INFORMATION
SYSTEMS FOR
MANAGEMENT
Agenda
• Information system project
• Organization analysis
Project orieneted management
• Organizations are changing
• The changes should be reflected in information systems
• How can we adjust information systems to changes?
System design processes - classification
• Designing systems supporting managers actions and
reactions to changes.
• Designing passive systems, detecting problems in
organizations and providing information on problems
occuring (managers, after the information analysis make
decisions).
Comment
• Designing passive systems, supporting passive
management, focused on repetitive, schematic routines
nowadays is less often used as dynamic market situation
requires managing complex, unique processes (so called
project management).
Information projects management:
definitions
• Information system project is a documentation concerning
new information system or existing system modernization.
• Project is a sequence ofunique, complex and related
actions performed to achieve a common goal, limited with
deadlines, budget, preliminary constraints.
Information projects management:
definitions
Project characteristics:
• Time (deadlines),
• Scope,
• Resources (human, capital, material, technology,
information).
Information projects management:
definitions
• Project management is a set of activities performed to
achieved goals determined by managers in predefined
time, using predefined resources.
• Information project management is to create a product –
information system.
Information projects management:
definitions
Project methodologies:
• IPM: Institute of Project Management,
• IPMA: International Project Management Association
• Design Research Society,
• Design Methodology Group
Information projects management:
definitions
 Project methodology: process of design organizing,
approach to predefined problems solving.
Methodology should be chosen with respect to:
 Management infrastructure,
 Resources accessible,
 Staff qualifications,
 Environment.
Information projects management:
definitions
• Project management:
Traditional project
management (project
realised according to a
plan)
Goal and solution defined
Adaptive project
framework
(project is defined
and realised after
analysis)
Extreme project
management
(management in
extreme conditions,
reaction to changes)
Goal and solution unknown
Information projects management:
definitions
Analysis and
defnition of a
project
• Project
management
stages:
Maintenance/
reengineeering
Design,
problem solving
implementation
Project teams
• Creating and implementation is supervised by supervising
team (supervising committee)
Supervising team are:
• Users,
• Creators (makers),
• Experts.
Project team
Superviving teams are making decisions at strategic level,
including those concerning finances and staff:
 Defining goals ,
 Defining implementation team,
 Analyzing the company,
 Defining implementation budget,
 Choosing software provider,
 Choosing a consulting company,
 Providing top managers commitment,
 Defining implementation schedule,
 Appointing members of exective team,
 Process verification,
 Launching the system.
Project team
Executive teams (executive committees) include users and
make tactic decisions and project analysis:
 Jobs and responsibilities assignement,
 Implementation processmanagement,
 Implementation reports,
 Supervising, monitoring, reporting work in progress,
 Initiating corrective actions when necessary.
Project team
Members features:
 competneces,
 motivation,
 communication (nets are better than hierarchy)
 In a net problems are easier to discover and find, project
monitoring is easier,
 In a net communication is easier because there are no
artificial barriers,
 In a net solving problems is easier, problems and
conflicts are of smaller range.
Project categories
• Implementation of a system bought from a system
provider
• Creating new, unique software
Information system lifecycle
Analysis and
defnition of a
project
Design,
problem
solving
Maintenance/
reengineeering
implementation
Analysis
Analysis:
• Quantity,
• Quality.
Analysis is crucial for project success because at analysis
and design stage about 50% of mistakes is made. What is
more, the later the mistake is discovered, the more
expensive for company it is.
Analysis
Analysis includes the following set of factors:
A={S, G, M, C, H, R}
 S: subjects
 G: goals
 M: methods and technioques
 C: conditions
 H: hypothesis
 R: relations
Analysis: subjects
• Set of decisive subjects including subset of system users
(in organization and inits environment). System is built to
meet information requirements of its users, thus users
identification is crucial for system quality.
Analysis: goals
• Set of goals including subsets of users requirements. The
set includes both goals that can be measured and goals
that can be described. When defining goals, it is
necessary to define relations between them, to identify
goals of primary and secondary importance.
Analisys: methods and techniques
• A set of methods which are used to define users
requirements. Methods and techniques to be used can be
based on intuition and common sense or include complex
mathematical calculations. it is recommended to use
different methods – to verify analysis results.
Analysis: conditions
• A set of conditions in which analysis is performed, there
are internal and external conditions. Conditions have both
positive and negative influence. Negative conditions are
constraints. Conditions refer to socio-psychological,
technical, economical and organizational problems.
Analisys: hypothesis
• Set of hypothesis refering to sets listed before. In dynamic
conditions it is impossible to define all the sets elements,
that is why some hypothesis are assumed,described by
probabilities of actions to happen.
Analysis: relations
• Sets of relations between sets listed above.
Analysis procedure
Analysis procedure includes:
 Definition of set of users,
 Definition of set of goals,
 Definition of set of conditions,
 Definition of set of hypothesis,
 Analysis of organization.
Each analysis stage should include identification of a tool
which is to be used to solve a problem.
System users
• System is designed for the organization as a whole, for a
group of users or for individual users.
System users are:
• External users (clients, cooperating organizations and
other organizations),
• Internal users (managers of all organizational levels,
operators).
System goals
• Information system is built and used to enable
organization realize its goals, so analysis should translate
organization goals to information system goals.
• Ingoal hierarchy there are goals of primary importance
and goals of lesser importance as well.
Constraints
• Active constraints: influence conditions of analysis, they
should be decreased
• Passive constraints: by making proper decisions their
influence decreases
• False constraints: initially they seem to be important, then
they appear not important
Organization analysis methods
By product:
• Analysing requirements is side-effect, final product is
analysed,
• Used when creating problem oriented subsystems, not
labour-consuming, but information requirements are met
only partially.
Organization analysis methods
Total study:
• Analysis of large managers group, comparison (differnces
between planned and existing system),
• Used to identify important domains, connected with risk
(requirements may not be defined properly), it is costconsuming
Organization analysis methods
• Critical Success Factors analysis:
• Definition of domains which should continuously
controlled and supervised by managers,
• Analysis of tasks realization progress, allows to assess
mangement efficiency, goals hierarchy should be correctly
defined, labour-consuming
Organization analysis methods
Key Indicator System analysis:
• Selecting set of indicators providing information on
organization condition,
• Allows to identify functions requiring specific information,
environment identification, goals hierarchy
Organization analysis methods
• Business Process Model analysis:
• Defining basic units, verification of business processes,
• Enables process models creation, requirememnts
analysis, recognition of data transfered between business
processes.
Organization analysis methods
• Enterprise Activity Matrix:
• Based on assumption that in a company there is a limited
number of tasks, so it is possible to create a matrix
including all the tasks (what, how and with what resources
can be done),
• Gives a framework of is going on/ should be going on.
Analysis techniques
• Observation (direct, indirect, secret),
• Interviews, standardized and not-standardized,
• Surveys/ questionnaires,
• Discussions.
Approaches to analysis
• Socjo-psychological approach, according to which
analysis is a social project,
• Structural approach, in which formal analysis of a system
is conducted (result: hierarchical structure including data,
functions and relations),
• Object-oriented approach, allows to combine data and
processes into objects.