Page 504 - Using MIS

472 Chapter 12 Information Systems Development

Finally, organizational feasibility concerns whether the new system fits within the orga-
nization’s customs, culture, charter, or legal requirements. Dr. Flores, who developed the initial,
medical application for PRIDE, did not sufficiently consider medical customs and culture. As a
consequence, doctors avoided using it and he eventually had to sell the system to be used for a
different purpose.

Form a Project Team

If the defined project is determined to be feasible, the next step is to form the project team.
Normally the team consists of both IS professionals and user representatives. The project man-
ager and IS professionals can be in-house personnel or outside contractors as described in
Chapter 11.
Typical personnel on a development team are a manager (or managers for larger projects),
business analysts, systems analysts, programmers, software testers, and users.
Systems analysts are closer to IT and are a bit more technical, though, as stated, there is
considerable overlap in the duties and responsibilities of business and systems analysts. Both
are active throughout the systems development process and play a key role in moving the proj-
ect through it. Business analysts work more with managers and executives; systems analysts in-
tegrate the work of the programmers, testers, and users. Depending on the nature of the project,
the team may also include hardware and communications specialists, database designers and
administrators, and other IT specialists.
The team composition changes over time. During requirements definition, the team will be
heavy with business and systems analysts. During design and implementation, it will be heavy
with programmers, testers, and database designers. During integrated testing and conversion,
the team will be augmented with testers and business users.
User involvement is critical throughout the system development process. Depending
on the size and nature of the project, users are assigned to the project either full or part time.
Sometimes users are assigned to review and oversight committees that meet periodically, es-
pecially at the completion of project phases and other milestones. Users are involved in many
different ways. The important point is for users to have active involvement and to take ownership
of the project throughout the entire development process.
The first major task for the assembled team is to plan the project. Team members specify
tasks to be accomplished, assign personnel, determine task dependencies, and set schedules.

Determine Requirements

Determining the system’s requirements is the most important phase in the systems develop-
ment process. If the requirements are wrong, the system will be wrong. If the requirements are
determined completely and correctly, then design and implementation will be easier and more
likely to result in success.

Sources of Requirements

Examples of requirements are the contents and the format of Web pages and the functions of
buttons on those pages, or the structure and content of a report, or the fields and menu choices
in a data entry form. Requirements include not only what is to be produced, but also how fre-
quently and how fast it is to be done. Some requirements specify the volume of data to be stored
and processed.
If you take a course in systems analysis and design, you will spend weeks on techniques for
determining requirements. Here we will just summarize that process. Typically, systems ana-
lysts interview users and record the results in some consistent manner. Good interviewing skills
are crucial; users are notorious for being unable to describe what they want and need. Users
also tend to focus on the tasks they are performing at the time of the interview. Tasks performed
at the end of the quarter or end of the year are forgotten if the interview takes place mid-quarter.