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Questions tagged [systems-analysis]

Studying and analyzing organizations and procedures in order to identify inputs, outputs, and processes in order to create or modify systems and procedures to improve efficiency.

System analysis is a discipline that analyses complex "systems" (e.g. organization, business processes, technical systems) by identifying their parts and their interaction, their boundaries with their outside environment, and their behavior.

In software engineering this is mostly undertaken to determine the (e.g. "business" or "domain") requirements of a new IT system, or to understand the design of an existing IT system.

Additional reading:

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How do I deal with analysis paralysis?

Very frequently, I am stuck when choosing the best design decision. Even for small details, such as function definitions, control flow, and variable names, I spend unusually long periods perusing the benefits and trade-offs of my choices. I feel…
Anne Nonimus
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If software engineering means making software for other domains when are you supposed to get the knowledge about that other domain?

I'm told that software is everywhere and therefore used in other domains. My question is if you're a software engineer working on software for lawyers or software for biologist when do you actually get the time to learn about the other domain you're…
WindBreeze
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Does every member of an agile team need to be a software developer?

We recently started using agile methodologies at my company. Because I am quite new to agile, I wonder if our way of implementing it is correct according to the basic principles of agile. Previously, we had roles such as business analyst, QA tester…
tsardine
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How to approach the ol' "this will just be a small application"? Yeah right?

Ok I have run into this many times, but here is the worse case scenario slightly exaggerated. A client says "hey can you make us this small module to do this small task"? Me: "Sure no problem". So based on budgets and constraints etc., I skip some…
richard
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How analysis is different from design?

I'm sure you all have heard managers saying that "we need an analyzer", or "we need a designer". While I'm a .NET developer, I hardly can differentiate an analyzer from a designer (not web designer or UI designer). Who is analyzer? Who is designer?…
Saeed Neamati
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Should an analysis be technology-agnostic?

I had an argument yesterday with one of my colleagues. He (a business-analyst, previously a programmer) thinks that he should be aware of the technology used to implement the system, so he can take better design decisions. In my opinion (I am a…
marco-fiset
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Who are the domain experts?

In Domain-Driven Design much is said about the domain experts. They are the ones who knows about the domain, and which should be in contact with the developer in order to build the ubiquitous language and hence the domain model. The only problem I…
user1620696
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How to get better understanding of the users as a programmer

I work at a company that wants to be agile, but the business analysts often provide us "user stories" that are more solution than problem statement. This makes it difficult to make good design decisions, or in more extreme cases, leaves few design…
Kazark
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What is the benefit of the MoSCoW technique?

I do not see how the MoSCoW Method's "Must, Should, Could, Would" prioritisation is better that simply 1,2,3,4? If I receive the requirements from the customer, they already are prioritised, usually using this range. Also what is so interesting on…
John V
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How to formally figure out the best design based on the informal user's description of their needs?

I am to write a piece of software to a friend of my uncle's, but I don't exactly know all the elements that are needed to fulfil the user's needs, so I can't begin to formulate a design yet. Since the problem is kind of solvable (in a small, non…
Davi
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Functional Requirements, Non-behavioral specifications, Acceptance Criteria and the gap

I am struggling in my brain about what the right answer is here and where the gap in our requirements gathering process is on this team. Non-technical BA - their role is to write Business and User requirements in the form of User Stories. When…
maple_shaft
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In a functional requirements document, is the Assumptions section dangerous?

I am currently a reviewer on a Best Practices document for Developers or Business Analysts in writing a Functional Requirements document. This document is not necessarily a template for functional requirements documents, but a guide to what…
maple_shaft
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Agile Development & Interaction with Developers

I have read in few blogs that as part of agile development , the product owner closely interact with developers to state their requirements and come up with a solution. However in case of a large project (in terms of number of applications involved)…
Punter Vicky
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what is the difference between system requirements and software requirements?

For my project, I am required to complete a software requirement and systems requirement for a program I am developing which needs to be fairly detailed. However I am struggling to differentiate between the two on what kind of information is…
user18372316
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Do data stores appears in Level 1 DFD?

Let’s consider that Context diagram is the diagram that describe the system as a single process and level 0 diagram is the one that decomposes this main process into major process and so on. I am mentioning this because my text books refer to…
John adams
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