Tuesday, December 8, 2009

Frustrations in Information Systems Plan


Based on our interview with the Management Information Systems (MIS) head of the AMS Group of Companies at AMS Group of Companies located at F. Torres St., Davao City., the two most frequently experienced causes of frustrations while working on an IS Plan is primarily the dissatisfaction and contrast in time plan to the time completion (Lederer and Sethi) Also, lack of support time concerns so as the communication and user’s fulfillment and acceptance.

Acoording to Wikipedia, Frustration is a common emotional response to opposition. Related to anger and disappointment, it arises from the perceived resistance to the fulfillment of individual will. The greater the obstruction, and the greater the will, the more the frustration is likely to be. Causes of frustration may be internal or external. In people, internal frustration may arise from challenges in fulfilling personal goals and desires, instinctual drives and needs, or dealing with perceived deficiencies, such as a lack of confidence or fear of social situations. Conflict can also be an internal source of frustration; when one has competing goals that interfere with one another, it can create cognitive dissonance. External causes of frustration involve conditions outside an individual, such as a blocked road or a difficult task. While coping with frustration, some individuals may engage in passive-aggressive behavior, making it difficult to identify the original cause(s) of their frustration, as the responses are indirect. A more direct, and common response, is a propensity towards aggression.

Like everything in the world, Information Technology is also evolving. In fact, its innovation is said to be fast in this millennium. And businesses in order to be in the era of fast changing world, link their processes and their plans with regard to the computerized and automated systems.

Strategic information systems planning (SISP) is the process whereby an organization establishes a long-range plan of computer-based applications in order to achieve its goals. A number of problems can potentially impede information systems planners as they carry out the process. A survey of 80 firms who completed the SISP process revealed that the problems constitute five factors: the organization, implementation, database, hardware, and cost. A discriminant analysis showed that three factors—the organization, implementation, and database—best distinguished satisfied from dissatisfied information systems planners. A research application of the five factors suggested that organizations with more sophisticated business planning endure significantly less severe hardware and implementation problems.

Strategic Information Systems Planning (SISP) is the process of aligning an organization's business strategy with effective computer-based information systems to achieve critical business objectives. SISP is a top concern of major executives and considerable resources (time and money) are spent in SISP activities. Many SISP initiatives are not successful due to the difficulty of implementing the recommendations.

In the late 1970s, the primary objectives of the Information Systems planning were to improve communication between end users and the MIS departments, increase top management support for computing, better forecast and allocate information system resource requirements, improve the MIS department and identify new computer application which can be beneficial in the company. Now, the objectives evolved and are now focusing on the identification of strategic information systems implementation which can give the company a competitive edge. Its main desire is to share common data and communicate with each other very easily. Because of the change, the businesses also needed to adopt this change and be flexible enough in a way that they can integrate their existing systems to the new ones.

However these ideals are oftentimes didn’t come into reality. Organizations have often failed to build such system. Complications in ISP may sometimes cause redundant efforts and costs.

ISP entails the search for applications that can give the organization a grate advantage over the competitors. ISP help the organizations use the information systems in innovative ways, change the basis of competition, generate new products and promote creativity.

ISP is the process of identifying a portfolio of computer-based applications to assist an organization in executing its current business plans and realizing its business goals.

In having the ISP, an organization must embark on a major study. It forms teams of business planners and MIS experts as the members and leaders. The duration depends on the scope of the study. It carries out a procedure to guide the study. It also prepares a schedule for developing and installing them.

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 database, 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.

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

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


However, upon the preparation and implementation of the system, the organization sometimes fell into the trap of failures. And one of the main causes of frustrations is the DISSATISFACTION and the other is CONRAST IN TIME PLAN TO THE TIME COMPLETION (Lederer and Sethi).

1.) DISSATISFACTION

Advances in information technology and perceived dissatisfaction with MIS performance is leading users to take over their own systems development work. This does not mean an end to the MIS department, but a staff rather than line responsibility will be required as users become the dominant developer of information systems. For a successful transition, HRD will be expected to operate as a change agent helping both groups adjust to their new roles.

Mr. Gernald Cabarilo cited one instance in which the said frustrations are found.
For a particular company system which is being outsourced from the other company, it is very important to seek and gather the data. You also have good sense of contact between the firm. It is said to have a proper closure of the project from the client in a way that upon the creation of the system, the client have to be fixed on his decision over time. He has to set his mind on what are the things he really wants to appear in the system It is so frustrating in the part of the developer to change and change his system because of the dissatisfaction of the clients.

Also, the developer and the client must have a constant communication regarding the project over time so that the possible dissatisfaction may be lessened in the implementation of the IS.


According to a survey released on Dec. 12, 2009, 'Information Disconnect -- The Weakest Link,' reveals that 96 per cent of enterprises interviewed, including many from the Global 500 and Fortune 1000 companies, are frustrated with their information management processes.

In addition, nearly 70 per cent of survey respondents felt that their current information systems deliver inconsistent reporting, and that it takes too long to collate information.

The survey, commissioned by Kalido Ltd. and conducted by Harte-Hanks, a leading IT market research agency, examines the current market understanding of information management and the most critical information issues that the world's leading companies are facing today. Additional findings reveal that:
-- Nearly 60 per cent of companies find that their current information systems
do not have the flexibility to handle change

-- Nearly 60 per cent of companies have concerns about the accuracy of their
data sources

-- Over 60 per cent of companies have planned data/information integration
projects

2.) CONRAST IN TIME PLAN TO THE TIME COMPLETION

To address this problem, it is a must to execute and Adjust the ISP Through Time.

Enterprises, once they evolve beyond their first round of information systems, find themselves transformed from a project and package mentality to a release mentality. The diagram on the next page illustrates this new continuous flow environment. It is characterized by:

! Multiple, concurrent, but differently scheduled projects against the same subject area database or warehouse database
! Single-database projects that affect multiple subject area and data warehouse databases
! Projects that develop completely new capabilities, that can assess required changes to existing capabilities, and that can accommodate a variety of systems generation alternatives (COTS, package, and custom programming)
The continuous flow environment contains four major sets of activities. The user/client is represented at the top in the small rectangular box. Each of the ellipses represents an activity list to accomplish a specific need. The four basic needs are essentially:
! Need Identification
! Need Assessment
! Design
! Deployment
The box in the center is the metabase. Specification and impact analysis are represented through the left two processes. Implementation design and accomplishment are represented by the right two processes.

Claudia Imhoff, industry expert in corporate information architecture, commented: "As new investments are mapped out, establishing an intelligent management information strategy is essential. Without a reliable company-wide view of a customer, working with your customers will be less effective. Similarly, without an enterprise-wide view of products and services, decisions will continue to be made without understanding their impact. This must change before businesses can operate efficiently and effectively on a truly global scale."

Doug Laney, vice president, META Group said: "To lessen business performance frustrations, enterprises must strive to establish consistent levels of information quality and information management throughout the organisation. Our research indicates that, while enabling technology exists, a change in how a company views its information assets, must accompany it. Suffering silently with information incongruence we believe, is a certain way of devaluing overall corporate assets."

Frank Buytendijk, senior research analyst at Gartner, Inc.: "Enterprises need to understand that in order to gain strategic value from business information, it's vital to connect data to strategic objectives and to deploy it strategically across an enterprise. This means that enterprises must solve the many challenges of data integration and ensure they have a scalable and reliable data warehouse infrastructure."

Chris Worsley, vice president of global marketing at Kalido Ltd, added: "Frustration equals inefficiency. In the current economic environment, it's more important than ever that companies reap their investment in information management systems in order to get timely, accurate, consistent information, to manage their business effectively. Unlocking value from existing technology and ensuring future investments are integrated painlessly is our mission and working with global companies such as Unilever, the Royal Dutch/Shell Group (Shell), and Phillips, is proving that it can be done."

The companies surveyed, including many from the Fortune 1000 and Global 500, operate in the US, UK and Netherlands and were cross-industry covering finance, products and services, retail, transport, primary resource, telecommunications and healthcare. At least 40 per cent have a turnover of over $US2billion. 171 interviews were completed over a six-week period beginning September 2001.

http://www.clarionmag.com/cmag/v3/informationsystemsplanning.pdf
http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/119990266/abstract?CRETRY=1&SRETRY=0
http://www.computer.org/portal/web/csdl/doi/10.1109/HICSS.2000.926735
http://www.thefreelibrary.com/96+Per+Cent+of+Global+Enterprises+Suffer+From+Information...-a080732718

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