System Development Lifecycle - Report Example

Introduction System development lifecycle is one of the crucial tools available to the analysts to design and develop information system, define training needs and build the stakeholders ownership of the whole process. The overall significance of system development lifecycle or SDLC should therefore be to ensure completeness of the overall process and generating and exceeding customer expectations. What is also critical to note that SDLC should be developed in a manner that it can allow the organization to run the new system within its existing system and information technology infrastructure while at the same time provide inexpensive and cost effective ways to improve the current system. SDLC as a whole is a staged process wherein different steps are undertaken sequentially in order to move from one step to another. This sequential process actually allows SDLC to serve as a robust mechanism which takes into consideration the whole development life cycle and cater to the needs of all stakeholders. Over the period of time, SDLC has proved itself as one of the better models to prevail over traditional methodologies to implement system development across the whole organizations. It is however, important to note that this approach is not considered as sufficient or adequate enough to deal with agile computing. SDLC also fails to provide sufficient methodological framework where iterative processes are required and stakeholders have to make periodic reviews of the processes. This paper will provide an in-depth analysis of the system development life cycle and its various stages and how it is used by the organizations. System Development Life Cycle System development lifecycle or SDLC is considered as a conceptual model describing stages involved in the development of an information system from start to finish. SDLC approach is a stage-wise approach wherein analysts have to take a sequential approach to design, develop and identify the stakeholder ownership for the system development as a whole. Within the perspective of software development process, SDLC is a collection of methodologies which are used for planning and controlling the overall system development process. (Beynon-Davies, 2009) SDLC is a deliberate way of building information system in a methodological as well as in structured way. The overall methodology started to appear during 1960s in order to build large business systems enabling large amount of number crunching and data manipulation. The overall popularity of this approach can be assessed from the fact that it is one of the widely used methodologies giving effective and sufficient results to system analysts to pursue this approach. (Blanchard & Fabrycky, 2006) SDLC is also considered as a process used by the system analysts to develop an information system while at the same time defining the ownership of various processes as well as determining the training and development needs of the users to run the system effectively. It is also critical to understand that information systems are complex in nature with multiple sources providing different hardware and software which operate together. To deal with such level of complexity, SDLC therefore proposes certain methodologies to deal with different situations as they arise. Stages of System Development Lifecycle As discussed above that this approach is a sequential in nature as system developers and analysts have to take a stage-wise approach to develop a system. The oldest model of SDLC is called Waterfall model under which the output of one stage becomes the input for the next stage and hence a sequential process works in order to ensure completeness of the whole process. It is also critical to note that stages in system development life cycle vary and are named differently however, the critical differences are very few and only nomenclature is changed. Preliminary Investigation This is the initial stage and is often considered as a tedious stage because it is at this stage that the organization attempts to define and unearth the problem. Preliminary investigation also includes conducting preliminary analysis incudes identifying the problem in the system which is already working. It is also at this stage that the organization’s objectives are assessed and matched with the overall scope of the problem. Once problems are identified, it is also at this stage that the various alternative solutions are identified. It is important to understand that system analyst can find alternative solutions through interviewing people, suppliers, consultants etc. at this stage, a system analyst can also check as to what competitors are doing. (Cummings, 2006) Once the complete data is secured at this stage, analyst than defines the overall cost and benefit of the alternatives and decides how to proceed with the overall project. Requirement Analysis At this stage, analyst actually assesses the information and the functions which are required by the system. At this stage, analyst also has to make a clear survey of exact requirement of the system and based on these requirements, assesses the ability and performance of the system. It is also at this stage that the overall goals are identified for the system and are converted into functions and responsibilities in order to assign accountability to different processes. Requirement analysis also takes into consideration the end-user requirements. System Design At this stage, analysts have to define the different features and operational details in more depth. Analyst designs a system prototype either on the paper or through computer generated programs and checks whether the system actually meets the requirements and caters to the overall functional requirements of the project. Various designs are produced in order to check as to whether different designs can actually cater to the exact requirements of the organization and whether the intended system can actually fulfill the requirement. Development Phase Once the analyst actually determines which design to suit the organizational needs, at the development phase, a developer actually starts the process of coding. This is where the real technical knowledge comes into play because it is at this stage that the requirements are actually converted into the machine readable language for the purpose of developing the system. Testing and Integration At this stage, a developer actually brings everything under an environment where each and every aspect of the system can be tested. Testing environment created outlines the potential errors, bugs and other issues which may come up during the testing phase. It is also at this stage that the analyst thoroughly checks the newly developed system and ensures that it meets the requirements or not. Deployment When an analyst screens out all the errors and fixes them, next stage involved is the overall acceptance of the system, its installation as well as deployment. It is at this stage that the end-users are actually engaged with the system and system is put into real world situation. It is also at this stage that the real feedback comes in from the end users and an analyst must have to be prepared for translating such feedback into overall system improvements. Maintenance It is the last stage and keeps on iterating itself till the software is in use or replaced with another system. This is also the longest stage in which analyst have to continue to get feedback and manage the system throughout its life. Conclusion System development lifecycle is one of the oldest methodologies for system development and is used for the purpose of developing new information systems. Developed initially during 1960s this approach has developed into a comprehensive framework of methodologies dealing with different issues related with the system development. This approach is a stage wise approach wherein a system analyst has to go through sequential steps to perform the overall system development and ensures that system meets the requirements. Bibliography Blanchard, B. S., & Fabrycky, W. (2006). Systems engineering and analysis . New Jersey: Prentice Hall. Cummings, H. (2006). Management Information Systems for the Information Age. Toronto: McGraw-Hill Ryerson. Beynon-Davies, P. (2009). Business Information Systems. Basingstoke: Palgrave. Read More