Information Analysis

"Information Analysis" refers to the process of gathering information from all Stakeholders to acquire an understanding of the Business Process that is accurate enough to be able to derive a fitting solution for the requests made (Business Goals). The output of this step is the understanding of the System Analyst of the As-is Business Process and the To-be Business Process in an illustrated form, such as Flow Chartswhich will be explained in the following. After that, an overview of different Information Gathering Techniques is provided.

As-is Business Process

"As-is Business Process" refers to the specific Business Process that requires optimization as it currently takes place before the new application is deployed.

The System Analyst tries to acquire a thorough understanding of the functioning of the current Business Process and tries to identify the root problems that cause the bottlenecks (if Business Goals are formulated as issues) or potentials to the achieve the specified Business Goals (if formulated as optimization goals) by talking to the stakeholders and generally making use of Information Gathering Techniques. (It should be noted that this only refers to the Business Process itself, not the application that is used in the Business Process.)

To illustrate their understanding to the stakeholders, they can present it as Business Process Flow Chart that includes all relevant entities and process steps and highlights the identified bottlenecks and/or potentials, for example like this:

To-be Business Process

"To-be Business Process" refers to the optimized Business Process, i.e. how the Business Process should be in the future after deploying the new application.

From the gaps or potentials that the System Analyst identified, the current Business Process gets re-designed in a way that resolves the bottlenecks and enables the utilization of the potentials.

The To-be Business Process can be illustrated in a Business Process Flow Chart that is derived from the one that was made for the As-is Business Process. The differences between the two need to be visible as they illustrate the changes that are being proposed to optimize the Business Process.

This optimized Business Process Flow Chart can look like this:

Information Gathering Techniques

To be able to acquire an accureate understanding of the As-is and To-be Business Processes, the System Analyst needs to obtain all relevant information. There are different Information Gathering Techniques that can be used for this purpose which will be described in the following. The documentations that result from these methods make up the output of this step.

Document Observation

Document Observation is also called Review of Records, Procedures, and Forms. Document Observation refers to seeking existing records of the System and Business Process which helps to understand them thoroughly, such as descriptions of the current system functionalities and capabilities. Within a short period of time, the procedure manuals and forms describe the format and functions of present systems. It can provide a clear understanding of the operations that are handled in the organizations, identify input for processing, and evaluate performance.

On-site Observation

On-site Observation refers to the visit of the System Analyst in the organization in order to observe the working of the current System and Business Process. In this method, information gathering is done by noticing and observing the people, events, and objects in the organization. It is a direct method for gathering information. It is useful in situations when the data collected is in question or prevents clear explanation by end-users.

User Interview

Interviewing refers to the face-to-face communication between the Systems Analyst and the Business Users to gather information about the problem. The interview can be formal or informal, as the success of an interview depends on the skill of the System Analyst as an interviewer. It is the oldest and most often used tool to gather information because it is the best source for gathering qualitative information. It can handle complex subjects and bridge the gap areas of misunderstandings and minimizes future problems.

Questionnaires

Questionnaires refer to the gathering of information from a large audience in the form of a survey. This method is used by System Analysts to gather information about various issues of the System and Business Process from a large number of people because an interview is not possible when the target audience is large. It is useful in situations to know what proportion of a given group approves or disapproves of a particular feature of the System. It is very effective in surveying the interests, attitudes, feelings, and beliefs of users.