Chapter 5 System Development and Program Change Activities

Review Questions
6. Why is strategic systems planning not technically considered to be part of the SDLC?
Response: Strategic systems planning is not part of the SDLC because the SDLC pertains to specific
applications, whereas the strategic systems plan is concerned with the allocation of such systems
resources as employees (the number of systems professionals to be hired), hardware (the number of
workstations, minicomputers, and mainframes to be purchased), software (the funds to be allocated to
new systems projects and for systems maintenance), and telecommunications (the funds allocated to
networking and EDI).

7. What is strategic systems planning, and why should it be done?

Response: Strategic systems planning involves the allocation of systems resources at the macro level. It
usually deals with a time frame of 3 to 5 years. This process is similar to budgetingresources for other
strategic activities, such as product development, plant expansions, market research, and manufacturing
technology.
There are four justifications for strategic systems planning:
1. A plan that changes constantly is better than no plan at all.
2. Strategic planning reduces the crisis component in systems development.
3. Strategic systems planning provides authorization control for the SDLC.
4. Cost management.

8. What is the purpose of project planning, and what are the various steps?
Response: The purpose of project planning is to allocate resources to individual applications within the
framework of the strategic plan. This involves identifying areas of user needs, preparing proposals,
evaluating each proposal’s feasibility and contribution to the business plan, prioritizing individual
projects, and scheduling the work to be done. The basic purpose of project planning is to allocate scarce
resources to specific projects. The product of this phase consists of two formal documents: the project
proposal and the project schedule.

9. What is the object-oriented design (OOD) approach?

Response: OOD builds systems from the bottom up through the assembly of reusable modules rather than
create each system from scratch. OOD is most often associated with an iterative approach to SDLC where
small chunks or modules, cycle through all of the SDLC phases rather rapidly, with a short time frame
from beginning to end. Then additional modules or chunks are added in some appropriate fashion until
the whole system has been developed.
10. What are the broad classes of facts that need to be gathered in the systems survey?
Response: Data sources, users, data stores, processes, data flows, controls, transaction volumes, error
rates, resource costs, and bottlenecks and redundant operations.

11. What are the primary fact-gathering techniques?

Response: Observation, task participation, personal interviews, and reviewing key documents

12. What are the relative merits and disadvantages of a current systems survey?
Response: An advantage of studying the current system is that it provides a way to identify what aspects
of the old system are positive and should be kept. Further, the tasks, procedures, and data of the old
system need to be understood so that the phase-in of the new system can handle any changes. Also, a
survey of the current system may help the analyst determine the underlying cause of the reported
symptoms. A disadvantage is that the analysis of the current system may be too time-consuming,
especially if conducted at too detailed a level. Further, the study of the current system may create tunnel
vision and/or prohibit the analysts from thinking in an innovative fashion.

13. Distinguish among data sources, data stores, and data flows.
Response: Data sources include two types of entities: (a) external, such as customers or vendors, and (b
internal, other departments in the organization. Data stores are the files, databases, accounts, and source
documents used in the system. Data flows represent the movement of document or reports among the data
sources, data stores, processing tasks, and users.

14. What are some of the key documents that may be reviewed in a current systems survey?
Response: Some of the key documents that may be reviewed are organization charts, job descriptions,
accounting manuals, charts of accounts, policy statements, descriptions of procedures, financial
statements, performance reports, system flowcharts, source documents, accounts, budgets, forecasts, and
mission statements.

15. What is the purpose of a systems analysis, and what type of information should be
included in the systems analysis report?
Response: The purpose of systems analysis is to understand both the actual and the desired states. The
systems analysis report should contain the problems identified with the current system, the user’s needs,
and the requirements of the new system.