Building Information Systems

Building Information Systems

Structural Organizational Changes Enabled by IT

  • Automation:
    • Increases efficiency by replacing manual tasks.
  • Rationalization of Procedures:
    • Streamlines standard operating procedures.
    • Often found in programs focused on continuous quality improvements, such as:
      • Total Quality Management (TQM)
      • Six Sigma
  • Business Process Redesign:
    • Involves analyzing, simplifying, and redesigning business processes.
    • Reorganizes workflow, combines steps, and eliminates repetition.
  • Paradigm Shifts:
    • Rethinks the fundamental nature of the business.
    • Defines a new business model.
    • Changes the very nature of the organization.

Organizational Change: Risks and Rewards

  • Automation and rationalization represent relatively slow-moving and slow-changing strategies.
    • These offer modest returns with little risk.
  • Faster and more comprehensive changes, such as redesign and paradigm shifts,
    • Carry high potential rewards but also substantial chances of failure.

Systems Development Overview

  • Systems Development:
    • Encompasses the activities involved in producing an information system solution to address an organizational problem or opportunity.
    • Key stages include:
      • Systems analysis
      • Systems design
      • Programming
      • Testing
      • Conversion
      • Production and maintenance

The Systems Development Process

  • Building a system can be broken down into six core activities.

Systems Analysis

  • Involves analyzing the problem that the new system aims to solve.
    • Includes defining the problem and identifying its causes.
    • Specifying potential solutions.
  • A systems proposal report is generated to identify and examine alternative solutions.
  • Identifying Information Requirements:
    • Includes a feasibility study to determine if the proposed solution is feasible and a good investment.
    • Considers whether the required technology and skills are available.

Systems Design

  • Describes the system specifications that will deliver the functions identified during systems analysis.
  • Should address all managerial, organizational, and technological components of the system solution.
  • Role of End Users:
    • User information requirements drive system building.
    • Users must have sufficient control over the design process to ensure the system reflects their business priorities and information needs.
    • Insufficient user involvement in the design effort is a major cause of system failure.

Programming

  • System specifications from the design stage are translated into software program code.

Testing

  • Ensures the system produces the correct results.
    • Types of Testing:
      • Unit Testing: Tests each program in the system separately.
      • System Testing: Tests the functioning of the system as a whole.
      • Acceptance Testing: Verifies that the system is ready to be used in a production setting.
    • A test plan outlines all preparations for the series of tests.

Conversion

  • The process of changing from the old system to the new system.
    • Four Main Strategies:
      • Parallel Strategy
      • Direct Cutover
      • Pilot Study
      • Phased Approach
    • Requires end-user training to ensure effective use of the new system.
    • Finalization of detailed documentation showing how the system works from both a technical and an end-user perspective.

Conversion Strategies Explained

  • Parallel Strategy: Both the old system and its potential replacement run together for a time, ensuring the new one functions correctly before the old one is fully retired.
  • Direct Cutover Strategy: Replaces the old system entirely with the new system on a specific appointed day.
  • Pilot Study Strategy: Introduces the new system to a limited area of the organization, such as a single department or operating unit, to test its effectiveness before wider implementation.
  • Phased Approach Strategy: Introduces the new system in stages, either by functions or by organizational units.

Production and Maintenance

  • The system is reviewed to determine if revisions are needed.
    • May include a post-implementation audit document to assess the system's performance.
  • Maintenance:
    • Involves changes to hardware, software, documentation, or procedures of a production system to correct errors, meet new requirements, or improve processing efficiency.

Summary of Systems Development Activities

Core ActivityDescription
Systems AnalysisIdentify problem(s), specify solutions, and establish information requirements.
Systems DesignCreate design specifications.
ProgrammingTranslate design specifications into code.
TestingUnit test, systems test, and acceptance test.
ConversionPlan conversion, prepare documentation, and train users and technical staff.
Production & Maint.Operate the system, evaluate the system, and modify the system as needed.

Systems Modeling Methodologies

  • Structured Methodologies:
    • Step-by-step, progressive techniques.
    • Process-oriented, focusing on modeling processes or actions that manipulate data.
    • Separate data from processes.
  • Object-Oriented Development:

Data Flow Diagram

  • A primary tool for representing a system’s component processes and the flow of data between them.
  • Offers a logical graphic model of information flow.
  • High-level and lower-level diagrams can break processes down into successive layers of detail.
  • Data Dictionary: Defines the contents of data flows and data stores.
  • Process Specifications: Describe the transformations occurring within the lowest level of data flow diagrams.
  • Structure Chart: A top-down chart showing each level of design, its relationship to other levels, and its place in the overall design structure.

Alternative Systems-Building Methods

  • Traditional systems life cycle
  • Prototyping
  • End-user development
  • Application software packages
  • Outsourcing

Traditional Systems Life Cycle

  • The oldest method for building information systems.
  • A phased approach that divides development into formal stages.
  • Follows a “waterfall” approach, where tasks in one stage must finish before another stage begins.
  • Maintains a formal division of labor between end users and information systems specialists.
  • Emphasizes formal specifications and paperwork.
  • Still used for building large, complex systems.
  • Can be costly, time-consuming, and inflexible.

Prototyping

  • Involves building an experimental system rapidly and inexpensively for end users to evaluate.
  • Prototype: A working but preliminary version of an information system.
  • An approved prototype serves as a template for the final system.
  • Steps in Prototyping:
    1. Identify user requirements.
    2. Develop the initial prototype.
    3. Use the prototype.
    4. Revise and enhance the prototype.

Advantages of Prototyping

  • Useful when there is some uncertainty in requirements or design solutions.
  • Often used for end-user interface design.
  • More likely to fulfill end-user requirements.

Disadvantages of Prototyping

  • May gloss over essential steps.
  • May not accommodate large quantities of data or a large number of users.
  • May not undergo full testing or documentation.

End-User Development

  • Uses fourth-generation languages to allow end-users to develop systems with little or no help from technical specialists.
  • Fourth-Generation Languages: Less procedural than conventional programming languages.
    • Examples:
      • PC software tools
      • Query languages
      • Report generators
      • Graphics languages
      • Application generators
      • Application software packages
      • Very high-level programming languages

Advantages of End-User Development

  • More rapid completion of projects
  • High level of user involvement and satisfaction

Disadvantages of End-User Development

  • Not designed for processing-intensive applications
  • Inadequate management and control, testing, and documentation
  • Loss of control over data

Managing End-User Development

  • Require cost-justification of end-user system projects
  • Establish hardware, software, and quality standards

Application Software Packages

  • Save time and money.
  • Many offer customization features:
    • Software can be modified to meet unique requirements without destroying the integrity of the package software.
  • Evaluation Criteria:
    • Functions provided by the package, flexibility, user-friendliness, hardware and software resources, database requirements, installation and maintenance efforts, documentation, vendor quality, and cost.
  • Request for Proposal (RFP):
    • A detailed list of questions submitted to packaged-software vendors to evaluate alternative software packages.

Outsourcing

  • Several Types:
    • Cloud and SaaS Providers:
      • Subscribing companies use software and computer hardware provided by vendors.
    • External Vendors:
      • Hired to design and create software.
      • Domestic outsourcing is driven by a firm's need for additional skills, resources, and assets.
      • Offshore outsourcing is primarily driven by cost savings.

Advantages of Outsourcing

  • Allows organizations flexibility in IT needs.

Disadvantages of Outsourcing

  • Hidden Costs:
    • Identifying and selecting a vendor
    • Transitioning to the vendor
  • Opening up proprietary business processes to a third party.