3. Definitions of the terms Below is the terminology used by Business Analyst and other team members in a Software Development Project. Business Analyst: The person who works as a liaison between the business unit and the technical unit in a company to analyze, communicate and validate requirements for changes to business processes, existing policies and information system. Business Intelligence: is the term used to refer to a number of activities that a company may undertake to gather information about their market and competitors. Some of the criteria include: competitive analysis, market analysis and industry analysis. Business Requirement Document (BRD): is a singular documentation needed to understand what a particular product or service is required by the clients. It identifies a necessary attribute, capability, characteristics or quality of a system so that it gets the value and utility to its user. Document Analysis: means to elicit requirements of an existing system by studying available documentation and identifying relevant information. Joint Application Development (JAD): is a meeting where both business persons and technical team discuss the requirements, obstacles and changes in presence of the business analyst. SDLC: Software Development Life Cycle means the phases usually covered during the production of software flowing from planning to maintenance. Figure 1, collected from Wikipedia.org which shows below the phases a software product goes through.
It gathers requirements by asking right questions to the stakeholders. The information gathered has to be interpreted, analyzed, modelled and validated.
Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_intelligence, defines business intelligence as “computer based techniques used in spotting, digging out and analyzing business data.” SQL Server’s Business Intelligence tools include the Reporting Services, Analysis Services, and Integration Services among others. A complete overview can be found at
Developing software is far from an exact science and without a structured system to guide the process a project is likely to fail. Defining and adhering to a Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC) early in the project will help to guide the development of a new information system. In addition to having the structure for the development team to work within a defined and agree upon SDLC will help to set the proper expectations for deliverables with the stakeholders and customer(s). Smith Consulting has been given the task of creating a Frequent Shopper program for Kudler Fine Foods. As a result Smith Consulting needs to decide on which SDLC will work best for this project. In addition to selecting a SDLC to use Smith Consulting will
A: In the software lifecycle there are 4 phases that are derived from the old System Development Life Cycle (SDLC) and they are as follow; Planning, Implementation, Maintenance, and the Removal process. The planning phase is defined by all planning activities including the analysis of the software to be installed, verification of its compatibility, supported methods of installations, and the identification of any risks associated with the software and the desired deployment method. The Implementation phase is used to prepare for deployment such as; creating a shared access location for files and creating or using the appropriate package files. After all these steps have been
The Joint Application Development (JAD) is a newer and more organized means of gathering information to base requirements on. This process is conducted by holding sessions in which key stakeholders and other key members of management are present and work together in the outline of the possible requirements.
Business requirements document (BRD) that provides additional details regarding the expectations (such as user, system, and functional) that must be met for achieving project goals
This will help me and the team to understand how the system works. The documents will serve as the reference point on the basic requirements. For cohesiveness, I will have the team to discuss my findings during meetings (Trotter & Uhlman, 2011).
The current development process devotes a large amount of time at the front end of development to establishing customer needs and converting them into system level requirements. The client-site team meets with customers, learns their needs, develops specifications, verifies them with the customers, and then sends them offshore for development. This is a very formalized, documented process. (+)
There will be a number of documents that will need to be developed these will include;
A business profile is an overview that defines a company’s overall functions, processes, organization, products, services, customers, suppliers, competitors, constraints, and future direction. A business process describes specific events, tasks, and desired results. To understand a company’s operations, systems analysts first develop a business profile and then create a series of business models. A business model graphically represents business functions that consist of business processes such as sales, accounting, and purchasing that perform specific tasks. (Pages 10 -11)
Systems analysis refers to a problem solving technique where a business or procedure is studied and the goals are identified in order to create information systems to help the business achieve their goal more efficiently and easier. Systems analysts obtain feedback from the system users in various ways e.g. interviews, questionnaires etc. More importantly they find out from the users what their specific requirements are regarding the proposed system and then use the information obtained to formulate requirements for the system, the system is then written ensuring that all the requirements and expectations are met.
Interview:- Typically, the analyst will start by interviewing managers and decision makers in order to: Get an overall picture of the issues, Gain understanding of the organisation structures, The people involved and any areas of sensitivity
Prepared accurate and detailed requirement specifications documents, user interface guides, functional specification documents, process and data flows
Requirement engineering is the process of determining user’s need for a new & modified product. These features, called requirements, must be quantifiable, relevant and detailed. In software engineering, such requirements are often
The SDLC Software design life cycle is used for the design and development stage of a software system. It’s the structure for design and development the life cycle has multiple stages, there are 9 in total. Requirements, Specification, Design, implementation, testing and debugging, deployment, maintenance and post mortem. All of these stages are part of the software design life cycle. The reason they use the SDLC is to see if the software there producing is up to standards meets their desire of design.