SDLC of USEP

Our assignment is to consider the school and answer the question on how do we that the life cycle was developed specifically for the university and if it meets our needs.

At first, I was wondering what this particular “life cycle” really means. I was thinking of living things that is developing and maturing just for instance the metamorphosis of a butterfly. But it’s all about the university that’s why I’m trying to realize the true meaning of the phrase “life cycle of the university” if I’m not mistaken to understand the task.

When I searched in the internet about the “life cycle”, I found variations of meaning in varied fields. From biological to enterprise and from the new product development to life cycle assessment; also from Product life cycle management to project life cycle; there’s also from software life cycle to Systems Development Life Cycle so as the SOA Lifecycle.

I know, some of the terms in which the phrase “life cycle” is referred to be insignificant for this assignment but some relates to the topic especially that this topic is in the course System Analysis and Design which means it has something to do with the Systems. Be it on its planning, implementation or deployment in the organization. And the University of Southeastern Philippines is an organization or shall w say an institution whatever you call it.

So I considered Systems Development Life Cycle.

Let me discuss first about the university primarily its vision, mission, goals and objectives which are part of the university’s information system planning.

About USEP

The University of Southeastern Philippines (USEP) is a regional state university created in 1978 through Batas Pambansa Bilang 12. The university is an integration of four state institutions, particularly, the Mindanao State University-Davao, the University of the Philippines-Master of Management Program in Davao, the Davao School of Arts and Trades, and the Davao National Regional Agricultural School.

The university has four campuses, namely, Obrero (main) and Mintal Campuses in Davao City, Tagum-Mabini Campus which has two units – one in Tagum City and one in Compostela Valley Province, and Bislig Campus in Surigao del Sur.

The USEP offers graduate and undergraduate academic programs in the fields of engineering, education, arts and sciences, economics, business, computing, governance, development, resource management, technology, agriculture and forestry.

The University of Southeastern Philippines has the following mandate:

To provide programs of instruction and professional training primarily in the fields of science and technology, especially medicine, fisheries, engineering and industrial fields.
To promote advanced studies, research and extension services and progressive leadership in science, agriculture, forestry, fisheries, engineering and industrial fields and other courses needed in the socio-economic development of Mindanao.

To develop courses at the graduate level along the fields of specialization and to respond to the needs of development workers in the academic community.

To provide non-formal education and undertake vigorous extension and research programs in food production, nutrition, health and sports development.
To offer scholarship and/or part-time job opportunities to deserving students from low-income families.

Mission

USEP shall produce world-class graduates
and relevant research and extension
through quality education and sustainable resource management.

Particularly, USEP is committed to:
Provide quality education for students to grow in knowledge, promote their well-rounded development, and make them globally competitive in the world of work;
Engage in high impact research, not only for knowledge’s sake, but also for its practical benefits to society; and,
Promote entrepreneurship and industry collaboration.

Vision

A PREMIER UNIVERSITY IN THE ASEAN REGION

By becoming a premier university in the ASEAN Region, the USEP shall be a center of excellence and development, responsive and adaptive to fast-changing environments. USEP shall also be known as the leading university in the country that fosters innovation and applies knowledge to create value towards social, economic, and technological developments.

Goals

Aligned with the university 's vision and mission are specific goals for Key Result Areas (KRA) on Instruction; Research, Development, and Extension; and Resource Management:

KRA 1. Instruction

Produce globally competitive and morally upright graduates

KRA 2. Research, Development, and Extension (RDE)

Develop a strong R,D,&E culture with competent human resource and responsive and relevant researches that are adopted and utilized for development

KRA 3. Resource Management

Upon mentioning about the university, the term ISP is included. It is said that an information system (IS) within an organisation should be established on the basis of clearly defined potential benefits (Galliers & Sutherland, 1991). To achieve these, the organisation should have a strong and well-developed strategic information system plan (SISP), that consists of a strategy for both information planning and management, including the use of functions and features of information technology (IT) (Galliers, Swatman & Swatman, 1995). Users should perceive the value of the system and the information delivered (Strauss, 1992a). SISP within a tertiary educational institutions, is important for the successful use of an IS service.

The university, as far as we know it is already developing an IS in the move towards the creation of university information systems the value of a CWIS is dependent on its effective utilization, fostered by effective planning. However, it appears that strategic planning in our university has not yet been observed especially by the students and the faculties and the even the staffs.

Information Systems in Higher Education

Traditionally, information sharing among university members has relied on a range of printed materials. Computer technology created opportunities on university campuses for sharing data and information among the staff and the students, and has been deployed since the late fifties (Sullivan, 1996, p.117). University information systems range from library systems, registration systems and financial systems, to campus-housing systems and other university service systems.

Systems were often established in an uncoordinated manner, reflecting interests in different areas, and resulting in issues of redundancy and inefficiency. For example, student affairs, library, and a faculty may have the same information about a student although they use different systems to keep it (Malaney & Alvarez, 1996, p.75). Moves beyond this have resulted in “a single well-known service”, from which information can be accessed regardless of the information providers within the university (Wiggins, 1995, p.510). Such a service, an early example of which was CUINFO at Cornell University, has now been recognised as a CWIS, which is implemented as a central information service for the whole university community.

Strategic planning for information systems

Remenyi (1990) explains what makes IS "strategic" is that it directly supports and shapes the competitive strategy of an organisation. He considers that it may function as a management information system or a management support system. He argues that because SIS deals directly in the business line of the organisation by “finding, getting, and keeping clients, it is therefore a strategic resource. Orna (1990) describes strategic IS using her concept of “enterprise information policy” (EIP). She contends that as a dynamic tool, EIP can be used:

- to relate everything done with information to an enterprise’s overall objective;
- to enable effective decisions on resource allocation;
- to promote interaction, communication and mutual support between all parts of the enterprise, and between the enterprise and its ‘customers’ and ‘public’;
- to provide objective criteria for assessing results of information-based activities;
- to give feedback to the process of developing the corporate policies enterprise.


Ward, Griffiths & Whitmore (1990, p.88) see that objectives for strategic planning should be to build a robust information management framework for the long-term management of information and its supporting technologies, and to:

- identify current and future information needs for the organisation that reflect close alignment of business and IS/IT strategies, objectives and functions;
- determine policies for the management, creation, maintenance, control and accessibility of the corporate information resource;
- reposition IS/IT function more centrally in the business, with representation at top management level;
- ensure that sound IS architecture is created so that high quality systems can be built and maintained;
- identify a portfolio of skills that will be required over the lifetime of the plans;

- determine an effective and achievable organisation structure for the IS/IT function;
- ensure that the IS/IT function is outward looking and not focused internally on technology issues, and that the aims are widely communicated;
- ensure that there is an acceptance of shared responsibility between IS/IT and business people for the successful exploitation of information and IT.

SISP in higher education

Van Valey & Poole (1994) surveyed existing computing activities at Western Michigan University (WMU) in order to put forward a plan for the expansion of the computer technology to facilitate its effective use. The result of this survey indicates that information about existing computing activities, although not explicitly described as a strategic issue, is very useful for further planning and decision making processes in the university.

Tellis (1997) conducted a similar study using documentation analysis and a survey questionnaire. He investigated the managerial and economic aspects of employing information technology in Fairfield University. Like the WMU study before, which does not explicitly acknowledge strategic planning, Tellis's work indicates how a university should manage its information system with respect to IT management planning.
Luby (1996) conducted semi-structured interviews in order to investigate the process of strategic planning in the University of Paisley. The study shows that the process of strategic planning requires the university managers to recognise the complexity of a university environment and to create university staff awareness of this complexity. Accordingly, Luby recommends that all university staff should have what is called a "strategic perspective" for basic action in the planning process. With this perspective, each staff member should have a personal development plan relevant to the university strategic plan.

Project management

I also mentioned on Project management.

So what is it? It is the discipline of planning, organizing, and managing resources to bring about the successful completion of specific project goals and objectives. It is often closely related to and sometimes conflated with program management.

The primary challenge of project management is to achieve all of the project goalsand objectives while honoring the preconceived project constraints. Typical constraints are scope, time, and budget. The secondary—and more ambitious—challenge is to optimize the allocation and integration of inputs necessary to meet pre-defined objectives.

Regardless of the methodology employed, careful consideration must be given to the overall project objectives, timeline, and cost, as well as the roles and responsibilities of all participants and stakeholders.

A traditional phased approach identifies a sequence of steps to be completed. In the "traditional approach", we can distinguish 5 components of a project (4 stages plus control) in the development of a project:

• Typical development phases of a project
• Project initiation stage;
• Project planning or design stage;
• Project execution or production stage;
• Project monitoring and controlling systems;
• Project completion stage.

Regardless of the methodology employed, careful consideration must be given to the overall project objectives, timeline, and cost, as well as the roles and responsibilities of all participants and stakeholders.

A traditional phased approach identifies a sequence of steps to be completed. In the "traditional approach", we can distinguish 5 components of a project (4 stages plus control) in the development of a project:

Typical development phases of a project

• Project initiation stage;
• Project planning or design stage;
• Project execution or production stage;
• Project monitoring and controlling systems;
• Project completion stage.

Part of the ISP is the Systems Development Life Cycle (SDLC), or Software Development Life Cycle in systems engineering and software engineering, is the process of creating or altering systems, and the models and methodologies that people use to develop these systems. The concept generally refers to computer or information systems.

In software engineering the SDLC concept underpins many kinds of software development methodologies. These methodologies form the framework for planning and controlling the creation of an information system or the software development process.

A Systems Development Life Cycle (SDLC) is any logical process used by a systems analyst to develop an information system, including requirements, validation, training, and user (stakeholder) ownership. Any SDLC should result in a high quality system that meets or exceeds customer expectations, reaches completion within time and cost estimates, works effectively and efficiently in the current and planned Information Technology infrastructure, and is inexpensive to maintain and cost-effective to enhance.

Computer systems have become more complex and often (especially with the advent of Service-Oriented Architecture) link multiple traditional systems potentially supplied by different software vendors. To manage this level of complexity, a number of systems development life cycle (SDLC) models have been created: "waterfall"; "fountain"; "spiral"; "build and fix"; "rapid prototyping"; "incremental"; and "synchronize and stabilize".[citation needed]

SDLC models can be described along a spectrum of agile to iterative to sequential. Agile methodologies, such as XP and Scrum, focus on light-weight processes which allow for rapid changes along the development cycle. Iterative methodologies, such as Rational Unified Process and Dynamic Systems Development Method, focus on limited project scopes and expanding or improving products by multiple iterations. Sequential or big-design-upfront (BDUF) models, such as Waterfall, focus on complete and correct planning to guide large projects and risks to successful and predictable results.


In project management a project can be defined both with a project life cycle (PLC) and an SDLC, during which slightly different activities occur. According to Taylor (2004) "the project life cycle encompasses all the activities of the project, while the systems development life cycle focuses on realizing the product requirements".


University context and IS

(How do we know that the life cycle was developed specifically for the university?)

There was significant correlation between perception of effectiveness of information providers and perceived functioning of the IS.

How the IS would strategically be planned, and staff awareness of the importance of an IS, would influence the functioning or the performance of the IS.

Although appropriate organizational culture was regarded as necessary for development of IS, strong support was given to the following factors of influence: institutional guidelines and priorities; clear objectives for the campus IS; infrastructure; staff demands; budget planning and control; feasible and appropriate resources; management support and consistency; academic staff awareness.

There was also support for the need for strategic planning, the improvement of staff’s skills, and for an information policy with respect to the development of IS.

(How do we know that the life cycle meets our needs?)

For me, the life cycle of the university certainly meets our needs but it is also a reality that it is not yet properly implemented. I really know when that time will come that the ISP will be visible in the university. And when that is time the student come to realize the essence of the existing life cycle of the university so that, it not just documentation but a realization. ISP is a great help to achieve our visions and recognize our goals and objectives. What we really need is to work by hand not just on tongue.

References:

http://www.usep.edu.ph
http://eprints.qut.edu.au/96/1/Middleton_CWIS_99_eprint.pdf
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_life_cycle#Project_development_stages
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Systems_Development_Life_Cycle

System Analyst as Project Manager

Our task in this particular assignment is to discuss the role of a systems analyst as a project manager. Regarding this, we have to interview an analyst or project manager. The person in the company that we had visited was an MIS Department head and at the same times a system analyst.

On December 7, 2009, after the letter was approved by the respective university personnel, we immediately visited the AMS Group of Companies located at F Torres , Davao City and we interviewed Mr. Gemrald Calibara about our topic in the group representation in SAD1. It is about systems analyst as a project manager. Aside from that, he has also touched the some discussions in which some of our assignments are answered prior to its post. That’s why, we are able to answer our assignments and tackle about our discussion. That made me think that we are lucky and should I say grateful enough to have this coincidences or whatever you call it.

Concerning the topic, he discussed a lot of things. From identifying the problems found in their organization such as the lack of programmers, time pressures and constraints to the sharing of the type of model they are implementing during the software development cycle which is the rapid Model. He also stated that the budgetary requirement for the project management is very minimal because they normally don’t outsource the systems. The tasked teams are the ones who create the systems in their organization. Whenever they have to outsource some systems, they are to customize it to meet the specifications needed by the organization itself.

Although he tackled a lot, it is not enough that enough to answer this assessment and discuss or topic in the class without searching other references. And the internet is available.

From our topic discussion I found one of relevant objectives which is explain the elements of project management and the responsibilities of a project manager. So, let me discuss the role of the systems analyst as a project manager.

The Reasons to Initiate IS Project are: The new information system is part of an overall strategic plan and the new information system is to respond an immediate business need.

What Is a Project? It is a planned undertaking with a beginning and an end that produce predetermined result and is usually constrained by a schedule and resource.

What is Project Management? It is the act of organizing and directing people to achieve a planned result within budget and on schedule. Success or failure of project depends on skills of the project manager. The responsibilities of project manager are both internal and external.

Internal Responsibilities of the Project Manager include: Identify project tasks and build a work breakdown structure; develop the project schedule; recruit and train team members; assign team members to tasks; coordinate activities of team members and subteams; assess project risks; monitor and control project deliverables and milestones and verify the quality of project deliverables.

External Responsibilities of the Project Manager include: Report the project’s status and progress; establish good working relationships with those who identify the needed system requirements; the people who will use the system; work directly with the client (the project’s sponsor) and other stakeholders and identify resource needs and obtain resources.

• Project Management Tasks are:
• Beginning of project
o Overall project planning
• During project
o Project execution management
o Project control management
o Project closeout
• Project management approach differs for
o Predictive SDLC
o Adaptive SDLC

In one of my researches, I found an interesting summary of the role of Systems analyst as a project manager and here it is:

The Project Manager / Business System Analyst will be responsible for the project planning, execution, and implementation of technology-enabled solutions to an internal business unit which provides revenue generating services for the district. Through a highly successful ASP model, the internal business unit has expanded its services to school districts throughout the State of Texas. In addition to the project management responsibilities, this position requires demonstrated abilities to partner, collaborate and manage the relationship of a customer –focused and excellence driven team. The right candidate will have extensive organizational, strong leadership and relationship management skills in a multifaceted matrix organization.

As the Project Manager / Business System Analyst you will be a full partner with the business unit in setting the strategic vision for future growth and expansion. This position requires a level of understanding where system enhancements, process design trade-offs and plan prioritization are discussed in business language, which in turn will lead to better decisions. Previous experience in business process re-engineering of process improvement; utilizing project best practice techniques and tools to effect business change is desirable. HISD is broadly recognized for its innovative approach to educating children through leading initiatives such as the respected Teacher “Pay for Performance” Program (ASPIRE) Through programs such as this one, HISD has been able to increase its number of recognized and exemplary schools from 8 to 200 in four years.

And the required Key Skills and Experience include;

• At least 5 years of direct experience leading teams in a matrix organization, with responsibility for customer driven-products, software and fee-for-service solutions on a regional basis.
• Manages all activities related to line-of business software upgrades, new releases, and emergency fixes from conception through post implementation. Projects often involve managing both internal and external network server configurations and testing. Ensures that projects meet budget, timing, client expectations and organizational standards.
• Coordinates work performed by IT staff and line-of-business customer by defining project requirements, performance feasibility and needs/impact assessments. Acts as a senior technical advisor to others to meet schedules and/or resolve technical problems.
• Interprets line-of-business strategies and services, resolves conflicts, and influences outcomes on matters of significance for the division, conducts negotiations and coordinates approvals/decision.
• Works with line-of-business customers to develop business requirements; including analysis of the competitive situation, understanding business practices and approaches and recommending business process changes.
• Develops detailed project plans and manages all implementation processes including resource allocation, progress tracking, monitoring change control processes, testing, documenting training and on-time, on-budget and on-scope delivery.
• Regularly provides project management or team leadership to a group of Software Developers, but does not have formal supervisory responsibility. Leading and directing typically involves monitoring work and providing guidance on escalated issues.
• Will be experienced in working to complete activities in process engineering, information engineering, use case modeling, facilitation, and organizational change management.
• Analyzes the most complex business problems in the areas of identifying, evaluating and developing processes, procedures, policies, training, functional testing, data quality and workflows that are cost effective and meet business requirements.

References:
www.itk.ilstu.edu/.../Chapter%203%20-%20Analyst%20as%20a%20Project%20Manager.ppt
http://hotjobs.yahoo.com/job-JYL72A75BRO

Information Systems Plan of USEP

Our fourth assignment in MIS 2 was about visualizing ourselves being invited by the university (University of Southeastern Philippines) to prepare an Information systems plan for the university, and then discussing the steps in order to expedite the implementation of the ISP.

Since the university is also an organization and is in the trend in Information Technology, Though, seldom noticed because of its lack of implementation not realizing the dreams, vision, mission, goals, It is also practicing to have an Information systems Plan the same approach with the other organizations.

Although the university is visualizing for an unreachable dream through its strategic Information System’s planning, it can be thought that its actual implementation is yet too far from the truth.

As a result, students, faculties, staffs and other residents and the university itself seem not to recognize the existing ISP and the plans to improve it.

IN this particular assignment, I was assumed or presumed to be an IT expert or even a Systems Analyst who was hired by the university to prepare an ISP.

It is not necessarily for me to create a new ISP, what are the things I must do is to study and understand the real scenario of the university, And then, study the existing ISP. And decide to create modifications, changes, improvement and possibly integration with the current ISP that was not yet realized.

Also, I have to consider the various specifications and constraints. Considering that it is a state university which is subsidized by the government, so budget allotted for ISP must be optimized.

In the article Information Systems Plan: The Bet-Your-Business Project by by Michael M. Gorman, the rationale for an Information plan is stated.

Every year, $300-700 million dollar corporations spend about 5% of their gross income on information systems and their supports. That's from about $15,000,000 to $35,000,000! A significant part of those funds support enterprise databases, a philosophy of database system applications that enable corporations to research the past, control the present, and plan for the future.

Even though an information system costs from $1,000,000 to $10,000,000, and even through most chief information officers (CIOs) can specify exactly how much money is being spent for hardware, software, and staff, CIOs cannot however state with any degree of certainty why one system is being done this year versus next, why it is being done ahead of another, or finally, why it is being done at all.

Many enterprises do not have model-based information systems development environments that allow system designers to see the benefits of rearranging an information systems development schedule. Consequently, the questions that cannot be answered include: What effect will there be on the overall schedule if an information system is purchased versus developed?

At what point does it pay to hire an abnormal quantity of contract staff to advance a schedule?

What is the long term benefit from 4GL versus 3GL?

Is it better to generate 3GL than to generate/use a 4GL?

What are the real costs of distributed software development over centralized development?

If these questions were transformed and applied to any other component of a business (e.g., accounting, manufacturing, distribution and marketing), and remained unanswered, that unit's manager would surely be fired!

We not only need answers to these questions NOW!, we also need them quickly, cost effectively, and in a form that they can be modeled and changed in response to unfolding realities. This paper provides a brief review of a successful 10-step strategy that answers these questions.

Too many half-billion dollar organizations have only a vague notion of the names and interactions of the existing and under development information systems. Whenever they need to know, a meeting is held among the critical few, an inventory is taken, interactions confirmed, and accomplishment schedules are updated.

This ad hoc information systems plan was possible only because all design and development was centralized, the only computer was a main-frame, and the past was acceptable prologue because budgets were ever increasing, schedules always slipping, and information was not yet part of the corporation's critical edge.

Well, today is different, really different! Budgets are decreasing, and slipped schedules are being cited as preventing business alternatives. Confounding the computing environment are different operating systems, DBMSs, development tools, telecommunications (LAN, WAN, Intra-, Inter-, and Extra-net), and distributed hard- and software.



Rather than having centralized, long-range planning and management activities that address these problems, today's business units are using readily available tools to design and build ad hoc stop-gap solutions. These ad hoc systems not only do not interconnect, support common semantics, or provide synchronized views of critical corporate policy, they are soon to form the almost impossible to comprehend confusion of systems and data from which systems order and semantic harmony must spring.



Not only has the computing landscape become profoundly different and more difficult to comprehend, the need for just the right--and correct--information at just the right time is escalating. Late or wrong information is worse than no information.



Information systems managers need a model of their information systems environment. A model that is malleable. As new requirements are discovered, budgets modified, new hardware/software introduced, this model must be such that it can reconstitute the information systems plan in a timely and efficient manner.

Characteristics of a Quality ISP

A quality ISP must exhibit five distinct characteristics before it is useful. These five are presented in the table that follows.

Characteristic

Description

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 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.


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.

ISP Within the Context of the Meta data Environment

The information systems plan is the plan by which databases and information systems of the enterprise are accomplished in a timely manner. A key facility through which the ISP obtains its Adata@ is the meta data repository. The domain of the meta data repository is set forth in Figure 1, and, as seen through Figure 1, persons through their role within an organization perform functions in the accomplishment of enterprise missions, they have information needs. These information needs reflect the state of certain enterprise resources such as finance, people, and products that are known to the enterprises. The states are created through business information systems and databases.


The majority of the meta data employed to develop the ISP resides in the meta entities supporting the enterprise=s resource life cycles (see TDAN issue #7, December 1998, Resource Life Cycle Analysis), the databases and information systems, and project management. All these meta entities are depicted within the meta data repository meta model in Figure 2.

The ISP Steps


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.

Information Systems Plan Development Steps

Step

Name

Description

1. Create the mission model The mission model, generally shorter than 30 pages presents end-result characterizations of the essential raison d=etre of the enterprise. Missions are strategic, long range, and a-political because they are stripped of the Awho@ and the Ahow.@
2. Develop a high-level data model The high-level data model is an Entity Relationship diagram created to meet the data needs of the mission descriptions. No attributes or keys are created.
3. Create the resource life cycles (RLC) and their nodes Resources are drawn from both the mission descriptions and the high level data model. Resources and their life cycles are the names, descriptions and life cycles of the critical assets of the enterprise, which, when exercised achieve one or more aspect of the missions. Each enterprise resource Alives@ through its resource life cycle.
4. Allocate precedence vectors among RLC nodes Tied together into a enablement network, the resulting resource life cycle network forms a framework of enterprise=s assets that represent an order and set of inter-resource relationships. The enterprise Alives@ through its resource life cycle network.
5. Allocate existing information systems and databases to the RLC nodes The resource life cycle network presents a Alattice-work@onto which the Aas is@ business information systems and databases can be Aattached.@ See for example, the meta model in Figure 2. The Ato-be@ databases and information systems are similarly attached. ADifference projects@ between the Aas-is@ and the Ato-be@ are then formulated. Achievement of all the difference projects is the achievement of the Information Systems Plan.
6. Allocate standard work break down structures (WBS) to each RLC node Detailed planning of the Adifference projects@ entails allocating the appropriate canned work breakdown structures and metrics. Employing WBS and metrics from a comprehensive methodology supports project management standardization, repeatability, and self-learning.
7. Load resources into each WBS node Once the resources are determined, these are loaded into the project management meta entities of the meta data repository, that is, metrics, project, work plan and deliverables. The meta entities are those inferred by Figure 2.
8. Schedule the RLC nodes through a project management package facilities. The entire suite of projects is then scheduled on an enterprise-wide basis. The PERT chart used by project management is the APERT@ chart represented by the Resource Life Cycle enablement network.
9. Produce and review of the ISP The scheduled result is predicable: Too long, too costly, and too ambitious. At that point, the real work starts: paring down the suite of projects to a realistic set within time and budget. Because of the meta data environment (see Figure 1), the integrated project management meta data (see Figure 2), and because all projects are configured against fundamental business-rationale based designs, the results of the inevitable trade-offs can be set against business basics. Although the process is painful, the results can be justified and rationalized.
10. Execute and adjust the ISP through time. As the ISP is set into execution, technology changes occur that affect resource loadings. In this case, only steps 6-9 need to be repeated. As work progresses, the underlying meta data built or used in steps 1-5 will also change. Because a quality ISP is Aautomated@ the recasting of the ISP should only take a week or less.


Collectively, the first nine steps take about 5000 staff hours, or about $500,000. Compared to an IS budget $15-35 million, that's only about 3.0% to 1.0%.

If the pundits are to be believed, that is, that the right information at the right time is the competitive edge, then paying for an information systems plan that is accurate, repeatable, and reliable is a small price indeed.

Executive and Adjusting the ISP Through Time

IT projects are accomplished within distinct development environments. The two most common are: discrete project and release. The discrete project environment is typified by completely encapsulated projects accomplished through a water-fall methodology.

In release environments, there are a number of different projects underway by different organizations and staff of varying skill levels. Once a large number of projects are underway, the ability of the enterprise to know about and manage all the different projects degrades rapidly. That is because the project management environment has been transformed from discrete encapsulated projects into a continuous flow process of product or functionality improvements that are released on a set time schedule. Figure 3 illustrates the continuous flow process environment that supports releases. The continuous flow process environment is characterized by: Multiple, concurrent, but differently scheduled projects against the same enterprise resource

Single projects that affect multiple enterprise resources

Projects that develop completely new capabilities, or changes to existing capabilities within enterprise resources

It is precisely because enterprises have transformed themselves from a project to a release environment that information systems plans that can be created, evolved, and maintained on an enterprise-wide basis are essential.

There are four major sets of activities within the continuous flow process environment. The user/client is represented at the top in the small rectangular box. Each of the ellipses represents an activity targeted to a specific need. The four basic needs are:

Need Identification

Need Assessment

Design

Deployment

The box in the center is the meta data repository. Specification and impact analysis is represented through the left two processes. Implementation design and accomplishment is represented by the right two processes. Two key characteristics should be immediately apparent. First, unlike the water-fall approach, the activities do not flow one to the other. They are disjoint. In fact, they may be done by different teams, on different time schedules, and involve different quantities of products under management. In short, these four activities are independent one from the other. Their only interdependence is through the meta data repository.

The second characteristic flows from the first. Because these four activities are independent one from the other, the enterprise evolves by means of releases rather than through whole systems. If it evolved through whole systems, then the four activities would be connected either in a waterfall or a spiral approach, and the enterprise would be evolving through major upgrades to encapsulated functionality within specific business resources. In contrast, the release approach causes coordinated sets of changes to multiple business resources to be placed into production. This causes simultaneous, enterprise-wide capability upgrades across multiple business resources.

Through this continuous-flow process, several unique features are present:

All four processes are concurrently executing.

Changes to enterprise resources occur in unison, periodically, and in a very controlled manner.

The meta data repository is always contains all the enterprise resource specifications: current or planned. Simply put, if an enterprise resource semantic is not within the meta data repository, it is not enterprise policy.

All changes are planned, scheduled, measured, and subject to auditing, accounting, and traceability.

All documentation of all types is generated from the meta data repository.

ISP Summary

In summary, any technique employed to achieve an ISP must be accomplishable with less than 3% of the IT budget. Additionally, it must be timely, useable, maintainable, able to be iterated into a quality product, and reproducible. IT organizations, once they have completed their initial set of databases and business information systems will find themselves transformed from a project to a release environment.

The continuous flow environment then becomes the only viable alternative for moving the enterprise forward. It is precisely because of the release environment that enterprise-wide information systems plans that can be created, evolved, and maintained are essential.

Strategic Information Systems Planning (SISP) - An IS Strategy for ERP Implementation

Written by:

Cecil Bozarth, SCRC


The following is based on Dr. Bozarth’s research on “ERP Implementation Efforts at Three Firms: Applying lessons from the SISP and IT-enabled change literature” which is scheduled to appear in the International Journal of Operations and Production Management.


Strategic information systems planning, or SISP, is based on two core arguments. The first is that, at a minimum, a firm’s information systems investments should be aligned with the overall business strategy, and in some cases may even become an emerging source of competitive advantage. While no one disagrees with this, operations management researchers are just starting to study how this alignment takes place and what the measurable benefits are. An issue under examination is how a manufacturer’s business strategy, characterized as either “market focused” or “operations focused,” affects its ability to garner efficiency versus customer service benefits from its ERP investments.

The second core argument behind SISP is that companies can best achieve IS-based alignment or competitive advantage by following a proactive, formal and comprehensive process that includes the development of broad organizational information requirements. This is in contrast to a “reactive” strategy, in which the IS group sits back and responds to other areas of the business only when a need arises. Such a process is especially relevant to ERP investments, given their costs and long-term impact. Seegars, Grover and Teng (1) have identified six dimensions that define an excellent SISP process (notice that many of these would apply to the strategic planning process in other areas as well):

1. Comprehensiveness

Comprehensiveness is “the extent to which an organization attempts to be exhaustive or inclusive in making and integrating strategic decisions”.

2. Formalization

Formalization is “the existence of structures, techniques, written procedures, and policies that guide the planning process”.

3. Focus

Focus is “the balance between creativity and control orientations inherent within the strategic planning system”. An innovative orientation emphasizes innovative solutions to deal with opportunities and threats. An integrative orientation emphasizes control, as implemented through budgets, resource allocation, and asset management.

4. Top-down flow

SISP should be initiated by top managers, with the aid of support staff.

5. Broad participation

Even though the planning flow is top-down, participation must involve multiple functional areas and, as necessary, key stakeholders at lower levels of the organization.

6. High consistency

SISP should be characterized by frequent meetings and reassessments of the overall strategy.

The recommendations found in the SISP literature have been echoed in the operations management literature. It has been suggested that firms should institutionalize a formal top-down planning process for linking information systems strategy to business needs as they move toward evolution in their management orientation, planning, organization, and control aspects of the IT function.
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Six Steps to Implementation

Many organizations have invested a great deal of effort in educating and informing consumers about health care quality. The most ambitious of these sponsors have embarked on multi-year projects to measure quality of care at various level of the health care system and report their findings to the public. Others with more limited resources and expertise may adapt publicly available materials to their own needs or recommend alternative sources of information for their audiences.

Although no two projects are exactly alike, successful sponsors generally follow the following six steps. Understanding what is involved in implementing a quality measurement and reporting project from start to finish is especially important for those sponsors that do it all themselves. But even sponsors that borrow as much as they can from others need to be aware of these steps so that they can make a conscious choice to skip those that do not apply.
Step 1. Getting Started
The first step in a consumer information project is to lay the foundation for the project—financially, politically, and organizationally. While this may sound obvious, many projects fail because sponsors do not take the time to prepare. They dive right into the process of collecting and reporting data, only to be taken by surprise when someone objects to the project or the money runs out.
On the other hand, some projects never even get off the ground because the sponsors can't move beyond the planning process. The key to moving beyond the organizational stage is to develop and stick to a schedule that will force decisions and push the participants forward in the process.
Step 2. Collecting and Analyzing Data
During the planning stage (Step 1), sponsors choose what types of quality measures to share with the audience.
For many sponsors, the next step in a consumer information project is to gather that data and conduct the appropriate analyses so that these measures have meaning for consumers.
Step 3. Presenting the Information
Presentation—or how you say what you have to say—plays a critical part in ensuring that your efforts to convey quality information are successful. One of the most challenging aspects of a performance measurement project is figuring out how to present the data in a way that helps consumers interpret the information and apply it to their health care-related decisions. Many sponsors have struggled with this question, only to find themselves making the same mistakes as others before them. One of the key objectives of this site is to support project sponsors in learning from the experiences of their peers as well as from the findings of researchers regarding the best ways to discuss, format, and display information on quality.
Five Key Points About Presentation

Here are the five most important things to remember about presenting information on health care quality:

1. There is no one way to do this—but there are better ways and worse ways.

At this time, there is no universally accepted approach to providing information on quality to consumers. The marketplace is full of experiments, most of which have not been evaluated. But we do know that some approaches to presenting quality information work better than others in the sense that consumers find it easier to understand the data and evaluate their options.

2. The answer that's best for you depends on who your audience is and how they'll use the information.

The way you present information—and even the information itself—should be driven by the needs of whoever is supposed to be reading it. Consumers are the focus of this Web site, but they are not the only audience for health care quality information. Sponsors can develop information for:
Public or private purchasers.
Non-purchasing intermediary organizations, such as consumer advocacy groups.
Policymakers.
Provider organizations.
Individual providers.
Health plans.

Each of these audiences has different needs for quality information. As a result, an approach that is appropriate for individual consumers may not be at all useful for a different audience.

For example:
Plans and providers may want more detail in order to identify specific opportunities to improve quality.
Policymakers, on the other hand, may want a higher level of aggregation that would reveal larger trends in the marketplace.
Intermediary organizations and purchasers may want enough data to draw their own conclusions rather than having the information interpreted for them.

3. Data cannot be presented in a vacuum.

The context you provide (or fail to provide) for the information affects what your audience pays attention to and how they interpret it. In particular, consumers are more likely to care about the information if you can connect it to their concerns about health care and the health care system. For instance, data on ease of referrals has greater relevance to an audience that understands how a health plan may limit their access to specialists. This implies that it is not enough to provide data; a quality report must include some explanation of how the health care system works and what the data reveal about a health care organization.

4. For the typical consumer, a quality measure has no meaning on its own.

It is the sponsor's job to turn quality measures into information that consumers can easily comprehend, evaluate, and use. You can do this by doing one or more of the following:
Grouping measures into consumer-friendly categories.
Offering a basis for comparison, such as an average or benchmark for the market.
Interpreting the information for your audience by making it clear which results are truly better than others.

For explanations and examples of each of these tasks, go to How To Say It.

5. The medium shapes the message.

Whether you rely on printed reports, Web sites, or live presentations, the medium you choose to deliver the information can determine how much you present and how you display it. For instance, you can offer many more layers of detail on the Web than you can in print without overwhelming your audience. A printed report, on the other hand, offers the ability to create large displays of information across multiple pages. This suggests that you will need to have some sense of what the final product will be before you can decide on a design and format for quality information.
Making Sure Your Materials Work for Your Audience

No matter how limited your resources may be, do what you can to test the materials as you develop them to make sure they are suitable for your audience. This approach allows you to identify and remedy trouble spots along the way rather than waiting until the information has been disseminated to discover any problems. Specifically, sponsors can conduct ongoing testing to assess:
Whether consumers can read the information easily.
Whether they can understand it.
Whether the content is appropriate for your audience.
Whether people are interested in your content (i.e., its salience).
Whether consumers can use your materials for the purpose for which they are intended.
Whether they can navigate through the materials to find the information they want.

Techniques for this kind of iterative testing include one-on-one interviews as well as focus groups.

For specifics on testing your materials, conducting interviews, and focus groups, go to Refining What You Do.

Step 4. Disseminating Information
Long before you have the information to distribute, you need to be thinking about how and when to get it into the hands of consumers. Sponsors should ask themselves:
What can we do to ensure that our audience is aware of our information and motivated to use it?
When is the best time to make the information available? Is this timing realistic?
What channels can we use to distribute the information to our audience? How can we make sure they see it?
How should we package the information? Should it stand alone or be incorporated into other information?
The answers to these questions will affect how much time you have to produce the report as well as the kinds of measures and depth of content that you can include. For example:
If the goal is to release a performance report in early fall so that consumers have it in time for the open enrollment season, you may not have enough time to conduct your own survey of enrollees but you could ask your plans to share the HEDIS® scores—which include results of the CAHPS® survey—that they have to report to NCQA by early summer.
If the most sensible way to package the performance information is to integrate it into open enrollment materials, you will have to deal with space constraints that would not be necessary in a stand-alone document. This may affect the way you present the data or how much data you can include.

Step 5. Supporting Consumers
For many sponsors of consumer information projects, the job ends once the reports have been distributed. But both experienced sponsors and researchers testing consumer behavior have demonstrated that it is not enough to give consumers data. They need help in interpreting the information on quality, integrating it with other relevant data (such as costs), and using it to make decisions. Without this help, many simply ignore the information they have, or worse, use it inappropriately.
Strategies for providing "decision support" include the following:
Refer consumers to consumer advocates and other "information intermediaries" who can help your audience understand and use the information you provide..
Offer consumers a worksheet that guides them through the process of evaluating their options. Design computer-based systems that facilitate decisionmaking by allowing the user to weight different factors or by ranking the available choices based on the user's response to a set of questions.
To determine which strategy will work best for your audience, you may want to consult with representative consumers and/or appropriate intermediaries. Also, be sure to evaluate your support strategy once it is implemented to find out how well it is serving the needs of your audience and how you can improve it.

Step 6. Evaluating the Project
Finally, the last step for sponsors is to evaluate the extent to which the project achieved its objectives. This could be as simple as asking whether consumers are aware of the information you produced or as complicated as finding out whether and how consumers used the information to help make decisions.
Evaluations are important for internal purposes because they enable you to determine how effective your project is and how it can be improved. But they are equally critical for external reasons. First, being able to demonstrate that the project has had a positive impact will help you secure political support and continued funding. In addition, an evaluation allows other sponsors to learn from your experience.
The following methods are commonly used to evaluate projects:Focus groups.Surveys.Usability testing.Analysis of changes in enrollment patterns.

References:
http://www.tdan.com/view-articles/5262
http://scm.ncsu.edu/public/facts/facs060329.html
http://www.talkingquality.gov/docs/section1/1_2.htm

Critical Success Factors

Critical Success Factors

Identifying the things that really matter for success
So many important matters can compete for your attention in business that it's often difficult to see the "wood for the trees". What's more, it can be extremely difficult to get everyone in the team pulling in the same direction and focusing on the true essentials.

Most smaller and more pragmatic businesses can still use CSF’s but we need to take a different, more pragmatic approach. 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”.

That's where Critical Success Factors (CSFs) can help. CSFs are the essential areas of activity that must be performed well if you are to achieve the mission, objectives or goals for your business or project. By identifying your Critical Success Factors, you can create a common point of reference to help you direct and measure the success of your business or project.

As a common point of reference, CSFs help everyone in the team to know exactly what's most important. And this helps people perform their own work in the right context and so pull together towards the same overall aims. The idea of CSFs was first presented by D. Ronald Daniel in the 1960s. It was then built on and popularized a decade later by John F. Rockart, of MIT's Sloan School of Management, and has since been used extensively to help businesses implement their strategies and projects. Inevitably, the CSF concept has evolved, and you may have seen it implemented in different ways. This article provides a simple definition and approach based on Rockart's original ideas.
Rockart defined CSFs as:
"The limited number of areas in which results, if they are satisfactory, will ensure successful competitive performance for the organization. They are the few key areas where things must go right for the business to flourish. If results in these areas are not adequate, the organization's efforts for the period will be less than desired."

He also concluded that CSFs are "areas of activity that should receive constant and careful attention from management."

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.
Types of Critical Success Factor

There are four basic types of CSF's

They are:
Industry CSF's resulting from specific industry characteristics;
Strategy CSF's resulting from the chosen competitive strategy of the business;
Environmental CSF's resulting from economic or technological changes; and
Temporal CSF's resulting from internal organizational needs and changes.

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. You don't need exact measures to manage. Primary measures that should be listed include critical success levels (such as number of transactions per month) or, in cases where specific measurements are more difficult, general goals should be specified (such as moving up in an industry customer service survey).
Using the Tool: An Example

CSFs are best understood by example. Consider a produce store "Farm Fresh Produce", whose mission is:

"To become the number one produce store in Main Street by selling the highest quality, freshest farm produce, from farm to customer in under 24 hours on 75% of our range and with 98% customer satisfaction."

(For more on this example, and how to develop your mission statement, see our article on Vision Statements and Mission Statements.)

The strategic objectives of Farm Fresh are to:
Gain market share locally of 25%.
Achieve fresh supplies of "farm to customer" in 24 hours for 75% of products.
Sustain a customer satisfaction rate of 98%.
Expand product range to attract more customers.
Have sufficient store space to accommodate the range of products that customers want.

In order to identify possible CSFs, we must examine the mission and objectives and see which areas of the business need attention so that they can be achieved. We can start by brainstorming what the Critical Success Factors might be (these are the "Candidate" CSFs.)Objective Candidate Critical Success Factors
Gain market share locally of 25%
Increase competitiveness versus other local stores
Attract new customers
Achieve fresh supplies from "farm to customer" in 24 hours for 75% of products
Sustain successful relationships with local suppliers
Sustain a customer satisfaction rate of 98%
Retain staff and keep up customer-focused training
Expand product range to attract more customers
Source new products locally
Extend store space to accommodate new products and customers
Secure financing for expansion
Manage building work and any disruption to the business


Once you have a list of Candidate CSFs, it's time to consider what is absolutely essential and so identify the truly Critical Success Factors.

And this is certainly the case for Farm Fresh Produce. One CSF that we identify from the candidate list is "Sustain successful relationships with local suppliers." This is absolutely essential to ensure freshness and to source new products.

Another CSF is to attract new customers. Without new customers, the store will be unable to expand to increase market share.

A third CSF is financing for expansion. The store's objectives cannot be met without the funds to invest in expanding the store space.
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:
The industry,
Competitive strategy and industry position,
Environmental factors,
Temporal factors, and
Managerial position (if considered from an individual's point of view). Each of these factors is explained in greater detail below.


Using the Tool: Summary Steps

In reality, identifying your CSFs is a very iterative process. Your mission, strategic goals and CSFs are intrinsically linked and each will be refined as you develop them.

Here are the summary steps that, used iteratively, will help you identify the CSFs for your business or project:

Step One: Establish your business's or project's mission and strategic goals (click here for help doing this.)

Step Two: For each strategic goal, ask yourself "what area of business or project activity is essential to achieve this goal?" The answers to the question are your candidate CSFs.
To make sure you consider all types of possible CSFs, you can use Rockart's CSF types as a checklist.
Industry - these factors result from specific industry characteristics. These are the things that the organization must do to remain competitive.
Environmental - these factors result from macro-environmental influences on an organization. Things like the business climate, the economy, competitors, and technological advancements are included in this category.
Strategic - these factors result from the specific competitive strategy chosen by the organization. The way in which the company chooses to position themselves, market themselves, whether they are high volume low cost or low volume high cost producers, etc.
Temporal - these factors result from the organization's internal forces. Specific barriers, challenges, directions, and influences will determine these CSFs.

Step Three: Evaluate the list of candidate CSFs to find the absolute essential elements for achieving success - these are your Criticial Success Factors.

As you identify and evaluate candidate CSFs, you may uncover some new strategic objectives or more detailed objectives. So you may need to define your mission, objectives and CSFs iteratively.

Step Four: Identify how you will monitor and measure each of the CSFs.

Step Five:
Communicate your CSFs along with the other important elements of your business or project's strategy.

Step Six: Keep monitoring and reevaluating your CSFs to ensure you keep moving towards your aims. Indeed, whilst CSFs are sometimes less tangible than measurable goals, it is useful to identify as specifically as possible how you can measure or monitor each one.
Key Points

Critical Success Factors are the areas of your business or project that are absolutely essential to its success. By identifying and communicating these CSFs, you can help ensure your business or project is well-focused and avoid wasting effort and resources on less important areas. By making CSFs explicit, and communicating them with everyone involved, you can help keep the business and project on track towards common aims and goals.
References:

http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newLDR_80.htm

http://rapidbi.com/created/criticalsuccessfactors.html

Organizational Change

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.)

Adapted from “Field Guide to Consulting and Organizational Development” – to obtain the entire
When a topic (for example, organizational change and development) becomes very prominent, it often takes on many different interpretations and meanings. The advantage is that that topic becomes very accessible, interesting and enlightening to many. The disadvantage is that it's also increasingly vague and difficult for many to make practical. To make this topic of organizational change and development useful, we should reference some common definitions.

Even if not all people agree with the definitions, we at least have some definitions in common to disagree about -- that alone can enhance the communications about the topic. Having some understanding and discernment about the following phrases will help readers to benefit even more from literature about organizational change.

Organizational performance management
We're used to thinking of ongoing performance management for employees, for example, setting goals, monitoring the employee's achievement of those goals, sharing feedback with the employee, evaluating the employee's performance, rewarding performance or firing the employee. Performance management applies to organizations, too, and includes recurring activities to establish organizational goals, monitor progress toward the goals, and make adjustments to achieve those goals more effectively and efficiently.
Note that, in contrast to organizational change projects, organizational performance management activities are recurring in nature. Those recurring activities are much of what leaders and managers inherently do in their organizations -- some do them far better than others. An organizational change project is not likely to be successful if it is not within the context of the recurring activities of organizational performance management.

Organizational change

This phrase refers to the overall nature of activities, for example, their extent and rate, that occurs during a project that aims to enhance the overall performance of the organization. The activities are often led by a change agent, or person currently responsible to guide the overall change effort. The activities are often project-oriented (a one-time project) and geared to address a current overall problem or goal in the organization. (A relatively new phrase, capacity building, refers to these types of activities, as well.)
Why Is It Critical for Leaders and Managers to Be Successful at Organizational Change? Because It's Their Job

Significant organizational change occurs, for example, when an organization changes its overall strategy for success, adds or removes a major section or practice, and/or wants to change the very nature by which it operates. It also occurs when an organization evolves through various life cycles, just like people must successfully evolve through life cycles. For organizations to develop, they often must undergo significant change at various points in their development. That's why the topic of organizational change and development has become widespread in communications about business, organizations, leadership and management.

Leaders and managers continually make efforts to accomplish successful and significant change -- it's inherent in their jobs. Some are very good at this effort (probably more than we realize), while others continually struggle and fail. That's often the difference between people who thrive in their roles and those that get shuttled around from job to job, ultimately settling into a role where they're frustrated and ineffective. There are many schools with educational programs about organizations, business, leadership and management. Unfortunately, there still are not enough schools with programs about how to analyze organizations, identify critically important priorities to address (such as systemic problems or exciting visions for change) and then undertake successful and significant change to address those priorities. This Library topic aims to improve that situation.

WHAT IS A PARADIGM SHIFT?

n 1962, Thomas Kuhn wrote The Structure of Scientific Revolution, and fathered, defined and popularized the concept of "paradigm shift" (p.10). Kuhn argues that scientific advancement is not evolutionary, but rather is a "series of peaceful interludes punctuated by intellectually violent revolutions", and in those revolutions "one conceptual world view is replaced by another".

Think of a Paradigm Shift as a change from one way of thinking to another. It's a revolution, a transformation, a sort of metamorphosis. It just does not happen, but rather it is driven by agents of change.

For example, agriculture changed early primitive society. The primitive Indians existed for centuries roaming the earth constantly hunting and gathering for seasonal foods and water. However, by 2000 B.C., Middle America was a landscape of very small villages, each surrounded by patchy fields of corn and other vegetables.

Agents of change helped create a paradigm-shift moving scientific theory from the Plolemaic system (the earth at the center of the universe) to the Copernican system (the sun at the center of the universe), and moving from Newtonian physics to Relativity and Quantum Physics. Both movements eventually changed the world view. These transformations were gradual as old beliefs were replaced by the new paradigms creating "a new gestalt" (p. 112).

Likewise, the printing press, the making of books and the use of vernacular language inevitable changed the culture of a people and had a direct affect on the scientific revolution. Johann Gutenberg's invention in the 1440's of movable type was an agent of change. Books became readily available, smaller and easier to handle and cheap to purchase. Masses of people acquired direct access to the scriputures. Attitudes began to change as people were relieved from church domination.

Similarly, agents of change are driving a new paradigm shift today. The signs are all around us. For example, the introduction of the personal computer and the internet have impacted both personal and business environments, and is a catalyst for a Paradigm Shift. We are shifting from a mechanistic, manufacturing, industrial society to an organic, service based, information centered society, and increases in technology will continue to impact globally. Change is inevitable. It's the only true constant.

In conclusion, for millions of years we have been evolving and will continue to do so. Change is difficult. Human Beings resist change; however, the process has been set in motion long ago and we will continue to co-create our own experience. Kuhn states that "awareness is prerequisite to all acceptable changes of theory" (p. 67). It all begins in the mind of the person. What we perceive, whether normal or metanormal, conscious or unconscious, are subject to the limitations and distortions produced by our inherited and socially conditional nature. However, we are not restricted by this for we can change. We are moving at an accelerated rate of speed and our state of consciousness is transforming and transcend

Tapping out the Potential of IT

It is an amazing fact that most of the industries that relate to us in our daily life such as airline industry, automobiles, railways, manufacturing etc. generally exhibit high quality products, timeliness of service delivery, reasonable cost of service and low failure rates. The construction industry, on the other hand, is generally the opposite. Most projects exhibit cost overruns, time extensions, and conflicts among parties. According to a survey conducted by the Department of Trade and Industry in UK;

50% of all construction projects finish over budget
54% of all construction projects finish behind schedule
24% of construction projects are completed unsatisfactorily, 48% of those having a significant negative impact on business operations
. It has become painfully obvious over the past few years that many other industries have outpaced the construction industry when it comes to adopting technology based tools.



Another study of a research advisory firm, reports that companies across all industries spend an average of 2.54% of revenues on IT & technology. The same research shows that the construction industry, far behind most other industries, spends only 0.34%.

Firstly, by IT or Information Technology we mean a combination of computer hardware and software that is used in order to process data in some way to generate information that we use to do our job.
We all know construction project management attempts to achieve project mission objectives within specific constraints. It needs information to make decisions. Managers do not need loads of input data generated in the control process. It is the information extracted from the data that helps managers performing their functions efficiently and effectively. The worlds richest man Bill Gates, put it, “How you gather, manage, and use information will determine whether you win or loose.”

Spectrum Of IT
IT can promote various degrees of organizational change ranging from incremental to far-reaching. Three kinds of structural organizational change that are enabled by IT:


(1) Automation,
(2) Rationalization,

(3) Reengineering.

Each carries different rewards and risks.
The most common form of IT-enabled organizational change or the first phase of IT adoption is automation. This has allowed employees to automate a number of time-consuming and error-prone activities and gain benefits in cycle-time, productivity, and accuracy. For example, a main contractor makes use of standalone software to keep track all Request For Information (RFI) in a project.

A deeper form of organization change or the second phase of IT adoption is rationalization of procedures. Automation frequently reveals bottlenecks in production and makes the existing arrangement of procedures and structures painfully cumbersome. Rationalization of procedures involves the streamlining of standard operating procedures, which eliminates obvious bottlenecks, so that operating procedures become more efficient. Roughly speaking, it is a process of fine tuning the first step. For example, the main contractor implements an intranet and standardizes the data in RFI across all projects in the enterprise.

A more powerful type of organizational change or the third phase of IT adoption is business process reengineering, in which business processes are analyzed, simplified, and redesigned. Reengineering involves radically rethinking the flow of work and the construction business processes with the intention to radically reducing the costs of businesses. Using IT, organizations can rethink and streamline their business processes to improve speed, service, and quality. Business process reengineering reorganizes workflows, combining steps to cut waste and eliminating repetitive, paper-intensive tasks. It is much more ambitious than rationalization of procedures because it requires a new vision of how the process is to be organized. For example, the main contractor sets up an extranet to online collaborate with the architect for the RFI process.

Not many construction industry players have moved beyond the first phase of automation. However, there are some companies have committed to a continuing investment in technological advancement and organizational change. By changing how they are organized and do business, they have achieved far greater benefits than available through automation alone. Companies like this have succeeded in staying ahead of their competitors not merely by automating but by changing their organization as well. Their strategic advantage has been their preparedness and ability to continually innovative, and to manage the change necessary to gain substantial business benefits.

Industry Trends

The knowledge and information revolution began at the turn of the twentieth century and has gradually accelerated. In a knowledge and information based economy, knowledge and information are key ingredients in creating wealth. Never before have owners and directors of smaller construction, building & civil engineering companies felt so much pressure to do more with less. To ensure that the development meets the budget and remains profitable, developers must monitor tightly the project throughout the lifecycle. The imperative pressure from the top hierarchy to build cheaper, faster and better will force the whole project team for seeking enduring improvement in construction project management, and this demands a lot of data processing. The following simple example will tell you the importance of information in a work like earth work excavation. This illustration of a breakeven analysis would be to compare two methods of road construction for a road that involves a limited amount of cut-and-fill earthwork. A breakeven analysis determines the point at which one method becomes superior to another method of accomplishing some task or objective. Breakeven analysis is a common and important part of cost control.

It would be possible to do the earthwork by hand or by bulldozer. If the manual method were adopted, the fixed costs would be low or non-existent. Payment would be done on a daily basis and would call for direct supervision by a foreman. The cost would be calculated by estimating the time required and multiplying this time by the average wages of the men employed. The men could also be paid on a piece-work basis. Alternatively, this work could be done by a bulldozer which would have to be moved in from another site. Let us assume that the cost of the hand labor would be $0.60 per cubic meter and the bulldozer would cost $0.40 per cubic meter and would require $100 to move in from another site. The move-in cost for the bulldozer is a fixed cost, and is independent of the quantity of the earthwork handled. If the bulldozer is used, no economy will result unless the amount of earthwork is sufficient to carry the fixed cost plus the direct cost of the bulldozer operation.

Relationship existing between volume of production and costs can be expressed by the following equations:

Total cost = fixed cost + variable cost × output
In symbols using the first letters of the cost elements and N for the output or number of units of production, these simple formulas are
C = F + NV
UC = F/N + V
if, on a set of coordinates, cost in dollars is plotted on the vertical axis and units of production on the horizontal axis, we can indicate fixed cost for any process by a horizontal line parallel to the x-axis. If variable cost per unit output is constant, then the total cost for any number of units of production will be the sum of the fixed cost and the variable cost multiplied by the number of units of production, or F + NV. If the cost data for two processes or methods, one of which has a higher variable cost, but lower fixed cost than the other are plotted on the same graph, the total cost lines will intersect at some point. At this point the levels of production and total cost are the same. This point is known as the "breakeven" point, since at this level one method is as economical as the other. Referring to Figure 1.1 the breakeven point at which quantity the bulldozer alternative and the manual labor alternative become equal is at 500 cubic meters. We could have found this same result algebraically by writing F + NV = F' + NV' where F and V are the fixed and variable costs for the manual method, and F' and V' are the corresponding values for the bulldozer method. Since all values are known except N, we can solve for N using the formula N = (F' - F) / (V - V')

IT & Technological Push

The advent of various new technologies like the Internet and wireless network with the potential to address some of the limitations facing current construction project management practices has created a major impact on the industry. The role that IT & technology plays in the construction industry has gradually been changing the way companies conduct everyday business. What used to be a paper-and-pen world is starting to become a monitor-and-keyboard world in the immediate future.

Some technologies and advancements pushing the external project management & collaboration adoption change include:

Application software packages meeting the specific construction industry needs including project management, scheduling, document management, estimating, job costing, accounting, field administration etc;

Web based technologies enabling for the sharing and transmitting of information, including drawings, photos, voice, print and computer data. The Internet merges perfectly the time honoured adage that a picture is worth a thousand words, with the contract-mandated assertion that time is of the essence, to produce an on-line, visual construction management system.
Wireless technologies, including 3G, Satellite Broadband, WiFi, WAP, that enable the transfer of information to remote sites without the requirement for, or restrictions of, hard infrastructure such as cabling or wires and that are accessible via mobile phones and other hand held devices.

Interoperability, or seamless information exchange via integrated technologies and based on object modeling, allowing participants in the process to access and value add to the information in a form suitable for their needs. This allows all disciplines and project partners to share information thus avoiding duplicating effort and encouraging shared working processes.

Conclusion

Construction and Building company owners and directors are discovering that IT and technology in construction project management is becoming key to successful construction projects. The challenge they face is persuading other project team members to embrace the technology. The resistance to change, no matter how actively or passively, at the micro or macro levels of the industry, contributes to the major impediment of IT and technology take up in the construction industry. The simple, central argument presented here is that electronic project management & collaboration systems implementation is political as well as, sometimes far more so than, technical in nature. When that is understood and accepted, politics are then the process of getting commitment, or building support, or creating momentum for change.
In today’s world, people are talking about the ‘Real Time Enterprise”. Increasingly decisions need to be made quickly. It could be a few hours or even a day, but in today’s increasingly competitive environment it couldn’t be longer. Without the right information that is shared by everyone collaboratively, at the right time, you become a real-time enterprise - in the sense of making the decision making process swift - is not going to be able to compete let alone survive.

Depending on the investment time horizon, the specific challenges and tools available may change, but the overall direction is unmistakable. The construction industry is about to experience a profound change: leaner organisations, more consistent and rigorous performance metrics, and relentless productivity improvements. The net result of these changes should also be increased profitability for those who are successful at mastering the new IT & technology tools with the promise to enable these changes.

References:
http://www.softlogic.org/blog/
http://managementhelp.org/org_chng/org_chng.htm

Systems Anlayst in Designing Pocess Model

Our task in the second assignment is to interview a System Analyst and ask the skills and characteristics must a Systems Analyst develop in order to be more effective in any design modeling process.

AMS Group of Companies

In our interview in the AMS Group of Companies located at F Torres , Davao City, we found out that the MIS Department Head was at the same time, Systems Analyst. His name was Mr. Jemrald.

He identified the problems found in their organization. Some of these are the lack of programmers, time pressures and constraints. He also shared the type of model they are implementing during the software development cycle and he cited the rapid Model. He also stated that the budgetary requirement for the project management is very minimal because they normally don’t outsource the systems. The tasked teams are the ones who create the systems in their organization. Whenever they have to outsource some systems, they are to customize it to meet the specifications needed by the organization itself.

Process models are processes of the same nature that are classified together into a model. Thus, a process model is a description of a process at the type level. Since the process model is at the type level, a process is an instantiation of it. The same process model is used repeatedly for the development of many applications and thus, has many instantiations. One possible use of a process model is to prescribe how things must/should/could be done in contrast to the process itself which is really what happens. A process model is roughly an anticipation of what the process will look like. What the process shall be will be determined during actual system development.

The goals of a process model are to be:

• Descriptive
o Track what actually happens during a process.
o Takes the point of view of an external observer who looks at the way a process has been performed and determines the improvements that have to be made to make it perform more effectively or efficiently.
• Prescriptive
o Defines the desired processes and how they should/could/might be performed.
o Lays down rules, guidelines, and behavior patterns which, if followed, would lead to the desired process performance. They can range from strict enforcement to flexible guidance.
• Explanatory
o Provides explanations about the rationale of processes.
o Explore and evaluate the several possible courses of action based on rational arguments.
o Establish an explicit link between processes and the requirements that the model needs to fulfill.
o Pre-defines points at which data can be extracted for reporting purposes.

From a theoretical point of view, the Meta-Process Modeling explains the key concepts needed to describe what happens in the development process, on what, when it happens, and why. From an operational point of view, the Meta-Process Modeling is aimed at providing guidance for method engineers and application developers.[1]

The activity of modeling a business process usually predicates a need to change processes or identify issues to be corrected. This transformation may or may not require IT involvement, although that is a common driver for the need to model a business process. Change management programmes are desired to put the processes into practice. With advances in technology from larger platform vendors, the vision of business process models (BPM) becoming fully executable (and capable of round-trip engineering) is coming closer to reality every day. Supporting technologies include Unified Modeling Language (UML), model-driven architecture, and service-oriented architecture.

Process Modeling addresses the process aspects of an Enterprise Business Architecture, leading to an all encompassing Enterprise Architecture. The relationships of a business processes in the context of the rest of the enterprise systems, data, organizational structure, strategies, etc. create greater capabilities in analyzing and planning a change. One real world example is in corporate mergers and acquisitions; understanding the processes in both companies in detail, allowing management to identify redundancies resulting in a smoother merge

The problems of designing large software systems were studied through interviewing personnel from 17 large projects. A layered behavioral model is used to analyze how three of these problems—the thin spread of application domain knowledge, fluctuating and conflicting requirements, and communication bottlenecks and breakdowns—affected software productivity and quality through their impact on cognitive, social, and organizational processes.


First, we introduce general design theory, from which a descriptive model of design processes is derived. In this model, the concept of metamodels plays a crucial role in describing the evolutionary nature of design. Second, we show a cognitive design process model obtained by observing design processes using a protocol analysis method. We then discuss a computable model that can explain most parts of the cognitive model and also interpret the descriptive model. In the computable model, a design process is regarded as an iterative logical process realized by abduction, deduction, and circumscription. We implemented a design simulator that can trace design processes in which design specifications and design solutions are gradually revised as the design.

A comprehensive model of design should address the following aspects of the design process:the state of the design ; the goal structure of the design process;design decisions; rationales for design decisions; control of the design process; and the role of learning in design. This article presents some of the most important ideas emerging from current AI research on design especially ideas for better models design. It is organized into sections dealing with each of the aspects of design listed above.


According to Ryan Magennis in his article What Does a Systems Analyst Really Do? The job of systems analyst was very exciting. He has to spent most of his time talking with users to understand the business and to other analysts to ensure compatibility between subsystems. He did a lot of design work, and created documentation for these designs, including reports, input forms, and programming specifications. He coded some of the programs himself. He learned how to test systems as well as implement them. He did some technical writing by documenting new systems, including technical documentation and user documentation. In his years being a System Analyst, he was able to making friends with all the other analysts (work was very social), learning all the time about both the business and technology, meeting new challenges such a public speaking and learning to adjust his “technical jargon” to his audience.

Systems Analyst must have the following skills:


Understanding written sentences and paragraphs in work related documents.

Writing computer programs for various purposes.

Determining causes of operating errors and deciding what to do about it.

Analyzing needs and product requirements to create a design.

Communicating effectively in writing as appropriate for the needs of the audience.

Conducting tests and inspections of products, services, or processes to evaluate quality or performance.

Giving full attention to what other people are saying, taking time to understand the points being made, asking questions as appropriate, and not interrupting at inappropriate times.

Using logic and reasoning to identify the strengths and weaknesses of alternative solutions, conclusions or approaches to problems.

Talking to others to convey information effectively.

Identifying complex problems and reviewing related information to develop and evaluate options and implement solutions.


Systems Analyst must have the knowledge of:

Circuit boards, processors, chips, electronic equipment, and computer hardware and software, including applications and programming.

Structure and content of the English language including the meaning and spelling of words, rules of composition, and grammar.

Principles and methods for curriculum and training design, teaching and instruction for individuals and groups, and the measurement of training effects.
Arithmetic, `lgebra, geometry, calculus, statistics, and their applications.

Principles and processes for providing customer and personal services. This includes customer needs assessment, meeting quality standards for services, and evaluation of customer satisfaction.



Systems Analyst must have the ability to:

Read and understand information and ideas presented in writing.

Communicate information and ideas in writing so others will understand.

Choose the right mathematical methods or formulas to solve a problem.

Listen to and understand information and ideas presented through spoken words and sentences.

Apply general rules to specific problems to produce answers that make sense.

See details at close range (within a few feet of the observer).

Communicate information and ideas in speaking so others will understand.

Come up with a number of ideas about a topic (the number of ideas is important, not their quality, correctness, or creativity).

Tell when something is wrong or is likely to go wrong. It does not involve solving the problem, only recognizing there is a problem.

Combine pieces of information to form general rules or conclusions (includes finding a relationship among seemingly unrelated events).

A systems analyst must perform the following tasks:

Interact with the customers to know their requirements

Interact with designers to convey the possible interface of the software

Interact/guide the coders/developers to keep track of system development

Perform system testing with sample/live data with the help of testers

Implement the new system

Prepare High quality Documentation

Analyze information processing or computation needs and plan and design computer systems, using techniques such as structured analysis, data modeling and information engineering.

Assess the usefulness of pre-developed application packages and adapt them to a user environment.

Confer with clients regarding the nature of the information processing or computation needs a computer program is to address.

Define the goals of the system and devise flow charts and diagrams describing logical operational steps of programs.

Determine computer software or hardware needed to set up or alter system.

Develop, document and revise system design procedures, test procedures, and quality standards.

Expand or modify system to serve new purposes or improve work flow.

Interview or survey workers, observe job performance and/or perform the job in order to determine what information is processed and how it is processed.

Provide staff and users with assistance solving computer related problems, such as malfunctions and program problems.

Recommend new equipment or software packages.



A Systems Analyst must have the following characteristics:

Investigative — Investigative characteristic frequently involves working with ideas, and require an extensive amount of thinking. These characteristics can involve searching for facts and figuring out problems mentally.

Conventional — Conventional characteristic frequently involve following set procedures and routines. These characteristics can include working with data and details more than with ideas. Usually there is a clear line of authority to follow.

Realistic — Realistic characteristic frequently involve work activities that include practical, hands-on problems and solutions. Many of the occupations require working outside, and do not involve a lot of paperwork or working closely with others.

Systems analysts need to be independent thinkers-people who can “think out of the box” by grasping concepts quickly and seeing the big picture as opposed to the small details. “

Ability to see the big picture: translate geek-speak into plain English

Identify company needs, and get everybody on board.

The system analyst must be able to communicate in writing and orally.

The analyst must easily get along with people.

The analyst must be a good listener and be able to react to what people say.

The analyst must be knowledgeable of technology. The analyst is not expected to know the intricacies of programming, but a decent general knowledge of concepts and terms is essential.

The analyst must be knowledgeable of business. The analyst is not expected to be an expert in business but a decent understanding of the client's world is required.

One should be familiar with designing concepts that is appropriate for the particular development environment. This means one who is good at designing commercial buildings isn't necessarily a good person to design residential housing. Although a lot of concepts overlap, one who is good at designing mainframe system isn't necessarily a good candidate for web projects.

One should have the skills to use the tools to facilitate his/her work. i.e. design software tools. If someone is struggling to use a hammer s/he is worrying about putting a nail in straight not about building a good structure.

One should have the industry/business knowledge or the capacity to acquire them. System implementation is a lot like a bunch of blind people trying to figure out what an elephant looks like. Each person has his/her own field expertise. However, the more knowledge one person has would make the process easier and create better results.

References:

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080725042042AA2MqMh
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Systems_analyst
http://jobs.virginia.gov/careerguides/computersystemsanalyst.htm
http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=50089
http://www.aaai.org/ojs/index.php/aimagazine/article/viewArticle/855