(d) System Analysis Systems analysis is a process of collecting factual data, understand the processes involved, identifying problems

and recommending feasible suggestions for improving the system functioning. This involves studying the business processes, gathering operational data, understand the information flow, finding out bottlenecks and evolving solutions for overcoming the weaknesses of the system so as to achieve the organizational goals. System Analysis also includes subdividing of complex process involving the entire system, identification of data store and manual processes. The major objectives of systems analysis are to find answers for each business process: What is being done, How is it being done, Who is doing it, When is he doing it, Why is it being done and How can it be improved? It is more of a thinking process and involves the creative skills of the System Analyst. It attempts to give birth to a new efficient system that satisfies the current needs of the user and has scope for future growth within the organizational constraints. The result of this process is a logical system design. Systems analysis is an iterative process that continues until a preferred and acceptable solution emerges.

2.1.2 Nature of analysis Analysis focus on systems' requirements specification and clarification and is the stage whensystem designers have to work at two levels of definition regarding the study of situationalissues and possible solutions in terms of what to do and how to do.System analysis process in its most general form includes the following main step: Identify the operation of the existing system; Understand what the existing system does; Understand the needs of the users; Decide on what the new system should be doing; Decide on how the new system will functio

In the process of system analysis, it is not always possible to study every aspect of each of the above steps and this is the time to pay attention to the following: If the method of working applied to participants of system development (users, analysts,designers, and programmers) is efficient; If the update of changes that happens in the process of system development is touchedupon; Tool for analysis; If workload allocation is reasonable. (Users have to take part in 2 systems (old and new)at the same time); If documents are easy to understand by all participants. 2.1.3 Importance of analysis in systems life cycle A systems analysis and development life cycle include the following tasks: survey,analysis, design, implementation, system testing and approving, installation andmaintenance. Main subjects in the whole life cycle of the system are: users, mangersand technical experts including analysis, design and program specialist...) The primary purpose of the analysis activity is to transform its two major inputs, users policyand system charter, into structured specification. This involves modeling the usersenvironment with functioning diagrams, data diagrams, entity-relationship diagrams and theother tools of the system analysis.The quality of system analysis can have a big effect on cspeed of system designing, the programming and time for testing because 50 per cent of faults in the system originated fromshortcomings in system analysis. Programmers can complain about slow speed of work because they have to review analysis and designing. This shows the bad quality of systemanalysts (because of inadequate experience or improper working attitude). Moreover, speedof system analysis activities is also a very important issues because there are alwayscomplaints about time, etc. And the products of the system analysts are often specificationdescription and diagrams of technical nature and these are not highly valued. For users, whatthey care about is what functions the program can perform if it meets the professional needdictated by the system, if its reliability is prove while testing with real figures, if the interfaceis users-friendly. Analysis plays a very important part in the life cycle of the system becausethis activity relates to almost all other activities and all subjects participated in the system

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Five steps of Requirements Analysis Based on the scope and nature of a particular software project, requirement analysis is carried out by an independent business analyst or a team of analysts to capture requirements. Typically requirements analysis involves capturing both functional and non-functional requirements and requires both technical and business expertise. To ensure effective capturing of requirement we follow a holistic process involving these broad steps:

Requirements Scope
Here, the scope and boundary of the proposed software solution is drawn. This is derived based on business requirements and goals.

Stakeholder Identification
In this step, all stake holders of the system (i.e users, customers, administrators etc) are identified. Proper identification of stake holders at this stage helps system analysts to draw a road map of gathering requirements.

Requirements elicitation / Requirement Gathering

Post identification of stakeholders, the tedious process of eliciting requirements follows. Based on the scope and nature of a particular software solution there can be multiple stakeholders. Interaction happens with stakeholder groups using various communication methodologies including in-person interviews, focus groups, market study, surveys and secondary research.

Requirement Analysis
Once user data is gathered, structured analysis is carried out on this data to arrive at models. Usually use-cases are developed to analyze the data on various parameters depending on the larger goals of the software solution. A few techniques used include requirements animation, automated reasoning, knowledge-based critiquing, consistency checking, analogical and casebased reasoning.

Software Requirement Specification (SRS)

Once the captured data is analyzed these are put together in the form of a software requirement specification document (SRS) or a system requirement specification (SyRS) document. This document serves as a blueprint for the design or development teams to start building the solution

on. It serves as a technical compendium of all the stakeholders needs including user requirements, system requirements, user interface and operational requirements.

Requirements Management
The final step of the requirements analysis process involves validating all elements of the requirements specifications document. Errors are corrected here and it can also accommodate minor changes to requirements of the proposed software solution.