Department of Computer Science

SDD - Overview of Systems Development

To: Systems Design and Development

This document identifies the main areas we are interested in, and provides a general framework for the course contents

SDD mainly concerned with software aspects of computer-based systems.

Producing (software) systems has many similarities with, and many differences from, other production activities.

A Baked Bean Factory

There are many inter-related, coordinated activities needed to produce baked beans successfully.

We identify four main categories into which these might be grouped:

Production Activities

what is produced? what gets done in the production process?

investigate (create?) market
set up production line
    buy beans/buy cans/cook beans/fill cans/ship beans...

Phasing of Production Activities

        when do things get done? ordering of activities in 1.

Quality-assurance Activities

are we making the right product (do customers want it)?
are we making it to an adequate standard?

inspection of raw materials, and of finished product
fault reporting and monitoring
measurement of fault rates, times to respond, etc.

Management Activities

planning (of production, and development of new products)
estimate resources required for above
acquire resources needed
manage individuals and teams involved in all this

what gets done in production process?

• find out user requirements
• analyse user requirements
• decide on system high-level design/architecture
• produce detailed design of program(s)/modules
• code the modules
• unit test the modules
• integrate and system test
• release/sell to customers
• provide post-release support/maintenance
• write user documentation

what is produced? software, obviously!

• code (programs, modules, units, components, classes, clusters....)
• user documentation (User Guide, Help, etc)
• technical documentation (for maintenance, etc...)
• development documentation

We can regard all of these products as models of different aspects of the problem and/or solution, produced for different "users" of the software.

One major strand of SDD is modelling of software systems.

Phasing of Production Activities

when do things get done? ordering of activities in 1.

Not necessarily a single, ordered pass through the activities listed in 1. (i.e. not necessarily a "waterfall").
Different process models ("lifecycles") for software production.

A second major strand of SDD is process models

 Quality-assurance Activities

are we making the right product (do customers want it)? - validation
are we making it to an adequate standard? - verification

as above (inspection, testing, verification, metrics), plus

document control (versioning of models and code)
configuration management

A third major strand of SDD is "engineering practices" in software development.

 Management Activities

estimation, planning, team formation and leadership

A final major strand of SDD is project management.

A wide-ranging course, but focus is technical, rather than corporate - some, but not too much, overlap with Software Quality and Business Issues courses.