Please articulate answers in at least two well-formed paragraphs.

As a guide, address
Who, Where, What, When, and focus on IMPACT of having this process or technology.

1) Discuss the purpose and benefits of following the Systems Development Lifecycle.
a) CONTEXT (what): The purpose of the Systems Development Lifecycle (SDLC)
is to create a repetitive process (aka a ‘framework’) to assist workers to
understand clearly which FEATURES needs to be included, the TIME it needs to
be delivered by and for an agreed upon COST. to document the actions and re-
actions undertaken during the planning and execution of delivering a project of
any kind. With documentation we see an increase in visibility and communication
among all participants. This allows for learning and optimization of all aspects
over time. The SDLC follows 5 organized phases:
i) PLANNING
ii) ANALYSIS
iii) DESIGN
iv) BUILD
v) MAINTANANCE
The benefits of following the SDLC are the successful delivery of a product or
service to stakeholders (that is, it meets their expectations).
b) Who: Everyone associated with a project benefits from increased communication
and visibility (‘learning’) received from documentation of all actions and reactions.
i) Stakeholders: get what they paid for and increase productivity/profits
ii) Developers: clarity on responsibility and feedback on progress
iii) Consumers: reduced prices, higher quality service or product
c) Where: Every industry—from repetitive manufacturing, building construction as
well as software development and even service delivery—following a process
that is defined and documented. Each industry has a different implementation
(method of implementation or ‘methodology’) for their process which increases
the likelihood that a project will be successful (cost, features, and timeline as
proposed before beginning).
i) Construction: Waterfall methodology where each phase is fully exhausted
before embarking on the next subsequent phase. This methodology has been
the most dominant form of SDLC as many industries build a product (like a
building) to well-defined set of specifications that RARELY change over time.
ii) Manufacturing: Lean (aka ‘Kanban’) methodology seeks improvements to
speed /efficiency of production as well as quality. Focus of this methodology
is on having experts at each station of an assembly line (such welding the
frame of a car or installing seats). Efficiencies are gained by reducing
movement, duplicate tasks for individuals, continuous innovation (including
both materials and processes) as well as developing standardized
components that can be mass-produced.
iii) Software: Agile or ‘Scrum’ is a highly iterative process that shortens a
complete SDLC cycle into a brief ‘sprint’ of perhaps only 2-weeks in length.
The purpose is to have a manageable set of features delivered quickly with
close, intimate communication with primary stakeholders (aka ‘customers’).
This methodology has become most popular with software development as
 competitive forces and market demands (aka ‘requirements’) can change
frequently; windows of opportunity for products to have a relevant commercial
impact are fleeting and often expire in less time than a full product can be
built following a traditional waterfall methodology.
d) When: SDLC is omnipotent! It is everywhere, always, and continuous. It does not
matter if a project is as simple as ‘making dinner’ or building the latest fancy
sports complex, successful ventures follow a standardized process that may
complete in less than a minute or span nearly a decade.
e) Focus on IMPACT/‘Why’: Without a framework of the SDLC, there would be no
documentation and therefore ‘guessing’ at most actions and reactions throughout
the project. Limited visibility and communication would allow for disastrous failure
of simple conflicts becoming significant and costly problems. Ultimately a high
probability of the entire project failing completely and NEVER being completed.

2) Explain what the instructor means by the phrase ‘organize or die’.

a) CONTEXT (what): ‘Organize or Die’ is a philosophy based on ‘survival of the
fittest’ a popular expression regarding competition in the natural world between
all organisms (plants as well as animals). Humans have been in competition for
the past 40,000 years from everything concerning survival (shelter, land, water,
food). Those that can predict changes in conditions of the environment (‘Learn’)
are better able to adapt and compete successfully for limited resources.
b) Who: Organize or Die is based on ‘Survival of the Fittest’ by Charles Darwin (‘On
the Origin of Species’, 1859). Everyone associated with competition will be better
suited to ‘win’ if they are continuously learning. This is through the continuously
iterative process of documentation, assessment, adoption of innovation, solid
execution, and review of output. Generational learning results in continuous
growth of surplus and expansion of population.
c) Where: Every person and every company in industry is competing for scarce or
limited resources (such as customers, raw materials, real estate, or even skilled
employees). Like ‘Survival of the Fittest’ Organize or Die articulates the
preparation, resilience, communication, and collaboration required for companies
to succeed in acquiring the targeted limited resources.
d) When: Like SDLC, Organize or Die is omnipotent! It is everywhere, always and
continuous whenever there is competition. Organize or Die philosophies can be
traced back to the earliest beginnings of human civilization:
i) Establishment of language (both written and spoken) led to social groups.
ii) Creation of social groups led to collaboration (aka ‘community’ where people
on same ’team’ care for one another and help each other to succeed)
iii) Collaboration led to separation of labor (people became ‘specialists’ at a skill
or purpose that benefits the larger group --- such as hunting, farming, iron-
working or child-care).
iv) Separation of labor led to emergence of experts (those same people who
specialized a skills became acutely aware of the inner-workings and details of
the processes required to deliver a quality product or service).
 v) Surplus and emergence of experts introduced experimentation of process and
innovation. As people became experts of process (and more importantly
created documentation of their processes), innovations and learnings were
able to become de facto standards that were passed on to future generations.
vi) Positive innovation leads to optimization of process and a surplus of
productive output --- more goods were able to be produced with the same (or
fewer) amount of effort.
vii) Surplus of food, shelter and emergency provisions led to increased leisure
time. This meant individuals did not have to perform daily subsistence-level
activities as these became a shared resource and re-enforced to cycle of
specialization.
viii)Surplus also led to trade with neighboring communities. Solid communities
became more willing and able to trade their surplus goods with neighboring
communities.
ix) Trade between communities led to formation of alliances and intra-community
support. Many communities had a relatively narrow collection of products that
were able to be produced locally; trade allowed for a variation of goods as
well as exposure to different world views, exchange of ideas, intra-communal
relations/marriage, and expansion of the ‘in-group’.
e) Focus on IMPACT/‘Why’: Organize or Die is a philosophy; without a focus on
being aware, planning, preparation, innovation, documentation, and change
(‘learning’) every company (and most individuals) will struggle to succeed.

3) Explain the history of the management of data over the past 4,000 years as
presented in lecture; how and why where certain organizational structures chosen?
a) CONTEXT (what): Throughout human history, there has always been learning
based on recording ‘data’. This requires setting goals about objectives and
desired outcomes based on prescribed set of processes. What is the agenda and
set of processes to be attempted? After these have been articulated and
documented, the result of each step needs to be recorded and assessed for
effectiveness. What worked? Where was the most effort exerted and for what
cost? Which step was the least effective or inefficient? Where were the most
egregious mistakes made? What were the reactions to these mistakes and were
they effective? The major design structure throughout human history (up until
~1980) has been a hierarchical structure, as that was the best method for
tracking data on paper. In a hierarchical structure, there is a top-down
organization for all data. For example, a large retail store managing employees
before World War II may have had stores organized by Region (East Coast,
Midwest, West Coast), followed by District (Pacific Northwest, Northern
California, Southern California), followed by Store, Department, and Manager.
Having a firm structure as this allows a finite, controlled-process to locate an
individual employee and all of the relevant ‘near-by’ data such as their manager,
employment location and contact information. This works well when the data
above the employee (such as RegionName, DistrictName, StoreName,
DepartmentName, and ManagerName) is all previously known as searching for
one random employee across hundreds of stores without context would be a
 tedious and burdensome effort of scanning each department of each store
across the entire system.

Since about 1980 there has also been relational structures in computerized
databases. Except for the last 125 years or so when electricity and large-scale
printing was available, ALL human history was spoken by individuals and shared
verbally, or data was managed by paper (either hand-written or manually printed
notes). While incredibly limited by today’s standards, paper-based management
was highly effective for thousands of years, helping societies thrive (generational
learning) as well as assisting independent commercial enterprises engage in an
organized, standardized structure and professional manner.
b) Who: Hierarchical database structures were synonymous with paper-based
systems for thousands of years and therefore there is no one-person given credit
for establishing the standard. Relational database model was first described by
Dr. Edgar F. Codd (researcher and computer scientist at IBM) in 1969.
c) Where: Hierarchical structure are still employed for most paper-based systems
(phone books, card catalogs, many file-based systems including spreadsheets,
and effectively any home-based filing system). There are currently tens of
millions computerized databases that follow the Relational model. Relational
database systems are fantastic in managing millions of ‘transactions’ for large
organizations with large volume sales activity (for example retail operations at
Amazon, Starbucks, and McDonald’s).
d) When: Relational database systems can manage tens of millions of transactions
in a single day without significant concern for performance or security. Any
system that values accuracy over speed (essentially any system that tracks
money or legal obligations) will most likely have a relational database
management system. Hierarchical systems are present today in many ‘non-
consequential’ data systems such as personal notes, grocery lists. Even the
organization of clothes in a closet can follow a hierarchal structure of season,
color, or matching outfits.
e) Focus on IMPACT/‘Why’: Humans have always been competitive and focused
on innovating to gain a competitive advantage. There is no sustained innovation
or improvement of process (‘learning’) without organization. Having a structure to
organize data is itself a competitive behavior and allows for documenting events,
people, actions, and reactions as well as assessment of resulting output. If there
were no structured to how we manage data (either paper or computerized/digital
data) people will be forced to guess at effectively everything we do.