Your Systems and Analysis and Design Textbook

This book has been written to help you learn the process of solving problems in the Information Systems discipline and teach you the skills that you can use to design and create solutions.

In the next chapter, you will learn about the Systems Development Life Cycle (SDLC). This is a way to think about how every technology-based solution comes about as a result of a process that requires work in each of the following phases:

  1. Planning

  2. Analysis

  3. Design

  4. Implementation

  5. Support

After learning what happens in each phase, you will learn in subsequent chapters how to use specific techniques to actually complete work in each phase. Thus, the SDLC functions as a guideline that we will follow in this book in order to navigate through systems analysis and design.

Chapters

  • Chapter 1: Introduction

  • Chapter 2: The Systems Development Life Cycle

  • Chapter 3: Planning Phase

  • Chapter 4: Overview of the Analysis Phase and Interviewing

  • Chapter 5: Analysis Phase: Activity Diagrams

  • Chapter 6: Analysis Phase: Data Flow Diagrams

  • Chapter 7:Analysis Phase: Entity Relationship Diagrams (ERD)

  • Chapter 8: Analysis Phase: Use Case Descriptions and UML Use Case Diagrams

  • Chapter 9: Design Phase: User Interface Design and Prototypes

  • Chapter 10: Design Phase: UML Class Diagrams

  • Chapter 11: Design Phase: UML Sequence Diagrams

  • Chapter 12: Design Phase: Design Patterns

  • Chapter 13: Implementation and Support Phases

  • Chapter 14: Agile

  • Chapter 15: Appendix (Presenting)

As you begin your journey to learn analysis and design techniques that are useful but sometimes challenging, let me leave you with an analogy that will help maintain your motivation. Just as a medical doctor is uniquely trained in a variety of methods to solve unique problems for patients, IS professionals that complete a course in systems analysis and design are uniquely trained in a set of specialized techniques that enable them to diagnose and solve organizational problems. You won’t use every technique on every problem you encounter, but it is critical that you know how to use the techniques in this book so that when a problem is presented to you that requires a specific technique to solve it, you will be ready.