detail about HOW and WHY it does what it does o The report needs to be consistent, with all sections supporting each other towards making the reader understand system o Use professional report format...

detail about HOW and WHY it does what it does

o    The report needs to be consistent, with all sections supporting each other towards making the reader understand system

o    Use professional report format – so title page, short executive summary, contents page, numbered headings for the Sections 1-6 specified – and references where appropriate

o    There is NO recommended page/word length, or limit – as many as required to show you understand the course content and how to perform the analysis

•    Section 1 o Don’t forget to explain the background of the organization who owns the system and how that system provides value to them

o    You also need to explain the rationale (reasoning) for choosing this system to analyse

 You don’t need to tell me the real business or system name (confidentiality is respected and only I mark the assigments)

•    Section 2 o Before attempting to explain system in detail, first define what “the system” is and isn’t

To do this, discuss scope, major functions and constraints

 Using the basic system features (slide 6 of 2) will help with this (e.g. diagram showing coupling/connections between systems)

 If you have a very large system, this is where you focus on a particular major function(s) or sub-system(s)

o    If you know the system very well, now you can go into more details about the specific system functions with the expectation of Section 3 explaining what the requirements were to have that function be included in the system

 This fits with the idea of “working backwards” to understand system

 May sure this matches with what your models show in Section 4 & 5

 You may prefer to “work forward” however, so it is ok to leave this system function detail for end of Section 3

•    Section 3

o    First explain how you gathered requirements, why that method(s) and who from

 Good idea to include copies of any surveys, questionnaires, interview questions, etc you created – put them in an Appendix at the end of your report

o    Then for each type of user/stakeholder you identified and gather requirements from, identify what their requirements are

 Suggest you work out the best way to allow you to organise by type (manager, customer, etc) and importance (mandatory, desirable & frill)

  Don’t forget the business overall has requirements – don’t just focus on individual level, also consider organization level

o    Likely that you didn’t have a full understanding of the system until after analysing requirements, so if you didn’t explain at end of Section 2, now you will explain system functions in relation to requirements determination

 Suggest you work out some way to link/map requirements and features

  May sure this matches with what your models show in Section 4 & 5 o System constraints and non-functional features can also fit into the discussion as necessary to help explain the functionality

•    Section 4 o Your process models will be DFDs and done to the primitive level, with logic modelling used as appropriate

 Make sure you follow the rules concerning use of DFDs

 Clearly title every DFD (captions will help with cross-referencing) o Make sure your logic models are drawn/formatted correctly and clearly identify which process(s) they are for

  Give yourself an opportunity to show you can use ALL three types

•    Structured English – likely most common

•    Decision Tables and Decision Trees – for the more complex logic

o    Fully explain process 1.0 to primitive level before moving to next process

  Means you will have logic models very close to your DFDs – do NOT put all logic models in a sub-section after all DFDs

o    Data modelling (Enhanced ERD) will be a subsection after process/logic modelling

 Follow the rules for the format in lecture slides

 Use the data dictionary format from lecture slides

Consider number of entity types you have and whether system is complex enough (the system is and does what you tell me)