SYSTEMS DEVELOPMENT LIFE CYCLE

There are various technical and organizational challenges in implementing ERP depending on

•the organization,

•scope of implementation,

•business processes,

•and skill level of the people using these applications

SYSTEMS DEVELOPMENT LIFE CYCLE 

The process of developing new information systems is often called the system development life cycle (SDLC).It basically includes a

•systematic process of planning,

•designing,

•and creating an information system for organizations.

      

      For complex systems development projects (e.g., ERP), it is often better to have a structured methodology to avoid mishaps and coordinate the design and development tasks properly among the members of a large systems development team. 

TRADITIONAL SDLC

• The SDLC consists of tasks that are divided into phases or stages.

1.Investigation

2. Analysis

3. Design

4. Implementation

5. Maintenance

•. The SDLC process begins when someone in the organization  identifies a need for a new system. The reason could be to gain competitive advantage, improve operational efficiencies, expand business globally, or all of these. This investigation phase conducted by the IT department will determine the feasibility of successfully creating the new system from four different perspectives.

These perspectives are:

1. Organization feasibility-whether the new IT is aligned with the business strategy and plans of the organization

2. Technical feasibility-whether it is possible to solve the problem with the current generation of information technology

3. Economic feasibility-whether benefits from new system will outweigh the costs in the long term

4. Operational feasibility-whether the organization has the necessary resources to operate and support the new system

INVESTIGATION PHASE 

• the team should do a thorough analysis of the costs and benefits. The benefits derived from the new system as well as the costs associated with a new system are sometimes not very obvious

•Costs and benefits that can be quantified are called tangible, whereas those that cannot be quantified easily are called intangible.

• Benefits like productivity improvements with a new system similarly are tangible, whereas benefits gained due to better decision making are intangible

•A good development team will highlight these issues in their investigation report to top management such that they can plan for these expenses and revenues over a longer period of time, thereby increasing the chances for the new system to be implemented successfully.

• A report is prepared for management and other stakeholders at the end of the investigation phase. If approved, the project will begin the analysis phase; otherwise, the project is abandoned or merged with another project. 

ANALYSIS PHASE

•Before beginning the analysis phase, the development team is usually organized to include subject matter experts, consultants, and technical specialists. The primary task of the analysis phase is to determine the user requirements of the new system.

•One approach that works best is to focus on the problems of the current system

•The information collected from this phase is analyzed and categorized by different user groups and organized into a coherent list of new system-functional requirements.

DESIGN PHASE

In the design phase, the focus is on

•the new system's architecture,

•user interface,

•and reporting requirements.

These requirements are grouped by input, process, and output stages of a system. The design phase produces the blueprint or technical specifications of the new system. The technical requirements and the architecture will again be scrutinized by the management team. Once approved, the team can begin work on implementing the new system.

IMPLEMENTATION PHASE

The implementation phase begins with

•the acquisition of hardware, software, development of custom applications (if necessary),

• new system testing, training, and conversion of data from the old system to the new system.

 RAPID SDLC APPROACHES

 

The SDLC process has several problems, even though it is rigorous in making sure that the new system is complete and successful in the organization

• First, the time it takes to develop a new system is a long and tedious process.

•Second, the cost associated with the SDLC process is very high.

• Finally, all information systems do not require such a rigorous SDLC process.

• the SDLC would be overkill for a small-scale decision-making application; therefore, over the years organizations have used rapid approaches to SDLC that are quicker and less-expensive short-cuts to this process. These are called Rapid SDLC approaches.

•One rapid development approach is prototyping

Prototyping