Business Analysts, project managers, solution and systems developers and anyone who requires a practical understanding of systems development lifecycles and approaches.

Are you involved in systems development? Do you need to get a better understanding of approaches as well as the tools and techniques that will help you in the development of software solutions? If the answer to both those questions is ‘yes’, then this course is for you. We’ll look at systems development lifecycles and approaches, systems modelling and specification techniques as well as quality assurance and testing tools, and much, much more. 

For virtual courses a printed copy of the latest edition of the comprehensive course manual will be provided for the start of your course. Our delegates tell us that having access to a physical document is beneficial as both a reference document and for taking notes during the course. In addition, a link will be emailed to you to enable you to access an electronic copy of the same comprehensive manual for convenient future reference.

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Foundation in Systems Development (a three-day course)
Course Content
Introduction to systems development

• The scope of systems development
• Systems development and other disciplines
• Offshoring and outsourcing of systems development work

Systems development lifecycles (SDLCs)

• Lifecycles – waterfall, ‘V’ model, incremental, iterative
• Roles and responsibilities in systems development
• Project lifecycles and terms of reference

Business analysis

• The business analysis service framework
• Outcomes from business analysis
• Business analysis in the systems development lifecycle
• The role of the business case in systems development
  • ­Assessing feasibility
  • Cost/benefit analysis
  • Investment appraisal
  • Impact assessment
  • Risk analysis

Requirements engineering

• The requirements engineering framework
• Requirements elicitation techniques
• Types of requirement
• Documenting requirements
• Analysing requirements
• Prioritising requirements
• Validating requirements
• Managing requirements

Systems development approaches

• Drivers affecting the choice of approach
• The quality triangle
• Defined versus empirical approaches
• Popular Agile methods
• Popular development practices
  • Test driven/test first development
  • Object oriented development
  • Service oriented development
  • Software on demand (SaaS – Software as a Service)
  • Open source development
• Commercial Off-The-Shelf (COTS) solutions

Systems modelling and specification techniques

• Reasons for modelling
• Modelling from different perspectives
• Modelling functionality (use cases)
• Modelling data (class diagrams)
• Modelling dynamic behaviour (state machine diagrams)
• Modelling the user interface (activity diagrams)
• Cross-referencing models (CRUD matrix)
• Documentation and specification

Systems design

• Systems design in context
• Objectives and constraints of design
• Input design, data verification and data validation
• Input and output technologies
• Process design concepts
• Data design, code design, normalisation and database technologies
• Security design

Systems architecture

• Types of architecture: enterprise, business, systems, infrastructure
• Stakeholders and roles in architecture
• Management of architecture
• Layered software architecture
• Service-oriented architecture

Quality and testing

• The definition of software quality
• Objectives, limitations and principles of testing
• Testing in the SDLC
• Static and dynamic testing
• Regression testing and re-testing

Systems deployment and changeover

• Data take-on (creation)
• Data mapping and data conversion
• Supporting documentation
• Training
• Changeover strategies

Systems evaluation and maintenance

• Maintenance in the SDLC
• Metrics for evaluating a software project
• Post-implementation and post-project reviews
• Types of system maintenance

Software support tools

• Configuration management tools
• Computer-aided software engineering (CASE) tools
• Computer aided software testing (CAST) tools
• Pros and cons of software tools