Fact-Finding

Fact-Finding

1. sensitive information

   • Company plans
   • Employee salaries or medical history
   • Customer credit card, social security, or other information

2. Ethical behavior

   • Systems analysts must not misuse information
   • Systems analysts must protect information from people who would misuse it.

3. Otherwise

   • Systems analyst loses respect, credibility, and confidence of users and management, impairing ability to do job
   • Organization and systems analyst could have legal liability
   • • Systems analyst could lose job

4. Methods

   • Sampling of existing documentation, forms, and databases.
     • Process of collecting a representative sample of
       • documents
       • forms
       • records
     • Organization chart
     • Memos and other documents that describe the problem
     • Completed forms
     • Standard operating procedures for current system
     • Manual and computerized screens and reports
     • Samples of databases
     • Flowcharts and other system documentation
     • Things to be Gleaned
       • Symptoms and causes of problems
       • Persons in organization who have understanding of problem
       • Persons in organization who have understanding of problem
       • Type of data to be collected and reported by the system
       • Questions that need to be covered in interviews
     • Completed Rather than Blank Forms
       • can determine
         • type of data going into each blank
         • size of data going into each blank
         • which blanks are not used or not always used
       • can see data relationships
     • Techniques
       • Randomization
       • Stratification
   • Research and site visits.
   • Observation of the work environment.
     • GUidelines
     • advantages and disadvantages
   • Questionnaires
     • Free-format Questionnaire
     • Fixed-format Questionnaire
       • Rating Questions
       • Multiple-choice Questions
       • Ranking Questions
   • Interviews
     • usage
       • Find facts, Verify facts, Clarify facts,
       • Generate enthusiasm, Get the end-user involved,
       • Identify requirements, Solicit ideas and opinions
     • Types
       • Unstructured
       • Structured
         • Open-ended question
         • Closed-ended question –
   • Prototyping
   • Joint requirements planning (JRP).