There are many different areas involved in the system development process. Their importance is listed below.

Project Planning

Project need to be completed on time, meet user expectation and within budget. It involves many different parties and task. There are standard and rules to follow when working for a large organization like government. It is a real challenging task and very easy to have problems or become out of control without proper planning and management.

This chapter lists out the essential project task, management practice, standard and common issues to handle. It will mention project problems too that are repeat quite often across different projects, plus some adopted practice to handle them. It covers what have to do, how to do, how to prevent and tackle when problems are encountered.

Interactivity

System Development involves static and dynamic content that need to be designed. User interact with the system through the interface, and expects assistance and feedback for the action performed. 

This chapter explains how the information should be presented, how to make the system more comfortable in usage and how to make the operation more convenient, including the handling of text, audio, video, animation element and even AI device so as to make the overall experience more user friendly.

Architecture and Coding

The most important and critical task for computer system are system design and implementation. It involves the process of collecting user requirement, formulating a preliminary and conceptual design by determination of the basic architecture and the component, follow up by selection of available solution with reference to pattern, framework and some middle ware from third parties, what language or tool to use and how to implement the details. Testing and quality assurance is also important to make sure the final product meet user expectation.

The purpose of this chapter is to list out all the major system design and development technologies, from planning, design, to implementation and maintenance for consideration and evaluation. Readers will learn about development techniques that might not be taught in universities, the technical aspects that need to know when entering a new industry, what technology is suitable under what situation, and understand the latest development trends in the industry, plus development advice, debugging and performance tuning techniques.

Data Migration and Conversion

Most of the system development are revamp of the existing computer system. Many existing data need to be migrated to the new system and it must involve some kinds of data conversion. Data mapping needs to be done since the data structure of the existing and the new system is different.

In this chapter, it lists out the essential task, from identifying what data to migrate, how to map and recreate them in the new system, how to check if the data is properly migrated and converted. It covers procedures of what to do, how to do and how to verify.

Security & Privacy Protection

Most of the computer system are implemented in a web-based environment nowadays, which are accessible either in an internet or intranet environment. They are easily subjected to cyber-attack, either externally or internally. This explains why security play such an important role in system development. Without proper consideration in details and sufficient control, data could be amended or stolen easily for whatever bad intentions. The effect could be fatal when most transaction are privacy related, no matter personal information or money.

The purpose of this chapter is to list out the essential IT security and privacy protection consideration, from planning, design, to implementation and maintenance phases. It covers what have to do, how to detect, prevent and tackle including practice of both system administration and code development.

Procurement Plan

Computer System require hardware and software on the market to implement, and acquisition of them require procurement. Different from buying a personal product in a retail store that involve only simple pay and get, there are rules and operational procedures to follow for a company and government department.

In addition to many approvals to seek to make the final purchase, there is even an Agreement on Government Procurement of the World Trade Organization for public organization.

This chapter lists out the common IT procurement practice, including procedure and task to do, so as to help staff to understand the whole process better and make proper preparation on it.

User Acceptance Test Plan

System is developed based on understanding of the user requirement collected, system and functional specification agreed and written down before. In most cases, the final product is somehow different from user expectation and there are issues or bugs found due to misunderstanding, new issue discovered or whatever reason.

User Acceptance Test is to find out the gap between the development and the user team, and make sure all potential issues are identified and solved before production rollout. To achieve this, it must be carefully planned and ensure all scenario are tested.

This chapter lists all the tasks that need to be done, including all the detailed steps, so as to help the staff to understand the whole process and complete their work on hand.

System Rollout Procedure

System rollout is not a simple matter, especially true for project with certain size.

Systems are built from different hardware device, software component or service, and so IT staff need to work with people in different fields, areas or levels, sometimes may even involve suppliers coming from other parts of the world. There are just too many details to care about, to check and to verify. Sometimes, the process could be quite complicated, and the to-do list could be extremely long. So, it is quite easy for staff to miss or omit some details. The purpose of this chapter is to assist readers step-by-step and suggest appropriate ways to complete their job on hand.