Observation

This involves watching what is done in the work place and recording any result. You could just be observing one procedure carried out by different people or spend the day with one person as they carry out a number of tasks.

You would plan what you wanted to observe before hand and create an OBSERVATION SHEET to use to record your findings.

TIP - An Observation sheet should contain: Date, Location, Time, Name of Person being observed, tasks being observed and an area for making notes about each task

Advantages - Can assess the work area, current workload, bottlenecks in the system and methods of working.

Disadvantages - Can be time consuming, people being observed may put on a act and problems may not occur whilst you are observing.

Interview

To carry out interviews requires a careful plan to use time effectively. Permission should be obtained from the relevant authority, appointments made and planned beforehand

You would plan your interview style and questions and create an INTERVIEW SHEET to use to record answers.

TIP - An Interview Sheet should contain: Date, Location, Time, Name of person being interviewed, questions to ask and an area for writing down answers to questions

Advantages - You can build a rapport between interviewer and interviewee. You can adjust questions and add further questions.You can judge the validity of the answers.

Disadvantages - Can be time consuming and costly. Poor interviewing could led to incorrect or insufficient information.
Interviewee gives their opinion on how things should be done which may be biased. People may be scared - fear restructuring and change/loss of job

Questionnaire

This involves creating a list of questions and sending them to a number of people.

You would need to plan your questions very carefully to make sure that they are unambiguous and easy to answer.

TIP - Your QUESTIONNAIRE should follow these rules:

• be simple unambiguous and unbiased.
• use multi choice where possible to make them easier to answer and analyse
• aim at the level of respondents
• introduce the questionnaire
• have a clearly mark deadline and return address.

Advantages - Useful and less costly when you need to contact a large number of people. It is anonymous therefore may encourage honest answers. Can be used to confirm evidence collected elsewhere

Disadvantages - It can be difficult to avoid misunderstanding questions. Simple questionnaires provide little information
Ambitious questionnaires could be misunderstood. Often response rates are low.

Document Analysis

This involves gathering input or output forms and or reports and reading manuals and files on the CURRENT system. Your findings will then help you to analyse the input and output requirements for the new system

Advantages - This is good for obtaining factual information and seeing how the current system is designed and used by the business.

Disadvantages - You won't be able to do this if input and output is not document based.