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Chapter 8 Understanding the MIS Organization
plus an introduction to Extreme Programming
Managing and Using Information Systems: A Strategic Approach, 2nd ed.
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Chief Information Officer (CIO)
• Gartner group definition of the CIO’s role:
“To provide technology vision and leadership for developing and implementing IT initiatives that create and maintain leadership for the enterprise in a constantly changing and intensely competitive marketplace.”
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The CIO’s Responsibilities1. Championing the organization2. Architecture management3. Business strategy consultant4. Business technology planning5. Applications development6. IT infrastructure management7. Sourcing8. Partnership developer9. Technology transfer agent10. Customer satisfaction management 11. Training
12. Business Discontinuity/Disaster Recovery Planning
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Nine Essential CIO Skills:1. Strong business orientation 2. Ability to realize benefits & manage costs and risks
associated with IT3. Ability to bridge gaps between available
technologies and business needs4. Familiarity with client’s needs5. Strong organizational skills6. Ability to conceive and build multiple IT projects7. Ability to articulate and advocate for a mgmt IT
vision8. Ability to mesh with existing mgmt structure9. Strategic enterprise vision extending beyond IT
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Related Job Titles
• CKO: Chief Knowledge Officer
• CTO: Chief Technology Officer
• CTO: Chief Telecommunications Officer
• CNO: Chief Network Officer
• CRO: Chief Resource Officer
• Divisional CIOs/Corporate CIO
6Figure 8.1 The CIO’s lieutenants
Title Responsibility
Chief technology officer (CTO) Track emerging technologies
Advise on technology adoption
Design and manage IT architecture to insure consistency and compliance
Chief knowledge officer (CKO) Create knowledge management infrastructure
Build a knowledge culture
Make corporate knowledge pay off
Chief telecommunications officer (CTO)
Manage phones, networks, and other communications technology across entire enterprise
Chief network officer Build/maintain internal and external networks
Chief resource officer Manage outsourcing relationships
Chief information security officer Insures information management practices are consistent with security requirements
Chief privacy officer Responsible for processes and practices that insure privacy concerns of customers, employees and vendors are met
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Other Information Systems Organizational Roles
• IS Managers• Systems Developers• Business Analysts• Database Administrators• Operations Personnel• Support Personnel• Developers• Webmaster, Web Designer, Web Developer, etc.
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Figure 8.2 IS organization roles Job Title Job Description Job Description
IS Manager Implements strategy; leads systems implementation projects
Understands both business and technology
System Developer Writes new software applications; Upgrades and maintains existing systems
Programming abilities, cross-technology knowledge, etc
Business Analyst Translates business requirements into implementable IT solutions
Understands core business requirements
Database Administrator
Implements and maintains the software/hardware
Knowledge of database management systems, etc
Operations Personnel
Implements/maintains software and hardware needed
Knowledge of database management systems, etc
Support Personnel Run, monitor and maintain the production applications
Monitor and maintain hardware and software
Developer Help desk, project management and desktop services, etc
Skills vary depending upon role
Webmaster Responsible for all web activities Knowledge of web trends
Web Designer Designs interface for web pages Knowledge of interface design
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Figure 8.3 Sample IS Organizational Chart
CIO
CKO CTO CNO
Other
IS ManagersGM
SystemDevs.
Bus.Analysts
DBAdmins.
SupportPersonnel
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IS Organization Processes• Systems Development• Systems Maintenance• Data Center Operations• Information Management and Database
Administration • Internet Services and Web-based Systems
Development• Networking Services • New Technology Introduction • Resource Management • General Support
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What to Expect from IS
• Anticipating New technologies
• Strategic Direction
• Process Innovation
• Internal Partnerships
• Supplier Management
• Architecture and Standards
• Human Resource Management
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Anticipating New Technologies…
• Business and IS staff must work closely to evaluate which technologies can best advance the business strategy.
• It is the job of the IS department to scout new technology trends and help the business integrate them into planning and operations in terms of the following
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• Strategic Direction• Process Innovation
• Supplier Management
• Architecture and Standards
• Business Continuity Planning
• Human Resource Management
• Most IS activities fall within the above categories, however, business managers can also anticipate the user management activities shown in the next slide
Steps in Anticipating New Technologies:
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What IS doesn’t do…
• There is still a need for management to partner with IS to make sure business goals and needs are met.
• General managers generally set the business strategy, not IS professionals.
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Outsourcing • Since the 1970s, IT managers have turned
to outsourcing as an important weapon in the battle to control costs.
• Outsourcing means the purchase of a good or service that was previously provided internally – with IT outsourcing an outside vendor provides IT services traditionally provided by the internal MIS department.
• Over the years, however, motives for outsourcing have changed.
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Factors driving outsourcing 1. Cost savings2. Qualified IT staff are difficult to find and retain3. By bringing in outside expertise, management
needs to focus less on IS operations and more on the information itself.
4. Outsourcers are specialists, should understand how to manage IS staff more effectively.
5. Outsourcers may have larger IS resources that provide greater capacity on demand.
6. Outsourcing can help a company overcome inertia to consolidate data centers that could not be consolidated by an internal group, or following a merger or acquisition.
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Figure 8.6 Drivers and disadvantages of outsourcing
Drivers Disadvantages Offer cost savings
Ease transition to new technologies
Offer better strategic focus
Provide better management of IS staff
Handle peaks
Consolidate data centers
Infuse cash
Abdication of control
High switching costs
Lack of tech. innovation
Loss of strategic advantage
Reliance on outsourcer
Problems with security/confidentiality
Evaporization of cost savings
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Avoiding Outsourcing Pitfalls
• Don’t focus solely on price• Use life-cycle service contracts that occur in stages• Establish short-term supplier contracts• Use multiple, best of breed suppliers• Develop skills in contract management• Thoroughly evaluate outsourcers capabilities• Choose an outsourcer whose capabilities
complement yours.• Base choice on a cultural fit as well as expertise• Determine if outsourcing relationship produces a
net benefit for your company
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Centralized vs. Decentralized Organizational Structures
• Centralized: reduces duplication since resources under one control and, often, in one location.
• Decentralized: creates flexibility because resources not in the same location or control
• “Federalism” combines centralization with decentralization.
• For example: – Bethlehem Steel allows major business units (plants) to
decentralize and operate independently while– Levi-Strauss centralized to minimize the duplication of
resources and save on costs.
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Centralized vs. Decentralized Approaches
• Bethlehem Steel has taken a decentralized approach, which mirrors their decentralized business strategy as its managers believed that computing power and decision-making should be located within local business units
• Levi Strauss adopted a centralized strategy as it wanted to gain better control over strategic IT resources, minimize duplication across its business, and maximize sharing of scarce resources
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How does the management of IT differ when
the scope is global, rather than local? • Large global MIS organizations face many of
the same organizational issues as any other global department.
• For IS, a number of issues arise that put the business at risk beyond the typical global considerations. Table 8.12 summarizes how a global IT perspective affects six information management issues.
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Figure 8.12 Global Considerations for the MIS Organization Issue Global IT Perspective Example
Political Stability How risky is investment in a country with an unstable government ?
India, a country that faces conflict with Pakistan
Transparency Domestically, an IT network can be end-to-end with little effort compared to global networks
SAP-R3 can be used to support production processes but only if installed
Business Continuity Planning
When crossing borders, it is important to make sure that contingency plans are in place
Concern when crossing boarders is will data center be available when/if needed
Cultural Differences
IT systems must not offend or insult those of a different culture
Using images or artifacts may be insulting to another culture
Sourcing Some technologies cannot be exported or imported into specific countries
Exporting it to some countries, especially those who are not political allies is not possible
Data Flow across Borders
Data, especially private or personal data, is not allowed to cross some borders.
For example: Brazil
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Going Offshore for IS Development • Countries such as India, the Philippines, etc, offer
“offshoring”, an alternative to in-house systems development
• Many Indian enterprises, for example, are well known for their use of the Capability Maturity Model (CMM) Level 5 software development processes, making them extremely reliable, and ultimately desirable as vendors
• The types of tasks that are outsourced are usually those that can be well-specified
• It raises the issue of what to send offshore, and what to keep within your enterprise MIS organization.
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Offshoring Problems
Companies engaged in or considering offshoring express concern about …
• quality of the work performed,
• unexpected costs, and
• project delays
• future maintenance
• not developing skills in-house
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and now for something completely different…
Extreme Programming
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Extreme Programming (XP)
• A disciplined approach to software development
• Good for risky projects with dynamic requirements
• Emphasizes customer involvement and teamwork
• Deliver software to customer asap and implement changes as suggested
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When to Use XP
• When customer does not have firm idea of requirements
• When functionality is expected to change in short-term
• When the time-line is compressed and risk is higher
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The XP Approach
• Set up for small teams of programmers – between 2 and 12
• Cannot use XP on a project with a huge staff• Must be able to create automated unit and
functional tests• User stories• Paired-programming• Small releases
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The XP Team
• Developers (work in pairs)
• Managers
• Customers
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XP: User Stories
• Customers create stories to describe functionality needed
• Drive creation of acceptance tests for verification
• Developers estimate how long each story will take to implement
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XP: Release Planning Meetings
• RPM used to create a release plan
• Release plan used to create iteration plans
• Project velocity = estimates of user stories completed in the last iteration
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XP: Iteration Planning
• Each iteration is 1 – 3 weeks long• User stories are broken down into
programming tasks• Each task should be 1 – 3 days in duration• Use project velocity to determine if the
iteration is overbooked• Adds agility to the process
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XP: Lessons Learned
• Customer is always available
• Move people around
• Avoid adding unnecessary functionality
• Follow coding standards
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Network Security
• SSL – the Web standard
• SET – a consortia standard favored by financial institutions
• Digital signatures – provide authenticity
• Firewalls – come in different flavors
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SSL
• Secure Sockets Layer, a protocol developed by Netscape for transmitting private documents via the Internet.
• SSL works by using a private key to encrypt data that's transferred over the SSL connection. Both Netscape Navigator and Internet Explorer support SSL, and many Web sites use the protocol to obtain confidential user information, such as credit card numbers.
• By convention, URLs that require an SSL connection start with https: instead of http:.
• Supports non-repudiation for merchant only!
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SET
• Secure Electronic Transaction, a standard that will enable secure credit card transactions on the Internet. SET has been endorsed by virtually all the major players in the electronic commerce arena, including Microsoft, Netscape, Visa, and Mastercard.
• By employing digital signatures, SET will enable merchants to verify that buyers are who they claim to be. And it will protect buyers by providing a mechanism for their credit card number to be transferred directly to the credit card issuer for verification and billing without the merchant being able to see the number.
• Supports non-repudiation for both buyer and merchant
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Firewalls• Combine software and hardware• Normally between LANs and WANs• Can reside between LANs• May only check header information• May check content• Can take time to configure• Can slow down network• Can be assigned to one or multiple ports
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END OF CHAPTER
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