Product Description

Building on its continued success this text has been revised to provide the most comprehensive, balanced and up-to-date coverage of systems analysis and design available. The Fourth Edition maintains the dual focus on the concepts and techniques from both the traditional, structured approach and the object-oriented approach to systems development. Instructors have the flexibility to emphasize one approach over the other, or both, while referring to one integrated case study that runs through every chapter.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #593978 in Books
• Published on: 2006-02-16
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 712 pages

About the Author
John Satzinger is a Professor in the Computer Information Systems department at Missouri State University. With more than 15 years of teaching and research experience at leading CIS and MIS university programs, Dr. Satzinger's interests and specialties include systems analysis and design, graphical user interface design, object-oriented development, and database and client-server development. He holds an MBA from Cal Poly University and earned his Ph.D. at the Claremont Graduate University.

Robert Jackson is a retired member of the faculty of the Information Systems Department at Brigham Young University. He has researched, published, and taught in the areas of object-oriented systems development, e-commerce, Web systems, project management, and information systems education. Dr. Jackson received his Ph.D. in Computer Science from Brigham Young University. He is currently self-employed as a principal in several new e-commerce ventures, where he gets to practice the analysis, design, and business principles contained in his textbooks.

Stephen Burd is an Associate Professor at the University of New Mexico, where he has been teaching courses in management information systems, networks, databases, and hardware/software since 1984. He received his bachelor's and master's degrees at the University of Baltimore, and his Ph.D. from Purdue University, and has authored more than seven top-selling textbooks for Course Technology.

Customer Reviews

Packed with disjointed and repetitive information!
If you want to make the subject of Systems Analysis and Design appear to be more daunting than it really is, then read this book! There is no doubt that the authors know their subject, but they seem to have no idea of how to clearly explain the concepts. The real issue appears to be a "disconnection" between the author's knowledge and how that translates into a clear explanation for somebody who is new to this subject.

To explain this better, many concepts are introduced in early chapters, and then again in more detail in later chapters. Sounds logical right? Well, sometimes. What you find here is that you quickly become overwhelmed with briefly introduced concepts, acronyms, descriptions, foot-notes, side-notes, best practice notes, headings, subheadings, dot-points, highlighted-text, diagrams and tables (that often only make sense in subsequent pages), and most of all: repetition. Lots of repetition... Only to read about it all over again in later chapters.

They really have just thrown as much information into the book as they could, but with little thought put into making the subject flow (and make sense). Some concepts like the IE SDLC are explained in detail in chapter 2, but then you discover a LOT more information about IE in chapter 6! It's almost like the authors split the subjects between them and threw the book together without bothering to collaborate. Consequently the book could be half the size.

Given that the subject matter focuses heavily on the concept of "flow", I'm completely underwhelmed by the author's ability to introduce flow in their written explanations!

I'm using it with my course at the moment (not through choice), and I am finding myself using Google all the time now to supplement my understanding of the concepts in the book.

Don't buy it (unless you really have to).

Professors, please don't use this book!
This book was used for a Systems Analysis class as part of a master's program in Information Technology Management. It's coverage is a mile wide, an inch deep and with little structure. It touches on object oriented concepts and UML, though not enough to understand either. About two weeks into the class I started using other books to fill in the numerous gaps in this one. Though I don't have another systems analysis book to recommend, there must be a better one then this!

Doing the Right Things
My company tries to operate on the principle of doing the right things instead of just doing what you are doing well.

The authors of this book do an excellent job of addressing the analysts role in business system development. Doing more work up front will reduce the customers costs and frustration. IT will appear more as a business partner than a necissary evil.

The addage "The cost of conformance is lower than the cost of non-conformance" is huge in business today. Getting the right IT projects into the pipeline and then doing them right gives you that conformance opportunity.

I highly recommend this book for any organization that wants to embed IT analysts into their buisiness units. The long term benefits of knowing you customer and becoming a partner are many fold. It really begins with trust and faith. Doing your homework on the analysis and design side is the first step.