| Term | Definition |
|---|
| mission statement | expresses the most important overarching goal of organization and how it will be achieved |
| standardization | when mgmt decides to adopt a certain IT resource for all its units, regardless of function/location; has cost savings, efficient training and efficient support |
| prototyping | fast development of an application based on initial user requirements and several cycles of user input and developer improvements |
| systems development life cycle (SDLC) | a framework that is aka waterfall development; the oldest method of dev an IF, consisting of several phases of analysis, design, implementation, and support |
| systems analysis | a phase in SDLC that consists of 5-steps: investigation, technical feasibility study, economic feasibility study, operational feasibility study, and requirements definition |
| cost/benefit analysis | used in the economic feasibility study step of system analysis that shows all costs to be incurred by the system and all benefits that are expected from its operation |
| return on investment (ROI) | a calculation of the difference between the stream of benefits and the stream fo costs over the life of the system, discounted by the applicable interest rate; most accurate economic analysis |
| organizational culture | general tone of the corporate environment, must determine the new sys' compatibility with the organizational culture |
| requirements definition | details what the system should be able to do |
| system requirements | detail the functions and features expected from the new system |
| data flow diagram (DFD) | used to represent a system or to describe the flow of data in a business operation using four symbols: external entitites, processes, data store, direction of data flow |
| external entities | one of the four symbols in DFD; indv and groups external to sys (customers, employees, etc.) |
| processes | one of the four symbols in DFD; an event or events in which data is either changed or acted on |
| data store | one of the four symbols in DFD; any form of data at rest |
| direction of data flow | one of the four symbols in DFD; indicates how data moves |
| unified modeling language (UML) | de factor standard for visualizing, specifying, and documenting software; helps developers communicate and logically validate desired features |
| use case | an activity of the system in response to the user; type of software described by UML |
| class | describes class structure and contents; type of software described by UML |
| interaction | describes interactions of objects and the sequence of their activities; type of software described by UML |
| state charts | indicate the states through which objects pas and their responses to stimuli; type of software described by UML |
| activity | represents highly active states triggered by completion of other actions; type of software described by UML |
| physical diagrams | high-level description of software modules; type of software described by UML |
| construction | stage of the design phase in SDLC that consists of mostly programming activities where input, output and processes are translated as described in DFD into programs; may take months/years; once completed, modules are tested |
| system testing | tests the entire integrated system, comparing results to the system requirements, processing times are measured |
| implementation | delivery of a new system consisting of conversion and training |
| conversion | switching fromt he old system to the new system, which can be a very difficult time |
| parallel conversion | conversion where the old system is used along with the new system for a period of time; duplication minimizes risk, but i is costly |
| phased conversion | conversion that breaks ISs into functional modules and phase them into operation one at a time |
| cut-over conversion | conversion where the old sys is discarded and the new one takes over the entire business operation |
| pilot conversion | conversion where if new sys is to be used in more than 1 business unit, firm introduces IS for a period of time in a single unit, where problems can be addressed and IS can be polished before intro to other units |
| support | last phase of SDLC that begins after delivery, and includes 2 responsibilities: maintenance and user help; the longest phase of the sys life cycle |
| maintenance | postimplementation debugging, updates, and adding postponed features |
| debugging | the correction of bugs/problems in programs that were not discovered during tests |
| updating | revising the sys to comply with changing business needs that occur after implementation |
| agile methods | alternative development methods that treat software dev as series of contacts with users; faster development and improve software after user requests for modifications received |
| agile methods | this method make extensive use of iterative programming, involving users often, and keeping programmers open to modifications while the development is still under way |
| system integration | interfacing several info systems by examining the needs of entire org and produces a plan to combine disparate sys to allow data to flow b/w units; more challenging than development and this task is often much of what IT professionals do rather than analysis and dev of a stand-alone IS |
Combine with other sets
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