1. IE 423 Design of Decision Support System Designing Systems

2. How to get started You need to design a DSS … …what do you need to do first? Suppose you know what the problem is and you need to develop a DSS to help solve the problem…. What do you do first?

3. Requirements Analysis You need to find out what is needed or required. Referred to as Requirements Analysis – Common tool in systems engineering – Sometimes called requirements engineering A process for determining what is needed or required from the system that you will design and develop

4. Requirements Analysis So, how do you do this? Identify stakeholders Who are the stakeholders

5. Requirements Analysis Who are the stakeholders? – The decision makers – Management above the decision makers – Others that might be impacted by or benefit from the system – Regulators – Maybe antagonists – Horizontal integrators (often missed)

6. Requirements Analysis Now that you know the stakeholders, … What are you going to do with them?

7. Requirements Analysis What are you going to do with them? Elicit the DSS requirements from them? How?

8. Requirements Analysis Elicit the DSS requirements from them? There are several ways…

9. Requirements Analysis Elicit the DSS requirements from them? There are several ways… – Interviews – Should start with a brief discussion of the context.. – What is the issue Should be carefully structured to focus on the system Meticulous record keeping and documentation Restatement and acknowledgement Multiple interviews – hard to integrate

10. Requirements Analysis Elicit the DSS requirements from them? There are several ways… – Focus groups – Group discussion process – Structured process Contextual briefing (but be careful) Use predefined questions – But allow for discussion drift Get all participants to respond (eye for commonality) Document responses – Whiteboard – Newsprint tablets

11. Requirements Analysis Elicit the DSS requirements from them? There are several ways… – Focus groups Usually done face-to-face Teleconference Video conference On-line collaboration tools

12. Requirements Analysis Elicit the DSS requirements from them? There are several ways… – Questionaires and surveys – polls

13. Requirements Analysis Important – Feedback loop http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Requirements_analysis

14. Requirements Analysis Document results Share with stakeholders Create process for feedback Revise per feedback as appropriate

15. Requirements Analysis Final revised document become the Requirements Document – Should be defined in exquisite detail – Will be your “master plan” for the design of your DSS – Formalize a change management process ???

16. Requirements Analysis Requirements Analysis tools Requirements Document (Specs) Prototyping Use Cases

17. Requirements Analysis Prototyping – Sometimes rapid prototyping – Quick and dirty version of the system Why quick? Why dirty Not the real thing!!

18. Requirements Analysis Prototyping – Problems with prototyping? Been there, done that! Stealing code

19. Requirements Analysis Use Case – Scenario analysis Define the usage scenarios for all relevant stakeholders Define inputs for each scenario Define outcomes

20. Requirements Analysis Unified Modeling Language – Tools for modeling the behavior of systems