Six Phases a System Study: John E. Gibson, William T. Scherer, & William F. Gibson
- Determine goals of system
- Establish criteria for ranking alternative candidates
- Develop alternative solutions
- Rank alternative candidates
- Iterate
- Action
Phase 1: Determine goals of system – They systems analyst must expect to engage in a dialogue with his client to arrive at a suitable statement of a large-scale system problem. The analyst has to define the problem properly for the client because he or she does not understand his or her own problem.
Phase 2: Establish criteria for ranking alternative candidates – The term “goal” refers to the client’s objective, while the term “index of performance” refers to the measurement of the relative success in achieving the goal. The goal is to maximize a specific IP.
“Unmeasurable goals are meaningless platitudes”
Phases 3: Develop alternative solutions – Existing technological alternatives may be obvious, but one must also include functional and long-term structural alternatives.
Phase 4: Rank alternative candidates – The indices of performance and constraints are next applied to the list of candidates and a rank ordering of their acceptability is developed.
Phase 5: Iterate - After obtaining a group of prime candidates, one can initiate a more careful analysis of the reduced group.
Phase 6: Action – Much to be preferred is the team that internalizes the client’s goal and whose report in effect says, “here is our problem and here is how we will move forward together to solve it.” This action orientation should include a step-by-step, organized procedure for achieving the goals outlined in the report.
