At the outset, you must collect information about the information systems that are currently being md and how users would like to improve the current systems and organizational operations with new or replacement information systems. One of the best ways to get this information is to talk to the people who are directly or indirectly involved in the different parts of the organizations affected by the possible system changes: users, managers, funders, etc. Another way to find out about the current system is to gather copies of documentation relevant to current systems and business processes. In this chapter, you will learn about various ways to get information di- rectly from stakeholders. interviews, questionnaires, group interviews, and direct observation. You will learn about collecting documentation on the current system and organizational operation in the form of written procedures, forms, reports, and other hard copy. These traditional methods of collecting system requirements are shown below.
Typical Traditional methods used in collecting system requirements.
Individually interview people informed about operation and issues of the current system and what a new and improved system should respond like.
Survey people via questionares to discover issues and requirments.
Interview groups of people with diverse needs and contrasts among system requirments.
Observe workers at select times to see how data are handled and what information people use in everyday work.
Study business documents to discover reported issues, policies, rules and directions as well as evidence of the the information flow in the company.
CONCEPTUAL DATA MODELING .
A conceptual data model is a representation of organizational data. The purpose of a conceptual data model is to show as many rules about the meaning and inter- reladonships among data as are possible. You typically do conceptual data modeling in parallel with other requirements analysis and structuring steps during systems analysis.
