MIS 2: Assignment 4

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. (at least 5000 words)

Being invited by the university’s president to prepare for an Information System plan for our university is a priviledge but it would not be that easy to conduct and create an IS plan. But having this chance is an advantage and opportunity for me ,as an Information Technology student of the said university, to be able to know and examine the processes of the university’s infomation system.

But before hand, let us have some review of some key points that was already discussed and defined in the previous assignments. Let’s define Information System, Planning, Strategice planning and Strategic Information System plan.

Information System.
As I explore the internet for definitions, I have gathered different ideas about information system. As what I have understand, Information Systems were thought to be similar with corporate data processing and was considered as some back-room oepration in support of day-to-day ordinary task.

Planning.
As described by the wikipedia, “Planning in organizations and public policy is both the organizational process of creating and maintaining a plan; and the psychological process of thinking about the activities required to create a desired goal on some scale. As such, it is a fundamental property of intelligent behavior. This thought process is essential to the creation and refinement of a plan, or integration of it with other plans, that is, it combines forecasting of developments with the preparation of scenarios of how to react to them”.

Strategic Planning.
According to a very reliable source, which is the Wikipedia, Strategic planning is an organization’s process of defining its strategy, or direction, and making decisions on allocating its resources to pursue this strategy, including its capital and people.It is the formal consideration of an organization’s future course. Various techniques can be utilized in strategic planning. This include SWOT analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opprtunities, and Threats), PEST analysis (Political, Economic, Social, and Technological), STEER analysis (Socio-cultural, Technological, Economic, Ecological, and Regulatory factors) and EPISTEL (Environment, Political, Informatic, Social, Technological, Economic and Legal).

Information System Planning.
Refering to what I have understand on my researches and looking back to what I have post in the previous assignment, Information System Plan can also be compared as a strategic planning in a management or organization. In developing an IS plan you need to formalized your objectives, priorities and authorization and must identify what specific project you wnat in the future and especially, it should be flexible so that for some circumstances it can be adjusted if necessary. An IS plan should be useable, timely, maintainable, quality and reproducible.

Strategic Information System Planning.
According to an article of Somendra Pant and Cheng Hsu entitled “Strategic Information System Planning: A review” that I have read after surfing the internet, Strategic Information System (SISP) is the analysis of a corporation’s information and processes using business informationmodels together with the evaluation of risk, currentneeds and requirements. They noted that SISP is a management function and not a technical one. SISP 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. It is a major change for organizations, from planning for information systems based on users’ demands to those based on business strategy. Another definition that I have read about SISP is from the article of Albert L. Lederer and Vijay Sethi entitled “The Implementation of Strategic Information System Planning Methodologies”. On the abstract of there documentation, they are able to define SISP. It says that Strategic Information Systems Planning (SISP) is the process of deciding the objectives for organizational computing and identifying potential computer applications which the organization should implement. This article gives a thorough definition of SISP and then illustrates it with three methodologies.

Planning for an Information System always start by identifying with what the customers and the organization needs. So, in planning for an Information System in the university it is necessary to equate with what the university, the faculty and staff and especially the students’ needs. And as what I have observed after staying in the university for almost four years, there are numerous of complaints from the student. Even I, I have some moan that the university will soon listen and be implemented if possible. I do agree that the university gave quality education and are able to produced competitive gradutes but there are some things that the university are not able to give to the student, faculty and staff. Not enough facilities and classrooms are just few of the things the university must look after for the benefit of everyone.

If I will be invited to prepare an IS plan, I would recommend that I’m going to make a Strategic Information System Planning. Planning is very vital for an organization. Doing a strategic way of planning is more reliable because of the fast-evolving changes in our environment. An information system plan is mostly similar with strategic planning. It is important to formulized your goals, vision, mission and objectives first. And since the university has its own vision, mission and goals, we can now procede with our strategic information system planning.

As the years had passed, numerous information technologies, methodologies for system development and new ideas of information system are appearing. The only thing that never change is that things are always changing. In fact, more and more new hardwares and softwares are emerging. Everyone are aiming to be updated with what is the new trend in technologies, softwares, programming languages and others because we want to. That is why when we plan, we have to make sure that it is flexible enough to be able to adapt and be competitive with the rapid changes in our environment. That is why I want to organize a Strategic Information System Planning to our university.

On the article of Pant and Hsu, they have mentioned there that the evolution of information system deals with the three-era model of John Ward,et al.(1990). They said that these eras are related and significant. The three eras are as follows and is defined with its characteristics:
60s : Data Processing (DP) – standalone computers, remote from users, cost reduction function.
70s & 80s : Management Information systems (MIS) – distributed process, interconnected, regulated by management services, supporting the business, user driven.
80s & 90s : Strategic Information Systems (SIS) – networked, integrated systems, available and supportive to users, relate to business strategy, enable the business – business driven.

The overall applications of the three mentioned era model of Information System are need to be planned and managed for its future contribution to the business. This applications are categorized as strategic (applications which are critical for the future success), Turnaround (applications which may be of future strategic importance), Factory (applications which are critical to sustaining existing business) and support (applications which improve management and performance but are not critical to the business).

It is not an easy task to make a Strategic Information System Planning, which is in the present SIS era, because different processes are inserted in the organization’s business processes. Bear in mind that these systems are required to accommodate all the demands of the organization, serving the goals, complaints of the costumers, and as well as gathering the organization’s data processing and MIS needs. The point is that planning an Information System is not merely about aiming to cut the cost but it is essential to weigh all the benefits that the organization may have.

Strategic Information System Planning Methodologies.
Often times, an organization dont know how to act the tasks in Strategic Information System Planning because it is difficult and complex. According to Pant and Hsu, Vitale, et al.(1986) classify SISP methodologies in to two categories: impact and alignment. Those SISP methodologies that helps construct and align new uses of Information Technology belongs to impact category. While on the alignment category are those methodologies that support Information System objectives and organizational goals.

Impact metthodologies consist of Value Chain Analysis and Critical Success Factor Analysis. While reading on the article of Hsu and Pant, it was stated there that “According to Michael Porter (1984), every firm is a collection of activities that are performed to design, produce, market, deliver, and support its product. All these activities can be represented using a value chain.” Current rapid technological change in information system and information technology is a competitive advantage in an organization who have a better technology than its competitors. Value chain analysis is a form of business activity analysis that helps in formulating information system that would probably increase the organization’s profit. As what I have understood, the core potency of this type of methodology is that it concentrates on direct value adding activities of an organization and in this way throws the right of information system into domain of adding value than cutting the cost. Though it sound useful enough in an organization,there are few drawbacks in a value chain analysis method. Its good to hear that value chain analysis provides higher information for the organization but it fails deliver the development and implementation issues that may occur and fails to identify the firm’s data structure. Critical success factor analysis is considered as an impact methodology but it can also be an alignment tactic. It focuses on the core information requirements in an organization and business unit. And the best thihg with a critical success factor analysis is that it is easy to implement and can be done with a lesser number of resources. Still, there are some weaknesses in this method. It fails to classify the data architecture of an organization and do not draw attention with value added features of an information system.

Business System Planning (BSP), Strategic System Planning (SSP), and Information Engineering are categorized as part of alignment methodology. Business System Planning was developed by IBM and it combines top down planning and bottom up implementation. We already recognize that in an organzation or every orgainzation has its own vision, mission, goals and objectives. In this methodology, it mainly focuses on the business processes of an organization. Every business processes are analyzed for their data needs and after that data classes are then identified. And if there are similar data classes, they are combined to develop a database. There are several steps in Business System Planning that needs to be followed orderly: Gaining Executive Commitment, Preparing for the Study, Starting the Study, Defining Business Processes, Defining Data Classes, Analyzing Current Systems Support, Determining the Executive Perspective, Defining Findings and Conclusions, Defining the Information Architecture, Determining Architectural Priorities, Reviewing Information Resources Management, Developing Recommendations and Action Plan,and Reporting Results. The study produces vast amount of information. Usually, BSP places more importance on the top management and the executive involvement on their analysis. When we look at the top down strategy of a Business System Planning, it looks similar with the Critica Success Factor Analysis method. It is for the reason that it build up an overall knowledge on business plans and supports the Information System needs through discussions. The disadvantages of having this methodology is that it solemnly expect a degree experience in Information Technology within its planning team, there would be risk in connecting the gap of the top down planning and bottom up implementation, and it is timely and needs more effort for its successful implementation. Strategic Systems Planning was developed by Robert Holland which is almost similar with Business Systems Planning. It is also called PROplanner. With this method, it characterized a business functional model through investigating the major functional areas in business. After definign the business function model, you will be able to derived your data architecture and new systems with its implementation schedule will be derived having the data architecture as its basis. One thing that SSP is different from BSP is its automated way of storage, manipulation, and presentation and handling of the datas being collected during the SISP process. SSP has its own steps that should be followed accordingly: Analyze major functional areas, Develop a business functional model, Determine information requirments, Combine information requirements into generic data entities and subject databases, Derive IS architecture, and Define new systems and their implementation schedule. Information Engineering (IE) was a method developed by James Martin (1982). This method offer several techniques that would help in building enterprises, data and process models. As what I have observed, Information Engineering is more on technical approach than any other SISP methodologies that I have mentioned earlier. All its task are relying on the structured techniques which relates on the planning, analysis, design and construction of enterprise information system. IE differs from other methodologies because of its automated tools that would link to the output of the methodology to the succeeding systems development efforts. This reason is considered as the major strength of Information Engineering methodology. Its weakness would be long time planning exercise and the difficulty of finding a team leader that would perfectly fit to its criteria.

An organization generally apply one out of a number of methodologies in order to perform a Strategic Information System Planning studies. But whatever we choose, we cannot dehy the fact that risks are always there. You may encounter problems in the analysis or implementation phase. Certain problems may occur on the structure and implementation part. But the commonly identified problem of the IS managers in the implementation of one of these three alignment methodolgies is the failure to secure the top management commitment for executing the outputs, the requirement of substantial further analysis and the difficulty in looking for a good team leader.

If I were to decide what motehodology I would use is that I prefer to have a method that have both as impact and alignment categorization. Probelm are always there. Risk can never be changed because risk are always coming. One thing that I would focus with is to be able to find a way that will help me face the risk and pursue my IS plan. Technologies today are evrywhere that is why I need to have a method that is willing to adapt with the rapid growth of breakthroughs. Comparing the different methodologies, I guess I would be using a Strategic System Planning. I choose this because out of the three, it focuses with the ddata, define a data architecture and it has an automated support ,which the BSP lacks. SSP is almost the same with IE but I prefer to choose this because I am aiming to expedite the implementation of my Information System plan. If I would go with IE, it is defined that it needs longer time to be finished. So it takes time on the implementation. With regards to steps in Strategic System Planning, it is quite the same with a Business System Planning. What differs is the word automated. Business System Planning dont have an automated support while on the other hand, Strategic System Planning uses automated design tools. With this method, users are guided with the on-line data collection and maintenance. In this model, there is already a software that would produce the reports and provides a data dictionary interface for sharing SSP data. And comparing to its individual steps, the Strategic System Plannig has the lesser steps that needs to be followed.

Improving a Strategic Information System Plan is onee of the major challenge that an Information System executives are facig until the present days. That is why, there is always a need of effective planning ahead of time so that as early as it would take, you will be able to realize the potential collision of computer-based information systems. Problems and risk may come in the middle of your ongoing Strategic Information System Plan or on its implementation but you can never avoid it. Actually, there are four ways on how to treat the risk. It includes: tolerate the risk, terminate the risk, treat the risk , and transfer the risk. If risk would come you must know how to face it. Its up to you if what would you do with the risk. Either you tolerate it, terminate, treat or transfer. There are some risk that is not applicable to be tolerated so you have to look for another way on how you could face it. But, every plan would be pursued and be fastly implemented if evryone would cooperate. I think that would be the best and number one step. What part would you be in the implementation or even in the analysis phase of Strategic Information System Plan, you must be cooperative to avoid more conflicts. There are some instances that the organization had a problem with resistance to change. Even if you already know how to solve the organization’s problem, you know what would be the best solution for the company to be more competitive with the rapid change in information but if the company resist to accept that possible or recommended solution everything would end up nothing. That is why there is a need for a cooperation between the top management, the users, the IS executives, the systems analyst and everyone who will be involved.The influence of new information technology has been one reason why organizations want to have their own Information System.

Adapting to changes is not an easy task especially in an organization. In changes there are risk. With new information technologies, the risk in an organization is the budget or cost. If the university will be more cooperative and aggressive to adapt with the rapid changes and wants to have an Information System of its own, it would be a lesser effort if they will be willing to give the required resources, enough cost and will be eager to give time for this would be a good thing to be able to ake your Strategic Information System Plan applicable, successful and reliable. If the university want to be globally competitive and aims to be the premier university in the South-east Asia, then they should be supportive and updated with what is new in the world of Information Technology.


References:
Pant, S. & Hsu, C.,1995. Strategic Information System Planning: A review. In: 1995 Information Resources Management Association International Conference, May 21-24, 1995, Atlanta, Georgia.

Article from Albert L. Lederer & Vijay Sethi : “The Implementation of Strategic Information Systems Planning Methodologies”

www.wikipedia.com