Contemporary Approaches and Techniques for the Systems Analyst

A recent survey of methodologies and techniques currently used in organizations for developing information systems indicates significant trends that call for a revision of the Information Systems (IS) Systems Analysis and Design (SA&D) course to define what methodologies, techniques, models, and tools need to be taught. As authors of analysis and design textbooks, we are particularly concerned about these trends, as are all who are involved in information systems educational programs. Each program needs to consider how to incorporate three fundamental changes on the SA&D curriculum - the growing popularity of object-oriented techniques, the emergence of the iterative approach, and the increasing adoption of the agile approach. This article discusses these three fundamental changes and references research describing the recent trends. Based on this research and on our experience teaching and writing about analysis and design, we make some recommendations. Given the vast number of topics in analysis and design, it is time to seriously consider including two courses in the IS curriculum that can deal with the breadth of the system related topics in the contemporary environment. In terms of functional requirements and analysis issues, we argue for employing a use case driven approach. We recommend that the SA&D courses use Unified Modeling Language (UML) whenever possible for modeling; however, we note some of the usability problems of UML. We suggest that the time has come to drop the data flow diagram (DFD). We also consider the impacts of the outsourcing trend on the course coverage. [PUBLICATION ABSTRACT]