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ChaPter 1 • SyStemS, roleS, and develoPment methodologieS 17

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HypERCASE ExpERiEnCE 1

“Welcome to Maple Ridge Engineering, what we call MRE. Charlotte, North Carolina; and New Orleans, Louisiana. We’d love
We hope you’ll enjoy serving as a systems consultant for us. to have you visit when you’re in the area.”
Although I’ve worked here five years in different capacities, I’ve “For now, you should explore HyperCase using either Firefox,
just been reassigned to serve as an administrative aide to Snowden Safari, or Microsoft Internet Explorer.”
Evans, the head of the new Training and Management Systems “To learn more about Maple Ridge Engineering as a com-
Department. We’re certainly a diverse group. As you make your pany or to find out how to interview our employees, who will use
way through the company, be sure to use all your skills, both tech- the systems you design, and how to observe their offices in our
nical and people oriented, to understand who we are and to identify company, you may want to start by going to the website www
the problems and conflicts that you think should be solved regard- .pearsonhighered.com/kendall. Then click on the link labeled
ing our information systems.” HyperCase. At the HyperCase display screen, click on Start, and
“To bring you up to date, let me say that Maple Ridge you will be in the reception room for Maple Ridge Engineering.
Engineering is a medium-sized medical engineering company. From this point, you can start consulting right away.”
Last year, our revenues exceeded $287 million. We employ about This website contains useful information about the project as
335 people. There are about 150 administrative employees as well well as files that can be downloaded to your computer. There is a set
as management and clerical staff like myself; approximately 75 of Visible Analyst data files, and there is another set of Visio data
professional employees, including engineers, physicians, and sys- files that match HyperCase. They contain a partially constructed
tems analysts; and about 110 trade employees, such as drafters and series of data flow diagrams, entity-relationship diagrams, UML
technicians.” diagrams, and repository information. The HyperCase website also
“There are four offices. You will visit us through HyperCase in contains additional exercises that may be assigned. HyperCase is
our home office in Maple Ridge, Tennessee. We have three other designed to be explored, and you should not overlook any object or
branches in the southern United States as well: Atlanta, Georgia; clue on a web page.

Summary

Systems analysis and design is a systematic approach to identifying problems, opportunities, and objectives;
to analyzing human- and computer-generated information flows in organizations; and to designing comput-
erized information systems to solve problems. Systems analysts are required to take on many roles in the
course of their work. Some of these roles are (1) an outside consultant to business, (2) a supporting expert
within a business, and (3) an agent of change in both internal and external situations.
Analysts possess a wide range of skills. First and foremost, an analyst is a problem solver, someone
who enjoys the challenge of analyzing a problem and devising a workable solution. Systems analysts re-
quire communication skills that allow them to relate meaningfully to many different kinds of people on a
daily basis, as well as computer skills. Understanding and relating well to users is critical to their success.
Analysts proceed systematically. The framework for their systematic approach is provided in what
is called the systems development life cycle (SDLC). This life cycle can be divided into seven sequential
phases, although in reality the phases are interrelated and are often accomplished simultaneously. The seven
phases are identifying problems, opportunities, and objectives; determining human information require-
ments; analyzing system needs; designing the recommended system; developing and documenting soft-
ware; testing and maintaining the system; and implementing and evaluating the system.
The agile approach is a software development approach based on values, principles, and core practices.
Systems that are designed using agile methods can be developed rapidly. Stages in the agile development
process are exploration, planning, iterations to the first release, productionizing, and maintenance.
A third approach to systems development is called object-oriented analysis design. These techniques
are based on object-oriented programming concepts that have become codified in UML, a standardized
modeling language in which objects that are created include not only code about data but also instructions
about the operations to be performed on the data. Key diagrams help analyze, design, and communicate
UML-developed systems. These systems are usually developed as components, and reworking the compo-
nents many times is typical in object-oriented analysis and design.
Analysts will have increasing opportunities to participate in open source development communities,
often through their primary organization. There are many reasons organizations are participating in develop-
ment of open source. One of the well-known open source communities maintains the Linux kernel and is
supported by the Linux Foundation.