Rating: 
Summary: The best I've seen, with a little room for improvement
Review: This book is simply the best I've seen on this topic to date. The authors present the material in order of the systems development life cycle, which I feel is of great value. Another thing adding value is the use of an adapted version of Zachman's framework.When I used this to teach class, I emphasized the development process, from the survey phase on. This book helped me do that well. Using the SDLC as a framework, the authors present specific and relevant skills, so a certain amount of repitition is unavoidable, even necessary. The chapter outlines of chapters 4, 9, 17 and 18 provide the life cycle framework. The chapters in between present the specific techniques and templates that are used to fill in the blanks. But there are opportunities to improve the book. There should be complete examples of all the important documents, not just outlines. A complete example helps the student visualize what the real deliverables will look like. The process modeling chapter should cover IDEF0 activity modeling and process mapping. Data modeling needs to mention relevant modeling tools like ERwin. (And there were a few errors here in the example.) Even so, this is a fine work that seems so lucid and well-structured that I still use it as a reference book.
Rating:
Summary: The best I've seen, with a little room for improvement
Review: This book is simply the best I've seen on this topic to date. The authors present the material in order of the systems development life cycle, which I feel is of great value. Another thing adding value is the use of an adapted version of Zachman's framework. When I used this to teach class, I emphasized the development process, from the survey phase on. This book helped me do that well. Using the SDLC as a framework, the authors present specific and relevant skills, so a certain amount of repitition is unavoidable, even necessary. The chapter outlines of chapters 4, 9, 17 and 18 provide the life cycle framework. The chapters in between present the specific techniques and templates that are used to fill in the blanks. But there are opportunities to improve the book. There should be complete examples of all the important documents, not just outlines. A complete example helps the student visualize what the real deliverables will look like. The process modeling chapter should cover IDEF0 activity modeling and process mapping. Data modeling needs to mention relevant modeling tools like ERwin. (And there were a few errors here in the example.) Even so, this is a fine work that seems so lucid and well-structured that I still use it as a reference book.
Rating: 
Summary: Hi-Tech dribble!
Review: This book is terrible. I agree with the last post. This book is not worth the money nor the time spent reading it. I've learned more from reading the phonebook! This text contains nothing but lists and lists and more lists, with a bit of color to break up the monotony. Of course I HAD to buy it for my MIS course. I NEVER would have spent the money otherwise. As soon as exams are over, I'm selling this text at the next buy-back at student union. Only buy this book if its assigned for a course, or if you're into incredibly dull reading. A snore...!
Rating:
Summary: Garbage!
Review: This book is the biggest waste of time/money that I have ever encountered. Not only does it waste hundreds of pages describing trivial concepts, it does so in a manner which is almost insulting to one's intelligence. Stay away from this book unless you really enjoy wasting your time.
Rating: 
Summary: Excellent reference book, however.....
Review: This book was required text in my System Analysis class. It is a excellent reference book. Excellent explanation of concepts. However, it is VERY repetitive. At times I found this both confusing and annoying, especially when definitions would be worded differently for the same term. The size of the book could be greatly decreased if repetitions and wordiness were removed.
Rating: 
Summary: Great step-by-step reference for anyone in business analysis
Review: This is a great book. And as a truly great book it is better than simply a good one. It is clearly written, well-organized and indexed as well as contains a wealth of step-by-step "how to" for all stages of the development project. Very good reference tool. Get it if you consider moving to IT in general and in business (system) analysis in particular. This is the book to take with you to the site of your first project. Well worth the money.
Rating:
Summary: Chapter-by-Chpter Review - Overall a Good Book
Review: This review is for the 6th edition. The 6th edition makes very good improvement from the 5th. Otherwise my review may be quite different. Overall, I feel this is quite a good book. (You may notice that I do not give many 4 stars for books).
I waited for quite a while before I start to write this review. It is quite difficult to give an overview to this quite complicate book since it covers many aspects of systems analysis and design, and some of the coverages are excellent and some are done in quite a hurry. Besides, I should tell you that I have not read many other text books in this subject lately so that I do not know how this book compares with others. I decide to review each chapter. I hope this will help the author to improve this book (if they do visit here. I do not know them at all) and help the readers to as a guide. I am teaching this book right now. In this way, I may develop this long review graduately.
This book is not written for experienced information technology professionals. Otherwise, they may not have the patient to read this book through. The authors write this book for "information systems and business majors at the sophomore, junior, senior or graduate level". The authors further recommended that the students take a computer- and information systems literacy course first. I do not agree with the recommendation of the authors for the best readership. Students with only computer and information systems literacy course may find this book difficult. This book is much better to teach senior students who have taken courses for various systems building blocks, such as database and programming. In other words, you better have a pretty good idea about various types of houses and the major building blocks before you study how to build them. The authors do cover the basic components for information systems. However, often such coverage is not well-written and it makes me guess that the authors are not as good on the building blocks level of information systems.
For business students, I feel this book may be too heavy for them. They most likely participate in the system development game as owners and users, and they should study a text from that perspective.
The book provides chapter maps based on a framework presentated in this book. I found them very useful for students and for instructors, in particular since the book covers very diversified topics and the book has to study the same element from several different perspectives at several chapters. Different stakeholders look at different building block of different types of house from many different perspectives when different construction techniques are used at different building stages... Try to write a book about it. You get the picture? Several reviewers complain they do not understand this book. It is indeed a complicated game. This is also why the authors use 5 different colors frequently to indicates different perspectives in terms of methods, data/knowledge, process, communication/interface and people. Some reviewers consider the usage of colors in this book confusing. It is partly the fault of the authors. Though the color legend is explained in preface of the book and somewhere else, the authors should know many students do not read preface.
A continuous story (Analyst in Action Episodes) is provided for each chapter about a supposedly real world like business and its development team. Many students like this story since it gives them some hints on the outside world. However, again, instructors should remind them to read this story. Otherwise they may not read it at all. At the end, I will return to discuss the quality of this story.
The book has 4 parts. Part One, The Context of Systems Development Projects, gives an overall picture about systems analysis and design. (to be continued)
/* The statement and opinions expresses here are my own and do not necessarily represent those of my employer */
Rating:
Summary: Essential Reading
Review: This very important book will earn you course credit and also apply toward a valuable ICCP ACP or CCP certification, the standard for US Armed Forces and Government Agencies. This is not an easy certification to master or achieve, so pay attention to the detail in this book. The book terminology is relevant to the industry today, and the repetitive approach is geared toward an important cognitive technique: that you are more likely to remember something if you hear it or see it more than once. It's a wonder why somebody would bother with education, who is calling such important material 'garbage' or 'hi-tech dribble.' These people should re-examine why they are in school, why they are taking this class, and why they are reading this book? And it shouldn't be because mom or dad or anybody else wants you to. This book is designed to be interactive and therefore layered with repetition to enhance learning. It should be to LEARN as much information and technique as possible before getting a real-world job, where these skills make the difference. I was a software engineer, multi-level trained in the systems analysis and design standards of James Martin and Edward Yourdon, still applicable today.
Rating:
Summary: Wonderful!
Review: Well, I've read this and I'm very satisfied with it's contents. It really helps me a lot since I'm new into Systems Analysis and Design, it provided me several methods on how I will approach a systems development project. Since our company is really keeping at pace with the trends in Info. Tech. I was able to meet our objectives on time and efficiently.
Rating:
Summary: GOOD PRICE USED & NEW
Review: YOU WILL NEED THIS BOOK IF YOUR GOIGN TO TAKE Course Materials - Pace University | Web Assisted, Pleasantville
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