ITC 5301 VII PPP

ITC 5301, Management Information Systems 1

Course Learning Outcomes for Unit VII Upon completion of this unit, students should be able to:

1. Analyze the use of information systems in business. 1.2 Discuss information systems solutions that can be applied to business problems.

3. Explain how information technology systems influence organizational strategies.

3.6 Analyze how information systems projects are aligned with organizational goals and strategies. Required Unit Resources Chapter 13: Building Information Systems Chapter 14: Making the Business Case for Information Systems and Managing Projects Unit Lesson

Information Systems No organization will remain the same for too long if it wants to be effective, efficient, and competitive. The concept of organizational change goes hand-in-hand with implementing new systems, regardless of whether you purchase new systems or develop them in-house. There is a whole discipline of quality management based on organizational change, process improvement, and business process redesign that supports the use of technology to improve business processes. For many organizations, the concept of business process redesign is never ending due to the continual need for evaluating current processes, designing new processes, implementing new processes, and seeking to optimize processes (Laudon & Laudon, 2022). Let’s look at an office environment as an example. An office environment is not generally set up to be process-efficient like an assembly line in an automobile assembly plant. However, people in office environments often get new information systems. Why is that? There are always ways of being more efficient in every type of workplace. There are always new ways to automate manual tasks—even just being able to access data faster is a plus. Most systems development comes from a desire to solve a problem. For example, how can we gather some specific data, manipulate the data, and output the data into information that makes sense to us or that we can use to make good business decisions? The opening case in Chapter 13, “Vinci Energies Builds a New Mobile Employee Time Sheet App” (Laudon & Laudon, 2022), illustrates how important it is for an organization to assess its business processes and strive to improve them continually. Between 2009 and 2019, the company tripled in size and found that its existing systems that were once sufficient now cumbersome. The systems were heavily manual, making them difficult and time-consuming to maintain. The highlighted company implemented a single instance of SAP S/4HANA Cloud as-a-Service (PaaS). This ERP system simplifies its information technology (IT) systems and financial reporting processes. One of the applications in the suite is a new employee timesheet application named MOBITIME that could capture worker time sheets as well as project costs and activities for multiple projects from any location. Other authorized users would be able to view the time sheet and project data online

Developing a New Information System There are some core activities involved in systems development. These activities or steps in the process might actually be common sense to some of us. Different theorists can break the development process into

UNIT VII STUDY GUIDE Building Information Systems and Managing Projects

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different steps, but for the purpose of this course, we will say that there are six basic activities, according to Laudon and Laudon (2022).

1. Systems analysis: How do you know how to solve the problem unless you do some analysis first? What is the exact problem? What are the causes? What are the requirements? What are some potential solutions? Are these solutions feasible? Based on many factors including time, cost, benefits, and impacts, management will choose a solution.

2. Systems design: How do you get written user requirements into technical requirements? What are the system specifications? What is the functionality? What should the user involvement be? The systems design document should lay out the entire solution so that the developers can create the new system.

3. Programming: This is where a lot of the work happens because the developer has to take the technical document and create an operational system. In many cases, organizations will purchase software packages from a vendor. If the tasks are standard or customizable, then purchasing a system may be a good option.

4. Testing: There are different forms of testing. The developer will test as he or she goes, making sure there is functionality in the system. Then, the developer or a quality assurance (QA) representative will perform unit testing on the applications or modules one at a time. The next step would be to test the whole system to make sure everything works in unison. There will also likely be some regression testing, which means the tester will make sure no other systems are harmed by what this new system is doing. The final step is to test with the user to make sure the system is functional.

5. Conversion: This involves the process of going live with the new system. There are many ways of doing this. Two popular ways involve a phased approach or direct cutover. Many times, organizations can even run systems in parallel until they are ready to turn off the old system.

6. Production and maintenance: This step involves a review process over a period of time to make sure that there are no bugs that need to be addressed.

The opening case of Chapter 14, “BDO Canada Selects New Project Management Software,” illustrates how important it is to involve users in designing, building, and implementing system changes. BDO replaced its internally built project management tool with a user-friendly online software-as-a-service (SaaS) tool that would work better with BDO’s growing portfolio of cloud applications. BDO’s senior IT management meets regularly, and the PMO team works with IT project managers to help them with product features and processes. The PMO team also offers drop-in sessions for stakeholders with questions two or three times per month. This case study shows that project management can be successful when done right. Unfortunately, too many organizations fail to correctly assess the business value of projects or fail to manage the organizational change brought on by new projects.

Management of the Information System Just like any process, there are ways to manage the software development process to make sure that the rules are followed and that the process is as efficient as possible. Depending on the size of the project, managers may need some tools to help document and manage the process. First, it is important to note that there are different methodologies for developing systems. Structured methodologies are top-down, step-by- step methodologies that use data entities whereby progress flows from one logical step to the next. Object- oriented development methodologies are more iterative and incremental. They use objects that are data accompanied with information/instructions concerning the data. To manage the software development process, most development shops use a software systems development life cycle (SDLC) program. The original SDLC was called the waterfall method and was characterized by having formal stages where one stage had to be completed before the next one began. That sounds a bit rigid, does it not? It works well for smaller, less-complex software projects; however, it does not work well for larger, more-complex projects. Since the development of the waterfall SDLC, there have been many other approaches that have been developed. For example, prototyping is a popular method where parts of the system are created and presented to the user for use and approval. If the user does not approve, then adjustments can be made and presented again. This method can be used in conjunction with the waterfall method and adds an iterative element. More recently, several methods have been developed that are more versatile and iterative in nature. One of the more popular methods is called agile development, which focuses

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on the quick delivery of small subprojects, each treated as a full project. Agile is used in many software development shops. Just as technology has adapted over time to answer the needs of organizations, so have the methods and processes been used to support technology advancement and information systems development. Role of project management. You might ask yourself why you need project management if you have a SDLC. Broadly speaking, a project is a set of activities that work together to achieve a business objective. That business objective might be to build a new warehouse, or it might be to build a new system. Either way, the project has to be managed. Nowadays, most complex systems go outside the boundaries of just software development. There may be hardware, network, server, database, and security considerations. You may even have prominent involvement from the business side of the organization. For the actual software development portion of the project, you can use an SDLC methodology to manage that process and project management to manage the overall project. There are some higher-level considerations for organizations and project management as well. How can you align your system projects with business goals? The organization’s business strategy drives the selection of projects. Many organizations will have a steering committee or similar facsimile to drive this selection process. How can organizations link their information systems projects to their business plan? An information systems plan will help make the link between specific technology and corporate goals. The plan will list the corporate goals and specify how IT will support the achievement of those goals through current systems and new development and acquisitions. How can you assess business value in relation to the information systems that you are developing? The value of a system is based on whether it provides enough returns to justify its cost. However, remember that there are always tangible and intangible benefits when discussing value. All of these are important considerations in the process of developing information systems for organizations.

Reference Laudon, K. C., & Laudon, J. L. (2022). Management information systems: Managing the digital firm (17th ed.).

Pearson. Suggested Unit Resources In order to access the following resources, click the links below. To reinforce the concepts from this unit, you are encouraged to review the following:

• Chapter 13 PowerPoint Presentation (PDF for Chapter 13 PowerPoint presentation)

• Chapter 14 PowerPoint Presentation (PDF for Chapter 14 PowerPoint presentation)

The following video cases mentioned in your eTextbook augment the information presented in the assigned chapter readings. You are encouraged to review the Chapter 13 and 14 video cases linked below. A transcript can be accessed for each video within the YouTube player by clicking on the three dots below the video title on the right. Closed-captioning can be turned on by clicking the “cc” icon at the bottom of each video. leorwebsphere. (2011). IBM business process management [Video]. YouTube.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cDfQunJ12Mc