Determining System Requirements

Chapter 6

Determining System Requirements

Chapter Overview

Chapter 6 introduces students to several methods that systems analysts use to determine requirements for a proposed system. This chapter categorizes the requirements gathering techniques as traditional, modern, or radical. It also introduces Agile methodologies. The traditional requirements gathering techniques are interviews, questionnaires, Nominal Group Technique, and documents analysis. The modern requirements determination techniques include Joint Application Design (JAD), group support systems, prototyping, and CASE tools. Business Process Reengineering (BPR) is a radical method for determining system requirements. This chapter concludes with an illustration of how system requirements are determined for Internet-based electronic commerce applications.

After studying this chapter, students should have an appreciation for the different types of requirements analysts collect and the different methods they use to collect these requirements. However, reading about and discussing how analysts collect requirements is no substitute for direct hands-on experience with these techniques. Most of the classroom suggestions listed below involve some type of hands-on experience for students. You probably will not have time to use all of these suggestions in class. However, try to use one or two of these classroom ideas.

Instructional Objectives

Specific student learning objectives are included at the beginning of the chapter. From an instructor’s point of view, the objectives of this chapter are to:

1. Provide insight into using interviews to determine system requirements and include the preparation of an interview plan.

2. Show students how questionnaires are designed, distributed, and used to determine system requirements.

3. Discuss the advantages and disadvantages of observing workers to determine system requirements.

4. Demonstrate how the analysis of business documents...