MIS Policies Manual
Chapter 3: Systems Analysis and Design
Section 2: Development and Planning
The systems project's organization requires a standard procedure to ensure proper planning, control, and status reporting are accomplished. These defined procedures provide standards to assess a project in progress and the relative merits of a project.
- Project Planning
The following tasks are included in project planning:
- Definition of Project Goals
- Systems output
- Systems thruput process
- Systems control mechanisms
- Systems requirements
- Project Plan Preparation
A brief plan and schedule are developed outlining the tasks to be performed in accomplishing the project goals. These include:
- Identifying the work necessary to accomplish project goals. These should be measurable units or milestones.
- Developing detailed database, file, report and program specifications.
- Establishing budgets.
- Assigning responsibilities for tasks.
- Preparing workload schedules.
- Preparing appropriate project documentation.
- Preparing project schedules and charts for planning and reporting the status of project tasks.
- Preparing a format and schedule for project status reports.
- Estimating Resource Requirements
Prepare a resource estimate for each project. The estimate is used to allocate resources for projects and provide a basis for project financial control.
- Estimate the staff-days required for analysis and programming. These should be converted to dollars to give a better understanding of the true costs of the project.
- Estimate the staff-days of end-users, technical support, operating systems, telecommunications and/or contract staff. These should be converted to dollars.
- Identify and estimate all equipment, software and service costs required for the new system.
- Analysis of Requirements
Prior to actual systems design, the following tasks should be performed in order that all system requirements are precisely defined:
- Determine the capabilities of achieving system objectives.
- Establish operating parameters.
- Organize all pertinent data elements.
- Define processing requirements.
- Determine output requirements.
- Determine required database or file needs.
- Determine required data input requirements and the method of input.
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Last Updated: 17 June 1997 [Comments]