Week 4 in FIT2001

Well well well, its week 4 and what have we done this week?

We made some progress into the inner workings of analysis. We looked at the following:

• Defining an event
• Classifying external, temporal and state events
• Created an event list to record gathered information
• Distinguished an event from an activity
• Looked at the concepts of objects, classes, attributes and methods.
• Identified classes of objects and associations from an event list or a problem statement
• Became familiar with the different ways object oriented SDLCs use models

But what are the things that stick in my head mostly:

One is the making of an event table. I think this is a cool tool to have in building a complete picture of an analysis that successfully sees the needs and happening of the system being analyzed.

I also like the way classes are modeled using a square table which includes the class title, the attributes and the methods. I can see how this form of structuring models will help paint the picture and define the road map in developing a great system.

Also i like UML more and more and I'm looking forward in using it for the assignment which by the way is due in May. I haven't started it yet because i want to get more into the course and pick up on the tools available to me for a best attempt in tackling the assignment. Might get started in the fist week of April which will give me 4 weeks to finish it and improve it as best i can.

See you in week 5.

Week 3 in FIT2001

OK so I made it to week 3.

Now what did we learn in week three. We'll ZeFrank is one funny dude, thats one thing i definitely remember.

But seriously we looked at the following:

• Overview of analysis and requirements gathering

• Stakeholders and their role

• Techniques for information gathering

– Reviewing existing documents, interviews,
observation, prototyping, JAD

• Validating system requirements

I guess in week three we have taken the first few steps in the Analysis Phase of SDLC. We got to see how analysts gather requirements to determine system needs. We saw how stakeholders such as clients, the users, technicalities all have input into the system and therefore need to be consulted to determine system requirements. we look at at the different techniques in information gathering such as looking at existing documents/forms/procedures within the company, interviewing stakeholders, observing operations directly in action, making mock ups to test drive the systems and JAD Joint Application Design, where all the players get in one room and brainstorm the application through.

We covered many things, but theres many more to come..

see you next week..

"Blog-on"

Week 2 in FIT2001

OK Its week two and after reading chapters 2 and 3 I'm ready for a holiday.

Chapter two showed me the details of SDLC System Development Life Cycle which cover the life of a system development. It starts with the types of approaches to SDLC being predictive and adaptive and the text showed that its neve one or the other but a fusion of the both.

We looked at the waterfall approach to SDLC and then the spiral approach which i think is better since you have the opportunity to constantly improve.

We looked at the SDLC phases being Project Planning, Analysis, Design, Implementation and Support and then how these steps are constructed, managed and implemented..

We looked at some methadologies and how its made off models, tools and techniques.

We looked at some approaches to SDLC inc. OO, Info Engineering, Structured, Modern and traditional.

We looked at tools that can be used for SDCL such as visio, CASE tools, Rational XDE Professional... Actually i like using visio but now that i am using MS Studio .net i think ill be starting to use XDE as an add on to it. If it will save work time then I'm all for it.

In Chapter 3 we looked at the analyst as a project manager and how project management skills and techniques are used by the analyst to fulfill the system objectives and project needs.

We looked at project initiation, management and elements that contribute to successful and unsuccessful projects, which to me was great because it gives me clear direction to what i should do when i undertake projects of my own.

We looked at the fundamentals of projects such as Gantt charts, pert charts, tasks, activities and schedule brake down structures. We also looked at the costs and financial management side of projects.

Week 2 done... 8 more to go..

Week 1 in FIT2001

So we are asked to express your expectations of this subject, and include a reflection on what has happened in the first week of FIT2001 and lessons learnt to date.

My expectations of this subject:

• To learn how to analyze systems and build a suitable solution for it.
• To learn and understand what techniques are used to do the above.
• To get acquainted with the tools professional system designers use to build system designs.
• I expect to be able to walk away form this course at the end and be able to better analyze, document and design system solutions to use in my businesses and/or ideas and help others.

What happened in the first week:

• I took time to get to know how muso worked.
• I spent time trying to figure out which course i was doing and got confused since they all had different titles in muso which made me think i was enrolled in the wrong courses (I'm enrolled as a Off-Campus Grad Dip in Comp) so being a virtual student it was tough trying to make sense of everything fist off.
• I started downloading the materials and lecture notes and studied them.
• I came across the podcast of the lectures inc FIT2001 and finally made sense of everything from it. I like! wish all lectures had podcasts, it a great way to learn.
• I got my texts which were EXPENSIVE but at the end of the day they are very useful and im sure ill be using it professionally as a reference, besides its an investment in me..
• I tried to make sense of what activities the OC students were supposed to do, since the podcast i realized we do the same activities inc, this blogger, which is pretty cool.

Lessons learnt to date:

• First and most important lesson was to leant what systems analysis and design IS.
• Learnt that there are two major ways of structuring programs, structured and OOP which effects system design.
• I leanrt there is tools you can use to help in design and analysis.
• I leanrt or made sense of how the OC learning works.

This was week one..

12 more to go..