Information systems life cycle

According to Manuela Aparicio, Carlos Costa and J. Leopoldo Nhampossa of the International Association for Development of the Information Society in their article, Managing the Information System Life Cycle (2005), an IS life cycle should be viewed in a humanistic way: “Baby/Launching, Youth/spreading (developing or growing), Adult/maturity and Senior/Declining (p. 1).” Looking at it this way helps those unfamiliar with it to become familiar with it because personifying it aids in memory retention. So after reading this, readers should be able to identify the four basic segments of an IS life cycle as Lauching, Spreading (developing or growing), Maturity and Decline. Examine the picture below to get a visual of how the life cycle follows those four (consolidated) phases, eventually and inevitably starting the cycle anew again (Aparicio et al, 2005):

Lauching, as its name suggests, involves identifying the technologies and their general needs as well as suggesting new technologies for consideration�€"all information based on “…technical, operational, organizational and economical assumptions (Aparicio et al, 2005).” It ends with the installation or implementation of a Requirements Analysis (Aparicio et al, 2005), which takes the scope identified in the organization’s strategic planning activity and translates it “…into the business owner’s view of the enterprise (Essential Strategies, n.d.).” Essential Strategies (n.d.) also explains that this translation will produce model sets that will “…describe data, functions, location, people and organizations, timing issues, and the enterprise’s objectives and constraints” and convert those findings into much more regimented models to define and distinguish the information designer’s view, which is actually part of the growth and development (spreading) phase. This is where the issues with the current timecard system come into play and also where the characteristics of the to-be-designed system are