Fact finding Techniques

Fact finding technique is a criteria carried out during systems investigation, Problem Identification and during the feasibility study of the Systems Development Life cycle. In the Fact finding various types of data such as organizational structure, revenues, current process details and several types of costs are collected.

Source: The sisterhood online

                        

Systems Development Life cycle is a model used in project management which is used in Information Systems Development that describes the stages involved in the systems development projects from its start to the end (The teacher info ltd, 2011).

Systems analysts use fact finding techniques to ease off their research and analysis tasks. Few of those techniques are Questionnaires, Interviews, Observation and Sampling.

Questionnaires: This is a most common method of fact finding. A questionnaire is a document that is containing a number of standard questions that can be sending to many individuals. There are two types of questions open ended and close ended (University of Babylon, 2014).

According to Open versus Closed Ended Questions (2014) open ended questions are the questions that will ask additional information from the other party. These types of questions are broad and require more than one or two word to response. For example; “how can I help you?”, Closed ended questions are types of questions that respondents have to make a choice among a set of alternatives which can be answered restricted by either “yes” or “no”. These questions can be answered in a few words. For example; “can I help you?”.

Interviews: According to University College cork (2014) Interview is the most useful, fact-finding technique. It enables collection of information from individuals’ face-to-face which could squeeze a lot of information which people have in their minds. Interviews will provide evidence of real time situations and how accurately a process takes place.

Freetutes (2014) stated that there are two types of interviews,

•  Structured interviews - all interviewees are asked the same standard set of questions in a particular order.
•  Unstructured interviews - this structure used Question-and-answer format. 

This is of a much flexible than the structured interview and used to gather general information.

According to Quadri (2014) following advantages and disadvantages of the interviews can be listed.

·         Advantages

•    Can motivate the interviewee to answer freely without any limitations.
•    More feedback can be probed.
•  Extra information can be gathered from body language and facial expressions.

·         Disadvantages

•    Time consuming.
•    Requires good human relations skills.
•    Requires good interviewing skills.

Observation: This technique is done through observing a person’s perform activities to learn about the business process. The information gathered through a good observation can make a good analysis which will help to understand the realities of the situations (The Homework Help, 2012).

According to Quadri (2014) the advantages of observation are,

•     Data gathered can be very reliable.
•        Can see exactly what is being done in complex tasks.
•     Relatively inexpensive

The disadvantages of observation are,

• People may perform differently when being observed.
• People may let you see what you want to see. 

Sampling: The process of gathering a representative sample of documents, forms, and records (Example: Invoice Structure, Report Structures, Memos) can be called as sampling (Kumar, 2014).

Source: ASPA National Weblog

  

The Fact Finding Techniques were really useful for me to find necessary facts that are related to Project Proposal. Since I’m working on a Customer Relationship Management for a Hotel, Questionnaires, Interviews and Observation techniques are useful for find facts that are related to my project.

References.

Freetutes. 2014. Interviews - Fact Finding Techniques. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.freetutes.com/systemanalysis/sa4-interviews.html. [Accessed 1 January 2014]

Kumar R. 2014. Fact Finding Techniques. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.scribd.com/doc/38016848/Fact-Finding-Techniques. [Accessed 1 January 2014]

Open versus Closed Ended Questions. 2014. Open versus Closed Ended Questions. [ONLINE] Available at: http://polaris.gseis.ucla.edu/jrichardson/dis220/openclosed.htm. [Accessed 1 January 2014]

Quadri A.A.M. 2014. Fact Finding Techniques. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.scribd.com/doc/6902721/Fact-Finding-Techniques. [Accessed 1 January 2014]

The Homework Help (2012) Fact Finding Techniques, [Online], Available: http://www.thehomeworkhelp.co.uk/Engineering-Homework-Help/Software-Engineering/Fact-Finding-Techniques.html [Accessed 1 January 2014]

The teacher info ltd (2011) Systems Development Life Cycle, [Online], Available: http://www.theteacher.info/websites/allboards/index.htm [Accessed 1 January 2014]

University college cork. 2014. Fact Finding Technique. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.cs.ucc.ie/~abf/CS507-8/L22.pdf. [Accessed 1 January 2014]

University of Babylon. 2014. Fact Finding Methods. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.uobabylon.edu.iq/uobColeges/ad_downloads/5_29801_43.pdf. [Accessed 1 January 2014]