XII Notes[Questions and Answer]

1.            Who is system analyst? Explain the major roles of system analyst.

A system analyst is a chief person in the system development team who analyses and designs the new information system. A computerized information system enables the organization to provide accurate information and responds faster to the queries, events etc. Information technology offers the opportunity to collect and store enormous volume of data, process business transactions with great speed and accuracy and provide timely and relevant information for taking correct decision by management. This potential of the computerized information system, system analyst because the business users may not fully understand the capabilities and limitation of modern information technology and computer programmers do not fully understand the business application which they are trying to computerize. So system analyst bridges the gap between business user and the programmer.

Roles of system analyst

The success of an information system development is based on the role of system analyst. Among several roles, some important roles are described below.

a)            Change Agent: The SA may be viewed as an agent of change. A system is designed to introduce changes and the way how the user and organization handles information or makes decision. So the system analyst may use different approaches to introduce changes.

b)            Investigator and Monitor: A system analyst should investigate the existing system to find the reasons for its failure. The role of an investigator is to extract the problems from existing systems. The role of monitor is to undertake and successfully complete a project. In this role, the analysts must monitor programs in relation to time, cost and quality.

c)            Architect: The analyst's role as an architect is an interface between the user's logical design requirements and the detailed physical system design. As architect, the analyst also creates a detailed physical design of system. A system analyst makes the design of the information system architecture on the basis of the end user requirement. This design becomes the blue print for the programmers.

d)            Psychologist: The SA plays the role of psychologist when he reaches the people, interpret their thoughts and draw conclusion from these interactions. Psychologist plays a major role during the phase of fact finding.

e)            Motivator: The SA plays the role of motivator in order to make the users accept the new system. The analyst's role as a motivator becomes very obvious and essential during the first few weeks after the implementation of new system to make it familiar with them.

f)             Intermediary and diplomat: The system analyst plays as a link between the new system and people. He should deal people with diplomacy to improve acceptance of the system. The goal of the analyst is to have the support of all users. SO the SA should concentrate on objective and best method. They should be cool and diligent. They should focus on method and plan, point out details and are good at model building and seek stability and order.

2.            What is feasibility study? Explain the different levels of feasibility study.

Feasibility study is one of the most important stages of SDLC. After the system development team proposes the new system will be feasible or not on the basis of time, cost, technical, operational and other factors.

a)      Time feasibility: It is concerned with the time required for the development of new system is feasible for the organization or not. It the organization needs the new system within 6 months and the time required for developing a new system is more than 2 years, then the new system will not be feasible due to time factor.

b)      Cost and economic feasibility: It concerns with the total cost for the development of new system and the returns from the investment in a project. It determines whether the organization can afford the total cost or not. Then it also determines whether it is worthwhile to invest the money for new system or not. Cost-benefit analysis is carried out and if benefit outweighs the cost, then the new system is considered economically feasible.

c)       Technical feasibility: It is concerned with specifying different devices and software for the new system. It determines what the devices necessary for the new system are and all the devices are available or not . So if all the technical requirements for the new system can be fulfilled, then the development of new system will be feasible.

d)      Operational feasibility: It is mainly related with human skill and political aspects. The current staffs can work in the new system after training or not. If the whole staffs need very long time and more cost to be trained in the new system, then the new system will not be feasible. But generally the project will not be rejected simply because of operational feasibility.

e)      Legal feasibility: The legal feasibility is concerned with the legal factors of the new information system such as copy right, unregistered trade mark, registered mark etc.  If the new information system is legal from these factors, then it is considered legally feasible.