Stages in System Development
Information professionals are mostly concerned with the first situation. In this context, the emphasis is on the systems requirements specification and systems implementation aspects. Though, different systems methodologies vary, all of them feature the following five stages:
- definition of objectives,
- delineation of system requirements,
- system design,
- implementation, and
- evaluation.
* The role of each of these is summarised in the form of the following:
Summary of the Stages in Systems Development
1 Definition of Objectives Terms of reference developed, initial needs analysis as a study proposal leads to feasibility study, including evaluation of options analysis of existing systems.
2 Definition of Systems Requirements Specification of systems requirements.
3 Design Phase Logical systems model Physical: A systems model, choice and ordering of hardware and software
4 Implementation Phase Planning and preparation, education and training, database creation, system installation, switch-over.
5 Evaluation Phase Initial evaluation, ongoing monitoring, maintenance and evolution.
It must be mentioned here that none of the stages mentioned above is self-contained, or rigidly delimited. In other words, the design implementation stages in particular will reconsider issues that have been studied during the earlier two stages. The first two stages may be grouped together as systems analysis.