7.5 part 1 review questions

7. 5 part review questions “ Planning and budgeting processes are notorious for their rigidity and irrelevance to management action.” How can planning be made relevant to the challenges facing a business?
Planning and budgeting do not have to be equated as processes that are irrelevant and inflexible to management action. Changes in the external and internal environment of businesses should also necessitate modification to the organizations plans and budget processes. Planning can be made relevant by encompassing team building, consensus, and modeling. The planning process should help to evaluate and identify what a business has achieved and the acquired resources. The planning process should also consist of an analysis of the organization’s economic, political, and societal environments. Planning should also encompass an anticipation and evaluation of the impacts of future developments (Oz 98). Planning should also entail building a shared vision and undertaking decisions on what goals an organization wants to obtain. The action plan for the organization should explain on what actions to undertake to reach their set goals.
Why has prototyping become a popular way to develop business applications? What are prototyping’s advantages and disadvantages?
Prototyping refers to the rapid development and testing of working models of new applications in an interactive and iterative process that involves both IS specialists and business professionals. Prototyping ensures the development process is faster and easier for business professionals and IS specialists. Prototyping has opened up the application development process for end-users as it simplifies and accelerates systems designs. The advantage of prototyping is that it is extremely useful where there is uncertainty about design solutions or requirements. Prototyping is also useful in producing systems that meet user requirements. Prototyping is also vital in designing an information system’s end user interface. The disadvantage of prototyping is that when it is rapidly conducted it can gloss over vital steps in systems development. Prototyping can also fail to have essential security controls built in. rapidly constructed systems can also fail to accommodate large volumes of data or users.
What does SDLC stand for? What are the phases of the SDLC? Explain in one or two sentences of your own words what happens in each phase. If problems occur during the SDLC, is it better to identify and solve those problems near the beginning or the end of the SDLC process?
SDLC stands for systems development life cycle. It refers to an application development life-cycle. It is a commonly used term in information systems, software engineering, and systems engineering. SDLC gets used to elaborate a process for planning, testing, creating, and developing an information system. There are several stages involved in SDLC. The first step is investigation where alternative solutions are proposed, costs and benefits analyzed, and submission of a preliminary plan that is accompanied with recommendations. The second phase is analysis. This phase analyzes end-user information needs and defines the project goals. The next phase is systems design which describes operations and desired features in detail. The next stage is the actual development where the real code for the project gets written. The next phase is referred to as integration and testing where the system pieces are brought into a special testing environment to check for bugs and errors (Oz 415). The final stage of the initial development is referred to as acceptance, installation, and deployment which revolves around the software being placed into production and runs the actual business. The next phase is maintenance where the system gets assessed to determine that it does not become obsolete. The last phase is the evaluation phase which is an extension of the maintenance stage. If problems occur during the SDLC it is better to identify those problems and correct them early on in the project. It is easier to rectify problems and errors early in the SDLC before they become large and burdensome at a later stage.
What is the difference between the parallel, direct (or plunge), phased, and pilot forms of IS conversion? Which conversion strategy is best? Explain why?
Parallel conversion conducts both the new and old system for a short time. Phased conversion transforms to the new system in stages, introducing a number of the new applications while also using some of the old applications (Oz 321). Pilot conversion lets a department or location to try out the new system, while the old systems still gets use by the rest of the entire organization. Plunge conversion shifts the entire organization into the new system at a single time. The conversion strategy is dependent on the environment and specific application. Parallel conversion carries the least risk but is however very expensive. Plunge conversion is cheapest while it also carries the greatest risk.
Works Cited
Oz, Effy. Management Information Systems. New York: Cengage Learning, 2008.