Modern Systems Analysis

and Design

Determining System
Requirements

7.1
 Learning Objectives

Describe options for designing and conducting interviews and

develop a plan for conducting an interview to determine system
requirements
Design, distribute, and analyze questionnaires to determine
system requirements
Explain advantages and pitfalls of observing workers and
analyzing business documents to determine requirements
Explain how computing can provide support for requirements
determination
Learn about Joint Application Design (JAD)
Use prototyping during requirements determination
Select the appropriate methods to elicit system requirements
Apply requirements determination to Internet applications

7.2
Performing Requirements Determination

System Analysis phase has three sub phases

Requirements determination

Requirements structuring

Generating alternative design and selecting best one

Gather information on what system should do from many

sources
Users
Reports
Forms
Procedures
 Performing Requirements Determination

Characteristics for gathering requirements

Impertinence

Question everything
Impartiality

Find the best organizational solution

Relaxation of constraints assuming anything is possible

Attention to detail

Reframing

View the organization in new ways

7.4
 Deliverables and Outcomes

Types of deliverables:
Information collected from users
interview transcripts, questionnaire responses, notes of observation
Existing written information
sample business forms and reports, procedure manuals, training manuals
Computer-based information
CASE repository contents and reports of existing system
Understanding of organizational components
Business objective
Information people needs
Data handled and when, how and who moves data
Rules of data processing
Key events

7.5
 Traditional Methods for Determining
Requirements
Individually interview people who knows current system
Survey people via questionnaires
Interview group of people with different needs
Observe workers at selected times to see how data is handled
Study business documents

Interviewing and Listening

Guidelines for Effective Interviewing
Prepare interviewee: set up appointment time and duration convenient for interviewee

Prepare checklist, agenda and questions: to know the sequence and duration of

questions to ask
Listen carefully and take notes

Review notes within 2 days of interview

Be neutral and seek diverse views

7.6
 Traditional Methods for Determining
Requirements

Choosing Interview Questions

Open-Ended questions
No pre-specified answers like what you think about ?
Advantages: give interviewees more sense of involvement; put
interviewee at ease as they respond in their own words
Disadvantages: takes long time to answer; difficult to summarize
Close-Ended questions
Respondent is asked to choose from a set of specified responses
Examples: True or False, Multiple choice, rating a response
Advantages: takes less time to answer and more topics covered
Disadvantages: useful information may be overlooked
Additional Guidelines
Do not phrase questions in ways that imply a wrong or right answer
Listen very carefully to what is being said take notes or record
7.7 Type up notes within 48 hours
Do not set expectations about the new system
 Traditional Methods for Determining
Requirements
Administering Questionnaires
Questionnaires Vs Interviews
Interviews are very expensive and time-consuming
Questionnaires are not expensive and can gather information
from many people simultaneously in a relatively short time
Interviews can have limited number of questions and limited
number of people contacted
Questionnaires give less depth of understanding as they
provide no direct means to ask follow-up questions
Interviews provide the opportunity to judge the truthfulness of
responses by the words or voice tone or the body language of
the respondent
Questionnaires do not provide the opportunity to judge the
accuracy of responses
7.8
 Traditional Methods for Determining
Requirements

Choosing Questionnaire respondents if more people to

survey decide which set of people to send questionnaire to or
which questionnaire to send to which group of people
Convenient: people at a local site or willing to get surveyed
Random sample: select any person from a list
Purposeful sample: select people who satisfy certain criteria
Stratified sample: select random set from each of many categories

Designing Questionnaires
Questionnaires are most useful when used for specific purpose and
not for general information gathering
Questionnaires typically include closed-ended questions

Questionnaires must be extremely clear in meaning and logical in

sequence as any doubts cannot be cleared

How often(?) do you backup your computer files (C: or hard disk)?
7.9
a) frequently b) sometimes c) hardly at all d) never
 Traditional Methods for Determining
Requirements
Interviewing Groups interview several key people at once by
several analysts, one asks questions other takes notes
Advantages
More effective use of time
Enables people to hear opinions of others and to agree or disagree
Disadvantages
Difficulty in scheduling convenient time as many people are involved

Nominal Group Technique

Facilitated process to support idea generation by groups
Individuals work alone to generate ideas which are pooled under
guidance of a trained facilitator which are then discussed and then
number of ideas are reduced and carry forward
Directly Observing Users
People cannot always be trusted to reliably report their own actions
Often difficult to obtain unbiased data
People often work differently when being observed
7.10
 Analyzing Procedures and Other Documents

Types of information to be discovered in a document:

Problems with existing system
Opportunity to meet new need
Organizational direction
Titles and names of key individuals
Values of organization
Special information processing circumstances
Reasons for current system design
Rules for processing data

7.11
 Analyzing Procedures and Other Documents

Four types of useful documents

Written work procedure for an individual or a work group
Describes how a job is performed
Includes data and information used and created in the
process of performing the job or task
Formal systems: official way a system works as described in
the organizational documentation.
Informal system: the way a system actually works
Business form
Explicitly indicate what data flow in or out of a system and
which are necessary for the system to work
Report generated by current systems
Enables the analyst to work backwards from the report to the
data that generated it companys performance in past years
7.12 Description of current information system
If the current system is computer based
 Modern Methods for Determining
Requirements
Joint Application Design (JAD)
Similar to group interview as it brings together key users, managers
and systems analysts
Purpose: collect system requirements simultaneously from key
people
Particular structure of roles and agenda is followed and analysts
control the sequence of questions answered by users
Conducted off-site to keep participants away from distractions
may last from four hours to an entire week and may consist of many
weeks

Prototyping
Repetitive process
Rudimentary version of system is built
4.13
Replaces or augments SDLC
Goal: to develop concrete specifications for ultimate system
 Joint Application Design (JAD)

Participants
Session Leader organizes and runs the JAD
Users key users of the current system
Managers of the workgroups who use the current system
Sponsor needed to cover expenses
Systems Analysts to learn from users and managers
Scribe takes notes
IS Staff other IS staff like programmers, database analysts

JAD sessions are usually held in special-purpose rooms where

participants sit in a horse-shoe shaped tables.
rooms have whiteboards, audio-visual tools like overhead
projectors, flip charts, transparencies

4.14
 Joint Application Design (JAD)

End Result
Documentation detailing existing system
Features of proposed system
CASE Tools During JAD
Upper CASE tools are used
Enables analysts to enter system models directly into CASE
during the JAD session
Screen designs and prototyping can be done during JAD
and shown to users

4.15
 Prototyping

Quickly converts requirements to working version of system

Once the user sees requirements converted to system, will ask for
modifications or will generate additional requests
Most useful when:
User requests are not clear

Few users are involved in the system

Designs are complex and require concrete form

History of communication problems between analysts and users

Tools are readily available to build prototype

Drawbacks
Tendency to avoid formal documentation

Difficult to adapt to more general user audience

Sharing data with other systems is often not considered

Systems Development Life Cycle (SDLC) checks are often

bypassed
7.16
 Summary

Interviews
Open-ended and close-ended questions
Preparation is key
Questionnaires
Must be carefully designed
Can contain close-ended as well as open-ended questions
Other means of gather requirements
Observing workers
Analyzing business documents
Joint Application Design (JAD)
Prototyping

7.17