Implement the Solution This phase may involve a considerable expenditure of time and money.

Sometimes equipment vendors are called in, employees hired, training courses developed, new forms printed, computers installed, and so on. Patterns of information flow may be changed and new procedures instituted or old ones altered.

Evaluate Results and Optimize Probably the most important phase of the scientific method is evaluating the results. In this step, the analyst determines whether the implementation solution actually solved the problem and whether desired goals were reached. Few solutions produce perfect results the first time they are implemented. If the original expectations were not met, the analyst must return to earlier steps in the problemsolving procedure. He or she must repeat the activities of the steps, usually with some modifications, in an attempt to adjust the outcomes. This process of reentering the problem-solving loop at the point indicated by the called optimation.

Systems thinking is the process of understanding how things influence one another within a whole. In nature, systems thinking examples include ecosystems in which various elements such as air, water, movement, plants, and animals work together to survive or perish. In organizations, systems consist of people, structures, and processes that work together to make an organization healthy or unhealthy. Systems Thinking has been defined as an approach to problem solving, by viewing "problems" as parts of an overall system, rather than reacting to specific part, outcomes or events and potentially contributing to further development of unintended consequences. Systems thinking is not one thing but a set of habits or practices within a framework that is based on the belief that the component parts of a system can best be understood in the context of relationships with each other and with other systems, rather than in isolation. Systems thinking focuses on cyclical rather than linear cause and effect.

Structured Systems Analysis Methodology For many years system analyst applied the scientific method to problem solving in a traditional way , defining the inputs and the outputs of a system and describing how the information would be processed. This could be a difficult and time-consuming effort because it required spending many hours preparing flowcharts and writing lengthy textual descriptions of the information-handling process. Flowcharts were major tool of the systems analyst for many years. This was unstructured way of describing steps in a solution. Virtually all problems were perceived as being sequential and linear in nature. The traditional systems analysis methodology became inadequate, however, as businesses and organizations overtook solving more complex and interrelated problems. The task of describing all inputs, outputs, processing steps, and contacts with vendors, customers, programmers managers and others, using only flowcharts and textual narratives, was too difficult. The new method for solving system problems and describing their solutions was developed by Larry Constantine, Edward Yourdon , Chris Gane , Trish Sarson and others. This methodology, known as structured systems analysis, replaced lengthy textual descriptions with diagrams that substituted words for figures and flowlines for written narratives. Structured analysis enabled analysis to visualize a system graphically, as an interrelated group of elements, rather than merely as a sequence of steps. Thus it became possible to visualize an overall system and its structure in a clear form. Structured systems analysis has become the preferred method of analyzing and describing systems.

Data Flow Diagram

Customer Operator Manuals
Receive Order Process Order

System Description

Inventory

Output Reports Functional Description

Update Inventory

Prepare Work

Supplier

Unstructured

structured

Structured Systems Analysis, This method visualizes the overall system in diagram form.