System Implementation (GCSE IT)
This podcast is really about Implementation.
It is the part missed out in the Systems Life Cycle.
I didn’t miss it out purposely because of the way and the flow of the podcast has come
together.
But it is really important to understand certain aspects about Implementation.
As I have mentioned before, there are many different ways of looking at the Systems Life
Cycle.
In fact, depending on what you study, what level you study at, and who’s teaching you,
there will be different ways of interpreting the Systems Life Cycle.
This really does highlight this when you look at Implementation.
There is a generic way of looking at Implementation.
Some people would say that Implementation is really the execution of the thing, the
actual doing of everything that you’ve designed or everything that come from analysis and
then design.
So it is the actual putting in place of the thing.
That’s the generic way of looking at it.
In terms of the system, this is where the real disparity comes.
There is an argument to say that it is the Coding that is really the implementation.
It is when you get a team of people actually putting the thing together.
That’s the implementation of the actual work that goes on.
But I really want you to focus in terms of the way we look at it in Systems Life Cycle,
as the installation.
It is handover bit; that’s the important way of looking at it.
When it comes to answering questions in the exams, that’s really the bit that you are
going to focus on.
It is the Installation or what’s known as Handover.
You might be suddenly thinking to yourself: How can something that is generically known
as Execution or the actual doing of the thing you’ve designed or even arguably, Coded,
in terms of computer systems, how can that suddenly be about Installation, whether it
is installing it, putting it in place?
This really gives you a basic outline of what happens.
These steps are purposely in order.
But they’ve all got to be there in order for our system to be installed, handed over,
to be given to the client.
That’s really what’s it is all about.
Handing over and given to the client.
You got to have delivery.
You got to have all the parts in place, whether they come from the outside or whether your
team had built it, whether they are hardware and software.
They’ve got to be installed.
The hardware has got to be put in place.
It has got to be put together.
It has got to be made to work.
Then, you got to train the people who are going to use the system; usually, the employees
in the actual organization.
You got to put all the data there, so imagine this in the school environment.
You’ve have to have all the pupils and the data on the system.
Then, you are going to hand it over to be in the actual point you got right.
This is when the system is usable by you.
The trouble is with the way I described it in the last slide.
It makes it sound like it is one act and the error is you take it from me.
That’s not strictly true.
There are a variety of ways you can do handover and very few of them had actually liked that.
Here’s the four I want you to focus on and these are sometimes described in another way.
I have used symbology to help you remember these things.
But Parallel Pilot Direct and Phase-in are really the four ways that I want you to consider.
With Parallel, you are running one system, maybe an old system, and then the new system
altogether.
This could so you are looking at how one system does it and how another does it and then correct
in the new one and then eventually, you’ll stop the old one and make the new one the
system is going to be used.
You can also do it by piloting the new system.
In other words, it might give a certain amount of time on the new system out there and then
see and then take it offline and fix the errors and then go, “Right, we are ready now.”
It could be direct which is more like what I really hinted at in terms of, “Here it
is.
We are ready to go.”
The old one ships off and the new one starts.
In the Phased introduction is where you might have one department, then another department
and then another department.
All one element of the system working and then another element and then another element.
So if you are looking in an organization, it could be that the Sales Department using
the new angle of the system and then, the Manufacturing Department will start using
certain bit and then the Accounts Department.
That’s one way of doing it.
So Phased gradually one bit and then another bit and then another bit.
One bit that is worth mentioning in which really doesn’t flow from System Handover
but it does come in, in terms of Implementation is the idea of prototyping.
It could be that a Systems Analyst or the company that is in charge of this whole operation
decides that they want to put together a sample of how the overall thing is going to work.
This allows them to get some soft feedback or to even test the system.
It is a bit like a pilot but it is prototyping just a certain amount of it or a smaller version
of something.
It allows them to get an inside and the organization that the work you thought to get an insight
before the final system could work.
In prototyping, you really see like the idea of a physical object.
But prototyping could be a whole system.
[End of audio – 05:43] System Implementation (GCSE IT)
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