Kira Morris

System Analysis and Design

12/8/2017

Traditional vs Object-oriented Modeling

Describe how the traditional approach to modeling differs from the object-oriented approach. Do

you think that there are certain projects in which the object-oriented approach would not work as

well as the traditional approach? Why or why not?

Introduction

When developing information systems, most organizations use a standard of steps called the

systems development lifecycle (SDLC) at the common methodology for systems development.

SDLC includes phases such as planning, analysis, design, implementation, and maintenance. At

the heart of systems development, analysis and design are the second and third phases of SDLC.

The analysis phase usually requires a careful study of the current system, which continues two

sub phases: requirements determination and analysis study. Requirements determination process

usually involves a careful study of the current manual and computerized systems that may be

replaced or improved within the project. Analysis study process usually involves analysts to

study the structural requirements according to the components interrelationships and eliminate

redundancies. In the design phase, analysts design all aspects of the system, provide physical

specifics on the system from input and output screens to reports, databases, and computer

processes. In the effort to improve the systems analysis and design processes, different

approaches have been developed. The traditional waterfall approach focuses on

compartmentalizing project into several phases. The agile approach focuses on self-adaptive

processes with an emphasis on individual talents. The object-oriented approach focuses on

combining data and processes into objects and shares the iterative development approach of the
agile method. These approaches all have different advantages and disadvantages in a way that

they could be used to fit and optimize different kinds of projects.

Traditional waterfall SDLC

This structured approach looks at the system from a top-down view. It is a formalized step by

step approach to the systems development lifecycle (SDLC) which consists of phases or

activities. The activities of one phase must be completed before moving to the next phase. At the

completion of each activity or phase, a milestone has been reached and a document is produced

to be approved by the stakeholders before moving to the next activity or phase; painstaking

amounts of documentation and signoffs through each part of the development cycle is required.

"The center of the structured approach is the process model, which depicts the business processes

of the system, and the primary model that presents the processes is the data flow diagram."

Agile methodologies

The agile methodologies emphasize focus on people; on individuals rather than on the roles that

people perform. Unlike the waterfall development methodology, agile forgoes the documentation

but is initially difficult to adapt by adding many new facets to the development model that

confuse people. "Agile methodologies attempt to capture and use the dynamics of change

inherent in software development in the development process itself rather than resisting the ever-

present and quickly changing environment." Traditional methods demand complete and accurate

requirement specification before development; agile methods presume that change is

unavoidable and should be embraced throughout the product development cycle. The individuals

who fill those roles are more important than roles that people fill. Fowler believes that each
talented individual bring something unique to the development team and disagrees with the

application of engineering principles that viewed people as interchangeable units.

Self-adaptive software development processes is promoted by the agile methodologies. The

process used to develop the software is expected to be refined and improved over time.

Improvements are done through a review process associated with the compilation of iterations.

Agile methodologies are not for every project. Fowler recommends an agile or adaptive process

if your project involves: unpredictable or dynamic requirements, responsible and motivated

developers, and customers will understand the process and will get involved.

Object oriented analysis and design (OOAD)

The object oriented approach looks at a system from a bottom-up view. It combines data and

processes (methods) into objects. Within an information system, objects could be customers,

suppliers, contracts, and rental agreements. A set of diagrams or models is used to represent

various views and functionality of the system and is commonly known as Unified Modeling

Language (UML). The OO approach later becomes known as the unified process when these

models are used along with a particular method of systems development. Unified process is an

iterative and incremental approach to systems development. The goal of OOAD is to improve

system quality and productivity of systems analysis and design by making it more usable.

Objects are grouped into classes to share structural and behavioral characteristics. OOAD also

incorporates the use of inheritance; it allows the creation of new classes that share the

characteristics of existing classes. Similar to the agile methodologies, the object-oriented

approach to systems development is similar in the way of iterative development approach. In the

analysis phase, object-oriented models are used to fill the gap between a problem and the
solution. The aim, in essence, is to transform the use cases into analysis model to realize the

associated goals.

Comparison

Comparing between traditional methods and the object oriented method, the phases of those

approaches do not match, because the unified approach is a two-dimensional model as compared

to the traditional one-dimensional waterfall model. For the unified process model, all phases of

the SDLC are visited on to the developers satisfy the requirements in each increment. In each

increment, "activities of one phase predominate over the others – causing the systems

development effort to move from the inception to elaboration, from elaboration to construction,

and from construction to transition." Comparing between agile methods and traditional methods,

agile methods seems to be more suitable for small IS projects, and traditional method seems to

be more suitable for larger scale projects.

Comparing between the three approaches: traditional, agile, and object oriented approach, there

is no clear answer as which is the best approach since they all have different advantages and

disadvantages. Depending on the need, and willingness of businesses to make investment on

their particular project, it is difficult to tell which approach would bring the best outcome. In all,

SDLC's can be viewed as tools, similar to programming languages, databases, middleware

frameworks or any other piece of technology. Whether it works or not depends on your

company, your people, your processes and procedures, your history, and everything else.

Conclusion

The approaches of SDLC discussed above all have different ways of implementing and process

details. The traditional approach is perhaps the most straightforward method for systems analysis
and design, however, for even smaller projects; agile methods may be more desirable. However,

if the project's goal is more heavily emphasized on project scalability and component reusability,

object-oriented approach could be the best choice.

References:

1. Hoffer, J., George, J., & Valacich, J. 2006.Modern systems analysis and design 6th. Prentice

Hall: U.S.A.

2. Harris, A., Lang, M., Oates, B,. & Seau, K. 2011. Systems analysis & design: an essential part

of IS education. Journal of information systems education: 241-248.

3. Gabe, M. 2011. Revision proven development processes. Mortgage banking 71(12): 88-89.

4. Mohammad, R. 2006. Dilemma between the structured and object-oriented approaches to

systems analysis and design. The Journal of computer information systems: 32-42.

5. Erickson, J. 2005. Agile Modeling, Agile Software Development, and Extreme Programming:

The State of Research. Journal of database management: 88-100.

6. Cao, L., Ramesh, B. 2007. Agile software development: ad hoc practices or sound principles.

IEEE computer Society: 41-47.