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Technique Of Fact Finding In Systems Analysis And Design

1. INTERVIEWS.

This method is used to collect the information from groups or individuals. Analyst selects the people who are related with the system for the interview. In this method the analyst sits face to face with the people and records their responses. The interviewer must plan in advance the type of questions he/ she is going to ask and should be ready to answer any type of question. He should also choose a suitable place and time which will be comfortable for the respondent.

The information collected is quite accurate and reliable as the interviewer can clear and cross check the doubts there itself. This method also helps gap the areas of misunderstandings and help to discuss about the future problems. Structured and unstructured are the two sub categories of Interview. Structured interview is more formal interview where fixed questions are asked and specific information is collected whereas unstructured interview is more or less like a casual conversation where in-depth areas topics are covered and other information apart from the topic may also be obtained.



2. QUESTIONNAIRES.

It is the technique used to extract information from number of people. This method can be adopted and used only by an skillful analyst. The Questionnaire consists of series of questions framed together in logical manner. The questions are simple, clear and to the point. This method is very useful for attaining information from people who are concerned with the usage of the system and who are living in different countries. The questionnaire can be mailed or send to people by post. This is the cheapest source of fact finding.

3. OBSERVATION.

Unlike the other fact finding techniques, in this method the analyst himself visits the organization and observes and understand the flow of documents, working of the existing system, the users of the system etc. For this method to be adopted it takes an analyst to perform this job as he knows which points should be noticed and highlighted. In analyst may observe the unwanted things as well and simply cause delay in the development of the new system.



4. RECORD VIEW & BACKGROUND READING.

The information related to the system is published in the sources like newspapers, magazines, journals, documents etc. This record review helps the analyst to get valuable information about the system and the organization. If an analyst is employed within the organization that is the subject of the fact­ gathering exercise, then it is likely that he or she will already have a good under­standing of the organization and its business objectives. If, however, he or she is going in as an outside consultant, then one of the first tasks is to try to gain an understanding of the organization. Background reading or research is part of that process. The kind of documents that are suitable sources of information include the following although reading company reports may provide the analyst with information about the organization's mission, and so possibly some indication of future requirements, this technique mainly provides information about the current system.

5. SAMPLING.

Document sampling can be used in two different ways. First, the analyst will collect copies of blank and completed documents during the course of interviews and observation sessions. These will be used to determine the information that is used by people in their work, and the inputs to and outputs from processes which they carry out, either manually or using an existing computer system. Ideally, where there is an existing system, screen shots should also be collected in order to understand the inputs and outputs of the existing system.

Second, the analyst may carry out a statistical analysis of the documents in order to find out about patterns of data. For example, many documents such as order forms contain a header section and a number of lines of detail. (The sample document in Figure 6.1 shows this kind of structure.) The analyst may want to know the distribution of the number of lines in an order. This will help later in estimating volumes of data to be held in the system and in deciding how many lines should be displayed on screen at one time. While this kind of statistical sampling can give a picture of data volumes, the analyst should be alert to seasonal patterns of activity, which may mean that there are peaks and troughs in the amount of data being processed.

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