Giezelle Mae C.

Gonzales

BA 73 – Chapter 5

Friday, April 24, 2015

Review Questions

1. Distinguish between system professionals, end users, and stakeholders.

System Professionals are system analysts, system engineers, and

programmers, they actually build the system. They gather facts about the problem
with the system and analyze these facts to formulate a solution to solve the problem.
End users are the one whom the system is built; these are the people in all level of
the organization that will use the system built by the System Professionals. These
include managers, operation personnel, accountants and internal auditor.
Stakeholders are individual either within or outside the organization who have an
interest in the system but not end users. These includes accountants, internal and
external auditor and IT auditor.

2. What is the role of the accountant in the SDLC? Why might accountants be called on
for input into the development of a non accounting information system?

Accountant are involved in a system development in three ways, First accountant

are users. Like all users, accountants must provide a clear picture of the problems
and needs to the system professionals. Second, accountants participate in system
development as a member of the development team. The accountant may be
consulted to provide advice or to determine if the proposed system continues an
internal control risk. Third, accountants are involved in system development as
auditors.

3. What are the three problems that account for most system failures?

Poorly specified system requirements, ineffective development techniques and

lack of user involvement in a system development.

4. Why is it often difficult to obtain competent and meaningful user involvement in the
SDLC?

Users must be actively involved in the system development process. Their

involvement should not be stifled because the proposal system is technically
complex. Regardless of the technology involved, the user can and should provide a
detailed written description of the logical needs that must be satisfied by the system.
5. Who should sit on the system steering committee? What are their typical
responsibilities?

The composition of the steering committee may include the chief executive
officer, the chief financial auditor, the chief information officer, senior management
from user areas, the internal auditor, and senior management from computer
services. Typical responsibilities of the steering committee includes resolving
conflicts that arises from new system, reviewing projects and assigning priorities,
budgeting funds for the system development, reviewing the status of individual
projects under development and determining the various checkpoint throughout the
SLDC whether to continue with the project or terminate it.

6. Why is strategic system planning not technically considered to be part of the SDLC?

Technically, strategic system planning is not part of the SDLC because the SDLC
pertains to a specific application. The strategic system plan is concerned with the
allocation of such system resources as employees, software, and
telecommunication.

7. What is strategic system panning, and why should it be done?

Strategic system planning involves the allocation of system resources at the

macro level. There are four justification of strategic system planning: A plan that
changes constantly is better than no plan at all. Strategic planning reduces the crisis
component in a system development, Strategic planning provides authorization
control for the SDLC and cost management.

8. What is the purpose of project planning, and what are the various steps?

The purpose of project planning is to allocate resources to individual application

within the framework of the strategic plan. This involves identifying the user needs,
preparing proposals, evaluating each other proposal’s feasibility and contribution the
business plan, prioritizing individual projects and scheduling the work done.

9. What is the object-oriented design (OOD) approach?

Object-oriented design (OOD) builds system is to build information system from

reusable standards components or objective. This approach may be equated by to
the process of the building an automobile. Car components do not create each new
model from the scratch.

10. What are the broad classes of facts that need to be gathered in the system survey?

Data resource. These include external entities, such as customer or vendors.

 Users. These includes both the managers and operation users.

Data stores. Data stores are the files, database, accounts and source documents
used in the system.

Process. Processing task represent a decision or an action trigged by information.

Data flows. Data flows are represented by the movement of documents and reports
between data resources, processing task and users.

Controls. These include both accounting and operational controls and maybe
manual procedures or computer controls.

Transaction volumes. The analyst must obtain a measure of transaction volumes for
a specified period of time

Error rates. As system reached capacity, error rates increase to an tolerable rate.

Resource cost. Used by the current system include the cost labor, computer time,
material and direct overhead.

Bottlenecks and redundant operations. The analyst should note points where data
files come together to form a bottleneck.

11. What are the primary fact-gathering techniques?

Primary gathering techniques include observation, task participation, personal

interview and reviewing key documents.

12. What are the relative merits and disadvantages of a currents system surveys?

Advantages of surveying the current system are Identifying what aspect of the
old system should be kept, Forcing system analysts to fully understand the system
and Isolating the root of problem symptoms. The disadvantages of surveying the
current system are current physical tar pit, this term used to describe the tendency
on the part of the analyst to be “sucked in” and “blogged down” by task. Second is
thinking inside the box, the analyst may develop a constrained notion about the new
system should function.

13. Distinguish among data resources, data stores, and data flows.

Data resource includes external entities, such as customer or vendors, as well as

internal sources from other department. Data stores are the files, database,
accounts and source documents used in the system. Data flows are represented by
the movement of documents and reports between data resources, processing task
and users.
14. What are some of the key documents that may be reviewed in a currents system
survey?

Some of the key documents that may be reviewed in a currents system survey
are organizational charts, job description, accounting records, chart of accounts,
policy statements, description of procedures, financial statements, performance of
reports, system flowcharts, source documents, transaction listings, budgets,
forecasts and mission statements.

15. What is the purpose of a system analysis, and what type of information should be
included in the system analysis report?

The primary purpose for conducting a system analysis is to identify user needs
and specify the requirement for the new system. The requirements statement within
the report establishes an understanding between the system professionals,
management, users and other stakeholders.

16. What is the primary objective of the conceptual system design phase?

The purpose of conceptual design phase is to produce several alternative

conceptual systems that satisfy the requirements identified during system analysis.

17. What are two approaches to conceptual system design?

The two approaches to conceptual system design: the structured approach and
object-oriented approach. The structured approach develops new each new system
from scratch from the top down. The object-oriented build stem from the bottom up
through the assembly of reusable modules rather than create each system from
scratch.

18. How much design detail is needed in the conceptual design phase?

The designs however possess sufficient detail to demonstrate how the two
system are conceptually different in their functions.

19. What is an object, and what are its characteristics in the object-oriented approach?
Give two examples.

The objected-oriented approach is to build information system from reusable

standard components or object. The concept of reusability is central to the object-
oriented approach to system design. Once created, standard modules can be used
in other systems with similar needs. Ideally, the organizations systems professionals
will create a library of modules that can be used by other system designers within
the firm.
20. What is the auditor’s primary role in the conceptual design of the system?

The auditor is the stakeholder in all financial statement and thus, has interest in
the conceptual design stage of the system. The audibility of a system depends in
part on its design characteristics. Some computer auditing techniques require
systems to be designed with special audit features that are integral to the system.

21. Who should be included in the group of independent evaluators performing the
detailed feasibility study?

The following individuals may be involved: The project manager, a member of the
internal audit staff, a user representative, and a system professionals who are not
part of the project but have a expertise in a specific area covered by the feasibility
study.

22. What makes the cost-benefit analysis more difficult for information systems than
most other investments on organization may make?

This technique is frequently used for estimating the expected financial value of
business investments. However, in this case the investment is an information
system, and the cost and benefits are more difficult to identify and quantify than
those of traditional capital projects. Although imperfect for this setting, cost-benefit
analysis is employed because of its simplicity and absence of a clearly better
alternative.

23. Classify each of the following as either one-time or recurring costs:

a. training personnel- One-time Costs

b. initial programming and testing- One-time Costs

c. systems design- One-time Costs

d. hardware costs- Recurring Costs

e. software maintenance cost- Recurring Costs

f. site preparation- One-time Costs

g. rent for facilities- Recurring Costs

h. data conversion from old system to new system

i. insurance cost- Recurring Costs

j. installation of original equipment- Recurring Costs

k. hardware upgrades- Recurring Costs

24. Distinguish between turnkey and backbone systems. Which is more flexible?

Turnkey Systems are completely finishes test systems that are ready for
implementation. Backbone Systems provide a basic structure on which to build.
Turnkey System is more flexible than Backbone system.

25. Discuss the relative merits of in-house programs versus commercially developed
software.

In house are not dependent upon an outsider vendor for update and
maintenance, these aspect are controlled locally. The In-house programs are
completely customized where the commercially developed is not.

26. Why is modular programming preferable to free coding?

Regardless of the programming language used, modern program should follow a

modular approach. This technique produces small programs that perform narrowly
defined tasks. The benefits of modular programming are Programming efficiency; a
firm can assign several programmers into a single system. Maintenance efficiency,
small modules are easier to analyze and change, which reduces the start-up time
during program maintenance. Control, by keeping modules small, they are less likely
to contain material errors of fraudulent logic.

27. Why should test data be saved after it has been used?

To have a back up in case of data loss. To give the auditor a reference pf

designing and evaluating future audit test.

28. Explain the importance of documentation by the systems programmers.

System designer and programmers need documentation to debug erroes and

perform maintenance on the system.

29. What documents not typically needed by the other stakeholders do accountants and
auditors need for the new system?