and objective measure of users’ behavior and their physical environment

·        Decide what to be observed

·        Determine the level of concreteness of observation

·        Create categories for key activities

·        Prepare scales, checklists, and other materials for observation

·        Decide when to observe

·        Activities

·        Messages

·        Relationships

·        Influence

 

Technical skills 

  1. Sampling -- the process of systematically selecting representative elements of a population.

  1. Work flow analysis -- to learn an organization’s work/information flow by diagramming the process as an activity decision flow diagram so that performance issues such as bottlenecks can be identified and addressed.

Work flow analysis tools: Workflow BPR from Holosofx, Inc.

  1. STRuctured Observation of the Environment (STROBE) -- to observe the particulars of a decision maker’s surroundings to gain a better understanding of how decision makers actually gather, process, store, and share information.


 

Elements

Hidden message

Office location

Interaction, formality, sharing, unity

Desk placement

Power position

Stationary office equipment

Information value

Movable properties

Technology value

Journals, newspapers, reading materials

Type of information used

Office lighting and color

Formality

Clothing

Authority

 

Determining information requirements for an EIS

Nature of executive work

1.      Unstructured

2.      Non-routine

3.      Long-range

4.      Strategic

5.      Network building


 

Methods

Actual method used for EIS

Findings

Interview

·        Discussion with executives

·        Discussion with support personnel 

·        Volunteered information

Most used

Group interview

·        EIS planning meetings

 

Direct observation

·        Exam. of other organizations' EIS

·        Tracking executive activity 

·        Software tracking of EIS usage

 

Documents

·        Exam. of computer-generated information

·        Exam. of non-computer generated information 

·        Exam. of strategic plan

 

JAD

·        Critical success factors sessions

·        Strategic planning sessions 

·        Attendance at meetings

Most useful

 

Why certain methods are useful?

1.      Provide access to executive

2.      Support working relationship between developers and EIS support staff

3.      Provide insights into how executive work

4.      Determine the information contents of the system and how it is presented