Week 11: Muddy

During week 11 we were introduced to information systems development.

Being that I am not a very computer savvy person at all, this section proved to be challenging for me. It was difficult for me to fully grasp the simple concepts that we were expected to understand by the end of the section.

The objectives of this section included:

• List the phases in the system development cycle
• Discuss the importance of project management
• Explain the activities performed in each phase of the system development cycle
• Describe different tools and processes used in each step of the system development cycle
• Discuss the importance of change management
• Describe different techniques for converting to a new system
• Explain the role of the system analyst
• Describe a project management application, Microsoft Project

I thought that it would be beneficial for me to do some outside research to see if I could find a easier way of understanding the material. The concept that I wanted to fully understand was the system development cycle.

After I did my outside research, I found that the system development cycle was simply 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.


The stages include:
1. Planning
2. Analysis
3. Design
4. Implementation
5. Operation, Support and Security


After finally grasping this information, I was able to understand that the purpose of system analysis is to:
- Determine needs
-Solve problems
- Define requirements
-Work around roadblocks