Flexible Software Design: Systems Development for Changing Requirements

✍ Scribed by Bruce Johnson, Walter W. Woolfolk, Robert Miller, Cindy Johnson

• Year: 2005
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 463
• Edition: 1
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

A developer's knowledge of a computing system's requirements is necessarily imperfect because organizations change. Many requirements lie in the future and are unknowable at the time the system is designed and built. To avoid burdensome maintenance costs developers must therefore rely on a system's ability to change gracefully-its flexibility. Flexible Software Design: Systems Development for Changing Requirements demonstrates the design principles and techniques that enable the design of software that empowers business staff to make functional changes to their systems with little or no professional IT intervention.The book concentrates on the design aspects of system development, the area with the most flexibility leverage. Divided into four parts, the text begins by introducing the fundamental concepts of flexibility, explaining the reality of imperfect knowledge and how development participants must change their thinking to implement flexible software. The second part covers design guidelines, stable identifiers, stable information structures, the Generic Entity Cloud concept, and regulatory mechanisms that give business staff control over system modifications. Part three relates strategic information systems planning to flexible systems. It examines the elicitation of requirements and the relevance of agile methods in a flexible systems environment. It also discusses practical aspects of stable identifier design and compares the testing of traditional and flexible software. In part four, the book concludes with details of the flexible UniverSIS system and an explanation of the applications and extensions of the Generic Entity Cloud tools.The combination of smart design and smart work offered in Flexible Software Design can materially benefit your organization by radically reducing the systems maintenance burden.

✦ Table of Contents

Contents......Page 8
Introduction......Page 18
The Authors......Page 22
INTRODUCTION TO FLEXIBILITY......Page 24
1. The Serious Problems with IT Today......Page 26
2. The Reality of Imperfect Knowledge......Page 36
3. Outcome, Not Methodology......Page 58
4. Realignment of Roles......Page 70
5. UniverSIS: A Flexible System......Page 86
WHAT IS REQUIRED TO ACHIEVE FLEXIBILITY......Page 102
6. Guidelines for Flexible Software Design......Page 104
7. The Importance of Stable Identifiers......Page 112
8. Regulation: Managing Artificial Limits......Page 130
9. Stable Information Structures......Page 156
10. The Generic-Entity Cloud......Page 176
HOW TO DESIGN FLEXIBLE SOFTWARE SYSTEMS......Page 198
11. Flexibility and Strategic Systems Planning......Page 200
12. Requirements Determination for Flexible Systems......Page 222
13. System Design with an Eye on Flexibility......Page 248
14. Implementing Stable Identifiers......Page 266
15. Testing and Maintenance of Flexible Software......Page 280
16. Identifying, Managing, and Acquiring Quality Flexible Software......Page 294
FLEXIBILITY: DELVING DEEPER......Page 314
17. A Closer Look at UniverSIS......Page 316
18. Evaluator: a Flexible Tool for Maintaining Business Rules......Page 342
19. Tuition-Remission Case Study: Traditional versus Flexible......Page 364
20. Regulatory GECs......Page 388
21. GEC Applications and Extensions......Page 402
22. GEC Aids......Page 420
Appendices......Page 440
Index......Page 446