INFO 415 Quiz1 – Systems Analysis

Name:______Student ID:______

Answer All Questions:

True/False

Indicate whether the statement is true or false.

____1.Systems analysis and design focuses on understanding the business problem and outlining the approach to solve it.

____2.When choosing between possible solutions to a business problem, the best solution is the one with the fewest risks and the most benefits.

____3.A systems analyst needs to understand people and the way they work.

____4.A systems analyst needs to be an expert in all types of technology.

____5.Analysts must upgrade their knowledge and skills continually.

____6.Technology alone increases productivity and profits.

____7.Systems analysis means understanding and specifying in detail what the information system should accomplish.

____8.The systems analyst's work is described as problem solving for an organization.

____9.A system is a collection of interrelated components that function together to achieve some outcome.

____10.The first four major phases of the predictive systems development life cycle (SDLC) are the planning phase, the analysis phase, the design phase, and the prototyping phase.

____11.The primary objective of analysis activities is to understand the business needs and processing requirements of the new system.

____12.The support phase includes maintaining and enhancing the system.

____13.The first activity in the project planning phase is to develop the project schedule.

____14.Feasibility analysis investigates economic, organizational, technical, resource, and schedule feasibility.

____15.The support phase is the shortest and least expensive phase of the system development life cycle (SDLC).

____16.A tool is a software support that helps create models or other components required in the project.

____17.During the design phase, analysts begin to define a computer-system solution.

____18.Implementation is the actual construction, testing, and installation of a functioning information system.

____19.The most important activity of project planning is to define precisely the business problem and the scope of the required solution.

____20.A predictive SDLC has a high technical risk.

____21.A project cannot have both predictive and adaptive elements.

____22.The spiral model is generally considered to be the first adaptive approach to system development.

____23.A methodology contains guidelines to follow for completing every activity in the systems development life cycle.

____24.A project management software application is an example of a tool.

____25.Structured programming and top-down programming are identical concepts.

____26.The data flow diagram is used with the structured analysis system development technique.

____27.The class diagram is used with the Information Engineering system development approach.

____28.A model is a representation of an important aspect of the real world.

Multiple Choice

Identify the choice that best completes the statement or answers the question.

____29.The process of understanding and specifying in detail what the information system should accomplish is called systems ____.

a. / design / c. / analysis
b. / specification / d. / administration

____30.Systems ____ means specifying in detail how the many components of the information system should be physically implemented.

a. / design / c. / analysis
b. / specification / d. / administration

____31.The most important role of a systems analyst in business is ____.

a. / technical understanding of information systems
b. / problem solving
c. / knowing what data needs to be stored and used
d. / special programming skills

____32.____ refers to the division of a system into processes or subsystems.

a. / System design / c. / Programming
b. / Data management / d. / Functional decomposition

____33.An automation boundary is best described as the separation between the ____.

a. / system and its environment
b. / automated part of a system and the manual part of a system
c. / manual part of a system and its environment
d. / automated part of a system and its environment

____34.Changes in software development, technology, and business practices have created many new career opportunities for analysts, including ____.

a. / Sales and support of ERP software / c. / Web development
b. / Auditing, compliance, and security / d. / All of the above

____35.A technique that seeks to alter the nature of the work done in a business function, with the objective of radically improving performance, is called ____.

a. / business process reengineering / c. / information systems strategic planning
b. / strategic planning / d. / enterprise resource planning (ERP)

____36.A description of the integrated information systems needed by the organization to carry out its business functions is called ____.

a. / business process re-engineering / c. / technology architecture plan
b. / application architecture plan / d. / enterprise resource planning (ERP)

____37.A description of the hardware, software, and communications networks required to implement planned information systems is called ____.

a. / information systems strategic planning / c. / technology architecture plan
b. / applications architecture planning / d. / enterprise resource planning (ERP)

____38.Rocky Mountain Outfitters would like to further distribute business applications across multiple locations and computer systems, reserving the data center for Web server, database, and telecommunications functions. This is an example of ____.

a. / applications architecture planning / c. / technology architecture planning
b. / enterprise resource planning (ERP) / d. / strategic planning

____39.Which of the following is an example of a technique used to complete specific system development activities?

a. / project planning
b. / integrated development environment (IDE)
c. / application service provider (ASP)
d. / supply chain management (SCM)

____40.Which of the following is the analyst’s approach to problem solving?

a. / Verify that the benefits of solving the problem outweigh the costs, then research and understand the problem.
b. / Develop a set of possible solutions, then verify that the benefits of solving the problem outweigh the costs.
c. / Verify that the benefits of solving the problem outweigh the costs, then define the requirements for solving the problem.
d. / Implement the solution, then define the details of the chosen solution.

____41.The last step of the analyst's approach to problem solving is ____.

a. / Decide which solution is best, and make a recommendation
b. / Monitor to make sure that you obtain the desired results
c. / Verify that the benefits of solving the problem outweigh the costs
d. / Implement the solution

____42.A knowledge management system ____.

a. / indexes all the knowledge contained within an organization
b. / supports the storage of and access to documents within an organization
c. / is another term for a library system
d. / requires a very large amount of online storage space

____43.Skills in a nontechnical area such as interviewing and team management are called ____.

a. / inherent skills / c. / hard skills
b. / technical skills / d. / soft skills

____44.An example of a project phase in a predictive project is ____.

a. / gathering information about the user's needs
b. / performing a project cost/benefit analysis
c. / planning the project
d. / drawing the system interface

____45.The primary objective of the analysis phase is to ____.

a. / analyze the capabilities and structure of the previous system
b. / prioritize the alternatives for a new system
c. / determine the basic structure and approach for the new system
d. / understand and document the users' needs and requirements

____46.The problem domain is the part of systems development that refers to the ____.

a. / problems associated with the computing environment
b. / area of the user's business for which a system is being developed
c. / problems of the organization of the company
d. / area of the industry that results in more intense competition

____47.That portion of the new information system that satisfies the user's business needs in the problem domain is referred to as the ____.

a. / system procedure / c. / network
b. / application / d. / user interface

____48.The ____ phase begins only after the new system has been installed and put into production, and it lasts throughout the productive life of the system.

a. / analysis / c. / implementation
b. / design / d. / support

____49.Users are typically more involved in the project during which two phases?

a. / Analysis and design / c. / Design and implementation
b. / Planning and analysis / d. / Analysis and implementation

____50.The first official activity of the project team as it initiates the project planning phase is to ____.

a. / define the business problem / c. / develop a cost/benefit analysis
b. / staff the project team / d. / write a project proposal

____51.The term “____” describes a planned undertaking that produces a new information system.

a. / systems development project / c. / systems development life cycle (SDLC)
b. / phase / d. / design phase

____52.Most new information systems must communicate with other, existing systems, so the design of the method and details of these communication links must be precisely defined. These are called ____.

a. / models / c. / help desks
b. / system interfaces / d. / design interfaces

____53.The term “____” means that work activities are done once, then again, and yet again.

a. / eXtreme programming (XP) / c. / agile modeling
b. / iteration / d. / Unified Process (UP)

____54.The term ____ refers to an approach that completes parts of a system in one or more iterations and puts them into operation for users.

a. / incremental development / c. / Unified Process (UP)
b. / information engineering (IE) / d. / structured design

____55.A(n) ____ in system development is a collection of guidelines that help an analyst complete a system development activity or task.

a. / iteration / c. / technique
b. / model / d. / tool

____56.A(n) ____ program is one that has one beginning and one ending.

a. / iterative / c. / incremental
b. / structured / d. / object-oriented

____57.____ programming divides more complex programs into a hierarchy of program modules.

a. / Incremental / c. / Object-oriented
b. / Iterative / d. / Top-down

____58.The key graphical model of the systems requirements used with structured analysis is the ____.

a. / flowchart
b. / data flow diagram (DFD)
c. / class diagram
d. / project evaluation and review technique (PERT) chart

____59.A(n) ____ is a thing in the computer system that is capable of responding to messages.

a. / entity-relationship diagram (ERD) / c. / tool
b. / model / d. / object

____60.The ____ is a critical component of any new system.

a. / project management application / c. / reverse engineering tool
b. / user interface / d. / code generator tool

____61.The objective of the ____ phase is to keep the system running productively during the years following its initial installation.

a. / support / c. / planning
b. / design / d. / analysis

____62.The ____ technique was developed to provide some guidelines for deciding what the set of programs should be, what each program should accomplish, and how the program should be organized into a hierarchy.

a. / Extreme programming (XP) / c. / object-oriented
b. / structured design / d. / structure chart

____63.A key concept in the ____ model approach is the focus on risk.

a. / spiral / c. / risk
b. / Extreme programming (XP) / d. / agile

____64.A(n) _____ approach to the SDLC is used when the exact requirements of a system or needs of users are not well understood.

a. / predictive / c. / incremental
b. / persistent / d. / adaptive

____65.The _____ approach is an SDLC approach that assumes the various phases of a project can be completed entirely sequentially.

a. / waterfall / c. / prototype
b. / artifact / d. / spiral model

____66.Visual modeling tools usually contain a database of information about the models and the project, which is called a(n) ____.

a. / knowledge base / c. / library
b. / information base / d. / repository

____67.One popular visual modeling tool is ____.

a. / Firefox / c. / Visio
b. / PowerPoint / d. / Photoshop

Quiz1

Answer Section

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Part – B Short Answers (23 points)

  1. List the eight steps taken in the analyst's general approach to problem solving. (8)

1. Research and understand the problem

2. Verify that the benefits of solving the problem outweigh the costs

3. Define the requirements for solving the problem

4. Develop a set of possible solutions (alternatives)

5. Decide which solution is best and make a recommendation

6. Define the details of the chosen solution

7. Implement the solution

8. Monitor to make sure that you obtain the desired results

  1. What are the required skills of the systems analyst? (3)

Systems analysts need a great variety of special skills. They need to understand how to build information systems (technical skills) and must understand the business they are working for (business skills). They also need to understand people and the way they work (people skills).

  1. List the seven major activities that must be done during the design phase. (7)

1. Design and integrate the network

2. Design the application architecture

3. Design the user interfaces

4. Design the system interfaces

5. Design and integrate the database

6. Prototype for design details

7. Design and integrate the system controls

  1. The project planning phase consists of five activities that are required to get the project organized. What are these activities? (5)

Define the problem

Produce the project schedule

Confirm project feasibility

Staff the project

Launch the project