2.1 Overview of System Planning

Today, the demands for a new or enhancement of the system exceeds the ability and resources of most organizations to conduct system development projects. System planning is the first phase in the system development life cycle. System planning is where an organization's total information needs are identified, analyzed, prioritized and arranged. Organization creates and assesses the original goals and expectation of a new system.

2.1 Overview of System Planning

There are reasons why the organization need to develop a new or improved system; for example is to add value to the organization. In this phase, you will learn how information system projects get started and how the team evaluate a proposed system and determine its feasibility before it will be developed. Planning phase starts with reviewing the request towards system development. Figure 2-1 shows two major activities involved in system planning:

	overview of system planning
	identification of the system development project

Identifying the System Development Project

There are two ways on how to identify the needs for system development either by top-down planning and bottom-up planning. Top-down planning is where the top management asks the IT support or unit within their organization to develop a system. They will identify and assesses if there is any possible system development projects organization can be done. Bottom-up planning is also known as a user request planning. User's request is when users need the system in order to fulfill or help their daily job easily. For the following discussion, we'll consider the second option; the system request is from the user.

The starting point of information system project is called a system service request. A project is identified when someone in the organization identifies that they need to build a systems for a certain needs. System service request is a formal way of asking for IT support. A system service request might propose enhancements for an existing system, the correction of problems or errors, or the development of entirely new information system (Shelly et. al., 2006).

2.1 Overview of System Planning

Normally, system service request form will be submitted by the user to IT department either manually or sending through e-mail or web-based request system. Figure 2-2 shows an example of system request form.

There are several reasons why user sends for the system service request :

	Improved services offered
	This is the most basic reason why we need a new or enhanced system. A new or enhanced system is important to improve services for customers or users within the organization. Allowing students to register subjects online, driving license renewal via web-based are example on how organization used a system to increase their customer satisfaction.
	Support for new products or new services
	New product developed or new services introduced require new types of IT support. For example, changing the use of punch card to fingerprint recognition in staff attendance is an example of installation of new products that needs a new system development project.
	Provide more information
	The system might produce information which is not enough in order to support the organization's changing information needs. For example, lecturer can obtain students results, but he/she can't generate a report to analyze student performance.

2.1 Overview of System Planning

Figure 2-2: System Service Request Form