Chapter 8

Systems Acquisition and

Development

Course Content: Lamb, C.W., Hair, J.F., McDaniel, C., Boivin, M., Gaudet, D., & Shearer, J. (2019). MKTG: Principles of Marketing (4th Canadian Ed.). Toronto, ON: Nelson Education Ltd.
Objectives (1 of 3)
1. Identify the pros and cons associated with both buying
and building software
2. Identify the advantages and disadvantages of the
waterfall approach to system development
3. Identify and briefly describe the primary tools and
techniques used during system development
4. Describe the agile development process
What is a project?
• A project is temporary in that it has a defined beginning
and end in time, and therefore defined scope and
resources.
• And a project is unique in that it is not a routine operation,
but a specific set of operations designed to accomplish a
singular goal. So a project team often includes people who
don’t usually work together – sometimes from different
organizations and across multiple geographies.

Course Content: Lamb, C.W., Hair, J.F., McDaniel, C., Boivin, M., Gaudet, D., & Shearer, J. (2019). MKTG: Principles of Marketing (4th Canadian Ed.). Toronto, ON: Nelson Education Ltd.
 Buy Versus Build
• Buying off-the-shelf software is less risky and leads to quicker deployment
• Maintenance and support costs may become expensive

Strategy Pros Cons

Buy A software solution can be acquired and deployed Unmodified, the software may not be a good match
relatively quickly. to an organization’s needs.
An organization can “test drive” software before Maintenance and support costs can become
acquiring it. excessive.
Build Customized software is more likely to be a good The cost to build a system can be quite high
match to an organization’s needs. compared to the cost of purchasing off-the-
A custom application provides the potential to shelf software.
achieve competitive advantage. Customized software can take months or even years
to deploy.
TABLE 8.1 The pros and cons of buying versus building software

• Organizations can use several different approaches when developing their software
o The waterfall and agile software development processes will be discussed in this chapter
Project Managment
• Build or Buy – need to run a project
• Two major PM methodologies
• Waterfall
• Agile

Course Content: Lamb, C.W., Hair, J.F., McDaniel, C., Boivin, M., Gaudet, D., & Shearer, J. (2019). MKTG: Principles of Marketing (4th Canadian Ed.). Toronto, ON: Nelson Education Ltd.
Waterfall
Waterfall System Development Process (1 of 3)
• Waterfall system development process
• A sequential, multistage system development process
• Work on the next stage cannot begin until the results of the current
stage are reviewed and approved or modified as necessary
• There are six phases:
• Investigation
• Analysis
• Design
• Construction
• Integration
• Testing and implementation
 Waterfall System Development Process (2 of 3)

FIGURE 8.1
Waterfall system development process
Progress flows steadily downward (like a
waterfall) through the various phases of
development.
 Waterfall System Development Process (3 of 3)
TABLE 8.2 Advantages and disadvantages of waterfall system development process

Advantages Disadvantages
Formal review at the end of each phase allows Users get a system that meets the needs as
maximum management control. understood by the developers; however, this might
not be what the users really needed.
This approach requires creation of considerable Often, user needs go unstated or are
system documentation so that system requirements miscommunicated or misunderstood.
can be traced back to stated business needs.
Approach produces many intermediate products that Users can’t easily review intermediate products and
can be reviewed to measure progress toward evaluate whether a particular product (e.g., a data-
developing the system. flow diagram) will lead to a system that meets their
business requirements.
 System Investigation
(What problem do we need to
solve?)
System Investigation (1 of 12)
• System investigation
• Initial phase in the development of a new or modified business
information system whose purpose is to gain a clear
understanding of the specifics of the problem to solve or the
opportunity to address
System Investigation (5 of 12)
• Perform Investigation
• Refine the initial problem definition and scope described in the systems
investigation request
• Identify the high-level business requirements the system must meet
• Identify any issues or risks associated with the project
• Joint Application Development
• A structured meeting process that can accelerate and improve the
efficiency and effectiveness of the investigation, analysis, and design
phases of a systems development project
• Functional Decomposition
• A technique used during the investigation, analysis, and design phases to
define the business processes included within the scope of the system
 System Investigation (8 of 12)
FIGURE 8.3
Functional decomposition chart
Functional decomposition is used to
define the scope of the system.
 System Analysis
(What does the system have to do to
solve the problem?)
 System Analysis
• Steps in the systems analysis phase
1. Identify and recruit team leader and team members
2. Develop budget and schedule for systems analysis activities
3. Study existing system
4. Develop prioritized set of requirements (What should it do) and Data Entities (How
should data be organized)
5. Identify and evaluate alternative solutions
6. Perform feasibility analysis
7. Prepare draft of systems analysis report
8. Review results of systems analysis with steering team
• The overall emphasis of system analysis is on:
• Gathering data on the existing system
• Determining requirements for the new system
• Considering alternatives within identified constraints
• Investigating the feasibility of alternative solutions
 System Analysis
• Study Existing System
• Identify the strengths and weaknesses of the existing system
• Examine current inputs, outputs, processes, security and controls, and
system performance
o Data collection methods
• JAD sessions
• Direct observation
• Surveys

FIGURE 8.6
Internal and external sources of data for system analysis
JAD sessions, direct observation, and surveys are often used to uncover data from the various
sources.
System Analysis
• Develop Prioritized Set of Requirements
• Priority categories
• Critical
• Medium priority
• Low priority
• JAD sessions provide an effective way to define system requirements
• Ask managers to produce a list of critical success factors (CSFs)
• Processes must be further defined and individuals/organizations
responsible for process steps identified
• Data-flow diagrams (DFDs) provide a model of a proposed new
system
 System Analysis
FIGURE 8.9
Entity-relationship (ER) diagram for a
customer order database
Development of ER diagrams helps ensure
that the logical structure of application
programs is consistent with the data
relationships in the database.

• Develop Prioritized Set of

Requirements (cont’d)
• Data modeling defines:
• Databases the system will draw from
• New databases the system will create
• Entity-relationship (ER) diagrams show
logical relationships among data entities
System Analysis
• Develop Prioritized Set of Requirements (cont’d)
• System Performance
• Factors in determining system performance
• Timeliness of output
• Ease of use
• Scalability
• System response time
• Availability
• Reliability
Systems Design
System Design
System design creates a complete set of technical specifications
that can be used to construct the information system
Steps in the systems design phase
1. Identify and recruit team leader and team members
2. Develop schedule and budget for systems design activities
3. Design user interface
4. Design system security and controls
5. Design disaster recovery plan
6. Design database
7. Perform feasibility analysis
8. Prepare draft of systems design report
9. Review results of systems design with steering team
 System Design (9 of 10)
• Prepare Draft of System Design Report
• Systems design concludes with a formal systems design report
summarizing the findings of this phase of the project

FIGURE 8.13
Typical table of contents for a system design report
The system design report is a more complete and
detailed version of the system investigation report.
Construction, Testing,
Integration
Construction
• System construction converts the system design into an
operational system
• Steps of the system construction phase
• Code software components
• Create and load data
• Perform unit testing
Testing (1 of 3)
• Types of testing
• Unit Testing
• Integration testing
• System testing
• Volume testing
• User acceptance testing
Unit Testing (5 of 5)
• Perform Unit Testing
• Unit testing: testing that ideally forces an individual program to
execute all of its various functions and user features
• Each program is also tested with abnormal input to determine
how it will handle erroneous input
Integration and Testing
• Integration testing
• Need new systems/technologies to work well with old
systems/technologies
• Involves linking all of the individual components together and
testing them as a group to uncover any defects between
individual components
• System testing
• Testing the complete, integrated system to validate that the
information system meets all specified requirements

Course Content: Lamb, C.W., Hair, J.F., McDaniel, C., Boivin, M., Gaudet, D., & Shearer, J. (2019). MKTG: Principles of Marketing (4th Canadian Ed.). Toronto, ON: Nelson Education Ltd.
Integration and Testing (2 of 3)
• Volume testing
• Involves evaluating the performance of the information system under
varying yet realistic work volume and operating conditions
• Goals of volume testing are to:
• Determine the work load at which systems performance begins to degrade
• Eliminate issues that prevent the system from reaching its required
performance
• User Acceptance Testing
• Users trained on new system
• Users evaluate new system in real world operating environment
• Users ensure system matches design specifications
• Signoff when accepted
Implementation – “Go Live”
Implementation (1 of 4)
• Steps involved in implementation
• User preparation
• Site preparation
• Installation
• Cutover
Implementation
• User preparation
• User preparation is the process of readying managers, decision
makers, employees, other users, and stakeholders to accept and
use the new system
• Successfully introducing an information system requires a mix of
organizational change skills and technical skills
• User training is very important

Course Content: Lamb, C.W., Hair, J.F., McDaniel, C., Boivin, M., Gaudet, D., & Shearer, J. (2019). MKTG: Principles of Marketing (4th Canadian Ed.). Toronto, ON: Nelson Education Ltd.
Implementation (2 of 4)
• Site Preparation
• Site preparation for a small system can be as simple as
rearranging the furniture in an office to make room for a
computer
• A large system might require special wiring, air conditioning, or
construction
• Sufficient lead time should be built into the schedule to allow
for site preparation
• Installation
• Installation is the process of physically placing the computer
equipment on the site and making it operational
Agile Development
Agile Development (1 of 5)
• An iterative system development process that develops
the system in “sprint” increments lasting from two weeks
to two months
• Concentrates on maximizing the team’s ability to deliver quickly
and respond to emerging requirements
Agile Development (2 of 5)
FIGURE 8.17
The Scrum agile software development process
The Scrum agile approach develops a system in sprint increments lasting from two weeks to two months.
 Waterfall System Development Process (2 of 3)

FIGURE 8.1
Waterfall system development process
Progress flows steadily downward (like a
waterfall) through the various phases of
development.
Agile Development (3 of 5)
TABLE 8.10 Advantages and disadvantages of agile development

Advantages Disadvantages
For appropriate projects, this approach puts an It is an intense process that can burn out system
application into production sooner than any developers and other project participants.
other approach.
Documentation is produced as a by-product of This approach requires system analysts and
completing project tasks. users to be skilled in agile system development
tools and agile techniques.
Agile forces teamwork and lots of interaction Agile requires a larger percentage of
between users and stakeholders. stakeholders’ and users’ time than other
approaches.
Agile Development (5 of 5)
TABLE 8.11 Comparison of approaches to system development

Software Development Approach

Characteristic Agile Waterfall
Description An iterative process that develops the A sequential multistage process
system in sprint increments lasting 2-8 where work on the next stage
weeks; each increment focuses on cannot begin until the results of
implementing the highest priority the previous stage are reviewed
requirements that can be completed in and approved or modified as
the allotted time necessary
Basic assumption System requirements cannot be fully All critical system requirements
defined at start of project must be fully defined before any
coding begins
How requirements Users interacting with system analysts Users interacting with system
and design are and working software analysts and system
defined documentation and/or models
Associated Scrum Structured system analysis and
processes design
Summary
• Organizations can obtain software using one of two basic
approaches: buy or build
• A system under development following the waterfall approach
moves from one phase to the next, with a management review
at the end of each phase
• Agile development is an iterative system development process
that develops a system in “sprint” increments lasting from two
weeks to two months
• When buying off-the-shelf software, the effort required to
modify the software package as well as existing software so
that they work well together must be taken into account as a
major factor in selecting the final vendor and software
Joint Application Development Session
• You’ve been tasked to run a project to develop an integrated
student dashboard that will display a student’s full course
load and accompanying assignments
• Who would you want to have on the initial JAD session?

ACTIVITY
Course Content: Lamb, C.W., Hair, J.F., McDaniel, C., Boivin, M., Gaudet, D., & Shearer, J. (2019). MKTG: Principles of Marketing (4th Canadian Ed.). Toronto, ON: Nelson Education Ltd.