Applying Total Quality Management to Information Systems

The following are the principal aspects of TQM - oriented quality assurance for
information systems:

1. Customer focus is achieved by involving end users in the IS development

process, particularly during its early stages when the requirements for the system
are being defined. Systems prototyping and joint application development (JAD)
are the principal techniques applied to this end.

Joint Application Development (JAD) is an organizational technique for conducting

meetings between the prospective users of an information system and its developers.

Joint Application Development (JAD) is an improvement strategy system initially utilized

for planning a computer based system, however can be connected to any advancement
procedure. It includes consistent association with the clients and distinctive originators
of the system being developed.

2. The life-cycle oriented systems development, with the inclusion of prototyping, is a

process that lends itself to control, measurement, and continuous improvement. Support

with CASE tools helps to ensure product quality.

3. Software development and maintenance teams are the primary human element in
ensuring software quality.

4. The quality measurement program can assist in consistent striving for higher quality
levels. Such a program rests on the foundation of software metrics. Software
matrices include techniques for measuring the attributes of software and techniques for
measuring the attributes of software development process.
 1. COMMITMENT AND UNDERSTANDING FROM EMPLOYEES – aims to ensure
that all of the employees in the organization know about Total Quality
Management policies. The employees must know the goals and importance of
these goals in order to the overall success of the organization

2. Quality Improvement culture – Employees in the organization are full of valuale

knowledge, anyone who has an idea on how the organization will improve its
operation are allowed to share and respected by the management.

3. Continious improvement in process – Even the organization is doing good still

the management should continue their process because Total quality
management or TQM is a continous process and not a progam that needs
constant improvement in all the related policies including the procedures and
control established by management.

4. Focus on customer requirements – The employees need to have patience in

their customers, give what the customers need because customers expect
perfect goods and services and always keep the customers close and happy.

Stages of the Systems Development Life Cycle 

The systems development life cycle (SDLC) gives organizations a means of controlling
a large development project by dividing it into manageable stages with well-defined
outputs. SDLC consumes a significant amount of resources itself - it takes time and
money to manage projects in such an elaborate fashion.

System Development Life Cyle (SDLC) is a conceptual model that includes approaches
and techniques for creating or adjusting systems for the duration of their life cycles.

Characteristics of the SDLC:

1. Every stage is defined in terms of the activities and responsibilities of the

development team members.

2. Each stage terminates in a milestone

3. Stress to students that developers often need to rework the deliverables produced in
earlier stages in the light of the experience they gain as the development effort
progresses and to accommodate legitimate user requests for change.

4. The effort expended on developing an information system is generally surpassed by

the efforts needed for the system's maintenance, which may cost over time twice as
much as the development. Many organizations spend 60 to 70 percent of their IS
budgets on systems maintenance.

5. Producing extensive system documentation during the development is necessary to

support maintenance. It is desirable that the documentation necessary for system
operation and maintenance be produced as the by-product of the development process.

1. Documented – user need to make sure that the model’s structure and
functions are well documented

2. Incremental – user need to make sure that the units are distint and easily
identifiable.

3. Iterative – risk management is increasingly develoved

4. Maintenance – user need to make sure that the system are dynamic

5. Outsourcing – user allow to design the project so that the pieces can be
outsourced.

6. Quality Control – user need to make sure that the level of risk are identifiable

7. Risk Management -

8. Simple- the model needs to be easy understood

9. Time Management- user need to make sure that they manage their time
properly
 10. End user involvement – user are involve in all the phases of the project
development

1. Stages of the SDLC and their deliverables

Feasibility Study - recommendation to proceed and system proposal or

- recommendation to abandon

Requirements analysis - requirements specifications

Logical design - conceptual design or programs and databases

Physical design - detailed design of systems modules and databases

- specification of system hardware and software

Coding and testing - accepted system with complete documentation

Conversion - installed operational system

Post implementation review - recommendation for enhancement of the system and

of the development method

-  recommendation for organizational adjustment

Feasibility Study or Planning - define the problem and scope of the system and its
objectives.

Analysis and Specification - Users need to define the requirements, their expectation
and how it will perform.

System Design – Determine the elements of a systems, it also includes the design of
application, data base, network, and system interfaces.
Implementation – user needs to implement the desing into source code through
coding.

Maintenance/Support - user are ready to resolve any issue that may exist in the
system.

Systems Analysis

Systems Analysis is the examination of the business issue that associations intend to
solve with an information system.

The task of systems analysis is to establish in detail what the proposed system will do

(as opposed to how this will be accomplished technologically).

The main purpose of the systems analysis stage is to accumulate data about the current
system keeping in mind the end goal to decide the necessities for an upgraded system
or another system.

Characteristics of systems analysis include:

1. Establishing the objectives of the new system, conducting an analysis of its costs and
http://www.umsl.edu/~joshik/msis480/chapt15.htm

the benefits to be derived from it, and outlining the process of systems implementation.

2. Detailed systems analysis must also establish who the system users are, what
information they should get and in what form, and how this information will be obtained
from the incoming data and from the databases.

1. It should be organized when it comes to structure and order. Arrangement of

components is important because it helps to achieve the objectives.
2. Each component needs to function with other component of the system in order to
interact.

3. Interraltion – means that there is an interralation occuring between the parts of the
organization. Its subsystem cannot fucntion well unless there us an input of another
subsystem.

4. Integration – talks about how systems is worked together, which means even two
unique functions system works within the system.

5. Central Objective – User must know about the central objective of the organization.