Chapter 11Information System Planning

Information Systems Planning

Process of Information System Planning Strategic Alignment of Business and

Information Technology Selecting Systems to Invest In Project Management Role of Systems Analysis

Introductory Case…

Owens Corning SAP installation– Badly needed– Very costly– Will it pay back?– What could have gone wrong?– What still can go wrong?– What did they do right?– Did you like the project team approach?– Should they have done it differently?

A WCA approach...

CUSTOMER

– Building supply companies and contractors that purchase building materials from Owens Corning

PRODUCT

– Reengineered work systems that aremore responsive to market needs

WCA, continued...

BUSINESS PROCESS

– Major steps:• Create a vision for how company operations should change

• Select SAP R/3 as the approach for improving information systems

• Create a large project team at headquarters

• Analyze how to use SAP

• Install SAP on computers

• Train people to use it

• Use SAP in practice

– Rationale:• Replace multiple, incompatible information systems with an integrated

information system that makes it possible to serve customers more effectively.

WCA, continued...

PARTICIPANTS– Project team consisting of half business professionals and half IS

professionals

– Users who were trained and then used the new information system

INFORMATION – Company strategy

– Project goals

– Details of business operations

– Selected options for using SAP

TECHNOLOGY– SAP R/3 software package

– Computers and other hardware

Process of Information System Planning What is an information system plan? Challenges in IS planning Principles for IS planning Role of IS and user departments Allocating (and reallocating) resources Project roles of IS staff

What is an information system plan? Who

– is responsible for each part of the plan

What– does IS need to do

When– do things need to be completed

How– Will we do it (what technology)

What is the desired result?

Why is IT planning challenging?

Difficult to foresee and assess opportunities Difficult to mesh with organizational plans

& objectives Tough to build systems

– Owens Corning case…

Difficult to maintain system performance– Saga of web registration at UNC

Principles for IS Planning

Support organizations IT architecture– what is an IT architecture?

Technology is part of the system, not all Recognize life cycle costs Design for maintainability Remember the humans! Support the evolution of the technical system

Roles of IS and users

IS department produces IS plan…but can’t do it in a vacuum– Need help and input from the users

User roles (what are these?)– Sponsors– Champions– Steering committee

Resource allocation

Maintaining existing systems and supporting users

New development, infrastructure, R&D– Important to do this; will often pay significant

benefits• Technical

• Political

IT staff roles Large system development projects involve many roles

such as the following -- can you define their roles?– Project managers

– Application programmers

– Systems analysts

– Programmer-analysts

– Technical writers

– Computer operators

– Database administrators

– System managers

– Systems programmers

– User support staffs

Strategic Alignment of Business and IT Consistency with business priorities

Strategic Alignment of Business and IT Reengineering & downsizing Enterprise-wide and inter-organizational

systems Information systems architecture

– Let’s look at the Orange County template

Strategic Alignment of Business and IT Centralization?

Strategic Alignment of Business and IT Business infrastructure Outsourcing

– Good or bad? What’s your opinion?

Selecting systems to invest in Cost/benefit analysis Risks Financial comparisons (NPV, IRR, payback,etc.)

Project Management Issues Division of labor

– IS department

– Users

Keeping on schedule…– Gantt chart

Why is it hard to develop/deliver the right system?

A Gantt chart in action…

Take 5 minutes and develop a Gantt chart for the steps in buying a home audio system

Role of Systems Analysis Information sources for analyzing systems

– Interview– Inputs, outputs and documentation of existing systems– On-site observation– Questionnaires – Benchmarking

Interviews– Watch for

• missing viewpoints• superficial information• distorted information