Soft System Methodology - Essay Example

SOFT SYSTEM METHODOLOGY Action Research techniques are used as complement to the achievements of mainstream science approaches. The action research technique is based on the actions performed by actors involved in the research in attaining the goals of the project. The main idea of this concept is to apply positive thinking to approach and attain project goals. It involves the surroundings and the affects of the final product on customers who are the persons that forms a part of client system. Soft System Methodology or SSM is used achieve project goals in a systematic and sequence manner. This methodology encourages using rich pictures to express a problem. Compare to hard problems soft problem are difficult to define. FEASIBILITY STUDY Feasibility study is an important phase in the software development process. It enables the developer to have an assessment of the product being developed. It refers to the feasibility study of the product in terms of outcomes of the product, operational use and technical support required for implementing it. Feasibility study should be performed on the basis of various criteria and parameters. The various feasibility studies are: Economic Feasibility Operational Feasibility Technical Feasibility Economic Feasibility: It refers to the benefits or outcomes. We are deriving from the product as compared to the total cost we are spending for developing the product. If the benefits are more or less the same as the older system, then it is not feasible to develop the product. In the present system, the development of the new product greatly enhance the accuracy of the system and cuts short the delay in the processing of Birth and Death application. The errors can be greatly reduced and at the same time providing great level of security. Hence, we do not need any additional equipment except memory of required capacity. No need of spending money on client for maintenance because the database used is web enabled database. Operational Feasibility: It refers to the feasibility of the product to be operational. Some products may work very well at design and implementation but may fall in the real time environment. It includes the study of additional human resources required and their technical expertise. Technical Feasibility: It refers to whether the software that is available in the market fully supports the present application. It studies the pros and cons of using particular software for the development and it's feasibility. It also studies the additional training need to be given to the people to make the application work. Implementation Plan The main plan for the system developed is to upgrading and existing system to proposed system. There are mainly 4 methods of upgrading the existing system to the proposed Parallel Run System Direct Cut-Over Method Pilot System Phase-in Method Parallel Run System: It is most secure method of converting from an existing to anew system. In this approach, both the systems are run in parallel for a specific period of time. During the period of if any serious problems were identified while using the new system, the new system is dropped and the older system is taken at the start point again. Direct Cut-Over Method: In this approach, the existing system is converted to the new system abruptly, some times over a weekend or even overnight. The old system is used until a planed conversion day. There exist no parallel activities. Pilot Method: In this approach, a working version of the system is implemented in one art of the organization such as a single work area or department. When the system is deemed complete it is installed through out the organization either all at once (direct cut-over) or gradually (phase-in). Phase-in Method: In this method, a part of the system is first implemented and over time, other remaining parts are implemented. SYSTEM ANALYSIS Analysis is the detailed study of the various operations performed by a system and their relationships within and outside of the system. A key question is: What must be done to solve the problem Once aspect of analysis is defining the boundaries of the system and determining whether or not candidate system should consider other related system. During analysis, data are collected on the available files, decision points and transactions handled by the present system. System Requirement Specification What is SRS Software Requirement Specification (SRS) is the starting point of software developing activity, as system grew more complex it became evident that the goal of the entire system cannot be easily comprehended. Hence the need for the requirement phase arose. The software project is handled by the client needs the SRS is the means of translating the ideas of the minds of clients (the inputs) into a formal document (the output of the requirement phase). The SRS phase consists of two basis activities: 1) Problem/Requirement Analysis: The process is order and more nebulous of the two, deals with understand the problem, the goal and constraint. 2) Requirement Specification: Here, the focus is on specifying what has been found giving analysis such as representation, specification languages and tools and checking the specifications are addressed during this activity. The requirements phase terminates with the production of the validate SRS document. Producing the SRS document is the basic goal of the phase. Role of SRS: The purpose of the Software requirement is to reduce the communication gap between clients and the developers. Software Requirement Specification is the medium through which the client and user needs are accurately specified. It forms the basic of software development. A good SRS should satisfy all the parties involved in the system. It is very difficult for a programmer to create user interface forms and to provide database connectivity for each and every form separately whenever he needs it. The work will be very fast if he had a utility, which can provide him all the activity, which he has to do for creating those forms. Hence, it was received that there was a strong need for generating a utility which can help the programmer with on-fly user interface forms and providing database. This project mainly comprises three modules: Creation and modification of tables Connecting User Forms to the tables and retrieving data using these forms Generation of Reports These modules deal with several kinds of information related from linking a user applicable form to the database to retrieving information and updating the database. The information is stored in the database in a systematic way so that it can be easily retrieved whenever required through queries by the reporting module. Data capturing is done through user-friendly screens depending upon the type of data. The entire system is being protected by a user level password to enable different assigned activities so that no intruder can access the data. The user for this application is a person who wants to generate a new web enabled dynamic content application and not the end user working at the client side. EXISTING SYSTEM The existing system is totally dependent on the type of the application being used and each and every application even having the same needs, are having different coding sections. That is, each and every application has different coding modules for the same type of transactions like retrieval, updating, insertion etc. into the database. Since, information server is the main source of information, the database of information server should be up to date. The information generated globally has to be updated in the database of information server on time. At this stage if there is a new application to be embedded into the present system and had to write separate code for maintenance of data of that particular application. Hence there shall be wastage of time for writing separate code for each and every module for the same type of the transaction. At present, CGI script is used for writing its application code. Since, the organization needs to publish its applications on the web, it is necessary that the data provided must be very accurate and effective. DRAWBACKS OF THE EXISTING SYSTEM Separate coding must be done for each and every application having the same type of transactions. Data must be manually updated in the database. Any modifications to the database must be done manually. Every form must be connected to the database manually, in order to access the database. The present system makes use of CGI which has the fallowing drawbacks: CGI is very slow. CGI is hard on server performance. Improperly coded CGI can cause security problems. Debugging can be difficult. Limited functionality. PROPOSED SYSTEM The proposed system is over come all the drawbacks of the existing system. In this, system is developed on Java. So it is a platform independent and secured one. The user needs to create a table with the required filed name with this tools and also he must link the input fields with the database. Then the tools update the records of the field in the specified table. In a big organization there exists so many forms, it highly difficult to write the code for every form this tool simplifies the problems. It is a portable one, so it can be run on any platform. Generic tool provides user-friendly, so users can use this tool without much of knowledge of the computers. The main draw back in existing system is all the data was proposed in parsing method. It was very difficult to the user specify the parameters for parsing. In this system, parsing method is omitted and implemented new technology i.e., assigning field tag names to the records. It simplifies the difficulties in the existing system. Reference Allen, W.J. Working together for environmental management: the role of information sharing and collaborative learning. PhD thesis (Development Studies), Massey University, pp.12-29.1. Retrieved 5 May 2006 < http://www.landcareresearch.co.nz/research/social/ar_working.asp > (2001). Dale Couprie, Alan Goodbrand, Bin Li & David Zhu. Soft Systems Methodology. University of Calgery. Retrieved 5 May 2006 < http://sern.ucalgary.ca/courses/seng/613/F97/grp4/ssmfinal.html > Ali Behforooz and Frederick J. Hudson. Software Engineering Fundamentals. Noida: Oxford University Press. 2003. Read More