ITEC 630 Week 3

ITEC 630 Week 3

1. All six methods of information gathering discussed in this week lecture take a lot of time. Do you think that there are some ways that systems analysts could collect the required information while saving time? Please offer your opinion on this issue.

Efficiency in data gathering

I would like to approach this question in a different perspective rather than commenting on how the information gathering methods discussed could be improved to save time. I would like to approach this topic from an overall perspective on steps that could be taken in order to improve efficiency as a whole and I have done a little research to support this perspective. 

I believe there are some fundamentals that a systems analyst should complete when presented with a development issue. To use as an example, I will cite an existing opportunity that our company is pursuing. We have responded to an opportunity from the federal government and it asks us to design a workflow, portal, and application for a new registry system they would like to deploy. We are in the stage of preparing to present our example to them. During this stage, we have done extensive research on what the customer would like to see (there is a product on the market that is very similar to what they want), we have done the research on the end goal for this project (the customer has published strategic missions for this project), and we have done the research on the budgetary constraints for this project. By doing sufficient research, I believe a systems analyst can already shave off time for the entire project. 

The next step for our response to the government, we have created a prototype armed with the information gathered during the research phase. This prototype will allow the government to get a look and feel of the product we have designed and cut out any miscommunication on what it will look like. I believe prototyping is an important step in cutting back time spent on information gathering. 

Lastly, I believe that having a distributed database system will lend a hand in saving time. In the beginning phases of responding to this government project, multiple parties need to be privy to the research provided. By establishing a accessible and distributed information sharing/database system, it will allow all parties to have access to the pertinent information to this project. Moving forward, if the project is won, actual developers will also have access to the same information so in their design phase, they will know the pain-points to address and be able to revert back to the initial task at hand.