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- Chapter 10
- Information Systems Management In Practice 5E
- McNurlin & Sprague
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- Issues surrounding system development
- Infrastructure management: reduce costs
- Customer relationship: provide service
- Product innovation: speed
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- Recruiting IS Staff
- Finding people with the right skills
- Providing suitable work culture and incentives
- Designing motivating work
- Skill variety
- Task identity
- Task significance
- Autonomy
- Feedback
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- JDS Survey to measure:
- Growth need strength
- Social need strength
- Motivating potential score
- Gauging IT staff
- Improving the maintenance job
- Rethinking the maintenance work
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- Type of people involved in a change project
- Sponsor: the person or group that legitimizes the change
- Change agent: the person or group who causes the change to happen
- Target: the person or group who is being expected to change and at whom
the change is aimed
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- Methodology to manage technological change
- Conduct surveys to all three
groups to determine:
- Whether the scope of the project is doable, or whether the organization
is trying to change too much at one time
- Whether the sponsors are committed enough to push the change through,
or whether they are sitting back expecting the organization to change
on its own
- Whether the change agents have the skills to implement the change, or
whether they are not adept at rallying support
- Which groups are receptive to the change and which are resistant
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- Restructure the system: Applicable to systems that are basically doing
the job but run inefficiently or “fragile.” Seven Steps in
restructuring:
- Evaluate the amount of structure in the current system - number of
layers of nesting, degree of complexity, etc. Use tools to trace
program control logic.
- Compile the program, to be sure it is in working order
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- Restructure the system: (cont.)
- Run the program through a structuring engine, which cleans up and
restructures the code, following structured programming concepts. This
process does not change the logic of the program, but replaces poor
coding: reduces number of GOTOs, removes dead code, highlights loops,
and groups input/output.
- Reformat the listing to make it easier for programmers to understand
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- Restructure the system: (cont.)
- Ensure that the old and new versions produce the same output
- Minimize overhead introduced by restructuring (optimizer package)
- “Rationalize” the data by giving all uses of the same data one data
name
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- Reengineer the system: Step beyond restructuring, implies extracting the
data elements from an existing file and the business logic from an
existing program and moving them to an existing platform. See Life Cycle
Figure 10-5
- Reverse engineering: existing programs, along with their files and DB
descriptions are converted from their implementation level description
to their equivalent design level components
- Forward engineering: from requirements level to operational systems
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- Used reengineering to get their corporate data in shape.
- 4 main DB, designed application-by-application
- Records contain data elements that have no business relation to each
other, making them very difficult to reuse, enhance, and change
- Maintenance is the bulk of the work of DB administration group
- GTE using Bachman tools to redesign old DB, design new DB using portions
of existing ones, and create their blueprint for the future
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- Refurbish the system if the old system is maintainable and causing no
major problems; may be worthwhile to add extensions. Potential
extensions supply input in a new manner, make new uses of input, or deal
with data differently.
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- Refurbish legacy systems see Fig.
10-4
- Refurbish the input process - A front end can be added by using a 4GL
DBMS to create a DB that combines fields from old files with new
fields, then all input data flows into new DB
- Revise the Data Manipulation process - Once the new external DB is
created, data from it and the original system can be merged and
manipulated, e.g., project budgets and actual costs tracked differently
- extract DB created to convert actual data to budget data format
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- Refurbish legacy systems (cont.) see Fig 10-4
- Extend the query capabilities - An interactive query capability can be
added by creating a new query DB that gathers data from both the old
and new portions of the system, through a new DB for interrogation
- Enhance the output process - write a procedure to dump the data into a
4GL DB, merge old and new data to generate new reports, on paper or
online
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- Rejuvenate the system: adding new functions to a reengineered system to
make it more valuable. Phases of rejuvenation process:
- Recognize a system’s potential - first clean up existing system using
code restructuring tools and then building from there
- Clean up the system - transform the poorly structured COBOL code into
more structured, maintainable code
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- Rejuvenate the system: Phases of rejuvenation process (cont.)
- Make the system more efficient - system can be converted to a new
operating environment and a new file structure, together with manual
tuning and enhancements to reduce system processing time
- Give the system a strategic role - to answer the question “How can we
provide even more timely information or improve competitive position in
the marketplace.” Consider options, such as mainframe online or
distributed systems
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- Replace with a package or service: to move an old application to a new
operating environment, e.g. centralized to distributed, e.g., SAP
- Rewrite the system: if too far gone to rescue, obsolete technology;
beware of true cost and risk failure
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- Help other departments do their job better: “support systems” with the
goal to increase organizational efficiency
- Carry out a business strategy: e.g., CAD systems that customers and
suppliers can use together to design custom products. Differ from
support systems because they are used by customers
- As a product or service as the basis for a product or service: e.g.,
testing or design software that a company sells to another firm
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- Measuring Organizational Performance: Meeting deadlines and milestones,
operating within budget, and doing quality work. Performance measures internal
efficiency of operations.
- Measuring Business Value: Deals with marketplace goals, they must have a
direct impact on the company’s relationships with customers, clients, or
suppliers; e.g, sales/customer.
- Measuring a Product or Service: An IS offered as a product or service to
produce revenue, e.g., ROI.
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- What’s Important to Management?
- Measure in terms like customer relations, employee morale, customer
opinion, and “cycle time” - how long to accomplish a complete
assignment; fast cycle time might mean higher-quality products, beating
competitors to the market, winning a bid, etc.
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- IT benefits cross organizational levels, sources of value
- Individual
- Division
- Corporation
- Impact focus of an IT investment extends to
- Economic performance payoffs - market measures of performance
- Organizational process impacts - process change
- Technology impacts - key functionality
- Combine views to form a 3 x 3 matrix
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- Small trucking company in the refrigerated carrier business, experienced
50% loss in market share
- $10M investment in IT to differentiate itself and manage the company by
information. Installed satellite system and computer in each truck to be
in constant communication with customers.
- Measures:
- Driver productivity increased by .5 hr./day
- Improved load truck matching 1% deadhead time
- Customers willing to pay premium for ability to communicate -
unexpected revenue benefits.
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