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CHAPTER

1 Systems analysis

LEARNING OUTCOMES

After reading this chapter, you will be able to:

■ define the importance of conducting the analysis phase to the overall success of the system;

■ choose appropriate techniques for analysing users’ requirements for an information system;

■ construct appropriate textual descriptions and diagrams to assist in summarising the requirements as an input to the design phase.

MANAGEMENT ISSUES

Careful systems analysis must be conducted on each BIS project to ensure that the system meets the needs of the business and its users. From a managerial perspective, this chapter addresses the following questions:

■ Which different aspects of the system must be summarised in the requirements document?

■ Which diagramming tools are appropriate to summarise the operation of the existing and proposed systems?

CHAPTER AT A GLANCE

MAIN TOPICS

■ Identifying the requirements 350

■ Documenting the findings 359

■ Systems analysis – an evaluation 383

■ Software tools for systems analysis 384

FOCUS ON . . .

■ Requirements determination in a lean or agile environment 358

■ Soft systems methodology 379

CASE STUDIES

10.1 IFD drawing – a student records system 362

10.2 ABC case study 384

CHAPTER

1 CHAPTER

10

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Once it has been determined that it is desirable to proceed with the acquisition of a new BIS, it is necessary to determine the system requirements before any design or development work takes place. Systems analysis is about finding out what the new system is to do, rather than how. There are two basic components to the analysis process:

■ Fact-finding. An exercise needs to take place where all prospective users of the new system should contribute to determining requirements;

■ Documentation. Detailed systems design follows the analysis stage and it needs to be based on unambiguous documentation and diagrams from the analysis stage.

Systems analysis involves the investigation of the business and user requirements of an information system. Fact-finding techniques are used to ascertain the user’s needs and these are summarised using a range of diagramming methods.

Factors that will influence the use of fact-finding techniques and documentation tools will include:

■ The result of the ‘make-or-buy decision’. Made during the feasibility stage, a ‘make’ decision where bespoke software is developed will need more detailed analysis than a ‘buy’ decision where packaged software is purchased off-the-shelf, especially when the results of the analysis process are fed into the design stage.

■ Application complexity. A very complex system or one where there are linkages to other systems will need very careful analysis to define system and subsystem boundaries, and this will lead to use of more formal techniques when compared with a simple or standalone application.

■ User versus corporate development. User development does not lend itself to extensive use of formal analysis tools. However, basic analysis is required and there are certain analysis tools that user developers can use that increase the probability of success. Similarly, where application development by IS/IT professionals occurs there will be a need for a more formal approach, especially where systems cut across functional boundaries.

Any errors in systems development that occur during the analysis phase will cost far more to correct than errors that occur in subsequent stages. It is therefore essential that maximum thought and effort be put into the analysis process if unanticipated costs are not to arise in the later stages of development.

INTRODUCTION

Systems analysis

The investigation of the business and user requirements of an information system. Fact-finding techniques are used to ascertain the user’s needs and these are summarised using a requirements specification and a range of diagramming methods.

The emphasis in this section will be on those methods typically used during the traditional systems development lifecycle approach to software development. However, it is recognised that lean and agile approaches to software development will focus on techniques that are particularly relevant to those methods. Therefore, these will be commented on later in the chapter in a ‘Focus on’ section.

The main purpose of the requirements determination phase of a systems development project is to identify those user requirements that need to be incorporated into the design of the new information system and that the requirements identified ‘really’ meet the users’ needs. Therefore, the first task in analysis is to conduct a fact-finding exercise so that the information systems requirements can be determined. Unfortunately, as identified by Shi et al. (1996) and by Browne and Rogich (2001), there are a number of reasons why this is very difficult for many organisations:

■ user limitations in terms of their ability to express correct requirements;

IDENTIFYING THE REQUIREMENTS

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■ lack of user awareness of what can be achieved with an information system (both in terms of under- and over-estimating an information system’s capabilities;

■ different interpretation of software requirements by different users; ■ existence of biases amongst users so that requirements are identified on the basis of

attitude, personality or environment rather than real business needs; ■ requirements may overlap organisational boundaries (e.g. between different functional

areas of the business) such that conflicts occur when identifying requirements; ■ information requirements are varied and complex and this can lead to difficulties in

structuring requirements so that they can be properly analysed; ■ communication issues can result because of the complex web of interactions that exists

between different users.

Nonetheless, while the task of requirements determination may be difficult, it must still be undertaken if the developed system is to have those features that the users and the organisation actually need. The methods an organisation uses in the analysis phase will depend, at least in part, on two factors:

■ Levels of decision making involved. A new information system will be under consideration either to resolve a problem or to create an opportunity. In either case, the objective is to improve the quality of information available to allow better decision making. The type of system under consideration may include a transaction processing system, a management information system, a decision support system, a combination of these or some other categorisation of system (Chapter 6). So, for example, an information system that is purely geared towards the needs of management will require a different approach to fact-finding (for example, using one-to-one interviews with senior managers) from one that mainly involves transaction processing (for example, using observation of the existing process).

■ Scope of functional area. A new information system may serve the needs of one functional business area (e.g. the HRM function), or it may cut across many functional areas. An information system that is restricted in scope may be faced with fewer of the problems that can affect new systems designed to meet the needs of many different areas. As before, the techniques of fact-finding may be similar, but how they are used and the findings presented may be radically different. Organisational culture, structure and decision-making processes will all have a part to play in selling the systems solution to all the affected parties.

Regardless of the scope and organisational levels involved, the objective of the fact- finding task is to gather sufficient information about the business processes under consideration so that a design can be constructed which will then provide the blueprint for the system build phase. We will now turn to a consideration of a number of fact- finding methods.

Although it might be thought that finding out the requirements for a system is straightforward, this is far from the case. Dissatisfaction with information systems is often due to the requirements for the information system being wrongly interpreted. Figure 10.1 shows an oft-quoted example of how a user’s requirements for a swing might be interpreted, not only at the requirements analysis stage but throughout the project.

As noted by Browne and Rogich (2001), the most popular strategy likely to be adopted by an analyst is to use structured interviews with the people who will use the new system and to identify the procedures they follow in performing their tasks and also to identify the information they need to perform them. A successful requirements determination exercise

Interviewing

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Figure 10.1 Varying interpretations of a user’s requirements at different stages in a project

What the users’ manager specified

The requirements specification The design

First delivery Final delivery after ‘fixing’

What the users really wanted

will require the analyst to elicit from the users both their understanding of the current business environment and current information needs and flows and also a visualisation of the preferred future organisational environment and information needs. The difficulties associated with this have already been indicated above.

During interviewing, a range of staff are interviewed using structured techniques to identify features and problems of the current system and required features of the future system.

Success with this method involves careful planning, proper conduct of the interviews themselves and, finally, accurate recording of the interview findings. We can expand each of these to provide more detail.

Planning

■ Clear objectives need to be set to identify what needs to be achieved at the end of the interviewing process.

■ Interview subjects must also be carefully selected so that the information gained will be relevant to the system being developed. For example, there may be little use in interviewing all the shopfloor workers in a manufacturing company if the system being developed is an executive information system (EIS) to assist with decision making at senior levels within the business. There may still be some merit in interviewing certain key personnel involved in operational decision making, since data produced may be useful in the proposed EIS.

■ Customers should be involved in analysis if the use of a system affects them directly. For example, a customer of a phone-based ordering system or a telephone bank may well give an insight into problems of an existing system.

■ The topics the interview is to cover need to be clearly identified and the place where interviews are to take place must be determined.

■ Finally, it is necessary to plan how the interviews are to be conducted and the types of questions to be used.

Analysis technique – interviewing

Recommended practice: a range of staff are interviewed using structured techniques to identify features and problems of the current system and required features of the future system.

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Conduct

■ The interviewer must establish a control framework for the interview. This will include the use of summarising to check the points being made and appropriate verbal and non- verbal signals to assist the flow of the interview.

■ Interviewers must be good listeners. This is especially important when dealing with complex business processes which are the object of the systems development project.

■ The interviewer must select a mix of open and closed questions which will elicit maximum information retrieval.

■ Finally, the interview must be structured in an organised way. There are three main approaches to structuring an interview. The first is the ‘pyramid structure’, where the interview begins with a series of specific questions and during the course of the interview moves towards general ones. The second is the ‘funnel structure’, where the interviewer begins with general questions and during the course of the interview concentrates increasingly on specific ones. The third approach is the ‘diamond structure’, where the interview begins with specific questions, moves towards general questions in the middle of the interview and back towards specific questions at the end.

Regardless of which approach is taken, it will still be necessary to document carefully the findings of the interview.

Interviews should use a mixture of open and closed questions. Open questions are not restricted to a limited range of answers such as Yes/No (closed questions). They are asked to elicit opinions or ideas for the new system or identify commonly held views among staff. Open questions are not typically used for quantitative analysis, but can be used to identify a common problem.

Closed questions have a restricted choice of answers such as Yes/No or a range of opinions on a scale from ‘strongly agree’ to ‘strongly disagree’ (Likert scale). This approach is useful for quantitative analysis of results.

Recording

During the course of the interview, the interviewer will need to make notes to record the findings. It may also be useful to draw diagrams to illustrate the processes being discussed. Some interviewers like to use a tape recorder to be sure that no points are missed. Whichever methods are used, the requirement is to record three main attributes of the system under consideration:

■ Business processes. A business process exists when an input of some kind (raw materials, for example) is transformed in some way so that an output is produced for use elsewhere in the business.

■ Data. Data will be acquired and processed and information produced as a con-sequence of carrying out business processes. Data must be analysed so that data acquisition, processing needs and information requirements can be encapsulated in the new information system.

■ Information flows. Functional business areas do not exist in isolation from each other and neither do different business processes within the same business function. It is necessary, therefore, to identify how data and information within one business process are necessary for other business processes to operate effectively.

We will look at some relevant tools and techniques which help to record the findings later in this chapter.

As an information-gathering tool, interviews have a number of advantages and disadvantages. On the positive side they include:

■ the ability to gather detailed information through a two-way dialogue; ■ the ability for candid, honest responses to be made;

Open questions

Not restricted to a limited range of answers such as Yes/No (closed questions). Asked to elicit opinions or ideas for the new system or identify commonly held views amongst staff. Open questions are not typically used for quantitative analysis, but can be used to identify a common problem.

Closed questions

Closed questions have a restricted choice of answers such as Yes/No or a range of opinions a scale from ‘strongly agree’ to ‘strongly disagree’ (Likert scale). Approach is useful for quantitative analysis results.

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■ an open, spontaneous process which can lead to valuable insights, especially when open questions are used;

■ responses that can easily be quantified, especially when closed questions are used; ■ being one of the best methods for gathering qualitative data such as opinions, and

subjective descriptions of activities and problems.

On the negative side, however, the following points can be made:

■ The analyst’s findings may be coloured by his or her perceptions of how other, similar, business operations work. Interviewers need to be especially skilled if this is to be avoided.

■ The development of a new information system may represent a threat through the risk of deskilling, redundancy or perceived inability to cope with change. Interviewees may, therefore, not cooperate with the interview process, either by not taking part or by giving vague and incomplete replies.

■ The interviewee may tell the analyst what he or she thinks should happen rather than what actually happens.

■ An interview at lower organisational levels may not yield as much information as some other methods if staff in this area are not capable of articulating with sufficient clarity.

On balance, interviewing is an essential part of the information-gathering process. For maximum benefit, interviewing should be used in conjunction with other techniques, and we will turn to these now.

Analysis techniques – questionnaires

Used to obtain a range of opinion on requirements by targeting a range of staff. They are open to misinterpretation unless carefully designed. They should consist of open and closed questions.

Questionnaires are used to obtain a range of opinion on requirements by targeting a range of staff. They are open to misinterpretation unless carefully designed. They should consist of both open and closed questions.

Questionnaires can be a useful addition to the analyst’s armoury, but are not in themselves enough to gather sufficient information for the later stages of the systems development process. That said, questionnaires can be very useful when used with other fact-finding methods, either to confirm the findings obtained elsewhere or to open up possible further areas for investigation. Typically, they are used before more detailed questions by interview.

Successful questionnaires have a number of characteristics:

■ The questions will be framed by the analyst with a clear view of the information that is to be obtained from the completed questionnaires.

■ The target audience must be carefully considered – a questionnaire designed for clerical or operational personnel should not contain questions that are not relevant to their level of work.

■ The questionnaire should only contain branching (e.g. ‘if the answer to Question 3 was ‘No’, then go to Question 8’) if it is absolutely necessary – multiple branches create confusion and may lead to unusable responses.

■ Questions should be simple and unambiguous so that the respondent does not have to guess what the analyst means.

■ Multiple-choice, Likert-scale-type questions make the questionnaire easier to fill in and allow the results to be analysed more efficiently.

■ The questionnaire should contain the required return date and name of the person to whom the questionnaire should be returned.

Questionnaires

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Difficulties that can be encountered with questionnaires include:

■ the inability of respondents to go back to the analyst to seek clarification about what a question means;

■ difficulty in collating qualitative information, especially if the questionnaire contains open-ended questions;

■ the inability to use verbal and non-verbal signals from the respondent as a sign to ask other or different questions;

■ low response rates – these can be lower than 20 to 25 per cent when sent to other organisations or customers, which means that a large sample size is needed if the results are to carry any weight. Response rate is not such a problem with internal staff.

By contrast, the questionnaire process also has a number of benefits:

■ When large numbers of people such as customers or suppliers need to be consulted, a carefully worded questionnaire is more efficient and less expensive than carrying out large numbers of interviews.

■ Questionnaires can be used to check results found by using other fact-finding methods. ■ The use of standardised questions can help codify the findings more succinctly than

other tools.

In summary, questionnaires can have a useful role to play in certain circumstances, but they should not be used as the sole data-gathering method.

Documentation reviews target information about existing systems, such as user guides or requirements specifications, together with paper or on-screen forms used to collect information, such as sales order forms. They are vital for collecting detail about data and processes that may not be recalled in questionnaires and interviews.

All organisations have at least some kind of documentation that relates to some or all of the business operations carried out. A documentation review can be carried out at a number of different stages in the analysis process. If carried out at the beginning of a requirements analysis exercise, it will help provide the analyst with some background information relating to the area under consideration. It may also help the analyst construct a framework for the remainder of the exercise, and enable interviews to be conducted in a more effective way since the analyst has some idea of current business practices and procedures. If document review is carried out later, it can be used to cross-check the actual business operations with what is supposed to happen. The kinds of documentation and records that can be reviewed include the following:

■ instruction manuals and procedure manuals which show how specific tasks are supposed to be performed;

■ requirements specifications and user guides from previous systems; ■ job descriptions relating to particular staff functions which may help identify who

should be doing what; ■ strategic plans both for the organisation as a whole and the functional areas in particular,

which can provide valuable background data for establishing broad functional objectives.

While documentation review can provide a very useful underpinning for other fact-finding tasks, there are still a number of problems:

■ There can be a large quantity of data for an analyst to process. This is especially true in large organisations and it may take the analyst a long time to identify the documentation that is useful and that which can be ignored.

Documentation review

Analysis technique – documentation review

Uses information on existing systems such as user guides, or requirements specifications together with paper or on-screen forms used to collect information such as sales order forms.

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■ Documentation is often out of date. If there is an old computerised system, it is quite possible that the documentation has not been changed for years, even though the system may have changed considerably over that period. The same can be said for the documentation of activities and procedures.

Observation

Useful for identifying inefficiencies in an existing way of working either with a computer- based or a manual information system. Involves timing how long particular operations take and observing the method used to perform them.

Observation is useful for identifying inefficiencies in an existing way of working, with either a computer-based or a manual information system. It involves timing how long particular operations take and observing the method used to perform them. It can be time-consuming and the staff who are observed may not behave normally.

This fact-finding method involves the analyst in directly observing business activities taking place so that they can see what is actually taking place rather than looking at documentation which states what should be taking place. One of the benefits of observation is that the analyst can see directly how something is done, rather than relying on verbal or written communication which may colour the facts or be the subject of misinterpretation by the analyst. Other benefits include:

■ the ability to see how documents and records are actually handled and processed; ■ observation may give a greater insight into actual business operations than simple paper

documentation; ■ identification of particular operations that take a long time; ■ the opportunity to see how different processes interact with each other, thus giving the

analyst a dynamic rather than a static view of the business situation under investigation.

On the downside, there are a number of difficulties associated with the observation technique:

■ It is an extremely time-consuming exercise and therefore needs to be done as a supplementary rather than a principal fact-finding method.

■ While observation allows an organisation to be dynamically assessed, it still does not allow attitudes and belief systems to be assessed. This can be a very important issue if the proposed information system is likely to encounter resistance to change among the workforce.

■ Finally, there is the issue of the ‘Hawthorne effect’, where people tend to behave differently when they are being observed, thus reducing the value of the information being obtained. Of course, for the analyst, the problem is in determining whether those being observed are behaving differently or not!

This last effect was first noticed in the Hawthorne plant of Western Electrics in the United States. Here, it was noted that production increased, not as a con-sequence of actual changes in working conditions introduced by the plant’s management, but because management demonstrated an interest in improving staff working conditions.

Despite these difficulties, it is desirable for the analyst to conduct at least some observation to ensure that no aspect of the system being investigated is overlooked.

Observation

Brainstorming

Brainstorming uses interaction within a group of staff to generate new ideas and discuss existing problems. It is the least structured of the fact- finding techniques.

Brainstorming uses interaction within a group of staff to generate new ideas and discuss existing problems. It is the least structured of the fact-finding techniques.

This is the final fact-finding technique we will consider. The methods we have looked at so far are either passive or conducted on a one-to-one basis, or both. The brainstorming

Brainstorming

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method involves a number of participants and is an active approach to information gathering. While the other methods allow for many different views to be expressed, those methods do not allow different persons’ perceptions of the business processes and systems needs to be considered simultaneously. Brainstorming allows multiple views and opinions to be brought forward at the same time. If the proposed system’s user community participates actively, it is more likely that an accurate view of current business processes and information systems needs will be reached.

Brainstorming sessions require careful planning by the analyst. Factors to consider include:

■ which persons to involve and from which functional business areas; ■ how many people to involve in the session – too few and insufficient data may be

gathered; too many and the session may be too difficult to handle; ■ terms of refere

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