Management Information System 2

Changes likely to have substantial impact on your school services in the next three years

2010-06-29T07:38:00.000-07:00

The pace of change seems to increase relentlessly, especially changes involving information technology. Using your crystal ball, identify and discuss three changes likely to have substantial impact on your school services in the next three years.

As we have seen and notice right now technology is expanding all over the world and we can’t deny that almost a hundred percent of the people rely in the technology for sustaining their everyday work of living. Our world today has changed a great deal with the aid of information technology. Things that were once done manually or by hand have now become computerized operating systems, which simply require a single click of a mouse to get a task completed. With the aid of IT we are not only able to stream line our business processes but we are also able to get constant information in 'real time' that is up to the minute and up to date. The significance of IT can be seen from the fact that it has penetrated almost every aspect of our daily lives from business to leisure and even society. Today personal PCs, cell phones, fax machines, pagers, email and internet have all not only become an integral part of our very culture but also play an essential role in our day to day activities. With such a wide scope for the purpose of this article we shall focus on the impact of the internet in information technology.
Technology, in this fast-changing world is very important in our daily existence. The world has never been the same with technology around. Every year, technological advancements are made to make us live with ease. However, technology has its share of adverse effects to humanity as well. With new technology, countries have been destroyed and thousands of lives are lost. Some people take advantage of technology, using it for personal gain. Out of greed, people use high-powered technology to get ahead of others. This should never be the case. Technology was invented to make life easier for all of us, not to destroy us. Advertising and marketing has played a big role in the influence of technology to humanity. Information technology has a great impact in our daily lives, as our environment changes also the technology changes rapidly. People need to adopt those rapid changes and fast innovation of information technology. The role of digital technology in the evolving knowledge society is comparable to that of the railroad during the Industrial Revolution. With the aid of information-technology “tracks”—high-speed computer and telecommunications systems—now inter-connecting so much of the world, reaching into the marketplace, government, and our homes and lives, we often learn about events virtually as soon as they occur and we are able to process the information in a myriad of increasingly useful ways. Changes involving information technology nowadays is really fast. Information technology has been used in all companies and establishments, especially in school. The use of information technology in school is very important so that the students can know what the latest trends in IT are nowadays and also to help the students in sufficing their need.
In the near future, there would be more expansion on technology as what have said that technology nowadays is fast changing. Technology development plays a major role in the society, organizations, process and also in the institutions or shall we say in schools. With the fast- pace of technology, schools should cope with it to equip the students with new technology and to continue improve for the better future. Since, students or youth is the hope of the country, students should endow and expose with these new technologies to have a better education for the young minds. If there are changes most likely to happen within the university probably there would be a great emphasis on the upgrades of hardware and software components, supplementary trainings and empowerment of more IS/IT personnel, the use of technology as a method of instruction, and students’ access to computers and internet in learning.
Since, Information technology means the use of technologies from computing, electronics, and telecommunications to process and distribute information in digital and other forms. Information technology includes two distinct components. These components are the hardware and software components of a computer system. Since, information technology covers two components, improvements in those two areas would see slowly in the next three years to be enacted. In terms of hardware components, it would be a great contribution for the expansion and improvement of the technology offered to the students of the school. There would be improvement not only on the outside appearance of the computer but also in its inner components. Higher capacity and specifications for hardware components will provide a faster processing that will, of course evident if the software component also goes along with its high specification. Moreover, new and sufficient amount of equipments or gadgets for the school instructors, staff and especially to the students should be satisfied.
But of course, with the computer components it should be accompanied in promoting green computing. With the energy shortage that the country is experiencing right now and the abnormal fluctuations of the earth’s temperature, more and more people are already aware of the significance of protecting our environment and conserving energy. Because of this, the university should consider the environmental effects of the hardware components that will be bought in the future.

IT Infrastructure
Next change would be the IT infrastructure. Infrastructure defined by Wikipedia is the basic physical and organizational structures needed for the operation of a society or enterprise, or the services and facilities necessary for an economy to function. Having a change on the infrastructure of the university specially the IT infrastructure could also have a big impact on the university services. If there would be changes I hope these would be additions on the facilities that the students would make use of not deduction of this. To wrap it up changes would not mean there would be additions all the time it could sometime mean removing some services. Changes could have positive impact to which it concerns but not all the time it could be for improvement, there are times negative outputs come out of the new implementations or changes that are made. According to (Malone and Crowston, the increasing speed pace of change require more flexible and adaptive organizations. Rockart and Short cites the ballooning need for the interdependence of organizational structure to IT in managing competitive pressures that included globalization, time-based competition, increased market risk, and a greater emphasis on customer service and cost reduction. Bennis states that "the organization's response to the environment will continue to be the crucial determinant for its effectiveness." As organizations use information, effective usage of Information Technology likely results to the organizations development and growth. It is apparent that IT has great impact in the university, and whatever changes in IT has the university as an IT-reliant organization has to go with the changes in order not to be behind. As Keen (1991) noted that IT increasingly and continuously affects the organizations operations as well as its behavior including issues as on how the organization organize, transact business, and contend with other organization.

Free internet (Wi-Fi) access
Wi-fi is the name of a popular wireless networking technology that uses radio waves to provide wireless high-speed Internet and network connections. The Wi-Fi Alliance, the organization that owns the Wi-Fi (registered trademark) term specifically defines Wi-Fi as any "wireless local areanetwork (WLAN) products that are based on the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers' (IEEE) 802.11 standards."Initially, Wi-Fi was used in place of only the 2.4GHz 802.11b standard, however the Wi-Fi Alliance has expanded the generic use of the Wi-Fi term to include any type of network or WLAN product based on any of the 802.11 standards, including 802.11b, 802.11a, dual-band, and so on, in an attempt to stop confusion about wireless LAN interoperability.Wi-Fi works with no physical wired connection between sender and receiver by using radio frequency (RF) technology, a frequency within the electromagnetic spectrum associated with radio wave propagation.

Recently, I have been noticing that more and more students are now using portable computers like laptops and notebooks even those students whose courses are not even computer related. This is now quite evident maybe because of the fact that laptops nowadays are more affordable compared to laptops before. How much more in the future? With the increasing population of students that are using laptops, it is a shame that up to now there is still no free wifi access in the university for the students. I can still notice some students with laptops are sneaking near offices and faculty rooms within the university just to have free wifi access. To make it worse, there are security restrictions which prevent the student from accessing the wifi connection. The university admin may say that there is no need for a free wifi access because the university already has a virtual laboratory to suffice the internet needs of the students. This may be true for those students who don’t have personal computers. But what about those students who literally use their laptops as personal notebooks that they even use during classes. And let’s all face it, the computers provided by the computer laboratories are not that satisfactory when it comes to data processing and the computer laboratory cannot accommodate all the students because of the scarcity of computers. The least the university can do is provide a free wifi service in which the students who has laptops can access free internet by just staying inside the campus. I believe that this kind of change will be a “substantial change for the good” because I believe that it will really help the students in particular to stay inside the campus than go outside just to access the internet.

Process Automation
In the next three years, considering the rapid changes including the changes on information technology I can say that almost all of the services that can be adopt into automated system will be innovated into automated one. Using internet services, computers, data storage servers, the student’s knowledge on information technology, and the teacher’s guidance and administration, full service automation can be achieved. Nowadays some services in the university still use a manual system, in the next three years all of those services will be change into an automated one. Through automated services, faster performance and services will be achieve and satisfy the needs of service takers. To cope with the new trend in the technology, automation of the processes should be done. Processes provided by the university to the students and processes that are made by the school. Processes mean many things in regard to the school. School ID system using barcodes, is one of many other processes. As I have observed, most universities in Davao already adapted the technology of using the school id system to facilitate and improve their services. It is unfortunate that up until now, the university hasn’t taken the advantage of using our school ids to improve student services. Three years from now, I can see that there is a significant improvement in the school services through the use of embedded bar codes in our school ids. Through bar codes, student ID cards can act as a "portable database" where we can store digital photographs, signatures, schedule data, emergency contact information and even biometric data in a single code the size of a magnetic stripe - all at virtually no extra cost. Automation also includes library automation, such as borrowing of books would also be possible by using barcodes. As well as, science laboratory automation of equipments for more accurate inventory of available equipments. Class scheduling system would also be among with it and much other automation of processes that can offer great improvement to the school and to its students. Barcode technology is most accurate and least expensive way to identify and get data into the computer. The extent of achievement in the library after introduction of barcode technology is quite high. The following are the benefits of the barcode technology: Improved operational efficiency: Manual charging/ discharging of documents is very cumbersome. Operational efficiency has improved a lot after using the barcode technology as barcodes permit faster recording of information. Accuracy: In the manual system, the writing of accession number and member code may result in charging/discharging a wrong book to a wrong member. But barcode scans accession number and member code at the time of charging/discharging to ensure the accuracy in transactions. It leads to an error free data entry. With the help of barcode issue/return of documents can be done faster, which helps in saving the time of both the user as well as library staff. Barcode helps reducing in cost of preparing duplicate borrowers card.
A barcode is an optical machine-readable representation of data, which shows certain data on certain products. Originally, barcodes represented data in the widths (lines) and the spacings of parallel lines, and may be referred to as linear or 1D (1 dimensional) barcodes or symbologies. They also come in patterns of squares, dots, hexagons and other geometric patterns within images termed 2D (2 dimensional) matrix codes or symbologies. Although 2D systems use symbols other than bars, they are generally referred to as barcodes as well. Barcodes can be read by optical scanners called barcode readers, or scanned from an image by special software. Barcode technology is fast and user-friendly. Barcode will help in stock verification expeditiously and easily. Barcode will help in maintaining duplicate borrowers’ card, which were occupying more space on the issue counter. Issuing of no dues certificate will become easy; it was very cumbersome to verify from a manual system. It will facilitate preparation of reminders and fine lists for overdue books. It provides reliable statistics. It adds to elegance and aesthetics of the front office and its activities.
Benefits
In point-of-sale management, the use of barcodes can provide very detailed up-to-date information on key aspects of the business, enabling decisions to be made much more quickly and with more confidence. For example:
Fast-selling items can be identified quickly and automatically reordered to meet consumer demand,
Slow-selling items can be identified, preventing a build-up of unwanted stock,
The effects of repositioning a given product within a store can be monitored, allowing fast-moving more profitable items to occupy the best space,
Historical data can be used to predict seasonal fluctuations very accurately.
Items may be repriced on the shelf to reflect both sale prices and price increases.
This technology also enables the profiling of individual consumers, typically through a voluntary registration of discount cards. While pitched as a benefit to the consumer, this practice is considered to be potentially dangerous by privacy advocates.
Besides sales and inventory tracking, barcodes are very useful in shipping/receiving/tracking.
When a manufacturer packs a box with any given item, a Unique Identifying Number (UID) can be assigned to the box.
A relational database can be created to relate the UID to relevant information about the box; such as order number, items packed, qty packed, final destination, etc.
The information can be transmitted through a communication system such as Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) so the retailer has the information about a shipment before it arrives.
Shipments that are sent to a Distribution Center (DC) are tracked before being forwarded to the final destination. When the shipment gets to the final destination, the UID gets scanned, so the store knows where the order came from, what's inside the box, and how much to pay the manufacturer.
The reason barcodes are business-friendly is that the scanners are relatively low cost and extremely accurate compared to key-entry, with only about 1 substitution error in 15,000 to 36 trillion characters entered.[14] The exact error rate depends on the type of barcode.
Use
Barcodes—especially the UPC—have slowly become an essential[citation needed] part of modern civilization. Their use is widespread, and the technology behind barcodes is constantly improving. Some modern applications of barcodes include:
Almost every item purchased from a grocery store, department store, and mass merchandiser has a UPC barcode on it. This greatly helps in keeping track of a large number of items in a store and also reduces instances of shoplifting involving price tag swapping, although shoplifters can now print their own barcodes. Since the adoption of barcodes, both consumers and retailers have benefited from the savings generated.
Barcodes are widely used in shop floor control applications software where employees can scan work orders and enter the time spent on a job.[10]
Retail chain membership cards (issued mostly by grocery stores and specialty "big box" retail stores such as sporting equipment, office supply, or pet stores) use bar codes to uniquely identify a consumer. Retailers benefit by being able to offer customized marketing and greater understanding of individual consumer shopping patterns. Shoppers typically get special offers at the point of sale (coupons, product discounts) or special marketing offers through the address or e-mail address provided at registration.

The increasing speed pace of change requires more flexible and adaptive organizations. The ballooning need for the interdependence of organizational structure to IT in managing competitive pressures that included globalization, time-based competition, increased market risk, and a greater emphasis on customer service and cost reduction. The organization's response to the environment will continue to be the crucial determinant for its effectiveness. As organizations use information, effective usage of Information Technology likely results to the organizations development and growth. It is apparent that IT has great impact in the university, and whatever changes in IT has the university as an IT-reliant organization has to go with the changes in order not to be behind. Through the help of information technology, university services will be faster and accurate. As the University adopts the fast changing environment involving information technology, such as the combination of the two changes above, having a full automation (computerize system), and advance and enough technology resources this changes will be achieve. It is noted that IT increasingly and continuously affects the organizations operations as well as its behavior including issues as on how the organization organize, transact business, and contend with other organization.

Guide questions in strategic information system plan

2010-06-29T07:33:00.000-07:00

fast forward ..., you were hired and have been tasked to develop a strategic information systems plan for a company. The company officers have extended an invitation for you to meet with them to discuss the direction of the company. Before this meeting, they have asked that you provide a list of questions with some explanation about the "why" of the question so they can be prepared, thus maximizing the output from this meeting. Develop a list of questions you would ask the officers of the company and give an explanation and justification for each question.

Little by little most of the organizations already have a grasp on technology for the development and to be competitive among others with the aid of information system technology. With the wide acceptance of information system as a valuable organizational resource that can potentially give back a huge amount of return of investment, strategic planning of information system has been considered to be a crucial part of the business plan of most companies nowadays. By definition, strategic information systems planning, also known as simply SISP, is the process whereby an organization establishes a long-range plan of computer-based applications in order to achieve its goals. With the huge potential benefits of an effective information system, it is very important for an IS consultant to know the right questions to ask to the company officers not only to fully assess the information system needs of the company but also develop an effective strategic information system plan.
Strategic Information Technology
Strategic Information System Planning as for any other system do begin with the identification of the needs- whether needs of the organization or need of the system itself. To be more efficient and effective, development of any type of computer-based system should be a response to need--whether at the transaction processing level or at the more complex information and support systems levels. The mentioned planning for information systems is much akin to strategic planning in management. Note that objectives, priorities, and authorization for information systems projects need to be formalized. The systems development plan should identify specific projects slated for the future, priorities for each project and for resources, general procedures, and constraints for each application area. Furthermore, the strategic plan must be precise enough to make possible the understanding of each application and to know where it stands in the order of development. Also, it should be flexible so that priorities can be adjusted if necessary in some cases. I am also referring to the need for continuously updating and improving IS architecture. I have read that “SISP is the analysis of a corporation’s information and processes using business information models together with the evaluation of risk, current needs and requirements.” (Pant, Hsu, 1995). The result is an action plan showing the desired course of events necessary to align information use and needs with the strategic direction of the company. In developing a strategic information system plan, lots of questions are possible to be asked to the company officers as part of the process. As long as it will be beneficial to the development and would give a result that can help to the success of it, it has no doubt accepted. Here are some of the questions that can be asked to the company officers that based on the three phase methodology of strategic information system planning.
Strategic information systems planning is a disciplined, systematic approach to determining the most effective and efficient means of satisfying organizational information needs. It is a top-down, structured approach which, to be successful, must employ technical and managerial processes in a systems engineering context. Under this approach, the characteristics of the system’s hardware, software, facilities, data, and personnel are identified and defined through detailed design and analysis to achieve the most cost-effective system for satisfying the organization’s needs. The process must consider system life cycle management and the organization’s policy and budget as important integral factors, and include all organizational participants (e.g., managers, users, maintainers, operators, and designers) throughout the process. It is an iterative process in that changes identified during the process must be evaluated to determine their effect on completed analyses. Strategic information systems planning is not a one-time event-it should be revisited periodically to ensure a system’s continued viability in meeting information needs and achieving long-term missions. Information systems are important tools for effectively meeting organizational objectives. Readily available, complete, and accurate information is essential for making informed and timely decisions. Being unable to obtain needed data, wading through unneeded data, or inefficiently processing needed data wastes resources. The organization must identify its information needs on the basis of a systematic identification and analysis of its mission and functions to be performed, who is to perform them, the information and supporting data needed to perform the functions, and the processes needed to most usefully structure the information. Successful information system development and acquisition must include a rigorous and disciplined process of data gathering, evaluation, and analysis prior to committing significant financial and human resources to any information system development. While implementing such an approach may not preclude all information system acquisition problems, it should produce detailed knowledge of organizational missions and operations, user information needs and alternatives to address those needs, and an open and flexible architecture that is expandable or that can be upgraded to meet future needs. The purpose and use of information system in the beginning was targeted towards reducing manual labor and increasing efficiency and thus reducing cost of doing business. Cost has thus been the ‘primal instinct’ justification for the usage of Information system in companies. Management seems to still use this justification even in today’s day and age because the IT salesman still thinks it’s the best and only way to get management buy-in. Moreover, as most other rationales used for IS have proved hard to sell, both the IT sales teams and their customers find a comfort zone in cost savings. This could also be because both sides (from all their previous experiences) are convinced of their failure before they even start out on a different track. The past experiences, in most cases were times they tried, half heartedly probably, without enough experience and failed. These failures have resulted in the baby being thrown out along with the dirty water. Systems are usually laid out at different levels. The lowest rung in the ladder is taken by the TRANSACTIONAL information system. These are ones like ‘Pont Of Sales’ systems used in the store counters, or book keeping systems mentioned earlier. These are systems targeting cost reduction, capturing repetitive activities and assisting the human using it to become more efficient in handling larger volumes of transactions.
The OPERATIONAL or operation support systems are usually build combining several Transactional systems in a logical sequence so as to make the operation of any particular division/functional group more efficient. Classic example is the integration of Accounting, Payroll, HR, and Inventory, Production etc. to form a MRP or ERP system. Or POS, Customer Account Info, Accounting, etc. linked together to form a CRM system. A very critical component for operational systems is their reporting systems. They provide the reports that combine and merge the reports/information from several transactional systems to provide reports to help executives manage operations in a synchronized and optimized manner. Thus, they act as enablers and help managers to keep track of various parameters so as to keep the whole operation smooth and efficient.
STRATEGIC systems are little more complicated. They cross the regular operational boundaries and become tools that form the basis for senior management to plan, execute and monitor the organization. They help in keeping track of the Key Performance Indicators by combining and logically sorting information from various Operational and Transactional systems all across the company and at times combining it with external information from sources like the stock market, industry sources, partners and even competitors. Designing STRATEGIC information system requires a thought process of a ‘good’ CEO with an understanding of the business from the top, various information sources present in the company and outside in platforms that need to be collated, combined and extracted into a tool to help run the company in a more informed and responsive manner.

Phase 1 Preliminary Assessment
1. What are the present capabilities of the IS department of your company (if there is one)?
2. Describe the readiness of the company to use IS.
3. What is the status of the customers and the industry with respect to your company?
Phase 2 Business Strategy Analysis
1. What are the current management strategies of your company with respect to IS?
( ex. Bleeding edge, leading edge, lagging edge, single vendor strategy, outsourcing)
2. How effective are your current IS strategies?
3. What are the problems that your company encountered with your current IS strategy?
Phase 3 Strategic IS planning
1. What do you want to achieve in the future? ( Setting Goals)
The answer to this question will help me assess the goals of the company of acquiring an information system strategy. This would enable me to generally set the goals of the SISP that I will develop for the company.
2. What are your measurable targets? ( Setting Objectives )
The answer to this question will help me assess the effectiveness of the steps and strategies that I have chosen as the SISP of the company. The answer to this question generally sets the objectives of the company’s SISP. The objectives of the SISP should be measurable in order to measure the effectiveness of the strategy and An example of a measurable target would be the return of investment over a specific period time.
3. What are your company policies when it comes to acquisition of an information system?

In an organization, strategic information systems plan (SISP) is really important because it is a tool in which the organization can attain their successful development and improvement of the system. By doing that, of course all the people involved should gather to discuss what to do. And one way to understand what will be doing is the guidelines which are the questions that everyone should talk about and discuss. Below are questions than can also be considered to asked to the company officers:
1.) What are the business mission, objectives, and goals?
Here, it analyses the processes for all the data needed. It will identify the data currently required to perform the processes. It describes the overall information system architecture comprised of databases and applications as well as the installation schedule of individual systems.
2.) What will be the expected output of this project you want to have?
After knowing their business mission, objectives and goals, it should be given an emphasis of what the company wants to have in a certain project and to know exactly the expected output or finish product so that it will be concentrated to what is its goal to achieve.
3.) Who are the persons involved in this project?
The PEOPLE Issue represents the readiness of the organization to absorb technology and awareness factors. This if overlooked can be a major cause of failure for any plan during the implementation phase. By this, everyone will know all the persons they will be working with or dealing with so that in times of there will be something wrong happen, they used to know who to ask or to talk to fix such problem.
4.) Does your company willing to provide sufficient budget either it will be big or small project?
Factors that become critical at the stage of doing projects are the availability of budget. All plans should be supported through a justification on the basis of cost savings, (but, of course) opportunity cost and strategic rationale like competitive advantage, perception etc. amongst other factors. Asking this is a big help because budget is the mainly needed for it is in here in which the project will be going through whatever it takes. It is the one in which why certain project will be establish or is established.
5.) Ready to reengineer?
It provides techniques or building enterprise models, data models, and process models. These form a comprehensive knowledge base which then creates and maintains information systems.
6.) How much is the allotted time for the project?
Persons involved should have to discuss about how much time will be consume to take for this project. By knowing this, each can have a managed time and how they will use it to finish certain project.
7.) How company deal with the changes?
Changes here means that everyone should study also of the existing TECHNOLOGY platform within the company, the infrastructure, the state and format of the data and information present. Along with all this, the governance of technology is also something to watch out for. It becomes important to manage the chaos that would naturally result from too many ‘technology’ cooks in a company. The standards, responsibility and approval structure in selecting and implementing technology choices have to be clear and specific in order to avoid pain of integration and obsolescence.

In the end, choosing questions that are necessary to be answered by the company officers as part of the planning will play a big role in the success of it. In choosing questions,one should be careful and think-through on the importance of it and the output it will give because by these questions, necessary information that is very essential in the overall process are at risk. On top of it, giving attention to the questions to give away only shows one point, which is to acquire the vital information that can be gathered by appropriate questions to be asked.

www.wikipedia.org

The Google Corporation

2010-06-29T07:31:00.000-07:00

Google is a corporation that is becoming more profitable by the day. This massive internet giant has a continuous growth that has made it one of the richest technology based companies in the world. It currently employs thousands of people has stretched itself across the four corners of the cyber world.

Google Inc. is an American public corporation specializing in Internet search. It also generates profits from advertising bought on its similarly free-to-user e-mail, online mapping, office productivity, social networking and video-sharing services. Google Inc. provides advertising and global internet search solutions, as well as intranet solutions via an enterprise search appliance. Products and Services for Users Google.com—Search and Personalization, the Company offers its products and services through its Web sites. These products and services include: Google Web Search: In addition to providing access to web pages, the company has integrated special features into Google Web Search to help people find exactly what they are looking for on the web.

Business models are perhaps the most discussed and least understood aspect of the web. There is so much talk about how the web changes traditional business models. But there is little clear-cut evidence of exactly what this means.
In the most basic sense, a business model is the method of doing business by which a company can sustain itself -- that is, generate revenue. The business model spells-out how a company makes money by specifying where it is positioned in the value chain.

The Google has several of competitors, namely: Yahoo, MSN, AOL, Industry, Match.com and many others.

Google's co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin have said themselves that the current pre-dominant business model for commercial search engines is advertising. Google Ads went from a means to generate the necessary revenue to keep the budding search engine on its feet to a profit machine that became a key focus in Google's business plans. This form of advertising is cheap for businesses to buy, easy for Google to distribute and highly profitable. On top of all this, the ingenuity of it is that it allows other individuals to generate their own money by getting other web users to click on the advertisements when they visit their web site. Within no time businesses and indivduals alike wanted a piece of the Google Ads action. This sudden popularity was used as part of the model and therefore allowed Google to get its own name around the cyber world, quickly gaining the title of biggest search giant. It has been growing ever since.
While competitors are targeting the individual applications Google has deployed, Google is building a massive, general purpose computing platform for web-scale programming.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google
http://investing.businessweek.com/research/stocks/snapshot/snapshot_article.asp?ticker=GOOG:US
http://digitalenterprise.org/models/models.html

Critical success factors

2010-06-29T07:29:00.000-07:00

Identify and discuss the steps for "critical success factors" approach?

In establishing a goal in every endeavor we have, there are things that should need to be considered. With the different issues and circumstances to occur during the process, it is very important to have focus and well plan to assist the situation in any ways. The doers or actors should be open to any possible happenings, positive or not, to be made and to encounter later on. Problems should have a solution and has always a solution, the only thing is, and at least one should have anticipated the happenings to be able to come up with a better and suitable solution.
Any organization inherently possesses a mission which states why it exists and a vision which states where it is headed. In order to achieve the mission of an organization, all of the members of that particular organization should participate and contribute for the achievement of the goals and objectives of the organization as a whole. As our professor once said, every member should embrace the “one and only game plan” of the organization or else the organization will find it hard if not impossible to succeed. In addition, the organization must consistently concentrate on the key areas to achieve the mission. These key areas can be different from each organization depending on the type of organization and the type of industry that they are in. These key areas are what we call as the organization’s critical success factors. In the world of business, there are so many things that need to be noticed. With a lot of issues in the organization that gains your attention, it is quite difficult to oversee them all and take charge all at once. There is a tendency that you might not also notice some important matters and it will be left behind. This is one of the reasons why you are not alone in doing business; you have your colleagues and business associates which may help you in looking after the concerns of the company. But it could also be difficult for you to get them into looking at the same directions and share with your concerns and eventually get them into action. This is probably the reason why there are “critical success factors” being set in the organization.

These are the Most Critical Success Factors:
- Money: positive cash flow, revenue growth, and profit margins.
- Your future: Acquiring new customers and/or distributors.
- Customer satisfaction: How happy they are.
- Quality: How good is your product and service?
- Product or service development: What's new that will increase business with existing customers and attract new ones?
- Intellectual capital: Increasing what you know is profitable.
- Strategic relationships: New sources of business, products and outside revenue.
- Employee attraction and retention: Your ability to extend your reach.
- Sustainability: Your personal ability to keep it all going.

Academic Background/ History
The principle of identifying critical success factors as a basis for determining the information needs of managers was proposed by RH Daniel (1961 Harvard Business Review - HBR) as an interdisciplinary approach with a potential usefulness in the practice of evaluation within library and information units but popularized by F Rockart (1979 Harvard Business Review - HBR). In time many academics have applied the methodology increasingly outside the educational establishment.
The idea is very simple: In any organization certain factors will be critical to the success of that organization, in the sense that, if objectives associated with the factors are not achieved, the organization will fail - perhaps catastrophically so.
The following as an example of generic CSF's:
• New product development,
• Good distribution, and
• Effective advertising
Factors that remain relevant today for many organizations.

Five Key Sources of Critical Success Factors
MAIN ASPECTS OF Critical Success Factors and their use in analysis
CSF's are tailored to a firm's or manager's particular situation as different situations (e.g. industry, division, individual) lead to different critical success factors. Rockart and Bullen presented five key sources of CSF's:
1.The industry,
2.Competitive strategy and industry position,
3.Environmental factors,
4.Temporal factors, and
5.Managerial position (if considered from an individual's point of view). Each of these factors is explained in greater detail below.
An element of organizational activity which is central to its future success. Critical success factors may change over time, and may include items such as product quality, employee attitudes, manufacturing flexibility, and brand awareness. This can enable analysis.

Critical Success Factor
Any of the aspects of a business that are identified as vital for successful targets to be reached and maintained. Critical success factors are normally identified in such areas as production processes, employee and organization skills, functions, techniques, and technologies. The identification and strengthening of such factors may be similar. Is a business term for an element which is necessary for an organization or project to achieve its mission. For example, a CSF for a successful Information Technology (IT) project is user involvement. In the Re.ViCa project a critical success factor is defined as follow:
A critical success factor is a factor whose presence is necessary for an organization to fulfill its mission - in other words, if it is not present then its absence will cause organizational and/or mission failure. Those are just some of various definitions that we could find when we will try to look for the critical success factors. The idea of identifying critical success factors as a basis for determining the information needs of managers was proposed by Daniel (1961) but popularized by Rockart (1979). The idea is very simple: in any organization certain factors will be critical to the success of that organization, in the sense that, if objectives associated with the factors are not achieved, the organization will fail - perhaps catastrophically so. Rockart (1979: 85), by referring to Daniel (1961), gives the following as an example of the CSFs: new product development, good distribution, and effective advertising for the food processing industry - factors that remain relevant today for many firms. As we start to discuss the Critical Success Factors, it is important to realize that the specific factors relevant for you will vary from business to business and industry to industry. The key to using Critical Success Factors effectively is to ensure that your definition of a factor of your organizations activity which is central to its future will always apply. Therefore success in determining the Critical Success Factors for your organization is to determine what is central to its future and achievement of that future. Critical Success Factors are the critical factors or activities required for ensuring the success your business. The term was initially used in the world of data analysis, and business analysis. Critical Success Factors have been used significantly to present or identify a few key factors that organizations should focus on to be successful. As a definition, critical success factors refer to "the limited number of areas in which satisfactory results will ensure successful competitive performance for the individual, department, or organization”. Inevitably, the CSF concept has evolved, and you may have seen it implemented in different ways. Critical Success Factors are strongly related to the mission and strategic goals of your business or project. Whereas the mission and goals focus on the aims and what is to be achieved, Critical Success Factors focus on the most important areas and get to the very heart of both what is to be achieved and how you will achieve it. The term “Critical Success Factor” is used differently, due to ambiguity of the word “critical”. But whichever definition we may use, just be sure it is understood by all the managers.

Four Basic Types Of Critical Success Factor:
1. Industry - resulting from specific industry characteristics;
2. Strategy - resulting from the chosen competitive strategy of the business;
3. Environmental - resulting from economic or technological changes; and
4. Temporal - resulting from internal organizational needs and changes.
It is said that things that are measured get done more often than things that are not measured. Each CSF should be measurable and associated with a target goal. It’s not necessarily that you need exact measures to manage. Primary measures that should be listed include critical success levels or, in cases where specific measurements are more difficult, general goals should be specified. Identifying Critical Success Factors is important as it allows firms to focus their efforts on building their capabilities to meet the CSF's, or even allow firms to decide if they have the capability to build the requirements necessary to meet Critical Success Factors.

How to Identify the Critical Success Factors
1. Identify your predicament. Identifying the critical success factors of your business starts with determining the roadblocks or challenges that may hinder your company's ability to grow and fulfill its goals. These roadblocks can be internal (i.e., company politics or employee dissatisfaction) or external (i.e., economic policies, political climate that affects business, etc.).
2. Create a strategic plan. Identifying the challenges that your business is faced with will help in developing a strategic plan that sufficiently addresses these hindrances. A strategic plan is one that will cover these roadblocks and help the organization anticipate them.
3. Understand your targeted customers. To fulfill your business goals, you need to learn more about the behavior of your targeted consumers. This means understanding the demographic of someone who is more likely to avail your product or service.
4. Compare your service with your competition. You want to assess how you serve this market niche in relation to your direct competitors to find out how your product is faring among other brands. Identify what your consumers expect from your product and then find out if your product is actually delivering according to these expectations. Look at other brands and do the same analysis.
5. Examine the competition on the basis of how they operate. After looking at how your competitors serve your targeted market, you now move onto analyzing how the competing brands produce their products. Examine quality control metrics, performance and production cycles. A look at a particular product's ingredients, for instance, will shed some light as to its . Compare these practices with your own way of producing your merchandise and identify the shortcomings of the competition's strategy.
6. Adjust your production strategies as needed. Looking at how your competitors produce the same product will allow you to determine the weaknesses of your own strategy. If a competitor, for instance, is able to provide the same product at a significantly lower price, then it stands to reason that you may have issues with the efficient use of production resources. Look at how you can cut down costs of production without sacrificing the quality of your product. This will become one of your critical success factors: improving production efficiency.

Steps for Critical Success Factor Approach
Based on what I have understood and read, I come up with some steps for critical success factors. These are the following steps. First, start with a vision and a mission statement. Second, develop a high level and hierarchy of goals and their success factors. Next, list of requirements, problems, and assumptions. Then, analysis matrices. Afterwards, solid usage scenarios. And finally, the result of the analysis.
Start with a vision and a mission statement. Every organization has its own unique vision and mission that they want to follow. It is important to know what are the firm’s vision and mission before you can start pointing out the firm’s critical success factor.

Develop high level and hierarchy of goals and their success factors. It is always good to know the goals of the organization since critical success factor is a step in ensuring the organizations success. With critical success factor, you are focusing on what the company aims in the future and if the firm is able to achieve those goals and dreams that was already a success.
List of requirements, problems, and assumptions. It is necessary to gather all the data and information with regards to the organization, site all the problems that the organization are facing or might be facing in the future, and identify the following assumptions on how to the company will get over with those problems.
Analysis matrices. Part of these analysis matrices is the problem versus requirements matrix and the usage scenarios versus requirements matrix. You have to know if all the requirements you have gathered are consistent enough. Analyze if the requirements are completed and appropriate. Analyze the problems and set some solutions on how to solve those problems. Examine if the needs of the company has been cope up. And evaluate how the company gain success would in the future.
Solid Usage Scenarios. Usage scenarios or in other words “use cases” which is very much familiar when using unified modeling language. This provides an idea on determining if the requirements are aligned and self-consistent, if the needs of the user being met as well as those of the enterprise, and if the requirements are complete.
Result of the Analysis. After having a couple of analysis, you can now list what are the things that can be considered as critical for the success of the organization. You will know the factors that would benefit and affect for the success of the firm.

Every firm has its own critical success factors. It depends on their strategy on how they can obtain success. Example of a critical success on an organization are the training and education, quality data and reporting, management commitment, customer satisfaction, staff orientation, role of the quality department, communication to improve quality, and continuous improvement. There may be several of critical success factors but it is necessary that you have to make sure that it is in line with the organizations vision, mission and goals. If the organization has achieved its goals, you can already declare that the organization has succeeded. In some cases, companies want to complete a project successfully that could be a big benefit for the company’s success. As what I have read, there has been a research that shows that there are critical success factors that should be applied to complete a project successfully. This includes the following: Match changes to vision, Define crisp deliverables, Business need linked to vision, have a formal process to define vision, and organizational culture supports project management. Critical Success factor is necessary for an organization in order to fulfill its mission. Without critical success factor, it will definitely cause organizational and/or mission failure. No one wants an organization to fail, everyone aims to succeed.

In general, to identify the critical success of an organization in every project or new activity the company will engage, it is a must because it has a big factor and influence to the success of the effort. By identifying it, the organization can have a wider focus in those critical factors and consider it during the start of the process. Critical success factors (CSFs) provide the critical points which serve as target points for the organization to achieve their goals.

http://www.techrepublic.com..com/search/Auerbach Analysis.html
http://csqa.info/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_success_factor

Spectrum of organizational change

2010-06-29T07:28:00.000-07:00

In the spectrum of organizational change, which is the most radical type of change: automation, rationalization of procedures, business reengineering, or paradigm shifts? (you are expected to read an article about this question) ..

The change constitutes numerous meaning. The word “change” is similar with alteration, modification, variation, transformation, revolution, conversion, adjustment, amendment and etcetera. In every different application, process and preference of the word “change” it only shows and explain one thing, what is good and better now may not be useful tomorrow. It is true in every aspect of life, and it is most feasible and clear in the world of technology at this very moment and for the next generation. We have to remember that we are in a fast-changing environment and what happens tomorrow can be very different from today. From that context alone, changes in an organization can be considered inevitable. Even the slightest changes can make a huge difference for the organization. Therefore, the type of radical change for the organization should be properly weighed according to the level of risk as well as the return of investment for the organization.
Organizational Change…
Organizational change is any action or set of actions resulting in a shift in direction or process that affects the way an organization works. Change can be deliberate and planned by leaders within the organization, or change can originate outside the organization and be beyond its control. Change may affect the strategies an organization uses to carry out its mission, the processes for implementing those strategies, the tasks and functions performed by the people in the organization, and the relationships between those people. Naturally, some changes are relatively small, while others are sweeping in scope, amounting to an organizational transformation. Change is a fact of organizational life, just as it is in human life. Organizational change is the term used to describe the transformation process that a company goes through in response to a strategic reorientation, restructure, change in management, merger or acquisition or the development of new goals and objectives for the company. The realignment of resources and the redeployment of capital can bring many challenges during the transformation process and organizational change management seeks to address this by adopting best practice standards to assist with the integration of new company vision. Organizational change is not just change for the sake of change itself. The major precursor for organizational change is some form of exogenous force such as an external event. Cuts in a companies funding, the streamline of operations due to a merger are common examples of the magnitude of an event that creates organizational change and development. Companies that are nearing the end of the product life cycle make organizational changes in response to exiting a market or reorienting resources to new or existing business operations. Organizational processes are the systematic way a company defines, organizes and implements its operations through the stages of the product life cycle. This can include strategic measures to improve business performance, proprietary models and intellectual property that contribute to an organizations goals and objectives. Process improvement is closely related to life cycle management. At any stage of companies operations, the analysis of inputs and outputs can be audited, assessed and graded according to a set of performance requirements. Improving productivity, minimizing costs, reducing social costs and environmental emissions form part of the process improvement paradigm. A company continually works towards organizational process improvement to enhance its bottom line. The organizational change process can be analyzed by breaking down the stages of the product or service life cycle. By identifying each stage and the procedures used, organizations are better able to assess the impact of changes and build models to quantify the effects of the change on the companies’ organizational processes. Change management seeks to balance the goals and objectives of an organization and align capital and resources to optimize a company’s performance. The organizational change can be brought about by the fast changing environment or acts as a strategic move in order to adapt in the current situation or get ahead with the competition. Either way, the organizational change that can occur in an organization can be defined into four kinds of structural organizational changes that is brought about by information technology. These are: automation, rationalization of procedures, business reengineering, or paradigm shifts.

Causes of Organizational Change
Companies are required to modify productive processes or strategic goals and aims in response to an external influence, change in consumer behavior or a shift in the industry landscape. This necessitates a reorientation of capital, resources, employees and corporate systems. Below are some of the common causes of organizational change:
Exit Strategy at The End of the product Life Cycle: As the market for a companies product reaches maturity, market growth and profits begin to diminish. Despite the fact that cost cutting occurs and marketing budgets are reduced, when the opportunity cost of deploying capital and resources to another more favorable opportunity presents, companies either sell off existing operations or cease production altogether. This can be in response to a new superior product release, a change in consumer purchasing habits or the introduction of a new technology. Irrespective of the cause, capital and labor are redeployed to new more promising business activities. The exit strategy is a common cause of organizational change.
Change in Government: Employees that work for government departments can find existing initiatives get discontinued when a change in government takes place. The subsequent refocus of priorities that takes place as a result of the new governments mandate can create redundancies or a radical change in the way the department conducts its affairs.
Mergers and Acquisitions: When two competitors merge the existing business operations of both companies get centralized and streamlined. This can result in the merging of departments and processes, cost cutting and a redeployment of existing resources. Mergers and acquisitions are one of the most frequent causes of organizational change.
Strategic Refocus: When the company changes its business processes to adopt a new paradigm organizational change ensues. Consider the plight of a company that shifts its focus form a product centric to a customer centric platform. New manufacturing specifications, new marketing and a change in logistical operations create a change reaction for change throughout the organization.
Structural Change: When new administrative processes get introduced, organizational change results. Consider the ramifications of centralizing an archiving process using computer technology. Old redundant processes get replaced by new software and hardware and staff members are required to retrain to operate the new systems.

Process Oriented: When a company redefines its manufacturing operations by changing its manufacturing process to a JIT operation, infrastructure, warehousing and logistical operations are required to be redesigned and deployed. This structural shift in the way a product is created has a domino effect on organizational change.

Terminologies of Radical Type of change
1.Automation is the use of control systems (such as numerical controlprogrammable logic control, and other industrial control systems), in concert with other applications of information technology (such as computer-aided technologies [CAD, CAM, CAx]), to control industrial machinery and processes, reducing the need for human intervention. In the scope of industrialization, automation is a step beyond mechanization. Whereas mechanization provided human operators with machinery to assist them with the muscular requirements of work, automation greatly reduces the need for human sensory and mental requirements as well. Processes and systems can also be automated.
Automation plays an increasingly important role in the global economy and in daily experience. Engineers strive to combine automated devices with mathematical and organizational tools to create complex systems for a rapidly expanding range of applications and human activities. Many roles for humans in industrial processes presently lie beyond the scope of automation. Human-level pattern recognition, language recognition, and language production ability are well beyond the capabilities of modern mechanical and computer systems. Tasks requiring subjective assessment or synthesis of complex sensory data, such as scents and sounds, as well as high-level tasks such as strategic planning, currently require human expertise. In many cases, the use of humans is more cost-effective than mechanical approaches even where automation of industrial tasks is possible. Specialized hardened computers, referred to as programmable logic controllers (PLCs), are frequently used to synchronize the flow of inputs from (physical) sensors and events with the flow of outputs to actuators and events. This leads to precisely controlled actions that permit a tight control of almost any industrial process. Human-machine interfaces (HMI) or computer human interfaces (CHI), formerly known as man-machine interfaces, are usually employed to communicate with PLCs and other computers, such as entering and monitoring temperatures or pressures for further automated control or emergency response. Service personnel who monitor and control these interfaces are often referred to as stationary engineers.
Advantages
• Replacing human operators in tedious tasks.
• Replacing humans in tasks that should be done in dangerous environments (i.e. fire, space, volcanoes, nuclear facilities, under the water, etc)
• Making tasks that are beyond the human capabilities such as handling too heavy loads, too large objects, too hot or too cold substances or the requirement to make things too fast or too slow.
• Economy improvement. Sometimes and some kinds of automation implies improves in economy of enterprises, society or most of humankind. For example, when an enterprise that has invested in automation technology recovers its investment; when a state or country increases its income due to automation like Germany or Japan in the 20th Century or when the humankind can use the internet which in turn use satellites and other automated engines.
Disadvantages
• Technology limits. Current technology is unable to automate all the desired tasks.
• Unpredictable development costs. The research and development cost of automating a process is difficult to predict accurately beforehand. Since this cost can have a large impact on profitability, it's possible to finish automating a process only to discover that there's no economic advantage in doing so.
• Initial costs are relatively high. The automation of a new product required a huge initial investment in comparison with the unit cost of the product, although the cost of automation is spread in many product batches. The automation of a plant required a great initial investment too, although this cost is spread in the products to be produced.
2. Rationalization of Procedure.It is the streamlining of standard operating procedures, eliminating obvious bottlenecks, so that automation makes operating procedures more efficient.
• Deeper change - streamlining of procedures to improve efficiency.
• Automation often reveals bottlenecks in production, existing procedures become painfully cumbersome.
• Procedures change to remove bottlenecks
Example in banks, which have standard rules for issuing account numbers, and standard methods for calculating interest and account balances. The actual procedure divides the product line in to four zones: The least profitable products would be dropped. Products that need to be in the catalog would be outsourced, thus simplifying the supply chain and manufacturing operations.
The cash-cows would remain and the balance would be improved with a better focus in product development, operations, and marketing. Because these products no longer need to subsidize the "losers," they can now sell for less.
The combination of better focus and lower overhead changes will soon restore the "lost" revenue from the dropped products.
• The Value of Product Line Rationalization. Eliminating or outsourcing low-leverage products will immediately:
• Increase profits by avoiding the manufacture of products that have low profit or are really losing money because of their (unreported) high overhead demands and inefficient manufacture/procurement
• Improve operational flexibility because, typically, low-leverage products are inherently different with unusual parts, materials, set-ups, and processing. Often, these are older products that are built infrequently with less common parts on older equipment using sketchy documentation by a workforce with little experience on those products.
• Simplify Supply Chain Management. Eliminating the products with unusual parts and materials will greatly simplify supply-chain management.
• Free up valuable resources to improve operations and quality, implement better product development practices, and introduce new capabilities like build-to-order & mass customization.
"Product line rationalization freed up a lot of people!"
- Jon Milliken, VP Engineering, Fisher Controls div., Emerson Electric
• Improve quality from eliminating older, infrequently-built products, which inherently have more quality problems than current, high-volume products that have benefited from continuous improvement and current quality programs and techniques.
• Focus on most profitable products in product development, manufacturing, quality improvement, and sales emphases. Focusing on the most profitable products can increase their growth and the growth of similarly profitable products. According to Richard Koch, writing in The 80/20 Principle
• Protect most profitable products from "cherry picking" (launching a competitive attack on the most profitable products), which is becoming more common as "virtual," cyberspace enterprises skim off the most profitable products.
• Stop cross-subsidizes. Remaining products will no longer have to subsidize the "dogs" and so they can generate more profit or offer a more competitive selling price.
3. Business Process Re-engineering (BPR): The radical redesign of business processes, combining steps to cut waste and eliminating repetitive, paper-intensive tasks to improve cost, quality, and service and to maximize the benefits of information technology
• Involves radical rethinking
• Can change the way an organization conducts its business
• IT allowed Baxter to be a manager of its customer’s supplies
• Strikes fear, its expensive, its very risky and its extremely difficult to carry out and manage
• Develop the business vision and process objective
• Identify the processes to be redesigned (core and highest payback)
• Understand and measure the performance of existing processes
• Identify the opportunities for applying information technology
• Build a prototype of the new process
4.Paradigm shifts
Paradigm: The word "paradigm" was originally one of those obscure academic terms that has undergone many changes of meaning over the centuries. The classical Greeks used it to refer to an original archetype or ideal. Later it came to refer to a grammatical term. In the early 1960s Thomas Kuhn (1922-1996) wrote a ground breaking book, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, in which he showed that science does not progress in an orderly fashion from lesser to greater truth, but rather remains fixated on a particular dogma or explanation - a paradigm - which is only overthrown with great difficulty and a new paradigm established. Thus the Copernican system (the sun at the center of the universe) overthrew the Ptolemaic (the earth at the center) one, and Newtonian physics was replaced by Relativity and Quantum Physics. Science thus consists of periods of conservatism ("Normal" Science) punctuated by periods of "Revolutionary" Science.
Paradigm Shift : When anomalies or inconsistencies arise within a given paradigm and present problems that we are unable to solve within a given paradigm, our view of reality must change, as must the way we perceive, think, and value the world. We must take on new assumptions and expectations that will transform our theories, traditions, rules, and standards of practice. We must create a new paradigm in which we are able to solve the insolvable problems of the old paradigm. Definition: Radical re-conceptualization of the nature of the business and the nature of the organization
• Change in view of business and its organization • Affects design of entire organization • Transforms how business conducts business and possibly nature of organization
Paradigm shift (or revolutionary science) is the term first used by Thomas Kuhn in his influential book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962) to describe a change in basic assumptions within the ruling theory of science. It is in contrast to his idea of normal science.The term paradigm shift, as a change in a fundamental model of events, has since become widely applied to many other realms of human experience as well, even though Kuhn himself restricted the use of the term to the hard sciences. According to Kuhn, "A paradigm is what members of a scientific community, and they alone, share." (The Essential Tension, 1977). Unlike a normal scientist, Kuhn held, "a student in the humanities has constantly before him a number of competing and incommensurable solutions to these problems, solutions that he must ultimately examine for himself." (The Structure of Scientific Revolutions). Once a paradigm shift is complete, a scientist cannot, for example, posit the possibility that miasma causes disease or that ether carries light. In contrast, a critic in the Humanities can choose to adopt a 19th-century theory of poetics, for instance.Since the 1960s, the term has been found useful to thinkers in numerous non-scientific contexts. Compare as a structured form of Zeitgeist.
Conclusion
In a correlation to being a radical change in an organization, automation is the type of change that uses technology to the tasks in an organization more efficiently and effectively. Automation have the lowest risk but also the lowest return of investment or reward for an organization. It just means that among the four types of structural changes that can occur in an organization, automation is the least radical change because of the low risk as well as the low reward that an organization can get. During automation, new bottlenecks in production are frequently revealed and make the existing arrangement of procedures and structures painfully cumbersome. This is where a deeper form of structural change called the Rationalization of Procedures can be adapted. Basically, the rationalization of procedures is streamlining of procedures and eliminating obvious bottlenecks that are revealed by automation for enhanced efficiency of operations. A more powerful type of organizational change is what we call as Business Process Reengineering. In plain definition, business process reengineering is the reorganization of way business is run. It is a management approach that examines aspects of a business and their interaction and attempts to improve the efficiency of the underlying processes. It is in business process reengineering in which business processes are analyzed, simplified and redesigned. Using information technology, organizations can rethink and streamline their business processes to improve speed, service and quality. Business reengineering reorganizes work flows, combining steps to cut waste and eliminating repetitive, paper intensive tasks. It is usually much more ambitious than rationalization of procedures, requiring a new vision of how the process is to be organized. Reengineering is the radical redesign of business processes that depends upon information technology intensive radical redesign of workflows and work processes. Compared to automation and rationalization of procedures, business process reengineering change conquers higher risk however it also covers the possibility of higher rewards for the organization. Rationalizing procedures and redesigning business processes are limited to specific parts of a business. New information systems can ultimately affect the design of the entire organization by transforming how the organization carries out its business or even the nature of the business. A more radical form of business change is called Paradigm Shift. Paradigm shift involves rethinking the nature of the business and the nature of the organization. In many instances firms seeking paradigm shift and pursuing reengineering strategies achieve stunning, order or magnitude increases in their returns on investment.

Steps in order to expedite the implementation of the IS plan

2010-06-29T07:24:00.000-07:00

You were invited by the university president to prepare an IS Plan for the university. Discuss what are the steps in order to expedite the implementation of the IS plan.

To be invited in a university to prepare an ISP is great opportunity and at the same time needs a thorough analysis to address the problem and to be fit in the institutions concerns. Preparing an Information Systems Plan for the university is a very challenging task because a lot of things are to be considered when we talk of Information System Planning. Planning for information systems, as for any other system, begins with the identification of needs. In order to be effective, development of any type of computer-based system should be a response to need--whether at the transaction processing level or at the more complex information and support systems levels. Such planning for information systems is much like strategic planning in management. Objectives, priorities, and authorization for information systems projects need to be formalized. The systems development plan should identify specific projects slated for the future, priorities for each project and for resources, general procedures, and constraints for each application area. The plan must be specific enough to enable understanding of each application and to know where it stands in the order of development. Also the plan should be flexible so that priorities can be adjusted if necessary. It has emphasized the need for continuously updating and improving the strategic capabilities architecture.
It has been discussed in various studies by most experts in the past years until now that strategic planning for the business operations of an organization is a very crucial part in targeting towards the success of the company. An information system contains so much of the essential data and gathered facts about the company that it is considered as a critical unit inside the company. That is why planning which is prepared primarily for the business operations and processes alone as most people perceive it to be, also has to be tactically deliberated for the information system (IS).

Some characteristics of strategic IS planning are:
• Main task: strategic/competitive advantage, linkage to business strategy.
• Key objective: pursuing opportunities, integrating IS and business strategies
• Direction from: executives/senior management and users, coalition of users/management and information systems.
• Main approach: entrepreneurial (user innovation), multiple (bottom-up development, top down analysis, etc.) at the same time.

Information System Plan
An Information System Plan or ISP, on the other hand, is basically a plan concentrated on aligning the information systems of an organization to its business plan as a whole. An information system is comprised of the hardware, software and peopleware of an organization. Usually, the term information system is related to using technology as a crucial part of an organization. The term is also used to identify the computer-based system that an organization is using.
The information systems plan project determines the sequence for implementing specific information systems. The goal of the strategy is to deliver the most valuable business information at the earliest time possible in the most cost-effective manner. The end product of the information systems project is an information systems plan (ISP). Once deployed, the information systems department can implement the plan with confidence that they are doing the correct information systems project at the right time and in the right sequence. The focus of the ISP is not one information system but the entire suite of information systems for the enterprise. Once developed, each identified information system is seen in context with all other information systems within the enterprise.
The information systems planning refers to the process of the translation of strategic and organizational goals into systems development plan and initiativesFor example, part of the information systems plan for a luxury car company might be to build a new product tracking system to meet the organizational goal of improving customer service. Proper information systems planning ensures that specific systems development objectives support organizational goals. One of the primary benefits of information systems planning is that it provides a long-range view of information technology use in the organization. The information systems plan provides guidance on how the information systems infrastructure of the organization should be developed over time. The plan serves as a road map indicating the direction and rationale of systems development. Another benefit of information systems planning is that it ensures better use of information systems resources, including funds, information systems personnel, and time for scheduling specific projects. Overall objectives of information systems are usually distilled from the relevant aspects of the organization's business strategic plan. Information systems projects can be identified either directly from the objectives determined in the first step or may be identified by others, such as managers within the various functional areas. Setting priorities and selecting projects typically requires the involvement and approval of senior management. Once specific projects have been selected within the overall context of a strategic plan for the business and the systems area, an information systems plan can be developed. The plan contains a statement of organizational goals, identifies the project objectives, and specifies how information technology supports the attainment of the organizational goals. When objectives are set, planners consider the resources necessary to complete the projects including equipment (computers, network servers, printers, and other equipment and devices), software, employees (systems analysts, programmers, users and others), expert advice (specialists and other consultants), and so on. The information systems plan lays out specific target dates and milestones that can be used later to monitor the plan’s progress in terms of how many objectives were actually attained in the time frame specified in the plan. The plan also includes the key management decisions concerning hardware acquisition; structure of authority, data, and hardware; telecommunications; and required organizational change. Organizational changes are usually described, including management and employee training requirements; recruiting efforts; changes in business processes; and changes in authority, structure, or management practice. As part of translating the corporate strategic plan into the information systems plan, many companies seek systems development project that will provide a competitive advantage. This usually requires creative and critical analysis. Creative analysis involves the investigation of new approaches to existing problems. By looking at problems in new or different ways and by introducing innovative methods to solve them, many firms have gained a competitive advantage. Typically, these new solutions are inspired by people and things not directly related to the problem. Critical analysis requires unbiased and careful questioning of whether system elements are related in the most effective or efficient ways. It involves considering the establishment of new or different relationships among system elements and perhaps introducing new elements into the system. The impact a particular system has on an organization's ability to meet its goals determines the true value of that system to the organization. While all systems should support business goals, some systems are more pivotal in continued operations and goal attainment than others. These systems are called mission-critical systems. An order processing TPS, for example, is usually considered mission-critical. Without it, few organizations could continue daily activities, and they clearly would not meet the goals. The goals defined for an organization will in turn define the objectives set for a system. A manufacturing plant, for example, might determine that minimizing the total cost of owning and operating its equipment is a critical success factor (CSF) in meeting a production volume and profit goals. This CSF would be converted into specific objectives for a proposed plant equipment maintenance system. One specific objective might be to alert maintenance planner when a piece of equipment is due for routine preventive maintenance (e.g., cleaning and lubrication). Another objective might be to alert the maintenance planners when the necessary cleaning materials, lubrication oils, or spare parts inventory levels are below specified limits. These objectives could be accomplished either through automatic stock replenishment via electronic data interchange or through the use of exception reports. Regardless of the particular system development effort, the development process should define a system with specific performance and cost objectives. The success or failure of the systems development effort will be measured against these objectives. Performance objectives measure the extent to which a system performs as desired. Is the system generating the right information for a value-added business process? Is the output generated in a form that is usable and easily understood? Is the system generating output in time to meet organizational goals and operational objectives? Cost objectives attempt to balance the benefits of achieving performance goals with all costs associated with the system. Balancing performance and cost objectives within the overall framework of organizational goals can be challenging. Systems development objectives are important, however, in that they allow an organization to effectively and efficiently allocate resources and measure the success of a systems development effort. In order to develop an effective information systems plan, the organization must have a clear understanding of both its long- and short-term information requirements. Two principal methodologies for establishing the essential information requirements of the organization as a whole are enterprise analysis and critical success factors. Enterprise analysis argues that the firm's information requirements can only be understood by looking at the entire organization in terms of organizational units, functions, processes, and data elements. Enterprise analysis can help identify the key entities and attributes of the organization's data. The central method used in the enterprise analysis approach is to take a large sample of managers and ask them how they use information, where they get the information, what their environments are like, what their objectives are, how they make decisions, and what their data needs are. The results of this large survey of managers are aggregated into subunits, functions, processes, and data matrices. Data elements are organized into logical application groups--groups of data elements that support related sets of organizational processes. The weakness of enterprise analysis is that it produces an enormous amount of data that is expensive to collect and difficult to analyze. Most of the interviews are conducted with senior or middle managers, but there is little effort to collect information from clerical workers and supervisory managers. Moreover, the questions frequently focus not on management's critical objectives and where information is needed but rather on what existing information is used. The result is a tendency to automate whatever exists. But in many instances, entirely new approaches to how business is conducted are needed, and these needs are not addressed. The strategic analysis or critical success factors approach argues that an organization's information requirements are determined by a small number of critical success factors (CSFs) of managers. If these goals can be attained, the firm's or organization's success is assured. CSFs are shaped by the industry, the firm, then manager, and the broader environment. An important premise of the strategic analysis approach is that there are a small number of objectives that managers can easily identify and on which information systems can focus. The strength of the CSF method is that it produces a smaller data set to analyze than does enterprise analysis. The CSF method takes into account the changing environment with which organizations and managers must deal. This method explicitly asks managers to look at the environment and consider how their analysis of it shapes their information needs. Unlike enterprise analysis, the CSF method focuses organizational attention on how information should be handled. The method's primary weakness is that the aggregation process and the analysis of the data are art forms. There is no particularly rigorous way in which individual CSFs can be aggregated into a clear company pattern. Second, there is often confusion among interviewees (and interviewers) between individual and organizational CSFs. They are not necessarily the same. What can be critical to a manager may not be important for the organization. Moreover, this method is clearly biased toward top managers because they are generally the only ones interviewed.

WHAT IS SISP METHODOLOGY?
Methodology is generally a guideline for solving a problem, with specific components such as phases, tasks, methods, techniques and tools. Methodology benefits managers by providing information to plan, review and control projects. Generally methodologies are
comprised of the following four elements: providing an opinion of what needs to be solved, defining techniques on what has to be done and when to do it, advising on how to manage the quality of deliverables or products, as well as providing a toolkit to facilitate the process.
An SISP methodology can be viewed as an abstract system design that functions to transform organizational inputs (such as business strategy, assessment of current IS environment, and organizational influence) into an IS Strategic Plan as an output. When executing the SISP process, the abstract system design is applied in the context of multiple human activity systems
(HAS) involving the SISP stakeholders (developers and clients). SISP methodologies can be categorized into two categories; namely, general and specific-tocontext methodologies. Three contexts were analyzed in the latter category; namely, business
context, government context and educational context. While there are numerous SISP methodologies, approaches and frameworks, the majority is oriented for commercial and production-based organizations, and is not suitable to guide SISP formulation in service-oriented
industries and government. The business strategy model and a university strategy model are different in terms of time frame, consensus, value system, customers and context. Thus, business-context SISP methodologies are not suitable to guide SISP formulation in public
educational institutions and government agencies because they focus primarily on the alignment of ICT strategies to the business objective of profits and competition. Government agencies and PIHLs focus on the formulation of ICT strategies to improve service delivery to the citizen and nation rather than profitability and competition. Although many SISP methodologies provide an overview of how to develop an SISP, the methods, techniques and tools to guide the SISP formulation process are not specified. The SISP initiation approach, the SISP team, and the set of tasks, activities and tools are not suited to the educational institution environment. Thus, the primary objective of the ISP-IPTA Methodology design was to document objectives and tasks in every phase, as well as the methods and techniques that can be used to implement the tasks. The methods and techniques are complimented by an automated toolkit that that can facilitate the SISP formulation process. Information systems are important tools for effectively meeting organizational objectives. Readily available, complete, and accurate information is essential for making informed and timely decisions. Being unable to obtain needed data, wading through unneeded data, or inefficiently processing needed data wastes resources. The organization must identify its information needs on the basis of a systematic identification and analysis of its mission and functions to be performed, who is to perform them, the information and supporting data needed to perform the functions, and the processes needed to most usefully structure the information. Successful information system development and acquisition must include a rigorous and disciplined process of data gathering, evaluation, and analysis prior to committing significant financial and human resources to any information system development. While implementing such an approach may not preclude all information system acquisition problems, it should produce detailed knowledge of organizational missions and operations, user information needs and alternatives to address those needs, and an open and flexible architecture that is expandable or that can be upgraded to meet future needs. The purpose and use of information system in the beginning was targeted towards reducing manual labor and increasing efficiency and thus reducing cost of doing business. Cost has thus been the ‘primal instinct’ justification for the usage of Information system in companies. Management seems to still use this justification even in today’s day and age because the IT salesman still thinks it’s the best and only way to get management buy-in. Moreover, as most other rationales used for IS have proved hard to sell, both the IT sales teams and their customers find a comfort zone in cost savings. This could also be because both sides (from all their previous experiences) are convinced of their failure before they even start out on a different track. The past experiences, in most cases were times they tried, half heartedly probably, without enough experience and failed. These failures have resulted in the baby being thrown out along with the dirty water. Systems are usually laid out at different levels. The lowest rung in the ladder is taken by the TRANSACTIONAL information system. These are ones like ‘Pont Of Sales’ systems used in the store counters, or book keeping systems mentioned earlier. These are systems targeting cost reduction, capturing repetitive activities and assisting the human using it to become more efficient in handling larger volumes of transactions.
The OPERATIONAL or operation support systems are usually build combining several Transactional systems in a logical sequence so as to make the operation of any particular division/functional group more efficient. Classic example is the integration of Accounting, Payroll, HR, and Inventory, Production etc. to form a MRP or ERP system. Or POS, Customer Account Info, Accounting, etc. linked together to form a CRM system. A very critical component for operational systems is their reporting systems. They provide the reports that combine and merge the reports/information from several transactional systems to provide reports to help executives manage operations in a synchronized and optimized manner. Thus, they act as enablers and help managers to keep track of various parameters so as to keep the whole operation smooth and efficient. STRATEGIC systems are little more complicated. They cross the regular operational boundaries and become tools that form the basis for senior management to plan, execute and monitor the organization. They help in keeping track of the Key Performance Indicators by combining and logically sorting information from various Operational and Transactional systems all across the company and at times combining it with external information from sources like the stock market, industry sources, partners and even competitors. Designing STRATEGIC information system requires a thought process of a ‘good’ CEO with an understanding of the business from the top, various information sources present in the company and outside in platforms that need to be collated, combined and extracted into a tool to help run the company in a more informed and responsive manner.

Characteristics of a Quality ISP
A quality ISP must exhibit five distinct characteristics before it is useful. These five are
as follows.
Timely. The ISP must be timely. An ISP that is created long after it is needed is
useless. In almost all cases, it makes no sense to take longer to plan work than to perform the work planned.
Useable. The ISP must be useable. It must be so for all the projects as well as for each project. The ISP should exist in sections that once adopted can be parceled out to project managers and immediately started.
Maintainable. The ISP should be maintainable. New business opportunities, new computers, business mergers, etc. all affect the ISP. The ISP must support quick changes to the estimates; technologies employed, and possibly even to the fundamental project sequences. Once these changes are accomplished, the new ISP should be just a few computer program executions away.
Quality. While the ISP must be a quality product, no ISP is ever perfect on the first
try. As the ISP is executed, the metrics employed to derive the individual project estimates become refined as a consequence of new hardware technologies, code generators, techniques, or faster working staff. As these changes occur, their effects should be installable into the data that supports ISP computation. In short, the ISP is a living document. It should be updated with every technology event, and certainly no less often than quarterly.
Reproducible. The ISP must be reproducible. That is, when its development activities are performed by any other staff, the ISP produced should essentially be the same. The ISP should not significantly vary by staff assigned.
Whenever a proposal for the development of an ISP is created it must be assessed against these five characteristics. If any fail or not addressed in an optimum way, the entire set of funds for the development of an ISP is risked.

There are a number of important steps that have been identified which can maximize the chances of a smooth transition and implementation.
1. PROBLEM RECOGNITION
Senior management must recognize that resistance to change is a potential problem. There needs to be an acceptance that some time, budget and internal resources should to be allocated to deal with this.
2. CLEAR OBJECTIVES
Senior management must have a clearly defined statement of objectives for the system, detailing the expected benefits. Without this it will be impossible to determine whether the implementation is a success from a business perspective.
3. IMPLEMENTATION MANAGER
An internal manager should be appointed to co-ordinate the implementation. This person should be given the necessary skills and authority to guide users through the new procedures and promote their adoption of the project portfolio management system.
4. REVIEW PROCEDURES
Existing procedures must be understood by all system users and clearly documented. Any proposed changes to these procedures should be highlighted and the benefits detailed and communicated to all system users.
5. INVOLVE ‘EXPERTS’
Highly respected and influential individuals must be involved in the planning process and should be consulted early on in the process so that any valid points they may have can be factored into the final solution.
6. COMMUNICATION
All staff and contractors whose work is affected by the new system should be briefed about the objectives of the system, the expected outcomes and the timeline for implementation. It should be made clear at this stage that old systems WILL be removed at a specific time in the future, thereby encouraging everyone to be involved.
7. TRAINING
All staff and contractors involved in using the new project portfolio management system should be provided with appropriate training within the context of their roles. This training should also include any new procedures that are to be adopted. Training should not be a one-off event. Staff turnover and new project contractors often results in new users attempting to figure out how a system works and learn on the job. Inevitably some expertise is lost with a change of staff and over time this can degrade the performance of the team. In the long run it is simpler and more cost-effective to have new starters and contractors properly trained, possibly combining this with a refresher course for existing staff.
8. IMPLEMENTATION REVIEW TEAM
An internal Implementation Review Team should be established comprising key personnel who will be involved with the new system e.g. project managers and resource/line managers. Weekly meetings, chaired by the Implementation Manager, should be held during the implementation process to highlight any perceived problems and discuss resolutions.
9. OLD SYSTEM SHUT-DOWN
At a pre-designed date, that has been communicated to all staff and contractors, the old system should be shut down and removed from company hardware, after giving reminders in the run up to the date.
10. VENDOR CLINICS
Building on the work done by the Implementation Review Team, a good system vendor will offer clinics to review and resolve teething issues and provide additional training if necessary.

The major steps associated with implementation. Note that many of these activities need to be completed ahead of time. You cannot start planning for implementation while you are actually implementing.
1.Prepare the infrastructure. Many solutions are implemented into a production environment that is separate and distinct from where the solution was developed and tested. It is important that the characteristics of the production environment be accounted for. This strategy includes a review of hardware, software, communications, etc. In our example above, the potential desktop capacity problem would have been revealed if we had done an evaluation of the production (or real-world) environment. When you are ready for implementation, the production infrastructure needs to be in place.
2.Coordinate with the organizations involved in implementation. This may be as simple as communicating to your client community. However, few solutions today can be implemented without involving a number of organizations. For IT solutions, there are usually one or more operations and infrastructure groups that need to be communicated to ahead of time. Many of these groups might actually have a role in getting the solution successfully deployed. Part of the implementation work is to coordinate the work of any other groups that have a role to play. In some cases, developers simply failed to plan ahead and make sure the infrastructure groups were prepared to support the implementation. As a result, the infrastructure groups were forced to drop everything to make the implementation a success.
3.Implement training. Many solutions require users to attend training or more informal coaching sessions. This type of training could be completed in advance, but the further out the training is held, the less information will be retained when implementation rolls around. Training that takes place close to the time of implementation should be made part of the actual implementation plan.
4.Install the production solution. This is the piece everyone remembers. Your solution needs to be moved from development to test. If the solution is brand new, this might be finished in a leisurely and thoughtful manner over a period of time. If this project involves a major change to a current solution, you may have a lot less flexibility in terms of when the new solution moves to production, since the solution might need to be brought down for a period of time. You have to make sure all of your production components are implemented successfully, including new hardware, databases, and program code.
5.Convert the data. Data conversion, changing data from one format to another, needs to take place once the infrastructure and the solution are implemented.
6.Perform final verification in production. You should have prepared to test the production solution to ensure everything is working as you expect. This may involve a combination of development and client personnel. The first check is just to make sure everything is up and appears okay. The second check is to actually push data around in the solution, to make sure that the solution is operating as it should. Depending on the type of solution being implemented, this verification step could be extensive.
7.Implement new processes and procedures. Many IT solutions require changes to be made to business processes as well. These changes should be implemented at the same time that the actual solution is deployed.
8.Monitor the solution. Usually the project team will spend some period of time monitoring the implemented solution. If there are problems that come up immediately after implementation, the project team should address and fix them.

Part I of this series pointed out the need for planning and communication to help ensure a successful implementation. In this column, we looked at the actual work typically performed in a complex implementation. However, your implementation may not be as complex, and you may not need to look at all of these areas. Nevertheless, there is usually a lot more involved than just throwing the final solution into the production environment. You need to account for the environment the solution will run in, as well as processes and training needs of the client community. If you think through implementation from a holistic approach and communicate well, there is a much greater likelihood that your project will end as a win.

Here are some steps on how to implement an Information System:
Preparation. Before you begin to implement the procedures described in this guide, you already should have prepared your institution for the analysis.1 As a result of your preparation, you should have clearly defined your goals and objectives for the new IS.
Goals. Goal-setting ideally involves establishing specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and time-targeted objectives. Work on the theory of goal-setting suggests that it can serve as an effective tool for making progress by ensuring that participants have a clear awareness of what they must do to achieve or help achieve an objective. On a personal level, the process of setting goals allows people to specify and then work towards their own objectives — most commonly financial or career-based goals. Goal-setting comprises a major component of Personal development.
Personal goals. Individuals can set personal goals. A student may set a goal of a high mark in an exam. An athlete might walk five miles a day. A traveler might try to reach a destination-city within three hours. Financial goals are a common example, to save for retirement or to save for a purchase. Managing goals can give returns in all areas of personal life. Knowing precisely what one wants to achieve makes clear what to concentrate and improve on, and often subconsciously prioritizes that goal. Goal setting and planning ("goalwork") promotes long-term vision and short-term motivation. It focuses intention, desire, acquisition of knowledge, and helps to organize resources. Efficient goalwork includes recognizing and resolving any guilt, inner conflict or limiting belief that might cause one to sabotage one's efforts. By setting clearly-defined goals, one can subsequently measure and take pride in the achievement of those goals. One can see progress in what might have seemed a long, perhaps impossible, grind.

Goal management in organizations
Organizationally, goal management consists of the process of recognizing or inferring goals of individual team-members, abandoning no longer relevant goals, identifying and resolving conflicts among goals, and prioritizing goals consistently for optimal team-collaboration and effective operations. For any successful commercial system, it means deriving profits by making the best quality of goods or the best quality of services available to the end-user (customer) at the best possible cost. Goal management includes:
• Assessment and dissolution of non-rational blocks to success
• Time management
• Frequent reconsideration (consistency checks)
• Feasibility checks
• Adjusting milestones and main-goal targets

Morten Lind and J.Rasmussen distinguish three fundamental categories of goals related to technological system management:
1. Production goal
2. Safety goal
3. Economy goal
An organizational goal-management solution ensures that individual employee goals and objectives align with the vision and strategic goals of the entire organization. Goal-management provides organizations with a mechanism to effectively communicate corporate goals and strategic objectives to each person across the entire organization. The key consists of having it all emanate from a pivotal source and providing each person with a clear, consistent organizational-goal message. With goal-management, every employee understands how their efforts contribute to an enterprise's success. Having a strategic plan for an organization is a big help and very efficient in developing and implementing a project. There are steps to follow, things to remember and consider, discuss and analyze, evaluate and studied thoroughly. Implementing the proposed Information Systems Plan is a tough thing to do in Information Systems Planning. All the hard works starting from the identification of needs, then formalizing the objectives, priorities, and authorization for the information systems project, and all the necessary things needed to be done in planning information systems will not be appreciated if the said information systems plan will not be properly implemented or worst, will never be implemented because of some user resistance. Thus, in an information systems planning, steps for implementing the proposed information systems plan should be included. A well planned information system is no doubt can help an organization with, of course, the aid of the officials and staff. Proper implementation in the long run and with full grasp of everyone to hold on the new technology and embrace the changes for the betterment and improvement of the institution in terms of processes and business flow.

wikipedia.com
csrc.nist.gov/publications/nistpubs/800-30/sp800-30.pdf

en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Technology_Planning/Implementation_Plan
dictionary.reference.com/browse/risk
www.ncc.gov.ph/files/gisp.pdf

Frustration of IS professionals and users while working on an IS plan

2010-06-29T07:22:00.000-07:00

What are the two most frequently experienced causes of frustration of IS professionals and users while working on an IS plan?

An Information System Plan or ISP, on the other hand, is basically a plan concentrated on aligning the information systems of an organization to its business plan as a whole. An information system is comprised of the hardware, software and peopleware of an organization. Usually, the term information system is related to using technology as a crucial part of an organization. The term is also used to identify the computer-based system that an organization is using. According to Michael M. Gorman, the information systems plan project determines the sequence for implementing specific information systems. The goal of the strategy is to deliver the most valuable business information at the earliest time possible in the most cost-effective manner. The end product of the information systems project is an information systems plan (ISP). Once deployed, the information systems department can implement the plan with confidence that they are doing the correct information systems project at the right time and in the right sequence. The focus of the ISP is not one information system but the entire suite of information systems for the enterprise. Once developed, each identified information system is seen in context with all other information systems within the enterprise. Gorman has also identified some of the characteristics that an ISP should have and these are the following:
An ISP should be timely. An ISP that is created long after it is needed is useless. In almost all cases, it makes no sense to take longer to plan work than to perform the work planned. The ISP must be useable. It must be so for all the projects as well as for each project. The ISP should exist in sections that once adopted can be parceled out to project managers and immediately started. The ISP must be maintainable. New business opportunities, new computers, business mergers, etc. all affect the ISP. The ISP must support quick changes to the estimates, technologies employed, and possibly even to the fundamental project sequences. Once these changes are accomplished, the new ISP should be just a few computer program executions away. While the ISP must be a quality product, no ISP is ever perfect on the first try. As the ISP is executed, the metrics employed to derive the individual project estimates become refined as a consequence of new hardware technologies, code generators, techniques, or faster working staff. As these changes occur, their effects should be installable into the data that supports ISP computation. In short, the ISP is a living document. It should be updated with every technology event, and certainly no less often than quarterly. The ISP must be reproducible. That is, when its development activities are performed by any other staff, the ISP produced should essentially be the same. The ISP should not significantly vary by staff assigned.
An Information System (IS) is any combination of information technology and people's activities using that technology to support operations, management, and decision-making.[1] In a very broad sense, the term information system is frequently used to refer to the interaction between people, algorithmic processes, data and technology. In this sense, the term is used to refer not only to the information and communication technology (ICT) an organization uses, but also to the way in which people interact with this technology in support of business processes. Some make a clear distinction between information systems, ICT and business processes. Information systems are distinct from information technology in that an information system is typically seen as having an ICT component. Information systems are also different from business processes. Information systems help to control the performance of business processes. Alter argues for an information system as a special type of work system. A work system is a system in which humans and/or machines perform work using resources (including ICT) to produce specific products and/or services for customers. An information system is a work system whose activities are devoted to processing (capturing, transmitting, storing, retrieving, manipulating and displaying) information. Part of the difficulty in defining the term information system is due to vagueness in the definition of related terms such as system and information. Beynon-Davies argues for a clearer terminology based in systemics and semiotics. He defines an information system as an example of a system concerned with the manipulation of signs. An information system is a type of socio-technical system. An information system is a mediating construct between actions and technology. As such, information systems inter-relate with data systems on the one hand and activity systems on the other. An information system is a form of communication system in which data represent and are processed as a form of social memory. An information system can also be considered a semi-formal language which supports human decision making and action. Information systems are the primary focus of study for the information systems discipline and for organizational informatics. Information systems are important tools for effectively meeting organizational objectives. Readily available, complete, and accurate information is essential for making informed and timely decisions. Being unable to obtain needed data, wading through unneeded data, or inefficiently processing needed data wastes resources. The organization must identify its information needs on the basis of a systematic identification and analysis of its mission and functions to be performed, who is to perform them, the information and supporting data needed to perform the functions, and the processes needed to most usefully structure the information. Successful information system development and acquisition must include a rigorous and disciplined process of data gathering, evaluation, and analysis prior to committing significant financial and human resources to any information system development. While implementing such an approach may not preclude all information system acquisition problems, it should produce detailed knowledge of organizational missions and operations, user information needs and alternatives to address those needs, and an open and flexible architecture that is expandable or that can be upgraded to meet future needs. The purpose and use of information system in the beginning was targeted towards reducing manual labor and increasing efficiency and thus reducing cost of doing business. Cost has thus been the ‘primal instinct’ justification for the usage of Information system in companies. Management seems to still use this justification even in today’s day and age because the IT salesman still thinks it’s the best and only way to get management buy-in. Moreover, as most other rationales used for IS have proved hard to sell, both the IT sales teams and their customers find a comfort zone in cost savings. This could also be because both sides (from all their previous experiences) are convinced of their failure before they even start out on a different track. The past experiences, in most cases were times they tried, half heartedly probably, without enough experience and failed. These failures have resulted in the baby being thrown out along with the dirty water.
For most businesses, the requirements on the computing side at least should include:
* Hardware; the actual computers and servers.
* Software; programs and operating systems.
* Phone lines.
* Internet systems.
* Computing consumables and peripherals.
*Information Technology Support.
* Computer training, if needed, for staff.
The amount of technological requirements needed by a business will again depend on the size and type of business. This is by no means an extensive list and all companies will be different, but this does represent at least the basic technology requirements. The budget may increase or decrease depending on the sophistication of the equipment and the software needed. Another issue that concerns budgetary factor is the decision whether to lease or buy technology. In the long run it may seem like buying is the less expensive option, but leasing is usually the cheaper option when repairs and upgrading technology are factored in. Most small businesses should take the leasing option in order to save on the capital outlay that comes with buying, and upgrading new technology. Marc Berthiaume cited some important considerations that a company should put in mind when planning for an IT budget. According to Berthiaume’s article, the following are some step-by-step guidelines to follow when planning your IT budget:
1. Calculate your technology costs from the previous year. Unless you are planning major changes in your IT strategy, this will give you a range to work with.
2. Most companies plan for moderate growth. These companies should set up a category for IT maintenance/support and one for new technology expenditures. (Companies should first calculate maintenance/support of existing equipment, since this number will remain approximately the same as the previous year.)
3. If you plan to purchase new systems or services, you should calculate the cost of the technology and then budget for installation and maintenance_ Depending on complexity, you also may want to budget for testing and downtime. Get estimates and make sure to pad this cost in case things take longer to install than originally expected.
4. Once you've calculated standard IT purchases and maintenance costs for the year, create a separate budget line for technology development--this is for longer-term IT planning, including new IT projects or major system upgrades.
5. Err on the conservative side and consider the possibility of leasing and outsourcing when faced with costly technology expenditures.
I can say that budgeting itself for an Information system (which already includes IT) is such a tedious task. Aside from the tips mentioned by article writers above, the IS planner could also develop his or her own standards on planning for the Information system based on the budget that he or she is given.
We have interviewed the MIS Supervisor of Samulco or Sta. Ana Multipurpose Cooperative last December 14. We asked him what are the two most frequently experienced causes of frustration of IS professionals and users while working on an IS plan. And he answered these:
1. Lack of Budget- the company only has limited budget for the system or it does not have any budget for the system. A budget is generally a list of all planned expenses and revenues. It is a plan for saving and spending. The purpose of budgeting is to: Provide a forecast of revenues and expenditures i.e. construct a model of how our business might perform financially speaking if certain strategies, events and plans are carried out. And enable the actual financial operation of the business to be measured against the forecast.
The budget of a company is often compiled annually, but may not be. A finished budget, usually requiring considerable effort, is a plan for the short-term future, typically one year. While traditionally the Finance department compiles the company's budget, modern software allows hundreds or even thousands of people in various departments (operations, human resources, IT etc) to list their expected revenues and expenses in the final budget. If the actual figures delivered through the budget period come close to the budget, this suggests that the managers understand their business and have been successfully driving it in the intended direction. On the other hand, if the figures diverge wildly from the budget, this sends an 'out of control' signal, and the share price could suffer as a result. Not only is the Lack of Budget can make a system not implement, lack of budget can also Lack of Budget is one of the dangerous factors in a company.
2. Resistance to Change- Resistance to change is the action taken by individuals and groups when they perceive that a change that is occurring as a threat to them. Most people don't like change because they don't like being changed. When change comes into view, fear and resistance to change follow – often despite its obvious benefits. People fight against change because they:
• fear to lose something they value, or
• don't understand the change and its implications, or
• don't think that the change makes sense, or
• find it difficult to cope with either the level or pace of the change.
Resistance emerges when there s a threat to something the individual values. The threat may be real or it may be just a perception. It may arise from a genuine understanding of the change or from misunderstanding, or even almost total ignorance about it.
For some people resisting change, there may be multiple reasons. Adding to this complexity is the fact that sometimes the stated reason hides the real, more deeply personal reason. You will also need to recognize that people work through a psychological change process as they give up the old and come to either embrace or reject the new. Typically, they may experience an initial denial, then begin to realize that the change cannot be ignored. Strong feelings may emerge, such as fear, anger, helplessness and frustration. Finally, the person accepts the change either negatively, with feelings of resignation and complacency, or positively, with renewed enthusiasm to capitalize on the changes. Watch out for employees who get “stuck” in one phase. Offer your support. Allow space for people to work through the stages. Give employees time to draw breath and listen with empathy.

Resistance to Change in the Workplace: Main Reasons
Fear of the unknown. Change implies uncertainty, and uncertainty is uncomfortable. Not knowing what may potentially happen often leads to heightened anxiety. Resisting change is one of the anxiety-reducing actions. Fear of failure. The new order may require skill and abilities that may be beyond our capabilities. There is resistance to trying a new approach as people know how to operate in the existing order, but fear they will not be able to the new skills and behavior that will be required of them. Disagreement with the need for change. Associates may feel that the new direction is a wrong direction. Losing something of value. All associates want to know how the change will affect them. If people believe they will wind up losing as a result of the change, they will resist. Leaving a comfort zone. People are afraid to go after what they want because it would force them to stretch their comfort zones. It's only natural to put off things that scare us, to sidestep goals that require us to leave our comfort zone and take a risk. False beliefs. To put themselves at ease and avoid taking the risk, many people fool themselves into believing everything will all work out someday by itself. Misunderstanding and lack of trust. People resist change when they do not understand its implications and perceive that it might cost them much more than they gain. Such situations often occur when trust is lacking between the person initiating the change and the employees. Inertia. All organizations suffer from inertia to some degree and try to maintain status quo. Change requires effort, oftentimes, a significant one. So, don't underestimate the power of fatigue and burnout.

Additional Reason to Resistance to Change
The Risk Of Change Is Seen As Greater Than The Risk Of Standing Still. Making a change requires a kind of leap of faith: you decide to move in the direction of the unknown on the promise that something will be better for you. But you have no proof. Taking that leap of faith is risky, and people will only take active steps toward the unknown if they genuinely believe – and perhaps more importantly, feel – that the risks of standing still are greater than those of moving forward in a new direction. Making a change is all about managing risk. If you are making the case for change, be sure to set out in stark, truthful terms why you believe the risk situation favors change. Use numbers whenever you can, because we in the West pay attention to numbers. At the very least, they get our attention, and then when the rational mind is engaged, the emotional mind (which is typically most decisive) can begin to grapple with the prospect of change. But if you only sell your idea of change based on idealistic, unseen promises of reward, you won’t be nearly as effective in moving people to action. The power of the human fight-or-flight response can be activated to fight for change, but that begins with the perception of risk. People Feel Connected To Other People Who Are Identified With The Old Way. We are a social species. We become and like to remains connected to those we know those who have taught us, those with whom we are familiar – even at times to our own detriment. Loyalty certainly helped our ancestors hunt antelope and defend against the aggressions of hostile tribes, and so we are hard wired, I believe, to form emotional bonds of loyalty, generally speaking. If you ask people in an organization to do things in a new way, as rational as that new way may seem to you, you will be setting yourself up against all that hard wiring, all those emotional connections to those who taught your audience the old way - and that’s not trivial. At the very least, as you craft your change message, you should make statements that honor the work and contributions of those who brought such success to the organization in the past, because on a very human but seldom articulated level, your audience will feel asked to betray their former mentors (whether those people remain in the organization or not). A little good diplomacy at the outset can stave off a lot of resistance. People Have No Role Models For The New Activity. Never underestimate the power of observational learning. If you see yourself as a change agent, you probably are something of a dreamer, someone who uses the imagination to create new possibilities that do not currently exist. Well, most people don’t operate that way. It’s great to be a visionary, but communicating a vision is not enough. Get some people on board with your idea, so that you or they can demonstrate how the new way can work. Operationally, this can mean setting up effective pilot programs that model a change and work out the kinks before taking your innovation “on the road.” For most people, seeing is believing. Less rhetoric and more demonstration can go a long way toward overcoming resistance, changing people’s objections from the “It can’t be done!” variety to the “How can we get it done?” category. People Fear They Lack The Competence To Change. This is a fear people will seldom admit. But sometimes, change in organizations necessitates changes in skills, and some people will feel that they won’t be able to make the transition very well. They don’t think they, as individuals, can do it. The hard part is that some of them may be right. But in many cases, their fears will be unfounded, and that’s why part of moving people toward change requires you to be an effective motivator. Even more, a successful change campaign includes effective new training programs, typically staged from the broad to the specific. By this I mean that initial events should be town-hall type information events, presenting the rationale and plan for change, specifying the next steps, outlining future communications channels for questions, etc., and specifying how people will learn the specifics of what will be required of them, from whom, and when. Then, training programs must be implemented and evaluated over time. In this way, you can minimize the initial fear of a lack of personal competence for change by showing how people will be brought to competence throughout the change process. Then you have to deliver. People Feel Overloaded And Overwhelmed. Fatigue can really kill a change effort, for an individual or for an organization. If, for example, you believe you should quit smoking, but you’ve got ten projects going and four kids to keep up with, it can be easy to put off your personal health improvement project (until your first heart attack or cancer scare, when suddenly the risks of standing still seem greater than the risks of change!). When you’re introducing a change effort, be aware of fatigue as a factor in keeping people from moving forward, even if they are telling you they believe in the wisdom of your idea. If an organization has been through a lot of upheaval, people may resist change just because they are tired and overwhelmed, perhaps at precisely the time when more radical change is most needed! That’s when you need to do two things: re-emphasize the risk scenario that forms the rationale for change (as in my cancer scare example), and also be very generous and continuously attentive with praise, and with understanding for people’s complaints, throughout the change process. When you reemphasize the risk scenario, you’re activating people’s fears, the basic fight-or-flight response we all possess. But that’s not enough, and fear can produce its own fatigue. You’ve got to motivate and praise accomplishments as well, and be patient enough to let people vent (without getting too caught up in attending to unproductive negativity). People Have A Healthy Skepticism And Want To Be Sure New Ideas Are Sound. It’s important to remember that few worthwhile changes are conceived in their final, best form at the outset. Healthy skeptics perform an important social function: to vet the change idea or process so that it can be improved upon along the road to becoming reality. So listen to your skeptics, and pay attention, because some percentage of what they have to say will prompt genuine improvements to your change idea (even if some of the criticism you will hear will be based more on fear and anger than substance).
People Fear Hidden Agendas Among Would-Be Reformers. Let’s face it, reformers can be a motley lot. Not all are to be trusted. Perhaps even more frightening, some of the worst atrocities modern history has known were begun by earnest people who really believed they knew what was best for everyone else. Reformers, as a group, share a blemished past . . . And so, you can hardly blame those you might seek to move toward change for mistrusting your motives, or for thinking you have another agenda to follow shortly. If you seek to promote change in an organization, not only can you expect to encounter resentment for upsetting the established order and for thinking you know better than everyone else, but you may also be suspected of wanted to increase your own power, or even eliminate potential opposition through later stages of change. I saw this in a recent change management project for which I consulted, when management faced a lingering and inextinguishable suspicion in some quarters that the whole affair was a prelude to far-reaching layoffs. It was not the case, but no amount of reason or reassurance sufficed to quell the fears of some people. What’s the solution? Well, you’d better be interested in change for the right reasons, and not for personal or factional advantage, if you want to minimize and overcome resistance. And you’d better be as open with information and communication as you possibly can be, without reacting unduly to accusations and provocations, in order to show your good faith, and your genuine interest in the greater good of the organization. And if your change project will imply reductions in workforce, then be open about that and create an orderly process for outplacement and in-house retraining. Avoid the drip-drip-drip of bad news coming out in stages, or through indirect communication or rumor. Get as much information out there as fast as you can and create a process to allow everyone to move on and stay focused on the change effort. People Feel The Proposed Change Threatens Their Notions Of Themselves. Sometimes change on the job gets right to a person’s sense of identity. When a factory worker begins to do less with her hands and more with the monitoring of automated instruments, she may lose her sense of herself as a craftsperson, and may genuinely feel that the very things that attracted her to the work in the first place have been lost. I saw this among many medical people and psychologists during my graduate training, as the structures of medical reimbursement in this country changed in favor of the insurance companies, HMO’s and managed care organizations. Medical professionals felt they had less say in the treatment of their patients, and felt answerable to less well trained people in the insurance companies to approve treatments the doctors felt were necessary. And so, the doctors felt they had lost control of their profession, and lost the ability to do what they thought best for patients. My point is not to take sides in that argument, but to point out how change can get right to a person’s sense of identity, the sense of self as a professional. As a result, people may feel that the intrinsic rewards that brought them to a particular line of work will be lost with the change. And in some cases, they may be absolutely right. The only answer is to help people see and understand the new rewards that may come with a new work process, or to see how their own underlying sense of mission and values can still be realized under the new way of operating. When resistance springs from these identity-related roots, it is deep and powerful, and to minimize its force, change leaders must be able to understand it and then address it, acknowledging that change does have costs, but also, (hopefully) larger benefits. People Anticipate A Loss Of Status Or Quality Of Life. Real change reshuffles the deck a bit. Reshuffling the deck can bring winners . . . and losers. Some people, most likely, will gain in status, job security, quality of life, etc. with the proposed change, and some will likely lose a bit. Change does not have to be a zero sum game, and change can (and should) bring more advantage to more people than disadvantage. But we all live in the real world, and let’s face it – if there were no obstacles (read: people and their interests) aligned against change, then special efforts to promote change would be unnecessary. Some people will, in part, be aligned against change because they will clearly, and in some cases correctly, view the change as being contrary to their interests. There are various strategies for minimizing this, and for dealing with steadfast obstacles to change in the form of people and their interests, but the short answer for dealing with this problem is to do what you can to present the inevitability of the change given the risk landscape, and offer to help people to adjust. Having said that, I’ve never seen a real organizational change effort that did not result in some people choosing to leave the organization, and sometimes that’s best for all concerned. When the organization changes, it won’t be to everyone likes, and in that case, it’s best for everyone to be adult about it and move on. People Genuinely Believe That The Proposed Change Is A Bad Idea. I’ll never forget what a supervisor of mine said to be, during the year after I had graduated from college, secure as I was in the knowledge of my well earned, pedigreed wisdom at age twenty-two. We were in a meeting, and I made the comment, in response to some piece of information, “Oh, I didn’t know that!” Ricky, my boss, looked at me sideways, and commented dryly, “Things you don’t know . . . fill libraries.” The truth is, sometimes someone’s (even – gasp! – my) idea of change is just not a good idea. Sometimes people are not being recalcitrant, or afraid, or muddle-headed, or nasty, or foolish when they resist. They just see that we’re wrong. And even if we’re not all wrong, but only half wrong, or even if we’re right, it’s important not to ignore when people have genuine, rational reservations or objections. Not all resistance is about emotion, in spite of this list I’ve assembled here. To win people’s commitment for change, you must engage them on both a rational level and an emotional level. I’ve emphasized the emotional side of the equation for this list because I find, in my experience, that this is the area would-be change agents understand least well. But I’m also mindful that a failure to listen to and respond to people’s rational objections and beliefs is ultimately disrespectful to them, and to assume arrogantly that we innovative, change agent types really do know best. A word to the wise: we’re just as fallible as anyone.
The six phases personal or professional change
1. Anticipation. The waiting stage. They really don't know what to expect so they wait, anticipating what the future holds.
2. Confrontation. People begin to confront reality. The realize that change is really going to happen or is happening.
3. Realization. Post change - Realizing that nothing is ever going to be as it once was.
4. Depression. Often a necessary step in the change process. This is the stage where a person mourns the past. Not only have they realized the change intellectually, but now they are beginning to comprehend it emotionally as well.
5. Acceptance. Aacceptance of the change emotionally. Although they may still have reservations, they are not fighting the change at this stage. They may even see some of the benefits even if they are not completely convinced.
6. Enlightenment. In Phase 6, people completely accept the new change. In fact, many wonder how they ever managed the "old" way. Overall, they feel good about the change and accept it as the status quo from here forward.
It is important to note that people in the organizations will proceed through the different phases at different rates of speed. One person may require two months to reach Phase 6 while another may require twelve. To make things even more complex, the cycle of change is not linear. In other words, a person does not necessarily complete Phase 1 through 6 in order. It is much more common for people to jump around. One person may go from Phase 4 to Phase 5 and then back to Phase 2 again. That is why there is no easy way to determine how long a change will take to implement. However, by using the skills we've outlined above, you increase your chances of managing the change as effectively as possible. Most people prefer predictability and stability in both their personal and professional lives. People typically avoid situations that upset order, threaten their self-interests, increase stress or involve risk. When faced with changes to the status quo, people usually resist initially. The resistance continues and, in some cases increases, until they are able to recognize the benefits of change and perceive the gains to be worth more than the risk or threats to their self-interests. James O'Toole points out in his book, Leading Change, that people resist change due to the fundamental human objection to having the will of others imposed upon them. Overcoming Resistance to Change: Most Common Ways:
• Education and communication
• Participation and involvement
• Facilitation and support
• Negotiation and agreement
• Manipulation and co-optation
• Explicit and implicit coercion
Leaders should anticipate resistance to any change effort, prepare for it, and make special efforts to assess and deal with individual reactions to change. Leaders must develop the proper attitude toward resistance to change and realize that it is neither good nor bad. In fact, resistance can serve as a signal that there are ways in which the change effort should be modified and improved. The following steps should help leaders faced with resistance to their change attempts:
• Actively seek out people's thoughts and reactions to the proposed changes.
• Listen carefully. Do not launch into lengthy diatribes justifying the change - in the early stages, people are not interested in that. They want to be heard and have their concerns attended to. Recognize that it takes time to work through reactions to change.
• Engage people in dialogue about the change. Leaders should do this only after fully understanding the specific concerns of others.
• Involve Others
There is no better way to minimize resistance to change than to involve those responsible for implementing it and those affected by it. If there is no involvement early on in the planning, during the implementation and throughout perpetuation, the change effort will fail. When people feel that they are valued participants in planning and implementing the change, they are more likely to be motivated toward successful completion. The following techniques are effective ways to get people involved and gain their commitment to change efforts:
• Determine who must be involved in planning the change and include them in the decision making process. Err on the side of involving more people rather than fewer. If there is a question as to whether or not a certain person's support will be needed, include them.
• Ensure that people from all levels of the organization are involved in planning the change process. This means involving the people that are at the on the floor level as well. It will be these people who will make the change process succeed or fail.
• Consult with employees from the areas affected by the change when determining the steps needed for change.
• Seek input from people at all levels to establish realistic time frames for specific actions.
• When possible, run a test program with a selected work unit and solicit feedback on what is working well, where the problem areas are and how to work out any difficulties.
• Publicly recognize any employees whose suggestions are used in the change process.
• Design a mechanism that provides ongoing feedback from employees throughout the change effort. Involved people are an effective barometer of what is working well and what is not working well. Ask them to suggest improvements.
In conclusion, developing an IS plan can be a critical job for most companies and can produce possible source of frustrations on the IS planner’s part. These frustrations can be different from IS planner to another but they all provide a venue for the IS planner to think of ways to mitigate them. It is important to take note of important source of frustrations from planning an information system and develop a plan first in order to avoid them or lessen their impact on the actual planning and implementation itself. I may not be an IS planner now but from what I learned from the interviews and researches that I conducted I can generally say that the key move here is to think ahead, consider even the smallest details and consider the end users of the information system a significant part of the plan itself.
We should know how to face and handle frustrations because we do not know when we might encounter it. If we do not know how to handle frustrations then we might end up sulking in a corner because we feel rejected. Frustrations can cause downfall and sometimes complete failure on a man, an organization or a company. In the world of information technology, there are a lot of things that can become a cause of frustrations among the information technology or information systems professional. Another common form of frustration among the information technology or information systems professionals is change itself. Again, change is constant. It never stops on changing - changing people, changing economy, changing everything that you could ever imagine. Change can be good, for others, change can be bad. Some like it and some fear it. Yet, no matter how we see change, we still have a choice, either to accept and adapt to change, or to resist and remain unchanged. Change will always be there. For those who fear it, change will always haunt them. For those who like it, change will always be their sign of opportunity. Change, it is the only thing which is permanent, that it changes everything and that change itself is everything. Moreover, whether we like it or not, change happens rapidly. And for the record, most of the time people find themselves trying not to get left behind. The same thing happens in the world of Information Technology. Technology has come a very long way and it never stopped changing. From the very first computer man has ever built, up to the latest technologies man has never dreamed would ever be built. What is new today becomes obsolete in the next few months due to fast innovations and upgrades. In the part of the information technology or information systems professionals, it is a must for them to develop an information technology or information systems plan that is, as mush as possible, flexible for a number of years. Frustration can have a highly damaging impact on our frame of mind. It can turn a positive person into a person who sees nearly everything as a problem. It can slow you down, inhibit your progress, and at times completely immobilize you. We can become so wound up with our frustration that we do not, and cannot, think or act rationally. Our frustration can often exacerbate a situation and create a vicious circle. If we are convinced that our actions are not working, no matter how hard we try, we are much more likely to reduce, rather than increase, our chances of success. If you feel that your degree of frustration is really out of control, if it is having an impact on your relationships and on important parts of your life, you might consider counseling to learn how to handle it better. A psychologist or other licensed mental health professional can work with you in developing a range of techniques for changing your thinking and your behavior. Remember, you cannot eliminate frustration. In spite of all your efforts, things will happen that will cause you frustration and anger. Life is filled with frustration, pain, loss, and the unpredictable actions of others. You can't change that; but you can change the way you let such events affect you.

Nature of the relationship between the business plan and the IS plan

2010-06-29T07:16:00.000-07:00

What should be the nature of the relationship between the business plan and the IS plan?

On these two different aspects we can see the common factor of it, which is Plan. To make things clear, I will first define what is plan and the importance of planning in the two said aspect or to any activity or process.

A plan is typically any procedure used to achieve an objective. It is a set of intended actions, through which one expects to achieve a goal.
Plans can be formal or informal:
Structured and formal plans, used by multiple people, are more likely to occur in projects, diplomacy, careers, economic development, military campaigns, combat, or in the conduct of other business. In most cases, the absence of a well-laid plan can have adverse effects: for example, a non-robust project plan can cost the organization time and money.
Informal or ad-hoc plans are created by individuals in all of their pursuits.
The most popular ways to describe plans are by their breadth, time frame, and specificity; however, these planning classifications are not independent of one another. For instance, there is a close relationship between the short- and long-term categories and the strategic and operational categories.
It is common for less formal plans to be created as abstract ideas, and remain in that form as they are maintained and put to use. More formal plans as used for business and military purposes, while initially created with and as an abstract thought, are likely to be written down, drawn up or otherwise stored in a form that is accessible to multiple people across time and space. This allows more reliable collaboration in the execution of the plan.

Importance of Planning

The importance of the planning function should be clear to everyone. An outline of the importance of planning function are as follows:

Provides Direction: Planning provides a clear sense of direction to the activities of the organization and to the job behavior of managers and others. It strengthens their confidence in understanding where the organization is heading and what for, how best to make the organization move along the chosen path, and when should they take what measures to achieve the goals of the organization.

Provides opportunity to analyze alternative courses of action: Another source of importance of planning is that it permits managers to examine and analyze alternative course of action with a better understanding of their likely consequences. If managers have an enhanced awareness of the possible future effects of alternative courses of action, for making a decision or for taking any action, they will be able to exercise judgment and proceed cautiously to choose the most feasible and favorable course of action.

Reduces uncertainties: Planning forces managers to shake off their inertia and insular outlook; it induces them to look beyond those noses, beyond today and tomorrow, and beyond immediate concerns. It encourages them to probe and cut through complexities and uncertainties of the environment and to gain control over the elements of change.

Minimizes impulsive and arbitrary decisions: Planning tends to minimize the incidence of impulsive and arbitrary decisions and ad hoc actions; it obviates exclusive dependence on the mercies of luck and chance elements; it reduces the probability of major errors and failures in managerial actions. It injects a measure of discipline in managerial thinking and organizational action. It improves the capability of the organization to assume calculated risks. It increases the freedom and flexibility of managers withing well-defined limits.

King-pin function: As stated earlier, planning is a prime managerial function which provides the basis for the other managerial functions. The organizational structure of task and authority roles is built around organizational plans. The functions of motivation, supervision, leadership and communication are addressed to implementation of plans and achievement of organizational objectives. Managerial control is meaningless without managerial planning. Thus, planning is the king-pin function around which other functions are designed.

Resource Allocation: Planning is means of judicious allocation of strategic and scarce resources of the organization in the best possible manner for achieving strategic goals of the organization. The strategic resources include funds, highly competent executives, technological talent, good contacts with government, exclusive dealer network and so on. If the organization enjoys a distinct advantage in possession of such resources, a careful planning is essential to allocate them into those lines which would strengthen the overall competitive position of the organization.

Resource use efficiency: For an ongoing organization, planning contributes towards a more efficient functioning of the various work units. There is better utilization of the organization's existing assets, resources and capabilities. It prompts managers to close gaps, to plug loopholes, to rectify deficiencies, to reduce wastage and leakages of funds, materials, human efforts and skills so as to bring about an overall improvement in resource use efficiency.

Adaptive responses: Planning tends to improve the ability of the organization to effectively adapt and adjust its activities and directions in response to the changes taking place in the external environment. An adaptive behavior on the part of the organization is essential for its survival as an independent entity. For a business organization, for example, adaptive behavior is critical in technology, markets, products and so on.

Anticipative action: While adaptation is a behavior in reaction and response to some changes in the outside world, it is not enough in some situations. In recognition of this fact, planning stimulates management to act, to take hold initiatives, to anticipate crises and threats and to ward them off, to perceive and seize opportunities ahead of other competitions, and to gain a competitive lead over others. For the purpose, some enterprises establish environmental scanning mechanism as part of their planning systems. Thereby such enterprises are able to direct and control change, instead of being directed and controlled by the pervasive external forces of change.

Integration: Planning is an important process to bring about effective integration of the diverse decisions and activities of the managers not only at a point of time but also over a period of time. It is by reference to the framework provided by planning that managers make major decisions on organizational activities, in an internally consistent manner.

Business Plan

A business plan is a formal statement of a set of business goals, the reasons why they are believed attainable, and the plan for reaching those goals. It may also contain background information about the organization or team attempting to reach those goals.
The business goals may be defined for for-profit or for non-profit organizations. For-profit business plans typically focus on financial goals, such as profit or creation of wealth. Non-profit and government agency business plans tend to focus on organizational mission which is the basis for their governmental status or their non-profit, tax-exempt status, respectively—although non-profits may also focus on optimizing revenue. In non-profit organizations, creative tensions may develop in the effort to balance mission with "margin" (or revenue). Business plans may also target changes in perception and branding by the customer, client, tax-payer, or larger community. A business plan having changes in perception and branding as its primary goals is called a marketing plan.
Business plans may be internally or externally focused. Externally focused plans target goals that are important to external stakeholders, particularly financial stakeholders. They typically have detailed information about the organization or team attempting to reach the goals. With for-profit entities, external stakeholders include investors and customers. External stake-holders of non-profits include donors and the clients of the non-profit's services. For government agencies, external stakeholders include tax-payers, higher-level government agencies, and international lending bodies such as the IMF, the World Bank, various economic agencies of the UN, and development banks.
Internally focused business plans target intermediate goals required to reach the external goals. They may cover the development of a new product, a new service, a new IT system, a restructuring of finance, the refurbishing of a factory or a restructuring of the organization. An internal business plan is often developed in conjunction with a balanced scorecard or a list of critical success factors. This allows success of the plan to be measured using non-financial measures. Business plans that identify and target internal goals, but provide only general guidance on how they will be met are called strategic plans.

Information System Plan

Today, most organizations in all sectors of industry, commerce and government are fundamentally dependent on their information systems. Thus, organizations or companies are increasingly looking toward the application of technology not only to strengthen existing business operations but also to create new opportunities that provide them with a source of competitive advantage.
Planning for information systems, as for any other system, begins with the identification of needs. In order to be effective, development of any type of computer-based system should be a response to need--whether at the transaction processing level or at the more complex information and support systems levels. Such planning for information systems is much like strategic planning in management.
An Information System Plan or ISP, on the other hand, is basically a plan concentrated on aligning the information systems of an organization to its business plan as a whole. An information system is comprised of the hardware, software and peopleware of an organization. Usually, the term information system is related to using technology as a crucial part of an organization. The term is also used to identify the computer-based system that an organization is using.
According to Michael M. Gorman, the information systems plan project determines the sequence for implementing specific information systems. The goal of the strategy is to deliver the most valuable business information at the earliest time possible in the most cost-effective manner. The end product of the information systems project is an information systems plan (ISP). Once deployed, the information systems department can implement the plan with confidence that they are doing the correct information systems project at the right time and in the right sequence. The focus of the ISP is not one information system but the entire suite of information systems for the enterprise. Once developed, each identified information system is seen in context with all other information systems within the enterprise. Gorman has also identified some of the characteristics that an ISP should have and these are the following:
An ISP should be timely. An ISP that is created long after it is needed is useless. In almost all cases, it makes no sense to take longer to plan work than to perform the work planned.
The ISP must be useable. It must be so for all the projects as well as for each project. The ISP should exist in sections that once adopted can be parceled out to project managers and immediately started.
The ISP must be maintainable. New business opportunities, new computers, business mergers, etc. all affect the ISP. The ISP must support quick changes to the estimates, technologies employed, and possibly even to the fundamental project sequences. Once these changes are accomplished, the new ISP should be just a few computer program executions away.
While the ISP must be a quality product, no ISP is ever perfect on the first try. As the ISP is executed, the metrics employed to derive the individual project estimates become refined as a consequence of new hardware technologies, code generators, techniques, or faster working staff. As these changes occur, their effects should be installable into the data that supports ISP computation. In short, the ISP is a living document. It should be updated with every technology event, and certainly no less often than quarterly.
The ISP must be reproducible. That is, when its development activities are performed by any other staff, the ISP produced should essentially be the same. The ISP should not significantly vary by staff assigned.

Relationship between the Business Plan and the Information System Plan

Before, the relationship between the business strategy or plan and the information function was not made interest and awareness of the Top Management of the companies or firms. At that time, information systems were thought to be synonymous with the company data processing and were treated as some back-room operation in support of day-to-day ordinary tasks.
In the 80’s and 90’s, however, there has been a growing realization of the need to make information systems of strategic importance to an organization. As a result, strategic information systems planning (SISP) is a important issue. In many industry surveys, improved SISP is often mentioned as the most serious challenge facing by the Information System managers.

With this, strategic information system planning is the analysis of a corporation’s information and processes using business information models together with the evaluation of risk, current needs and requirements. The result is an action plan showing the desired course of events necessary to align information use and needs with the strategic direction of the company. Also, an article has emphasized the need to note that SISP is a management function and not a technical one. This is consistent with the earlier distinction between the older data processing (this was first era of three-era model information system application of John Ward) views and the modern strategic importance view of Information Systems. SISP thus is used to identify the best targets for purchasing and installing new management information systems and help an organization maximize the return on its information technology investment. A portfolio of computer-based applications is identified that will assist an organization in executing its business plans and realize its business goals. There is a growing realization that the application of information technology (IT) to a firm’s strategic activities has been one of the most common and effective ways to improve business performance.

The task of strategic information systems planning is difficult and often time organizations do not know how to do it. Strategic information systems planning is a major change for organizations, from planning for information systems based on users’ demands to those based on business strategy and plan.

Conclusion….
Business plan and information system plan are different in definition, but in a sense they should be align to each other for the common good and to one goal and objective of each aspect to achieve. One is made for other, and the other can’t survive without it. An ISP is part of the business plan in general. One of the best strategies in making a business plan is developing a plan on how to effectively and efficiently use IS to its highest potential for the benefit of the organization as a whole. This is where information system planning comes in. An information system plan is developed in order to effectively manage the IS resources without compromising the business plan of an organization.

Wikipedia.com
http://hubpages.com

myself...

2009-11-25T09:03:00.000-08:00

elow.... and good day!...

Edsa Fe A. Esio is here again...
After MIS 1, I'm here again enrolled in MIS 2. I'm thankful that i've come this far after all the challenges i've have before(hehehe).

This could be a new chapter in my college life. I know this thing could not be easy at all but of course I still need to continue and strive hard. "Keep moving forward!..." as i always said. I know all the hardships will help me to be a better person. I'm willing to learn, i just hope people around me will extend more their patience. Thank!...

Goodluck to all!!!...
Aja!!!...

Who Am I 10 years From Now

2009-11-25T08:55:00.000-08:00

Assignment 1

Think about yourself worthy to be called as IT professional, how do you see yourself 10 years from now, what are your strategies to get there?

Today, the term information has ballooned to encompass many aspects of computing and technology, and the term has become very recognizable. IT professionals perform a variety of duties that range from installing applications to designing complex computer networks and information databases. A few of the duties that IT professionals perform may include data management, networking, engineering computer hardware, database and software design, as well as the management and administration of entire systems.

As an IT student now, it would be our vision to be an IT professional someday that is fully equip in our chosen field. To be one of the worthy IT professional that can contribute to the development of information technology and on the industry. That would also help us to be productive, and improve more in the path we choose and as an individual. To have a confidence and enough knowledge in developing good applications and programs that has a big contribution in our field. Additionally, we could prove that we are capable and worthy to be called as an IT professional someday.

We are still on the course of educating ourselves to learn things in the nature of Information Technology. Learning the things that have something to do in this kind of environment. Exploring the world of technology that has been introduced to us and discovering those things that we are not yet acquaint with. Information technology is truly a broad scope it encompasses. As a student, we still have so many things to be done first before we achieve our goal. Develop first our potentials and get to know ourselves what we really want to be in the future.
Self-restraint is one of the many things that we need to train to ensure proper behavior. In other words it would be the attitude. One of the most problems each one would encounter has something to do with it. In any fields or any activity one would get into. Proper behavior is a must to each one in order to be successful in each and everyone’s journey in life or in career.
Furthermore, knowledge is also necessary. How well do we know about the things we enter. Do we really understand the concept, idea, nature, and environment of being an IT people and in the field of information technology? There are many things that we need to consider in whatever we decide to be in the coming years. We need to be aware and has a full grasp of what we are about to live someday, so that we might not get out of the track that we are heading for. It is very essential to know these things as early as now with the intention of becoming prepared to the obstacles and challenges we will certainly come across in our way ahead. In order to be successful, we also need enough information of what we are taking into. The necessary, essential and crucial data that has to be understand well and comprehend too.

We all know that technology nowadays is necessary in an organization to be competitive and to attain their goals and to be successful as a result. Technology makes an organization grow more productive and progressive.

My vision…

Honestly, I’m still on the verge on discovering my true self and the area I would most likely to prefer. It may be stupid to say, but honestly I still don’t really know exactly what I really wanted to be and to do in the future, specifically. One thing for sure I vision in the future is to be part of a big organization as one of their IT personnel were I could have a big contribution in the progress of the company in terms of information technology. And later on, I dream to have my own business in our country were I can showcase my own ideas, knowledge and interest in information technology. As part of it, I also hope that I can explore more not only in our own country but also to work abroad and experience to how things work in their place. I wanted to learn, experience, grow and help others the best way I can, in any ways I could. I wanted to do my part as an individual and at the same time enjoy life in productive way.

STRATEGIES

Organizations try to do more and more internally when the economy begins to falter. The more skills a person has the better chances one has to stay employed. This holds true for IT staffing, development and consulting. Additionally, when a developer or infrastructure architect can show an organization how to save time, investment and people through the implementation of their solution they will endear themselves to that particular organization. Good information technology strategy can more than pay for itself in this economy. Organizations everywhere are dependent on technology and they need processes to become dynamically automated so they can accomplish more with less expense to the movement towards models of efficiency that will contribute to the productivity of the organization. It is very essential to make it a mission to learn more applications and methodologies that can greatly increase the productivity of any company. To do this is to build value for the organization and you by ensuring there will always be a job for those that are willing to innovate and create a better way.

In visualizing dreams in the future, there should be plans and consequently strategies to make to achieve our goals. One of the strategies I have in mind is to have a good foundation in what I planned to be in the future. To be geared up with the necessary things I should before I walk in to what they say reality. To possibly build that foundation it is a best practice to finish first our studies. Given a big picture on the scenario of reality and given enough time to think and decide of our own. Of course, part of this is to have a good grade while still in school because performance in the school has a substantial effect in our personality or behavior as an individual.
Another thing is advancing the knowledge. Not just to limit the ideas and areas of opportunity for technology innovate every now and then. Explore and be open to the new innovations and advancement to take place. For life is a constant learning of new things for improvements and to stay competitive and productive.
Develop ones self to proper work behavior. Towards the future plans and indulge to work it is always comes with proper approach to it. Since, it is most likely that IT people should be working as a team it is more conducive to have a positive attitude to have a good working relationship. We are talking here as part of an organization and it is healthy practice to stay in the organization, and to make a good work force for the success of the projects and the company.
Choosing a specialty. To have a specialty in our chosen field could be a strategy to attain our goal. Since, information technology covers bulky area it would be more effective to choose a specialty to focus on but of course this doesn’t mean we will limit our ideas, knowledge and workplace in the field we specialize on.

Here are some of the career-wise, software developers that really have an amazing variety of specialties to choose from. The various specialties can be differentiated in several ways:

- by programming language
- by hardware platform
- by operating system
- by technique and/or process
- by persistence type (that is, relational databases vs. object databases vs. flat file databases etc.)
- by vertical market
- by market sector (government vs. business vs. non-profit)
- internal use vs. shrink-wrap
- client/server vs. distributed n-tier
- fat client vs. thin client
- Open Source vs. proprietary

This list could go on and on. It seems as if there are as many specialties (or rather, combinations of specialties) as there are individual developers. Most developers cultivate not just one specialty, but rather a combination of specialties that cut across all of these differentiating factors. Independent consultants, especially, must diversify their portfolio of specialties in order to protect against the whims of the marketplace—or perhaps just to prevent boredom. The difference between one developer’s combination of specialties and another’s is often simply a matter of emphasis of one factor over the others.

In choosing the “right” specialty we would ask this question, “Which is the "right" specialty?” The answer to that question will, of course, be different for each person. Furthermore, there are most likely several "right" specialties. Any given person might thrive and be happy in any one of them—or even several of them over the course of a career. With so many potentially lucrative and enjoyable specialties, and potentially several decades in a career, there is no reason a person must limit herself to just one specialty. To choose on the kind of specialty it would be one that:

- makes you happy most of the time,
- offers you the amount and kind of security you desire,
- offers you the level and type of challenges you desire,
- and has the potential for the amount of money you require or desire (assuming money is important to you in your software development career).

These are minimal and general criteria, but there are other more specific concerns as well:

- Does the specialty have longevity?
- Does the specialty appeal to your sensibilities? For example, your sensibilities might lean towards using a low level language in a command line environment, while someone else might strongly prefer a higher level language in a graphical environment. One person might want to work on relatively low risk business applications, while another might thrive on the pressure of developing life-critical systems.
- Is the specialty in line with your abilities? That is, do you have a) the right kind of training and knowledge, and b) the required intelligence and/or temperament?, and/or c) the drive and dedication to acquire the right training and knowledge, whether or not you possess the required intelligence and temperament.
- Given that you have the intelligence and temperament, and that you have, or can obtain, the required training and knowledge, is the specialty otherwise within your reach? How high is the barrier to entry? That is, who do you have to know to get a job working in a particular specialty? How many of those jobs are available? What parts of the world are those jobs located in? What kind of background is required? What kind of credentials or certifications are required? What kind of government security clearances are required?
- Is the specialty too narrow for you, too wide, or just right?
- Is the specialty in line with your life principles and ethics? Particularly, are you willing to work for the companies or government agencies that will pay for the specialty?
- Is the specialty undergoing rapid evolution, or are techniques, body of knowledge, and technologies relatively stable? If the specialty is undergoing rapid evolution, are you willing to put in the extra time and energy to keep up?
- Is the specialty going to suit your ego? That is, how is the specialty regarded in the industry at large, and do you care what other people might think about the specialty? Do you care that your specialty might be ignored by technology journalists, book publishers, academics, and/or gurus? Or do you require that your specialty be a popular one?

Have faith. In spite of all the challenges that we had and we will be having, we should not to let ourselves lose hope. We need to believe in order to survive and step forward to follow our dreams.

This is our opportunity. Make it happen!

References:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_technology
http://blog.starbaseinc.com/blog/information-technology-strategy
www.developerdotstar.com
www.amazon.com

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