Systems Design

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Systems Design
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Systems Design Skills

• People skill (25) - Listening, understanding
  others, understanding between two lines, conflict
  resolution, handling the communications gaps,
  reporting, walk through, reviews.
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• Communication Skills (20) Oral / Written
  communication
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• Documentation skills (30) Knowledge capturing,
  diagrams, charts (structure charts, Gantt charts,
  Business knowledge (business processes, business
  management knowledge)
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• Technical skill (25) - Database design,
  programming, web design etc.
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Stakeholders of the system

• Proposed System Web based
• Stakeholders of the system
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• System users (key players), Chief Analyst/Chief
  Project Manager
• Project Oversight Committee, Project team
  Project managers, Team leads, Business Systems
  Analysts
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• Management, executives, customers, distributors
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• Employees, Clients, External help (say
  consultants)

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System design activities

• Determining what changes will be needed to the
  existing system
• Forming design teams
• Choosing software system/ applications software
  to support web services
• Database design- Decide how to store and access
  data- Integrate the database
• Changes to company network- Design and integrate
  the network
• Choose hardware to support new system
• Decide on operating system, programming
  languages, tools
• Determining compatibility of above and existing
  system
• Architectural Design, Division of Labor, Develop
  Strategies for proceeding, working in parallel
• Design the application architecture (Process
  design)
• Design the user interfaces
• Design the system interfaces
• Design Web-supported services
• Design Prototype
• Design and implement system controls
• Monitoring the progress of the project /
  Controlling the project issues risks
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•  etc.
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Systems Design Decision

• Hardware
• Operating Systems
• Database
• Programming Language
• User interface
• System Interface
• Network Interface
• Others

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Hardware Options

• Existing hardware
• New hardware- Mainframe, Client/server
  architecture, virtual server, clustered, etc.
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• Brands Lenovo, Dell, CISCO, IBM, HP, 3COM,
  DLINK, LINKSYS

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Options for Operating systems

• Windows, Linux, Mac/OS, Linux or UNIX for the web
  server and database, Windows XP, Windows Vista,
  Windows NT, Windows Server, Linux, Unix OS AIX,
  BSD etc.

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DatabaseOptions

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• Oracle, DB2, Access, mySQL, SQLite, CouchDB,
  depends on the load, (Consider existing and
  future requirements)

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Options for Programming Languages

• Java, Java Scripting (for user interaction),
  Java2 Web services, J2EE, C, C, Pearl, COBOL,
  ABAP, Microsoft.NET, SOAP, AJAX, PHP, embedded
  SQL, COM, CORBA, SOAP, Pythan, Ruby, Haskell,
  Smalltalk, Erlang, BASIC, Visual Basic, D, LISP,
  and others.

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The outputs of design activities

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• Diagrams that describe architecture of new/
  proposed system and detailed logic of programming
  components.
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• Architectural Design A plan for the design of
  the system
• Division of Labor Who to do what (Gantt chart)
• Develop Strategies Critical Path and/or Pert
  chart.
• Ways of monitoring the budget, time, and the
  project resources.
• Process Design 
• Data flow diagrams, Structure charts, Class
  diagrams, Interaction Diagrams
• Interface Design
• User interface design, Dialogues, Forms, Reports
• GUI, Sound, Video, Voice, story boarding
• Integration between new and existing databases
• Prototype (Working)
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The outputs of design activities

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• Determining what changes will be needed to the
  network
• A list of changes
• Modified network
• Nodes- location diagram
• Designing the database
• A database
• How we will store and access data
• List of database options
• Deciding system security control
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• Forming design teams
• A design team and their tasks
• Assigning specific tasks to employees
• Deciding what hardware will support the new
  system
• List of hardware needed to support the system
• Deciding what operating system will be used

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The documents generated out of systems design

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• Database Design Entity Relationship Diagrams,
  Query Report Design.
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• Process Design Functional Decomposition
  Diagram, Event Table, Structure Charts,
  Flowcharts, Context Diagrams, Data Flow Diagram,
  Decision Charts, Gantt Charts
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• Software Design Module Diagram, pseudo-code.
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• A plan for the design of the system Blueprint
• Who to do what (Gantt chart) Gantt chart
• Critical Path and/or Pert chart Pert Chart, CPM
  chart
• Doing the work on budget and on time Tracking
  Gantt
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• RFP for Software packages, RFP for hardware
  support
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• Object oriented design documents Activity
  diagrams, Use-case diagrams, Event tables,
  Software Design (Structured/ conditional/
  Iterative), Design class diagrams, Object
  database schema
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Project management activities during systems
design

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• Prevent, anticipate and/or overcome problems to
  complete the project scope on schedule, within
  budget, and to the customers satisfaction
• Activities planning, meeting with steering
  committee, deciding and delegating tasks, meeting
  with project teams, Tracking, organizing people
  and resources.
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• Manage changing requirements
• Coordinate design elements
• Coordinate project teams
• Oversee decisions
• Coordinate Information
• Keeping client up to date with progress
• Oversees project teams
• Keeps project on budget
• Monitor progress of the project
• Manage the project-scope, people, cost, time,
  resources etc.

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The teams involved during systems design

• Oversight committee, hardware team, application
  software team, interface design team, operating
  system team, Network Specialists, web support
  services team, database design team, Project
  Management Team, Process Design Team, Project
  Support Team
• End Users Evaluation Group, Integration Team,
  Support Team, Development teams, Change
  management teams.

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How do the teams collaborate?

• Meetings, group discussions (explore options),
  email, phone, Conference calls, shared network
  drives, inter-office documents/memos.
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• NetMeeting, Fax, Instant Messaging, Face-to-face
  Meeting (periodic), interviews
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• JAD