In a bid to provide a standard that it hopes will eventually be adopted throughout Europe, a British Telecom-led consortium is to develop the latest version of the Structured Systems Analysis and Design Methodology, SSADM, Version 4. The UK Central Computing and Telecommunications Agency has awarded the UKP500,000 development contract to a consortium comprising Telecom, […]
In a bid to provide a standard that it hopes will eventually be adopted throughout Europe, a British Telecom-led consortium is to develop the latest version of the Structured Systems Analysis and Design Methodology, SSADM, Version 4. The UK Central Computing and Telecommunications Agency has awarded the UKP500,000 development contract to a consortium comprising Telecom, AIMS Systems – a SW London-based consultancy service, formed in 1984 and involved in the development of Version 3 – and Softlab GmbH, a Munich-based international software house. Replacing Version 3 – introduced in September, 1986 – the new methodology will become the government standard for structured analysis and design of information systems by the Autumn of 1989. Although the current SSADM is predominantly used in public departments, the consortium claims the updated standard should become equally widespread in the private sector; the consortium is quick to point out that Version 3 has been adopted by over 100 private companies in the UK – including 26 of the largest 100 – and as far afield as Hungary and Zimbabwe. Telecom says that all major firms can benefit from a more rigorous approach to the analysis and design of software – which it claims to provide – and is also encouraged by the lack of such non-proprietary standards in other major European nations: West Germany and Italy have no equivalents, and France has only one domestic standard, the Merise.
