Divide-And-Conquer Strategy in Developing an Integrated System,

Divide-And-Conquer Strategy In developing an integrated system, it is often considered better to divide the system into subsystems. Because of the complexity of the integrated system, often development work has become enormously difficult. At the same time, however, organizations are demanding new and integrated systems more quickly to compete in the marketplace. Seeing that the cost of an integrated system can run into millions of dollars and several years, the organizations usually work with the divide-and-conquer-strategy.

This strategy is useful in the development of the complex and integrated system because it allows the division of the complex integrated systems into manageable sets of subsystems that can be allocated to different groups of developers, who can work concurrently. By dividing an integrated system into several subsystems, the systems analysts get the advantages of focus and attention, as they can assign subsystems to those groups that possess the adequate and the relevant knowledge in the development of those particular subsystems.

This strategy is similar to division of work, where each person or group works on a particular aspect of the system, resulting higher productivity for the organization. Second, because of the manageable size of the subsystems, it is often easier for the company management to supervise, monitor, and check the progress of these subsystems.

Since stakeholders are required to finally integrate the solutions of these subsystems, it is often becomes necessary that either the stakeholders hold periodical meeting to ensure that the integrated system as a whole will work in unison. But this requires a lot of communication between the stakeholders and the groups of the developers. So to avoid excessive communication, an organization must make the use of standards in systems development (Blanchard and Fabrycky, 1998). The standards are included into documentation, quality, and processes of the systems development.

There are several advantages of dividing an integrated system into subsystems: First, the subsystems can be worked concurrently so a system can be completed more quickly than working with an integrated complex system. Second, it is easier for system analysts to understand the concept of subsystems rather than grasping the full complexity of an integrated system.

Finally, the advantage of divide-and-conquer strategy is that it reduces the risk of system failure at a larger magnitude, since in case of the failure, only subsystems are required to reworked rather than the complete complex system. Using divide-and-conquer strategy calls for the development of modular systems. Working with modular systems bring the advantages as the developers need to focus only with their own system, without worrying with the complexity of the integrated system, as long as these developers adopt the rules and protocols of the organization ((Blanchard and Fabrycky, 1998).

Moreover, the use of modular systems is provides the advantages of training and hands-on-exercises. The use of divide-and-conquer strategy allows work-allocation decisions that makes the project to be.