Week 9

*Sigh*.... Just a few more weeks to go before i will complete this unit..... but i must admit the last hurdle is always the toughest one and i would have to deal with it to pass this unit. I just can't wait to get quickly to the end of week 12 somehow because it means no more boring lectures.... :)

Today, i was late for class and i was welcomed this morning with an array of even more complex diagrams that i have not seen before in my earlier lectures. Unfortunately the study guide 9 was a mere few pages and were not useful. Thus, i ended up reading the lecture notes and try paying more careful attention to the lecture.

Lecture 9 titled - "Structured Design" introduced me to system flowcharts and structured charts. System Flowcharts happen to be representations of various computer programs, files, databases, and associated manual processes that make up a complete system. In short, they show data movement within a system.

While Structured charts describes functions and subfunctions of each part of system and it also shows relationships between modules of a computer program. A Structured chart is developed using Transaction Analysis and Transform Analysis.

One difference between these two steps that i understood from the lecture was that:

• Transform Analysis uses Data flow diagrams (DFD) fragments for inputs, while Transaction Analysis uses system flowcharts and event tables for inputs

That was pretty much what i could grasp from the lecture for week 9.

Few hours later.......Tutorial 9 class begins.....

Tutorial 9 happened to be a continuation of week 8 tutorial because last week, learning to write the use case descriptions took up the whole class to understand so we couldn't do the Activity diagrams and sequence diagrams. So our work for tutorial 9 class was to make activity diagram and sequence diagrams. It was quite interesting and i learned the usage of different symbols used in Activity diagrams and Sequence diagrams.

So with the completion of week 9, i have learnt so far how to make context diagrams, data flow diagrams, use cases, use case descriptions, sequence diagrams, activity diagrams, event tables and class diagrams. Frankly speaking, i am still not an expert at making these diagrams but i guess the whole ideas of the tutorial was to get an idea of how to go about making the diagrams anf the tutor has been helpful in facilitating how to make these diagrams step by step.

Like I said before in my previous blogs, I would've appreciated if i had some more practice questions on these diagrams apart from the book and tutorials to master my skill at constructing these diagrams. An example has been while doing my Assignment1a and now currently while doing Assignment 1b, I have so many doubts because there are so many possibilities that i can't decide what to choose and I end up not knowing what should be done.

ARGGH!!!.....I will just have to trust my judgement, understanding and ability that what i am doing is the right way to go.

In conclusion this is what Analysis is all about challenging yourself to go deep and trust your judgement based on the knowledge and ability that you possess.

Time to work again on Assignment 1b with a new zeal and perspective. Thanks to this blog facility, i am able to reflect and revitalize myself again that i can perform well in this unit.

Week 8

Wow! this week went so fast that i did not realize it. Probably it's just that time of the semester where the workload is at its peak and we end up being SUPER BUSY!!

Despite of all the time pressure, i managed to find some time at the end of the week to reflect on what was Week 8 all about for System Analysis and Design.

Thinking back to lecture 8, we have now reached the Design Stage. We learnt about the 7 Design Phase activities:

1. Design and integrate network
2. Design the application architecture
3. Design user interface
4. Design system interfaces
5. Design and integrate the database
6. Prototype for Design Details
7. Design and integrate the system controls

An important difference i learnt was that Analysis is focussed on what the system should perform, referring to business requirements whereas Design is more towards how system will be built i.e. defining structural components. By definition, Design is actually a process in which the system components at architectural and detailed level are described, organized and structured.

Besides that the learning objectives of the lecture were about knowing different architectural designs such client-server architecture, single, clustered, multi-computer architecture and centralised and distributed architecture. Similarly, different types of computer networks such LAN, WAN and Internet , their network configuration and network design were mentioned during the lecture. As usual, another lecture that turned out to be boring for me.

Honestly, this unit is getting more complex and boring as we progress towards the end of this unit. I just see complex diagrams, topics and text nowadays in lectures and unfortunately my workload is so much that i don't have much time to go through the book for more details. The study guide again was a good friend helping me understand what is actually in the lecture slides. The lecture slides is just full of brief information and diagrams which not enough for understanding.

Anyways my prime focus is getting all remaining assignments done and thinking about the exam instead of criticizing the unit. That's why i love this blog facility, i get to vent my frustrations on this unit and reflect on my experience so far to motivate myself to improve my understanding for this unit.

Oops! i forgot to mention that my event table was approved and all main requirements were present. I just lost marks on representation and professionalism. Now i can progress with my Assignment 1b with not much changes to make so time to speed up work!

Fast Forward...... to tutorial class!

The tutorial class was all about learning to make Use Case Descriptions. Our tutor was very helpful and needs some praise for making sure we understood the whole concept step by step. It was after a long time that i actually felt i was not much lost in both classes.

A nice way to end week 8 of my System Analysis and Design (SAAD) Journey.

Week 7

Like every lecture nowadays i find it confusing and too brief. Once again i ended up reading the study guide during lecture to understand what was being taught this week. In the middle of my reading i was also involved in a conversation with my classmate as boredom and sleepiness was creeping into me.

I just felt SUPER ... Relieved after submitting my Assignment 1a, it was only 5% but the thought and time that went it to doing it was just like an Assignment worth 10% or 15%. I wonder how Assignment 1b would be.... anyways still got a little time to do it.... ;)..... For now i just need to focus on what needs to be learned this week.

Our lecture title was "Finishing Analysis"..... Initially i thought we actually finished the analysis part and were going to start design from next week onwards and i was right.

Finished Analysis basically tells about the last 3 activities of analysis
1) Prioritize system requirements
2) Generate and evaluate alternatives
3) Review Recommendation with management

Prioritizing requirements is based on scope and level of automation. While implementation alternatives are generated and evaluated on key criterias such as: strategic plan, economic feasibility, schedule and resource feasibility, technology feasibility and operational, organizational and cultural feasibility. They also include building system in-house, or buying packaged solution or contracting with a vendor. Take note that while choosing a vendor a trial version of the software solution is installed , observed and benchmarked before deciding on having a contract with the vendor.

Once the alternatives have been selected the last stage is done which is to compile and organize a professional document or report which has an introduction & background on company, states all types of requirements (general, functional, and technical), details for submitting proposal, evaluation criteria & process and requested provider and project information that would be submitted to the executive steering committee or senior management for approval.

One more thing i forgot that this week's lecture was too brief so some parts of week 6 were revised mainly the use case diagram since we were going to do it in tutorial class later. Last week, we did not have the books so we did not start on class diagrams and use cases yet. Hopefully today would be a good exercise in tutorial.

THREE HOURS LATER.........

Time for tutorial class.... our tutor smartly printed the questions for tutorial because like last week some students bring their books..... luckily i brought my book so i could refer to topics that i was not sure about. So i had my first hands-on experience of making class diagrams and use cases and i felt it was "do-able." As i progressed towards the next questions of the tutorial the degree level for making the diagrams was getting harder which is in a way a good practice but it meant more time to do it and sadly i ended up not finishing it during the allocated tutorial time.

On the whole, the day started with relief and ended with relief so a happy day for me. The lecture started off as a blurry concept but the study guide helped understand that this material helps me do my Assignment1b which is about making a report stating the system requirements of CyberRoo and making the diagrams which were taught in the tutorial.

Now a feedback from my lecturer and tutor to know about my progress on Assignment1a awaits me next week and i hope i made good progress.... so i can work on Assignment1b as soon as possible.....

........... LOTS TO DO!.... in LESS TIME....

............OMG! .... week 9 is not far away....

Experience of Assignment 1a

A pleasant Hello! to all those who are following my blog. This section of my blog deals with my personal insights and suggestions on Assignment 1a.

The whole purpose of the exercise in Assignment 1a was basically to be able to understand the system that CyberRoo wants by knowing what are their main requirements. Then an event table is constructed to show those requirements in a logical order using key elements of the event table i.e. Event name, trigger, source, use case, response and destination. Mastering or having an in-depth understanding of the event table and its elements is a skill needed for System Analysts to extract main requirements and system functional specifications from their clients.

Basically while doing this assignment i figured out that there are many ways to interpret system requirements and i decided to take a safer option by including as much possibilities as possible in my event table so unintentionally i don't neglect the main requirements. So in the process i ended up with 28 events as oppose to 18, 20, 22, or 24, that most of my fellow colleagues had for their event tables. Once again emphasising that there are many ways to interpret things and being a successful System analyst means getting your interpretation and judgement correct most of the times which obviously comes with experience and skills that you develop with time as you work with different systems.

I would like to give some suggestions for this particular unit and assignment is that there should be more practice exercises for event tables because at most times while doing the assignment i was not sure about what i was doing. That mainly goes to the lack of practice and lack of feedback on the exercises i did before. So i would like the Fit2001 organizers to look into this matter that more practice with soultions should be given before an actual assignment is actually told to be done. Another reason being that as an IT student i got only one shot to do this subject so i expect to master a particular knowledge or skill that i learn from this unit rather than just partially knowing about it.

At this point, i would like to appreciate the Forums and Blogs facilites of this unit which helped me tremendously in making clear some of the doubts that i had for this assignment and to my one close friend who helped me to make the transcript of the CyberRoo audio. These materials also gave me the start up direction for the assignment and a study group helps all the time to discuss and clear doubts on topics that we face as we do our assignments.

Overall, it was a mixed experience which had its bad moments and good moments. The bad part was that the assignment was full of ambiguities adding up to the stress i already had for other assignments . The good part was that i would've not learned much about this unit if it were not for this assignment. Now the link of event tables, class diagrams and use cases are beginning to make sense and their purpose is becoming even more visible.

In short these last two quotes sums up my Assignment 1a experience,

"A day not learning anything, is a day wasted in your life"

"No pain.... No Gain"

Thanks for patiently reading my blog.

Week 6 - A hectic week

My week 6 began with the strong realization that i need to submit 3 assignments by the end of this week and System Analysis Assignment 1a was one of them. As usual, week 6 of the semester happens to be the peak time for being busy with all assignments and i have not done much reading lately so i was expecting to be lost in the lecture. And it was sadly TRUE!!.... The day we had lecture and tutorial happened to be my birthday and i was getting bored with all the diagrams that were not making much sense.. All those diagrams felt like a repetition of week 4 & week 5 lecture. Basically these diagrams were about Use Cases that we would need to draw in our Assignement 1b so it was imperative that i understood how to make them and how they actually work.

Then after a while i decided to go through the study guide and i found it extremely useful. It was descriptive and in point form explaining the things in a proper order. Like the study started with a definition of use diagrams, some examples and then a step-by-step process to draw a case diagram. That instantly changed my mood as my doubts were getting slowly cleared by the content of the study guide. I wish the lectures would have more detail and less diagram so students can understand the topic well because what i think is that too much diagrams just don't seem to be meaningful and would create more doubts.

The only thing i found important or useful in week 6 lecture was some guidance and handy information from the lecturer on how to do the assignment which is due in a few days. Like always whenever i do not understand fully the lecture I look forward to the tutorial to help me clear my doubts and understand the topic better.

To my amazement, i found the lecturer in the first hour of the tutorial explaining us how to construct Context Diagram and Data Flow Diagrams(DFD). I don't know how but somehow it slipped out of my mind that Yeap Boon Han was coming....hmmm... must've been the stress of 3 assignments to submit in a few days.... He helped us step by step in making the diagram and i was able to understand the concept behind making a context diagram and a DFD. But i have to still admit these are complex diagrams and require solid understanding to be able to construct them properly.

Sadly due to lack of time the lecturer could not help us create the event table for week 6 tutorial. I was very disappointed since i wanted to enhance my understanding on creating event tables and understanding their elements in detail to help me do my assignment 1a but now i have to do everything on my own.... :(

Once the first hour ended the tutor was reinforcing what the lecturer had discussed about earlier and i was patiently now waiting for the class to end since it felt like a really long day.
Class ends........... Work on Assignment 1a beginzzzzzz.........

WEEK 5

This is the Fifth week of my journey and i am finding it hard to link all what i have learnt so far.In the lecture i was finding it quite difficult to understand how to make those diagrams and what each element of the diagram was about. The lecture titled: "The traditional or structured approach to analysis" was regarding the context diagrams, data flow diagrams and the event tables. I really felt blank maybe because it was a morning class in which my attention span is not at the highest.... or probably i was not able to make those diagrams by hand at that particular moment in the lecture and was also not actually thinking about those elements.

But thankfully the lecturer told us that we just need to get an idea of these concepts and we will actually be drawing them and thinking about those diagrams and tables in the upcoming tutorials of the semester. I was relieved and was looking forward to the tutorials to make todays lecture on diagrams..... CRYSTAL CLEAR!!!

So i attended the tutorial 5 and found myself making an event table for the operation of a lift ..... Thankfully my tutor guided us step by step in the whole process of making "Event tables".... i actually when through the book to get some more detail on the elements of the Event table namely: Event Name, Trigger,Source, Activity,Response & Destination.

In my own words, I describe the elements as the following:

1. Event Name: Name of the particular event occuring
2. Trigger: Signal sent to tell that an event has occured
3. Source: The one who has entered the data to activate the event or is the reason the event occured
4. Activity: the steps or process are done to get the event done
5. Response: the actual step/ action taken to get the event done
6. Destination: to ensure the intended person gets the result or is affected by the event being completed

Once i drew the event table, i did some questions related to the object oriented approach.... about identifying the number of attributes and objects by reading the class diagram.

As far as i remember tha last part of the question was a quite stressful for me as i had to put a lot of strain in my brain.... mainly due to not understanding the question properly and sadly even the tutor's explanation couldn't clarify the question. I ended up answering it according to what i felt was right rather than it being the right answer.

So i hope to get the answers to those questions and the event table soon and get my understanding right on objects and event tables.... since i need to understand them properly now and not have a hard time doing my assignment which is due in my sixth week of my journey.

WEEK 4 Lecture & Tutorial Experience

As oppose to my past experience in my Fit2001 journey, this day was the most bizzarre of them all. Building up to the lecture i was so confused about not only the week 4 lecture but also about the week 4 tutorial. I was told by my tutor to prepare a set of questions regarding any company, product or brand to interview in tutorial and i show up this morning in lecture to find out that we were actually told to prepare questions regarding the case study.

I felt shattered and could not believe that all the effort to make those interview questions should be thrown in the waste bin in that instant. So i had to make an urgent meeting with my group members to make a new set of questions on the case study. I had to do all the research and thinking with my group members in the space of 3 hours before our tutorial class to only face another confusion and utter disappointment.

Our tutor says that interview is based on not any unknown company..... not on any case study but on Gladwells presentation and the Pepsi ad..... At that particular moment i when i heard that announcement i felt like banging my head on the desk but i chose not to since i needed my head safe and sound to make the new set of questions. Again in a rush and with enormous amount of stress hitting me, we somehow got the job done in the allocated time given to us to start making a new set of interview questions.

Then the tutor engaged in a one-on-one discussion with each group to answer questions and clarify things. Once that was done i had a sigh of relief that this tutorial is done with.

But i was again sad and unsatisfied that the additional tutorial question which i worked so dilligently to come up with answers was done in a rush and the question on drawing the activity diagram was not explained properly since the tutor was in rush as class had already ended by then. Thus i hope i get the solution in the coming weeks so i verify that my concepts are clear and strong.

Ooops! In all this confusion and stress i forgot to mention about the new topics introduced in week 4 lecture called "Beginning Analysis" . WEEK 4 lecture was about defining events, understanding objects, classes, attributes and methods. It also mentioned about the types of events, the reasons for modeling and their respective types. Class diagrams, event tables, and types of things were also shown to get a better idea of them. But i still felt after the lecture that i have a vague idea about things and would hope that some reading and tutorials in the next few days will clear that concept.

This sums up my week 4 experience and i am looking to the next few weeks to be able to link all the information i know so far about Fit2001 so I would be able to tackle my assignments with greater ease...... :)