System Design, Development, and Project Management

Technical Design of Systems

At the end of this activity, the following items are obtained:

• Modular design of the system.
• Description of interfaces between system modules.
• Description of interfaces to other system modules.
• Definition of the user interface.
• Description of system components.

Structured Programming Techniques

Data Entry:

This part of the program consists of instructions that take information from an input/output device and transfer it to main memory for further processing.

Process or Algorithm:

The set of instructions that process the input data to obtain new information.

Output Results:

This consists of instructions that send the results of a process to an input/output device.

System Technology Environment: Objectives

The objectives include:

• Describing the components of hardware and software.
• Identifying restrictions due to physical components.
• Defining design characteristics of system communication networks.
• Establishing standards related to the system language to use and procedures.

System Construction and Testing

Steps in Project Management

1. Identify Project Activities: Decompose the overall project into a series of distinct activities.
2. Estimate Activity Duration: For each activity, estimate its duration. This typically involves using three plans: optimistic, pessimistic, and probable.
3. Identify Dependencies: Recognize activities that cannot begin until others have completed or until a certain date. These potential branches may modify the estimated time for a project.
4. Assign Resources to Activities: Given available resources and their availability, allocate them to each activity, striving to avoid overload.
5. Evaluate the Project: This step allows for assessing if proper planning has been done. It involves analyzing possible overloads and modifying start dates to improve the overall plan.
6. Analyze the Results: Often, multiple options arise once the planning is complete, especially due to resource overloading or tasks with high flexibility.

Formulas

Key formulas used in project scheduling:

• Early Start (ES): T(j) = max [t(i) + t(i, j)]
• Late Finish (LF): T'(i) = Min [t(j) - t(i, j)]