Assignment 5 (SAD1)

Consider your school, how do you know that the life cycle was developed specifically for the university. How do we know it meets our needs?

What is a Systems Development Cycle?

System Development Life Cycle

The Systems Development Life Cycle (SDLC) is a conceptual model used in project management that describes the stages involved in an information system development project from an initial feasibility study through maintenance of the completed application. Various SDLC methodologies have been developed to guide the processes involved including the waterfall model (the original SDLC method), rapid application development (RAD), joint application development (JAD), the fountain model and the spiral model. Mostly, several models are combined into some sort of hybrid methodology. Documentation is crucial regardless of the type of model chosen or devised for any application, and is usually done in parallel with the development process. Some methods work better for specific types of projects, but in the final analysis, the most important factor for the success of a project may be how closely particular plan was followed.


Feasibility
The feasibility study is used to determine if the project should get the go-ahead. If the project is to proceed, the feasibility study will produce a project plan and budget estimates for the future stages of development.

Requirement Analysis and Design Analysis
Gathers the requirements for the system. This stage includes a detailed study of the business needs of the organization. Options for changing the business process may be considered. Design focuses on high level design like, what programs are needed and how are they going to interact, low-level design (how the individual programs are going to work), interface design (what are the interfaces going to look like) and data design (what data will be required). During these phases, the software's overall structure is defined. Analysis and Design are very crucial in the whole development cycle. Any glitch in the design phase could be very expensive to solve in the later stage of the software development. Much care is taken during this phase. The logical system of the product is developed in this phase.

Implementation
In this phase the designs are translated into code. Computer programs are written using a conventional programming language or an application generator. Programming tools like CGDSKI8ompilers, Interpreters, Debuggers are used to generate the code. Different high level programming languages like C, C++, Pascal, Java are used for coding. With respect to the type of application, the right programming language is chosen.

Testing
In this phase the system is tested. Normally programs are written as a series of individual modules, these subject to separate and detailed test. The system is then tested as a whole. The separate modules are brought together and tested as a complete system. The system is tested to ensure that interfaces between modules work (integration testing), the system works on the intended platform and with the expected volume of data (volume testing) and that the system does what the user requires (acceptance/beta testing).

Maintenance
Inevitably the system will need maintenance. Software will definitely undergo change once it is delivered to the customer. There are many reasons for the change. Change could happen because of some unexpected input values into the system. In addition, the changes in the system could directly affect the software operations. The software should be developed to accommodate changes that could happen during the post implementation period.

Other points to consider

Buy vs. Develop- The system development life cycle does not change if the decision is made to purchase an off-the-shelf program rather than develop a home grown system. The coding and debugging process is replaced with a process used to evaluate the potential purchased products, and to actually purchase the software. Coding and debugging may be required for the interfaces that link the purchased software to existing systems that must communicate with the new system.

Importance of planning- The planning stages, requirements analysis and architectural design, are the most important stages. Good planning will help reduce errors and reduce the chance for missing or extending production schedules. An undetected design error will take 10 times longer to fix during the debugging stage than had it been detected and corrected during the planning stage.

Moving back- It is possible to go back to previous steps as subsequent analysis warrants. Typically, the life cycle has a spiral shape rather than a linear one, with repeated steps back to prior activities as requirements are refined and new information is gathered. Business Case &

Project Plan- A business case and a project plan are created during the concept stage, and then continually updated throughout the life cycle as users and developers gain a clearer idea of the scope of the project. Management reviews both of these revised documents on a regular basis and determines whether resources should continue to be committed to the project.

Our university

The University of Southeastern Philippines was trying to be one of the premier university in the region.In my own observations based on the said above SDLC......

When it comes to Feasibility.....
I think when the university conducted the feasibility study, it is takes time for them because they think and analyze it many times as they can. They would not agree to the project if they think its not useful for the university.

The Requirement Analysis and Design phase.......
When they analyze the requirements and design of the project they want to develop, it is based on the feasibility study. I think they conducted many researches and surveys. IS professionals must involve end users in this process to ensure that the new system will function adequately and meets their needs and expectations.

The Implementation phase....
When the university implements any of its projects, I think they have the trial period in which they let its user to use for a while then they get the feedback so that they can improve there project.Testing phase..In this phase the system is tested. Normally programs are written as a series of individual modules, these subjects to separate and detailed test. The system is then tested as a whole. The separate modules are brought together and tested as a complete system. The system is tested to ensure that interfaces between modules work (integration testing), the system works on the intended platform and with the expected volume of data (volume testing) and that the system does what the user requires (acceptance/beta testing).

The Maintenance phase.....
The maintenance of project for the university was assigned to the developers, in our case some of the professor/ faculty was assigned.

References:
http://www.startvbdotnet.com/sdlc/sdlc.aspx
http://gates.comm.virginia.edu/rrn2n/teaching/sdlc.htm