COMPUTER BASED MANAGEMENT

INFORMATION SYSTEM

Unit 2
People
Characteristics of People
Organization
Information System Personnel
System Models
System Development Life Cycle
Arslan Umar
PEOPLE
 3

People
• People are the most important part of any organization
and thus of any MIS. An MIS often succeeds or fails on
the basis of people involved

• A number of human characteristics can have an impact

on the design and performance of information systems
PEOPLE CHARACTERISTICS
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Some of the characteristics of people that

effect Information Systems:

• Physiological Factors
• Ergonomics
• Workers Skills and Abilities
• User Interfaces
• Memory Processes
• Learning
• Psychological Factors
 6

Physiological Factors
• MIS jobs are physically demanding, e.g. a person used to
work on input of data can suffer from eyestrain,
headaches, neck and back problems due to long sitting
against display terminals

• Worker’s physical workspace can also poorly designed or

the lighting factor may disturb the people
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Ergonomics
• The field that studies computer workspaces and their
effects on users is known as ergonomics

• Ergonomics attempts to overcome the problems

associated with poorly designed computer workspaces
that causes unnecessary physical and mental stress
 8

Workers Skills and Abilities

• Organizational Behavior researchers have recognized
that many on the job behaviors are affected by the skills
and abilities that worker posses

• An employees capability to perform job tasks determines

the skills and abilities
• Physical Abilities
• Mental Abilities
 9

User Interfaces
• Many of the interfaces for workers who enter Transaction
Processing Data are typically designed for the lowest
capability workers

• At McDonalds or KFC, the terminals have special

keyboards to facilitate fast and accurate data entry, e.g. if
a customer buys a burger, the clerk have to only press
the key that has a picture of the item the customer
ordered, the key with picture of burger
 10

Memory Processes

• People differ in both their ability to memorize and in

speed which they recall the facts that are saved to
memory
• Short Term Memory
• Long Term Memory
• External Memory
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A human information processing model

Memory
Receptors
(Eye, Ear, Short Term
Nose) Memory (Brain)
Processor
Environment (Brain)
Effectors Long Term
(Physical, Memory (Brain)
Spoken,
Written)

External Memory
(Notes and
Reference
Materials)
 12

Learning
• Acquisition of knowledge or skills through study,
experience, or being taught.
• How people learn is an important consideration when
building or upgrading computer systems

• Training of new technologies is costly

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Psychological Factors
A large number of psychological factors
contribute to the success or failure of an
Information Systems:
• Perception (2 different people see same thing in different ways)
• Attitudes (Expression of feelings about people, objects, events etc.)
• Risk Taking Tendencies (Risk Seeker, Risk Avoider)
• Willingness to Change
ORGANIZATION
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Organization
• Relatively long term, output producing entity that consists
of more people, has one or more goals and conducts
itself to achieve these goals

• A formal collection of people and other resources

established to accomplish a set of goals

General Motors, National Wildlife Foundation, Shaukat

Khanam, Nestle, Interwood
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• Stable, formal structure

• Takes resources from environment
• Processes them
• Produces outputs

• Rights and obligations

• Delicately balanced

• Conflict resolution
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• Division of labor

• Hierarchy

• Explicit rules & procedures

• Standard operating procedures

• Politics

• Culture
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• Profit / Non Profit Organizations

• Public / Private

• Centralized / deCentralized
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• Organization characteristics
• Product line
• Expansion strategies and system integration
• Merger or acquisition
• Size
• Organizational structure
• Function
• Product/service
• Customer
• Geography
 20

• Culture

• Norms

• Status

• Roles

• Participation

• Leadership
INFORMATION SYSTEM PERSONNEL
22
 23

Information System
Specialists:
IT Infrastructure: CIO
Hardware Managers
Software System Analysts
Networks Programmers
Network Specialists
Database Administrator
Clerical
24
 25

CIO

Telecommunications Data Administration

Data Processing
Director

Manager of Manager of Computer Manager of Manager of

systems programming operations information office
design manager center automation

System System Computer Consultants Staff

analysts programmers operators
Trainers
Application Data entry
programmers operators Technicians
SYSTEM MODELS
 27

System Environment
• All system functions within some sort of environment. The
environment is the collection of elements. The elements
surround the system and often interact with it

• Systems are normally delimited by a BOUNDARY, which

separates them from environment. Anything within the
boundary is the part of the system and anything outside
is the part of the environment
 28

Environment

System

Boundary
 29

• Icons in the figure represents system elements. The

Arrows indicate the relationship among these elements

• In some cases, the elements themselves may represent

entire systems, called as Sub Systems

• An organization may be sub divided into many functional

areas, such as marketing, finance, research, development
etc. Each of the functional areas can be viewed as the
subsystems of the larger organizational system
 30

• Model is a representation of real world element or a

group of elements and relationships among them

For Example, a drawing of human skeleton is a graphical

model of the bone structures of human
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Types of Models
• Mathematical Models

• Physical Models

• Graphical Models
 32

Mathematical Models
•A Mathematical Model is used to express
relationship, in mathematical terms
 33

Physical Models
•A Physical Model is usually a three-dimensional
representation that can be held or touched

• In automobiles design, physical models of cars are helpful

to see that if a certain design will work
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Graphical Models
• Graphical Models generally use symbols as icons,
boxes and lines to represent real world elements and
the relationship between them, for example, Data
Flow Diagrams, Entity Relationship
Diagrams, Flow Charts etc
GRAPHICAL MODELS
 36

Data Flow Diagrams

• Data Flow Diagrams focus on the data flowing in and

out of the system and the processing of the data

• Data Flow Diagram contains four symbols:

• A rectangle with rounded corners

• A square with two shaded edges

• An arrow

• An open-ended rectangle
 37

Basic Symbols of a DFD

A PROCESS means that
some action or group of
actions take place

An ENTITY is a person,
group, department, or any
system that either receives
or originated data

A DATA FLOW shows that

information is being passed
from or to a process

A DATA STORE shows the

Interaction with a database
 38

Advantages of Data Flow Approach

• Freedom from committing to the technical implementation

of the system too early

• Further understanding of the interrelatedness of system

and sub systems

• Communicating current system knowledge to users

through graphical model

• Analysis of proposed system to determine if necessary

data and processes have been defined
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Levels of DFD

• Context Level DFD

• Zero Level DFD

• One Level DFD

• …..
 40

• Context Level Data Flow Diagram contains

three symbols:
• A rectangle with rounded corners

• A square with two shaded edges

• An arrow
 41

Basic Symbols of a CL-DFD

Process A PROCESS means that
Name some action or group of
action stake place

An ENTITY is a person,
Entity group, department, or any
Name system that either receives
or originated data

Information Passed A DATA FLOW shows that

information is being passed
from or to a process
 42

CL-DFD of an Airline Reservation System

Preferences and Available Flights

Passenger Travel Agent
Travel Confirmation

Travel Confirmation Airline Chosen Flight

Reservation
Ticketing Information
System

Passenger
Reservation

Airline
 43

Symbols of a Sub Level-DFDs

A PROCESS means that
Process
some action or group of
Name
action stake place

An ENTITY is a person,
Entity group, department, or any
Name system that either receives
or originated data

A DATA FLOW shows that

Information Passed information is being passed
from or to a Process or
Data Store

A DATA STORE shows that

D1 Table1 data is being stored in
database table or retrieved
from database table
 44

ERD
• Graphical representation of database design is called
Entity Relationship Diagram
 45

Flow Charts

• A chart that shows the sequence of actions to be held in a

process is called Flow Chart

• Flow Chart is a Graphical representation of a process

• It is having top to down flow

• One starting point, one closing point

• Conditions are used for decision making

SYSTEM DEVELOPMENT LIFE CYCLE
 47

Systems Development Life Cycle

• The SDLC is a phased approach to analysis and design
of systems

• Analysts disagree on how many phases there are exactly

in the SDLC but generally divide the cycle in seven
phases
 48

Seven Phases of SDLC

• Identifying Problems, Opportunities and

Objectives
• Determining Information Requirements
• Analyzing System Needs
• Designing the Recommended System
• Developing and Documenting Software
• Testing and Maintaining the System
• Implementing and Evaluating the System
 49

2 - Determining
Information
1 - Identifying Problems, Requirements
Opportunities and
Objectives
3 - Analyzing System
Needs

7 - Implementing and
Evaluating the System

4 - Designing the
Recommended System
6 - Testing and
Maintaining the System 5 - Developing and
Documenting Software
 50

1- Identifying Problems, Opportunities and

Objectives
• The analyst is concerned with identifying problems, opportunities
and objectives

• The first phase requires that the analyst look at what is occurring in
the business, together with the organization people, the analyst
pinpoint the problems

• Identifying objectives
• First the analyst must discover what the business is trying to do, then
the analyst will be able to see if some aspects of information systems
applications can help the business reach its objectives
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• People

• Users
• Analysts
• Systems Managers coordinating the project
 52

• Activities

• Interviewing user management

• Summarizing the knowledge obtained
• Estimating the scope of project
• Documenting the results
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• Output

• Feasibility report

• containing a problem definition

• and objectives summary

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2- Determining Information Requirements

• Tools used to define information requirements in business

are sampling and investigating hard data, interviewing,
questionnaires, observing decision makers behavior and
office environment

• In this phase, analyst tries to understand what

information user needs to perform their jobs
• Hard data is a verifiable fact that is acquired from reliable
sources according to a robust methodology. Soft data is
data based on qualitative information such as a rating,
survey or poll
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• People :

• Analysts

• Users

• Typically operation managers and workers

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• Activities

• System Analyst needs to know the details of current

system functions of the business under study:
• WHO – the people who are involved
• WHAT – the business activity
• WHERE – the environment in which the work takes place
• WHEN – the timing
• HOW – how the current procedures are performed
 57

• Output
• Analyst understands
• how the business functions
• have complete information on the
• people
• goals
• data
• procedures involved
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3- Analyzing System Needs

• People
• System Analysts

• Activities

• Special tools and techniques help the analysts make

requirements definitions

• One such tool is the use of data flow diagram to chart

the input, processes and output of the business’s
functions graphically
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• Output
• System Analyst prepares a system proposal that summarizes what
have been found, provides analysis and makes recommendations.
If one of the recommendations are acceptable to the management,
the analyst proceeds along with the course
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4- Designing the Recommended System

• People
• System Analysts

• The system analyst uses the information collected earlier

to accomplish the logical design of the information
system. The analyst design the accurate data entry
processes
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• Activities and Output

• Produce specifications for programmers

• Design Data Flow Diagrams
• Entity Relationship Diagrams

• Design output screens (either on screen or on paper)

 62

5- Developing and Documenting Software

• People :

• Analysts

• Programmers

• Users
 63

• Activities

• Analyst work with programmers to develop software that

is needed

• Tools used are structure charts, flow charts and pseudo

code

• The analyst use one or more of the tools to

communicate with programmer what needs to be
programmed
 64

• Analyst work with users to develop effective documentation for

software, including procedure manuals

• Programmers have a key role in this phase as they design, code

and remove errors
 65

• Output

• Analyst

• develops effective documentation

• develops training manuals
 66

6- Testing and Maintaining the System

• Before the information system can be used, it must be

tested. It is much less costly to catch problems before the
system is signed over to users
• Some of testing is done by programmers alone and some
of it by systems analysts in conjunction with programmers

• Maintenance of the system begins in this phase

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7- Implementing and Evaluating the System

• Analysts helps implements the information system

• Training of users to handle the system

 MIS
Final Project
 FINAL PROJECT TASKS – UNIT 2

Visit Organization Chosen for Group Project

Meeting with Contact Person in Presence of All Group Members

Ask Questions to Understand Business Processes Completely

Analyze Business Processes, Discuss with Group Members

69
 FINAL PROJECT TASKS – UNIT 2

Using MS Word
Start Project Documentation; Introduction, Details of Visits to Organization
& Interviews Conducted, Details of Exiting Business Processes
&
On paper
Design DFDs; Context, Zero, One and next level DFDs of organization
Design Flow Charts of Selected Business Processes
Design Entity Relationship Diagram of Organization
Design Output Screens – Forms