System Analysis
(Part 1)
What is a System?
What is Analysis?
System Analysis
Why would we change a System?
The System Development Life Cycle
Problem Selection and Feasibility Study
What is a System?

A system is a group of components working
together to reach a specific goal

If one of the components are missing the
system would not work the way it should

For example a car is a system made up of
the body, wheels, steering
wheel and an engine, if the
car had no wheels it would
be useless
What is Analysis?

Analysis is the process of
studying something very closely

To analysis something we would look at
ALL the different components of the
system and how they work together

Analysis is like being a detective and
studying EVERYTHING about the system
System Analysis

As the name suggests
this is the processes of
analysing a system very closely

System analysis is normally used when a
company wishes to change their current
system

A team of people would all work together
to analysis the current system and come up
with a better one
Why Change a System?

We change a system for many different
reasons, some being;
1.
Our old system is outdated
Something could go wrong with the
current system
The company could grow and need a
better system
2.
3.
Why do we need System Analysis?

The software we have on our home computers is
very different to that used on company
computers

The software is more complex hence problems
that may arise are much bigger, hence it would be
too difficult for one person to manage alone, we
would need team of people

In order to create and maintain a software for a
company there would need to be a formal plan
…

For this formal plan to take place the
team hired by the company would have to
go through a number of System Analysis
steps

System analysis is essential, to plan the
software and to enable members of the
team to communicate during
development and also afterwards.
System Development Life Cycle
Analysis
Design
Implementation
Maintenance
1)
Project Selection and Feasibility Study
2)
Present System study and Analysis
3)
System Design of the New System
4)
Programming and Documentation
5)
Implementation and Change Over
6)
System Control and Review
7)
System Maintenance
Analysis
1.
2.
This is the over all study of the current
system, looking at why we should
change the system and if it is worth the
change.
Project Selection and Feasibility Study
Present System Study and Analysis
1
Project Selection and Feasibility
Study

This is the very first step of System
Analysis

This is the fist study of the system where
the team decide if a solution is possible
and how it may be done

At this stage the company would find out
how long the change over would take and
how much it would cost and so on
The Feasibility Study

This study is where the team lets the
company know if it is worth them to
change their system
The company would need to think of
things such as;
1. Money
2. Time
3. Training of staff ect…

The Results of this Stage
Describes the context of the problem.
 Contains an evaluation, or simple analysis,
of the problem.
 Identifies, and justifies, ways in which the
problem may be solvable.
 Involves a cost-benefit analysis to decide if
a solution is affordable.

2
Present System Study and Analysis

This stage of analysis is the study of the
system that is currently in place

At this stage the WHOLE system is
studied leaving out nothing

Even the people involved in the system
such as the employees are studied
What goes on …

1.
2.
3.
4.
The following main points are analysed
How the employees work
Who is in charge of the different
departments
How the employees feel about the
current system
What the employees thing about change
How its done…

This stage of analysing the current system
involves a lot of work
In order to carry out the investigations the
team would use
1. Interviews
2. Questionnaires
3. Surveys
4. Observations
5. Group meetings ect …

Resistance to Change

In the stage of analysis the team would find
out what the employees thing about the
change
Some employees might not be keen on
things being changed this could be due to
1. More work
2. Training
3. Technology
4. Job takeover
5. Less work ect …

Design
General planning and building of the new
system
3. System design of the new system
4. Programming and Documentation
3
System Design

This stage is a very long time
consuming stage.

At this time the actual designing of the
program is done

This is when the planning of the program
is done using pseudo code, flow charts,
mock ups and so on
The Four Design Tasks
1.
Setting what the new system should output
2.
Deciding what the system would need as
an input to create the results
3.
What files and fields the system needs to
hold the data
4.
Setting the processing of the system
(insertions, deletion, editing ect…)
3
Programming and Documentation

This third step is divided into two parts
1.
The programming part = actually
creating the program itself
2.
Documentation = creating a booklet
containing all the information needed
about the system
Programming

The team would have trained
programmers who would spend a lot of
time actually creating the system

The programmers would use
the design material created in
the previous stage
Documentation

Documentation is a very important part of
creating a new program

Documentation is written information and
diagrams which helps users use the system
better and it enables maintenance
 Documentation consists
1. technical documentation
2. user documentation
3. program documentation (explained
later on)