The business situation is formally specified and a solution to the business problems and needs is identified that meets the client’s budget, timeline and requirements.

In this phase of the SDLC, Yacoset’s engineers work closely with the client to understand the customer’s needs and his or her business situation that demanded a new or updated Information System.

From this, the client’s business situation is formally specified and a solution to the business problems or business needs is stated.

The engineer analyzes the functionality and performance requirements of the system that is to be constructed. In so doing, the systems engineer defines a statement of scope, where the client’s primary business objectives are identified. The engineer asks the client salient questions about the overall purpose and mission of the information system and how the software will fit within that system. The resulting statement of scope is an easy-to-read, plain-language paragraph that synopsizes the chief purpose of the software.

Sounds simple enough, a paragraph that summarizes the software application that is to be developed to meet the client’s objectives. Ever tried to define a mission statement for your business in a single paragraph? As Rainer Maria Wilke wrote, “I would have written you a shorter letter, but I didn’t have enough time.” To effectively and accurately articulate a paragraph that encapsulates the functionality and objectives of a system is a challenging prospect. It requires much review and analysis of the requirements, consultation with the customer and a thorough understanding of the business’s needs and problems that must be solved.

Although this statement of scope provides simply an overview of the information system, it is key to establishing the foundation of the application. From this foundation, further questions will be asked and the statement of scope will be refined and elaborated as individual functions and operations are identified and detailed. Eventually, this will lead to a comprehensive design that will act as the blueprint and foundation for the implementation of the application.

The statement of scope is important because it specifies the boundaries of the project, what will and will not be included in the development of the software application. A clearly defined and unambiguous statement of scope helps to eliminate significant change as the project proceeds forward.

The statement of scope does not end with the identification of the overall system. After key inputs and outputs have been distinguished, the next phase in the evolution of the statement of scope is to identify potential information system constraints, such as budget restrictions, the impact of hardware configurations on software, how one system may impact another, the target audience, performance requirements and operating system inconsistencies, among many other factors. The purpose of identifying these constraints is to examine risks and single-out potential problems in order to come up with solutions to these problems.

The statement of scope is elaborated based on the answers to key input and output questions as well as the identification and solution to other information system problems.

As the statement of scope is written and refined, it is the software engineer’s responsibility to model the software after real-world objects as much as possible. This allows software applications to be more easily understood both by users and the engineers implementing them. By viewing the information system as a real-world set of objects that have characteristics and behaviors, objects are identified that represent data and how that data will be processed. This gives our engineers and the customer an overall picture of the software that is to be engineered and allows for processes to be allocated to individual system elements.

From the statement of scope and an identification of the system’s key inputs, outputs and operations, evolves a model of the system. It is here that our software engineers deduce multiple solutions to individual system problems. The solutions are then analyzed and prioritized based on project requirements, the business’s specific needs, existing technology, user issues and interfaces, and legal guidelines.

Considering the above criteria allows the best system configuration to be selected to meet the budget, timeline and requirements of the client. Thorough examination of all elements helps ensure that the proposed software application will meet the customer’s needs while maintaining superior quality, stability, reliability and security.