Documentation and Importance of Documentation

Documentation is one of the system which is used to communicate, instruct and record the information for any reference or operational purpose. They are very useful for representing the formal flow of the present system. With the help of documentation it is very easy to track the flow of the system's progress and they working of the system can be expalined very easily.

It helps to provide the clear description of the work done so far. It is essential that the documents prepared must be updated on regular basis this will help to trace the progress of work easily. With appropriate and good documentation it is very easy to understand the how aspects of the system will work for the company where the system is to installed. It is also help to understand the type of data which will be inputted in the system and how the output can be produced.

After the system is installed, and if in case the system is not working properly it will be very easy for the administrator to understand the flow of data in the system with documentation which will help him/ her to correct the flaws and get the system working in no time.

Uses of Documentation

• It facilitates effective communication regarding the system between the technical and the non technical users.
• It is very useful in training new users. With a Good documentation new users can easily get acquainted with the flow of the systems.
• Documentation also helps the users to solve problems like trouble shooting even a non technical user can fix the problems.
• It plays a significant role in evaluation process.
• It not only helps to exercise a better control over the internal working of the firm, but it also external as well especially during audit.
• Documentations can help the manager to take better financial decisions of the organization.
  

Structured English

Structured English is the additional method which is used for overcoming the problems of the ambiguous language in stating the actions and conditions in making the decisions and formulating the procedures. The procedure is described in the narrative format using the Structured English. It doesn't show any decisions and rules but it states the rules.

Structured English specifications require the analyst to identify the conditions which occur in a process and also identify the decisions which makes these conditions occur. It also forces the analyst to find alternative actions to be taken.

In this method the steps are listed in a specific order in which they are to be taken. No special signs, symbols or any other format are used for the displaying of the steps involved like those involved in the decisions tree of decision tables.

Since only Structured English statements are used it becomes easy for the analyst to state the entire procedure without wasting much time. The terminologies used in Structured English consists of mostly the data names of the elements and they are stored in the Data Dictionary.

Developing Structure Statements-
The process is defined by using three types of statements : sequence structure, decision structure and iteration structure.

Sequence structure: It is the single stepped or action included in the process and it does not depend on the existence of any other condition but if it does encounter a condition, it is taken into consideration.

Decision structure: It occurs when two or more actions take place depending on the value of the condition. The condition is expanded and the necessary decisions is taken.

Iteration structure: It is commonly found that certain conditions occur commonly or occur after certain conditions are executed. Iterative instructions helps the analyst to describe these cases.

Fact Finding Techniques

To study any system the analyst needs to do collect facts and all relevant information. the facts when expressed in quantitative form are termed as data. The success of any project is depended upon the accuracy of available data. Accurate information can be collected with help of certain methods/ techniques. These specific methods for finding information of the system are termed as fact finding techniques. Interview, Questionnaire, Record View and Observations are the different fact finding techniques used by the analyst. The analyst may use more than one technique for investigation.

Interview
This method is used to collect the information from groups or individuals. Analyst selects the people who are related with the system for the interview. In this method the analyst sits face to face with the people and records their responses. The interviewer must plan in advance the type of questions he/ she is going to ask and should be ready to answer any type of question. He should also choose a suitable place and time which will be comfortable for the respondent.

The information collected is quite accurate and reliable as the interviewer can clear and cross check the doubts there itself. This method also helps gap the areas of misunderstandings and help to discuss about the future problems. Structured and unstructured are the two sub categories of Interview. Structured interview is more formal interview where fixed questions are asked and specific information is collected whereas unstructured interview is more or less like a casual conversation where in-depth areas topics are covered and other information apart from the topic may also be obtained.


Questionnaire
It is the technique used to extract information from number of people. This method can be adopted and used only by an skillful analyst. The Questionnaire consists of series of questions framed together in logical manner. The questions are simple, clear and to the point. This method is very useful for attaining information from people who are concerned with the usage of the system and who are living in different countries. The questionnaire can be mailed or send to people by post. This is the cheapest source of fact finding.


Record View
The information related to the system is published in the sources like newspapers, magazines, journals, documents etc. This record review helps the analyst to get valuable information about the system and the organization.

Observation
Unlike the other fact finding techniques, in this method the analyst himself visits the organization and observes and understand the flow of documents, working of the existing system, the users of the system etc. For this method to be adopted it takes an analyst to perform this job as he knows which points should be noticed and highlighted. In analyst may observe the unwanted things as well and simply cause delay in the development of the new system.