Systems Development and Project Management
What to Know
Know the systems development life cycle phases: planning, analysis, design, build, test, deploy, maintain. Compare methodologies: waterfall (sequential, document-heavy, stable requirements) versus iterative, agile (incremental delivery, cross-functional teams, backlog, sprints, retrospectives) and hybrid approaches. Understand requirements types (functional versus non-functional), traceability, user acceptance testing versus unit and integration testing, and change control. For project management, know scope, schedule, cost, quality, risk, and stakeholder management; the triple constraint; work breakdown structures; critical path basics; and earned value terms (planned value, earned value, actual cost; cost and schedule variance). Know roles: sponsor, project manager, business analyst, product owner, scrum master. Understand go-live planning, rollback, and post-implementation review.
Traps
Questions may present agile as having no documentation or no planning - both are false; agile values working software and responds to change but still plans and documents. Another trap confuses a project with operations, or a program with a portfolio. In earned value, negative cost variance means over budget; negative schedule variance means behind schedule. Watch for confusing validation (did we build the right product) with verification (did we build it correctly).
Worked Example
A project has planned value $100,000, earned value $80,000, and actual cost $90,000. Rule of thumb: CV = EV − AC = −$10,000 (over budget); SV = EV − PV = −$20,000 (behind schedule). Report both, since being behind schedule and over budget require different corrective actions.
Exam Tip
Identify whether requirements are stable before recommending waterfall or agile.