Project planning

Project planning is all about handling people: how many, where and when are they needed. In addition those people will need resources to carry out their jobs: computers, offices etc. There are a number of different project planning tools which will be used during this stage in order to effectively plan out the project, timescale and the resources required. These include:

• Gantt Charts
• Critical Path Analysis (CPA)
• Project Management Software

System requirements specification

This document will include the following information:

Data capture methods for the system

Data inputs to the system

Data outputs from the system

Data processing within the system

The file structure for date storage

The user interface i.e. screen layouts, buttons, error messages

How information is accessed and indexed or sorted.

The operating system to be used

The hardware to be used to run the new system

Data Dictionary

A Data dictionary defines the:

• tables, fields, records and relationships
• constants, variables and data structures
• validation that is required in the system
• query structures

Testing documentation

Once the user requirements document and the system requirements specification have been written the analyst will know exactly what the system should be able to do.

A test plan is written at this stage to test the key parts of the system once it has been developed.

Prototyping

A 'prototype' is something that represents what you will finally create without having to worry about all the details - it captures the essential details to confirm that the design is likely to work.

In software the prototype is often written in a kind of shorthand English called pseudo-code, for instance 'Read in the record'.

The details do not matter at this stage but a record must be 'read in'.