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systems development life cycle

. But significant differences project 

managers need to take into account are:

● 

The timescales for delivery of the system are compressed compared to traditional 

 applications – the system needs to be developed in ‘Internet time’. Prototyping and 

making activities such as analysis, design and testing which occur in parallel are used to 

achieve tight deadlines, as is the use of  off‑  the‑  shelf systems perhaps hosted with an ASP 

(Chapter 3).

● 

The e‑commerce system may be hosted outside of an organisation so we need to con‑

sider the constraints imposed by hosting the site externally with an ISP and integrating 

external components of the system with data stored and processes occurring inside the 

organisation.

● 

The focus of the project is on content and services rather than on application; this means 

that delivery of information is the key. Linking different information sources and different 

applications through APIs is also becoming more important.

● 

Because the system is  customer‑  facing and on the public Internet, speed and availability 

are crucial, as is securing the system from malicious hackers and spammers.

● 

Analysis and design are arguably more closely related in an e‑commerce implementation 

since the usability of the site is critically dependent on the needs of the user and the proto‑

typing approach is used to achieve users’ needs.

● 

Once launched the site or service should be more dynamic than a traditional applica‑

tion: an effective site will be updated continuously in response to customer demands and 

testing. The solution is never complete. Mini case study 10.2 illustrates how continuous 

improvements to a site can improve performance.

With increasing use of the SaaS services introduced in Chapter 3, the analysis, design 

and build stages tend to be different from bespoke IS implementation. The analysis stage 

is equally important, but will focus on mapping the facilities of the  off‑  the‑  shelf software 

with the existing business practices. A vital decision is the extent to which the company 

will change or adapt its practices and processes to match the software or web services or the 

extent it will be possible to tailor the system to match the processes. The degree of customisa‑

tion to a company’s needs also becomes a key issue.