Module 1 - Information Systems Review

system

A set of parts connected to one another, interacting with each other, to achieve a certain goal

shower system

• parts: shower head, water tank, human hands, etc.

• feedback: adjustment from human hand

• delay: travel time of water

• stock: water

• quality: water temperature

balancing feedback loop

self-correcting feedback loop

delays

Adjusting to the right level of quality takes some time. That time is called a ___.

Shower system continues from bathroom upstairs to water tank from basement. Travel time of water across floors.

feedback loop

Different components of a system interact with each other and provide feedback in order to reach a certain level of quality. The process is called a feedback loop.

In the shower system, quality would refer to the water temp and the feedback loop would refer to the whole process of adjusting the shower lever until the water is in the right temp. The feedback loops would refer to the whole process of adjusting the shower lever until the water is in the right temp.

stock

quantities that are tracked by systems. These could be literally anything. In the shower example it was water while in the highway example it was cars.

Inflow and Outflow

How stock gets into the system and out.

knowledge

data

• lowest form of knowledge.

• unstructured facts and figures which lack any kind of organization.

• Very specific

• example: data on car manufacturing: cost, pricing, income, market research

information

• Second form of knowledge

• Data that has been organized, condensed, contextualized, and so on.

• Data with a direction and purpose!

• example: data that answers what was our profit las quarter? which product performs better?

knowledge

• deeper level of understanding and knowhow

• based on experience and rooted in context

• fluid mix of framed experience, values, contextual information, expert insight and grounded intuition that provides an environment and framework for evaluating and incorporating new experiences and information

• example: how to fix a machine, how to organize a project, etc.

• Knowledge can come in varying degrees.

Data-Information-Knwoledge

Data is the building block, a set of meaningless facts.

Contextualized and organized, it becomes useful information.

Knowing how and when to apply this information is the environment called knowledge.

information system (class)

A system whose goal is to convert data into useful information.

• It doesn’t matter whether the system is manual or automated.

• A correctly designed one will have a data inflow that collects the necessary data to provide the correct information outflow.

• It will also have a feedback mechanism to ensure that the information is of high quality.

information system (video)

• a set of interrelated components that collect and disseminate data and information, and provide feedback to meet an objective

1. technology

2. people

3. process

• business oriented; focuses on the business domain

• business skills & learn enough about technology to make decisions

elements of information system

A. Technology

1. Hardware

2. Software

B. People

3. People

C. Process

1. Data collection

2. Information generation

information technology (video)

• the hardware, software, database, network that make information systems (IS) possible! (tech out of the tech, people, process of IS)

• used to build information systems

• focuses on the selection, integration, and deployment of computing technology

• needs technical skills such as planning, deploying networking infrastructure or integrates DBs or build websites

information technology (class)

• used in building computer based information systems

• tech aspect of IS

• hardware, software, database, network

technology people process

3 interacting elements of an information system

strong IT

It helps, but doesn’t solve the problem. It can make things, parts more efficient, possible effective, but it doesn’t necessarily entail a solution to all our problems.

Rather, we have systems thinking, the correct mindset.

systems thinking

• being aware of how we think and how the world works.

• we can get better at it.

• to be systems thinkers, we think about thinking.

• helps us see underlying patterns, structures, identities, parts, wholes, relationships, POVs

• The above then allows us to better understand how things work around us and allow us to create new things or properly solve problems

thinking

• the way we handle, organize, and give meaning to information.

• Lots of this keeps us smart. information alone isn’t enough to solve problems.

• How we build meaning from information

• We use this to turn info → knowledge.

mental models

• knowledge, what we build from memories, experience

• determines how we feel, and thereby act

• from the moment we are born, we are building these.

patterns for systems thinking

1. Distinction: make distinctions between identity and other (things and other things)

2. Systems: organize things into systems (parts and whole)

3. Relationships: identify relationships (cause & effect)

4. Perspective: take perspectives from a point to a view

making distinctions

• pattern of systems thinking

• everything has identities, it comes from differentiating the others.

• we use our senses to do this pattern.

• seeing what an object/idea is and isn’t.

organizing things into systems

• pattern of systems thinking

• systems can be really big, complicated, small, simple

• systems are made of parts which have its own parts.

• anything we build (Systems) has parts

• helps us see how different things (e.g. bodies of water) is all connected

• systems gives us a framework to understand the world

identify relationships

• pattern of systems thinking

• relationships between ideas, objects

• relationship = interaction, a cause an effect, an action and reaction

• seeing how ideas affect each other is to see things differently.

take perspectives

• pattern of systems thinking

• e.g. navigating city streets using perspective of space, angle, speed

• every perspective has a point and a view.

• perspective of other people, ideas helps us understand things from a particular POV

• our POV shapes the way we think about something/mental model (eg. homeless = lazy? or underprivileged)

systems thinking approach

• provides us a better understanding of the organization

• allows IT professional to see the organization as a system of parts with different perspectives and interactions, and understand how the output affects others and the org as a whole

• systems thinking is about interconnectedness. It helps the analyst zero in on the different processes or parts of the organization that may be the root cause of some problem or identify opportunities that may be maximized.

• This in turn will dictate the whys, hows, and whats of the effective information system to be built.