Business Information System 
                          Life Cycle Costs
                    Whitemarsh Information Systems Corporation
                             2008 Althea Lane
                           Bowie, Maryland 20716
                              Tele: 301-249-1142
                        Email: Whitemarsh@wiscorp.com
                          Web: www.wiscorp.com
               Business Information System Life Cycle Costs
                                                  Table of Contents
               1.0    Objective. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
               2.0    Traditional System Development Life Cycle.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
               3.0    Enhanced Traditional System Development Life Cycle with Prototyping. . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
               4.0    Employment of Function Point analysis to create accurate and valid project estimates. . . 7
               5.0    Effect of business information system generators on prototyping, and the SDLC. . . . . . . 8
               6.0    References. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
                                Copyright 2015, Whitemarsh Information Systems Corporation
                                              Proprietary Data, All Rights Reserved
                                                                  ii
              Business Information System Life Cycle Costs
              1.0   Objective
              The objective of this short paper is to show how the traditional system development life cycle can
              be enhanced with prototyping and business information system generators to increase
              productivity and quality while at the same time reduce cost and risk. To accomplish that end, this
              paper addresses the:
              !     Traditional System Development Life Cycle
              !     Enhanced Traditional System Development Life Cycle with Prototyping
              !     Employment of Function Point analysis to create accurate and valid project estimates
              !     Effect of business information system generators on prototyping, and virtually all other
                    phases of the System Development Life Cycle.
              2.0   Traditional System Development Life Cycle
              Figure 1 illustrates the main phases associated with the traditional first implementation life cycle
              of an enterprise-wide business information system such as human resources, or accounting and
              finance. The scale on the bottom represents the percent of completion across all phases. The
              purpose of the chart is to show the relative quantities of staff hours expended across time. 
                    In general, if the costs associated with requirements and design are $1, the activities
              associated with detailed design through initial business information system implementation costs
              another $4. That’s $5 in total for a first implementation cycle. Figure 1 shows that: 
              1.    About 70% of all effort is expended prior to the first real demonstration of a business
                    information system. That is, before the Implementation, Operation and Maintenance parts
                    of the last major phase. This percent may be much higher if requirements-changes are
                    discovered during System Test. Some multi-hundred million dollar efforts are scrapped
                    because requirements change too dramatically before System Test.
                         nd
              2.    The 2  and any subsequent business information system versions require recycling of the
                    first two phases (20-60%). That is, a repeat of part or all of Requirements Analysis and
                    Design, and also Detailed Design, Coding, and Unit Testing.
              In addition to the two take-aways from Figure 1, the very problem for which the business
              information system may have been developed may have changed too much the first production
              implementation is complete. This “hazzard” is what the United States Government 
                             Copyright 2015, Whitemarsh Information Systems Corporation
                                          Proprietary Data, All Rights Reserved
                                                            1
       Business Information System Life Cycle Costs
       Figure 1. Traditional System Development Life Cycle (SDLC).
       Accountability Office concluded is intrinsic to the very process of business information system
       development. If not addressed, this can result in perpetual recycling of requirements without ever
       getting to System Testing.
          Beyond the first-cycle implementation cost, the total life cycle expenditure for business
       information system revision cycles (not shown in Figure 1) commonly costs five times more. The
       total life cycle cost is thus, 30 times the design cost. 
          The problem is not that requirements change, however. Rather, the real problem is that
       the effects of requirement changes that occur once System Testing is complete are too costly to
       be reflected in the first version of the implemented business information system. Hence they are
       left to a “maintenance cycle.” 
          It’s a given from the very start that requirements will change, even though this
       assumption is seldom folded into methodologies. Requirements-change can be especially fatal to
       procured software packages if these packages have not been designed for change from the very
       beginning. The holy grail to be achieved therefore is to largely if not completely eliminate the
       need for changing requirements prior to the very first activity of production business information
       system development.
              Copyright 2015, Whitemarsh Information Systems Corporation
                    Proprietary Data, All Rights Reserved
                            2