Accounting Information Systems: The Processes and Controls, 2nd Edition

SUMMARY OF STUDY OBJECTIVES

An introduction to IT governance and its role in strategic management. The board of directors and top-level executive managers must take responsibility to ensure that the organization has processes that align IT systems to the strategies and objectives of the organization. IT systems should be chosen and implemented that support attainment of strategies and objectives. To ensure that IT systems support long-term strategic objectives and also support daily operations, management must constantly assess its current situation, where it plans to go, and which IT systems will help it get there. To be effective, this assessment should be part of an ongoing process to evaluate organizational direction and the fit of IT to that direction. The board and management should establish ongoing processes and procedures to accomplish this IT fit. These processes would include an IT governance committee and a systematic approach to IT system change, such as a systems development life cycle approach.

An overview of the system development life cycle (SDLC). The SDLC is a systematic approach to the change or upgrade of an IT system. While there are many approaches to the SDLC, a popular approach has five phases: systems planning, systems analysis, systems design, systems implementation, and operation and maintenance. These five phases are a structured and systematic way to undertake changing or upgrading IT systems.

The elements of the systems planning phase of the SDLC ...