Comprehensive Systems Development and Data Modeling Concepts for Students

What is an epic?

A user story that summarizes multiple user goals or needs.

What is an extension?

A variation or exception to the steps in the Main Success Scenario.

What is initial visioning?

An organizational activity that articulates at a high level the business problem or opportunity that a systems development project will address.

When are most system costs incurred?

In Year 0, before the go-live date.

Why may MoSCoW aligned to epics be more effective in large projects?

It supports story interdependencies, groups related value within epics, and enables semi-flexible scope prioritization.

Why does numerical ranking of user stories become difficult in large projects?

Large numbers of stories make fine distinctions (e.g., rank 37 vs. 38) meaningless, and value may depend on story interdependencies within epics.

What additional benefits do UI models provide when combined with user stories?

They provide visual representation, improve stakeholder feedback, clarify requirements, and generate new capability ideas.

Why are business benefits harder to estimate than system costs?

They require projecting future revenue/profit impacts, may evolve during development, and often ramp up slowly after go-live.

What is the primary purpose of use case narratives?

To describe sequential steps—including variations and exceptions—and model low-level business logic.

What is the main purpose of conceptual data modeling?

To identify and present in structured form key concepts, their attributes, and associations within a domain, creating shared understanding and a foundation for later technical design.

What is the purpose of a user story?

To specify a system's features from the user's perspective.

What is cardinality in EER modeling?

he number of instances of one entity associated with instances of another (one-to-one, one-to-many, many-to-many).

What is a decision node?

A point in the process model where control flow moves in different directions depending on a decision parameter value.

What is the MoSCoW model?

A prioritization approach classifying stories as Must Have, Should Have, Could Have, or Won't Have.

What is degree in EER modeling?

The number of entity types connected (unary, binary, ternary).

Why is modeling the current state important?

1.Team members may be unfamiliar with detailed business processes. 2.No single person fully understands all embedded business details. 3.The organization may never have fully agreed on how the process should be executed.

What is a user interface prototype?

A model of an application with limited implementation of key functionality.

What is the hallmark of a good system cost estimate?

Accuracy rather than precision.

What is a multivalued attribute?

An attribute that may hold multiple values at the same time.

What is an associative entity?

An entity type that represents a many-to-many relationship between two entity types.

When do business benefits begin?

At go-live (start of Year 1).

What are acceptance criteria?

Criteria that must be fulfilled for a user story implementation to be acceptable; they act as constraints on implementation options.

What are the two main characteristics of a relationship in EER modeling?

Degree and cardinality.

What are the three primary ways information systems serve organizational goals?

Increase top-line revenue, increase bottom-line profits (often through efficiency), and help the organization stay in business.

Why is high precision problematic in cost estimates?

It is unwarranted due to uncertainty and suggests unrealistic accuracy to decision-makers.

What is control flow?

Movement of control within an activity diagram from one activity to another.

What is a Main Success Scenario (MSS)?

The most basic, start-to-finish sequence of steps without variations or errors.

What is intelligent modeling?

The principle of creating requirements artifacts only when they add value in a given project context at a particular stage.

What is the time value of money?

The principle that money today is worth more than the same amount received in the future.

What is the planning fallacy?

The systematic tendency to underestimate system costs and overestimate business benefits.

What are the three components of a user story?

User role, goal, and justification.

When should use case narratives be limited?

When functionality is simple, features are independent, requirements are unclear, or requirements are rapidly changing.