Redesigning the Redesigning the Organization with Organization with

Information SystemsInformation Systems

Chapter 12

Change

New environment factors are constantly emerging

Society’s needs are changed accordingly Way of doing business changes Business’ information need changes Old technologies lost competitiveness Old business SOP lost its competitiveness

Planned organization change

Multiple perspectives Multiple platforms

– Unix, Apple, Microsoft?

Multiple playing field– Work arrangement– Work performance– Human resource development

Methods for creating a new system blueprint

Enterprise analysis Critical success factors analysis Both are used to elicit organizational wide

information requirements

Four levels of change / Spectrum of Organizational Change

NS, WS, ND, WD NS Automation like data processing WS Rationalization of procedures ND Business process re-engineering WD Paradigm shift

Business Process Reengineering

Radical restructuring of business processes– From traditional database systems to web base

analytical database systems– From sequential to parallel systems like the

new team approach mortgage processing systems

Assumptions outdated by new technologies

Field offices by wireless communications One at a time by shared database Fixed inventory system by automatic

identification and tracking technology Just in case inventory by networks,

extranets, and EDI

Process Improvement

The earlier in the business cycle a problem is eliminated, the less it costs the company.

In the system development process, the time spent on analysis and design will lower cost on implementation and maintenance.

IS and TQM

Cycle time reduction Benchmarking Simplifying the product or production

process Improve the quality and precision of

design as in CASE and CAD/CAM

Systems

Parts (components) – new components create new relationships

Purpose – overall purpose stays the same Power / politics / position – internal as well

as power changes Process – evolving until totally change the

business paradigm (see Figure 12-3, page 387)

Building a system

Means to change the four Ps.– Parts – hardware, software, people– Purpose – serve different needs– Power / position / politics – some up and some

down– Process – should be seamless; not just process

re-engineering

Building a new system

Is a planned organizational change Conversion

– Piloting– Phase out– In parallel– Cold turkey

Core activities in the system development process

System analysis System design Programming Testing Conversion Production Maintenance System redesign

Systems Analysis

Stakeholders Feasibility study

– Technical feasibility– Economic feasibility– Operational feasibilty

Information requirement

Systems Design

Design specifications– Input, output– User interface– Database design– Processing– Manual operating procedures– Controls and security– Documentation– Conversion and training– Other indirect impacts and changes

Logical vs. physical design

Logical design lays out the components of the system and their relationship to each other as they would appear to users

Physical design actually translate logical design into a functioning system of people and machine.

Testing

Unit testing – conform to design System testing – function as a whole Acceptance testing – alpha version, beta

version, gamma version, patchset

Conversion

Also called as migration or upgrade if it is from the same vendor

Parallel strategy Direct cutover Pilot study Phased approach documentation

Production and Maintenance

Test units and production units Most companies hold two different

systems for continuous improvement and maintenance on system

The traditional Systems Life Cycle

Used for medium or large complex system projects

It has six stages (next slide) Has a formal division of labor Formal sign-offs or agreements between

end users and builders are required as each stage is completed

Stages of system lifecycle

Project definition System study Design Programming Installation Post-implementation

End products of different stages of system lifecyle

Project proposal report System proposal report Design specifications Program specifications – code System performance tests Post implementation audit

Limitations of the lifecycle approach

Costly, time consuming, and inflexible It has to freeze specification and thus

discourage changes after each stage is completed

Thus it inhibit system-builders from exploring and discovering the problem structure

Prototyping

Consists of building an experimental system rapidly and inexpensively for end users to evaluate

Thus, is best for extract users’ information requirements

It is an iterative process of system development

prototyping

Advantages– Good for requirement uncertainty– Good for extracting users’ idiosyncrasy like

end-user interface– It encourages intense end-user involvement

throughout the process

prototyping

Disadvantages– It could gloss over essential steps in systems

development, that is, it may ignore full documentation and testing

– It may prevent management from converting prototypes to a full production version

Application software packages

Is a set of prewritten, precoded application software programs that are commercially available for sale or lease

As simple as creating labels As complicated as computer-aided design

or computer-assisted manufacturing

Application software packages

Need to consider the amount of customization and reprogramming

When the need increases, the cost will also increase “exponentially”

The package evaluation process is based on requested for proposal (RFP)

End-User Development

There are many 4th generation languages around

It is suitable for low processing and highly customized applications

It tends to create a localized data trap Management should control the

developments by incorporating them into its strategic system plans

Outsourcing

It becomes popular because of its cost effectiveness, eliminating the need of support, upgrade, and maintenance.

Due to control and competitiveness, outsource only those less critical and high cost routines such as payroll. (even in this function, there are some critical information functions)

Application Development for the Digital Firm

Critical Success Factors– Agility– Scalability

Organizations need to be able to add, change, and retire their technology capabilities very rapidly

Object-Oriented SW development

Reusable objects Change from process oriented

development methods to composition oriented development

Need to be able to build up a large object library

Rapid Application Development

Visual programming Graphical user interfaces Iterative prototyping Assembled from prebuilt components

Web Services

Enable one application to communicate with another with no translation required

Microsoft has incorporated Web services tools in its .NET platform

An open “plug and play” architecture rather than a proprietary architecture

Standards / Protocols

XML – standard description of data in Web pages and databases

SOAP – simple object access protocol, allows applications to pass data and instructions to one another

WSDL – Web Services Description Language, allows a Web Services to be described

UDDI – Universal Description Discovery, and Integration, allows Web Services to be listed in a directory of Web Services so that it can be easily located