Reasons for, Importance, and Roles of IS Management

ISM 4300

Spring, 2003

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Course Framework

“New” Economy Role of the Internet Knowledge Management/Sharing Role of IS Management

Shifting from tech job to collaborative effort No longer just providing TPS applications Many alternatives

Outsourcing Buy versus build

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A Little HistoryU.S. passed from the industrial era to

the information era as early as 1957.

The number of U.S. employees whose jobs were primarily to handle information surpassed the number of industrial workers.

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Percentage Aggregation of the U.S. Workforce

Source: Marc U. Porat, The Information Economy, Office ofTelecommunications Policy, U.S. Department of Commerce (Washing DC, 1977).

50

40

30

20

10

1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980

YearYear

Per

cen

tage

Per

cen

tage

Information

Service

Industry

Agriculture

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Three major trends Initiative and responsibility for managing IT

shifting from IS execs to collaborative effort Role of IT dept is shifting from application

delivery to system integration and infrastructure development

Outsourcing is becoming a way of life for IS departments Responsibility for developing and managing

contracts and relationships with outsourcing vendors

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The External Business Environment IT moves info faster, which makes

processes change faster The hurrider I go, the behinder I get Cycle time reduction Rapid response to changing business

environment – agile organizations

GlobalizationDeregulation

Telecomm deregulation act of 1996

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The Internal Organizational Environment Outsourcing and Strategic Alliances

What should be done internally or externally by others Supply-push transitioning to demand-pull Collaboration and team-based working

Information sharing Virtual teams

The Demise of Hierarchy Hierarchical structures cannot cope with rapid change. See Drucker article for next class

Does technology drive change or support/enable change?

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New Work EnvironmentLeverage data/information/knowledge

globallyOrganize for complexity and change

Mobility Adaptability Response to change

Work electronically Any time; any where; any one

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The Technology Environment IT “enables” advances in organizational

performance. Productivity paradox and improvement

Hardware Trends Batch processing predominant; on-line systems

emerged later 1980s: Advent of personal computers Client-Server computing: “Client” machine user

interfaces with “Server” on holding the data and applications (much more on this later)

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The Technology Environment Software Trends

Improve the productivity of in-house programmers who created transaction processing systems

Make versus buy versus buy&modify

versus outsource Programming issues:

Modular and structured programming techniques Object-oriented technologies Software quality Life cycle development methodologies and software

engineering Introduction of rigorous project management techniques.

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The Technology Environment(Software Trends)

Prototyping: quick development of a mock-up RAD JAD Extreme programming

Purchasing software became viable alternative to in-house development ERP CRM

Paying attention to applications other than TPS Decision support systems (DSS) Report generation Database inquiry (e.g.SQL) EIS

End users develop their own systems

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The Technology Environment First 20 years: techniques to manage data in a

centralized environment Emphasis on high speed x-act processing

Data Trends File management Corporate databases Database management systems Dictionary/directory Specification and format Data definitions: information about relationships among

systems, sources and uses of data, and time cycle requirements.

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The Technology Environment Data Trends

PCs: employees directly access corporate data. Distributing data from data resources to information

resources Data management organizes internal facts into data

record format Information management Digitized media Managing the intellectual capital of the organization Knowledge management

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The Technology Environment Communications Trends

Public and private (intra-company) Telecom as an integral component of IS

management Communications-based information systems link

organizations to their suppliers and customers Strategic advantage Enabler for distributing computing Shifted mainframe-centered computing to network-

centric computing

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The Mission of Information Systems Early days: “paperwork factories”

Objectives of information systems defined by productivity measures

MIS era: produced reports for “management by exception” for all levels of management

Today:Improve the effectiveness and performance of people in organizations Performance improvement: a goal based on the

outcomes Focus is the people Resource for this improvement is IT

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A Simple Model

System AnalystSystem Analyst

SystemSystemDevelopmentDevelopment

InformationInformationTechnologyTechnology

UsersUsers

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Some applications, such as Web page development, database management, and spreadsheet manipulation, are developed and used by employees.

SystemSystemDesignerDesigner

ExpandedExpandedInformationInformationTechnologiesTechnologies

SophisticatedSophisticatedProducts andProducts and

CustomersCustomers

InformationInformationSpecialistSpecialist

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A Better Model

SystemSystemDesignerDesigner

InformationInformationSpecialistSpecialist

ExpandedExpandedInformationInformationTechnologiesTechnologies

SophisticatedSophisticatedProducts andProducts and

CustomersCustomers

User-Oriented SystemsUser-Oriented Systems Knowledgeable UsersKnowledgeable Users

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A Better ModelThe Users

Activities are well defined Efficiency Handling data Measured by results Figuring out how to attain goals Handling concepts, not data The wave of the future is applying IT to

goal-based activities, where the enterprise is more important than the process.

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Procedure BasedProcedure Based Knowledge BasedKnowledge Based

A Dichotomy of Information Work

High volume of transactions Low cost (value) per

transaction Well-structured procedures Output measures defined Focus on process Focus on efficiency Handling of “data” Predominantly clerical workers Examples

“Back office” Mortgage servicing Payroll processing Check processing

Low volume of transactions High value (cost) per

transaction Ill-structured procedures Output measures less defined Focus on problems and goals Focus on effectiveness Handling of concepts Managers and professionals Examples

Loan departmentAsset/liability managementPlanning departmentCorporate banking

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IS ManagementFour major components:

The technology Information workers The system development and delivery

function The management of the IS function