Information Systems Analysis Chapter 4

IT 352: Information Systems Analysis and Design

• Course taught by Haifa Alhasson in 2020
• Course material is from Chapter 3 and Chapter 2 of a source copyrighted 2011 by Pearson Education Inc. publication.

Brief List of Topics

• Overview of Information System development environment
• Managing the Information Systems Project
• Identifying and Selecting Systems Development Projects
• Initiating and Planning Systems Development Projects
• Determine the system requirements
• Structuring System Process Requirements
• Designing information systems
• System Implementation
• Maintaining Information Systems

Modern Systems Analysis and Design Chapter 4

• Topic: Identifying and Selecting Systems Development Projects

Learning Objectives

• Describe the project identification and selection process.
• Describe corporate strategic planning and information systems planning process.
• Explain the relationship between corporate strategic planning and information systems planning.
• Describe how information systems planning can be used to assist in identifying and selecting systems development projects.
• Analyze information systems planning matrices to determine affinity or similarity between information systems and IS projects and to forecast the impact of IS projects on business objectives.
• Describe the three classes of Internet electronic commerce applications: Internet, intranets, and extranets.

Identifying and Selecting Systems Development Projects

• Systems development life cycle with project identification and selection highlighted
• Project Identification and Selection
• Project Initiation and Planning
• Planning
• Analysis
• Design
• Implementation
• Maintenance

The Process of Identifying and Selecting IS Development Projects

• Identifying potential or possible development projects
• Identification from a stakeholder group. Each stakeholder group brings their own perspective and motivation to the IS decision.
• Top-down source projects identified by top management or by a diverse steering committee.
• Bottom-up source are project initiatives stemming from managers, business units, or the development group.
• The process varies substantially or largely across organizations.

The Process of Identifying and Selecting IS Development Projects (Cont.)

• Classifying and ranking IS development projects using value chain analysis or other evaluation criteria
• Value chain analysis: the process of analyzing an organization's activities for making products and/or services to determine where value is added and costs are incurred.
• Selecting IS development projects based on various factors, considering both short- and long-term projects, and selecting those most likely to achieve business objectives. This is a very important and ongoing activity.
• Project selection decisions must consider numerous factors and can have numerous outcomes. These include accepting a project, rejecting it, delaying it, refocusing it, end-user development, or proof of concept.
• One method for deciding among different projects or alternative designs is scoring each alternative by weighting each requirement/constraint rating to produce scores. The alternative with the highest sum score wins.

The Process of Identifying and Selecting IS Development Projects (Cont.)

• Possible evaluation criteria when classifying and ranking projects include value chain analysis, strategic alignment, potential benefits, resource availability, project size/duration, and technical difficulty/risks.

The Process of Identifying and Selecting IS Development Projects (Cont.)

• A table shows weighting methodology for ranking alternative project options.

Deliverables and Outcomes

• Primary deliverable from the first part of the planning phase is a schedule of specific IS development projects.
• Outcome of the next part of the planning phase - project initiation and planning - is the assurance guarantee that careful consideration was given to project selection and each project can help the organization reach its goals.
• Incremental commitment: A strategy in systems analysis and design in which the project is reviewed after each phase and continuation or carryover of the project is re-justified.

Corporate and Information Systems Planning

• To benefit from a planning-based approach for identifying and selecting projects, an organization must analyze its information needs thoroughly and plan its projects carefully.

Corporate Strategic Planning

• Ongoing process that defines mission, objectives, and strategies of an organization
• Corporate strategy involves mission statement, objective statements, and description of competitive strategies.

Corporate Strategic Planning (Cont.)

• Example mission statement: Pine Valley Furniture: "We are in the business of designing, fabricating, and selling high-quality wood furniture for household, office, and institutional use. We value quality in our products and in our relationships with customers and suppliers. We consider our employees our most critical resource."

Corporate Strategic Planning (Cont.)

• Example statement of objectives: Pine Valley Furniture: includes increasing market share and profitability, becoming a market leader in customer service, being innovative with new technology, employing only top-quality people to achieve goals, and creating an environment valuing diversity.

Corporate Strategic Planning (Cont.)

• Competitive strategy: the method by which an organization attempts to achieve its mission and objectives, including low-cost producer, product differentiation, and product focus or niche.

Information Systems Planning (ISP)

• An orderly means of assessing the information needs of an organization and defining systems, databases, and technologies that will best meet those needs.
• ISP must be done in accordance with the organization's mission, objectives, and competitive strategy.

Information Systems Planning (Cont.)

• Parallel activities of corporate strategic planning and information systems planning.
• Current and Future Enterprise
• Strategic Plan
• Schedule of Projects(Listing of projects)
• IS planning must be kept or reserved in line with corporate strategic planning.

Information Systems Planning (Cont.)

• Top-down planning attempts to gain a broad understanding of information system needs of the entire organization and offers broader perspective or viewpoint, improved integration or incorporation, improved management support, and better understanding.

Information Systems Planning (Cont.)

• Advantages to the top-down approach include a broader perspective of the needs of an organization. If not viewed from the top, information systems may not be properly aligned with overall business needs.

Information Systems Planning (Cont.)

• Bottom-up planning identifies IS development projects based on solving specific operational business problems or taking advantage of specific opportunities.
• Bottom-up planning can be faster and less costly, so may be beneficial in certain circumstances.

Business Functions, Data Entities, and Information Systems of PVF

• Tables listing business functions, data entities, and information systems for Pine Valley Furniture include business planning, product development, marketing and sales, production operations, and finance and accounting.

Information Systems Planning of Pine Valley Furniture (PVF)

• Functional Decomposition: breaking high-level abstract information into smaller units for more detailed planning.

Information Systems Planning of Pine Valley Furniture (PVF)

• IS planning matrices describe relationships between pairs of organizational elements.

Information Systems Planning of Pine Valley Furniture (PVF)

• Data Entity-to-Function matrix (Pine Valley Furniture)

IS Plan Components

• Briefly describe mission, objectives, and strategy of the organization.
• Provide summary of current and future processes, functions, data entities, and information needs of the enterprise.

IS Plan Components (Cont.)

• Describe primary role IS will play in the organization to transform enterprise from current to future state.
• Describe limitations imposed by technology and current levels of financial, technical, and personnel resources.

IS Plan Components (Cont.)

• Summarize overall information systems needs in the company and set long-term strategies for filling the needs.
• Show detailed inventory of present projects and systems and detailed plan for the current year.

IS Plan Components (Cont.)

• Describe unknown but likely events that can affect the plan, presently known business change elements and their impact on the plan.

Information Systems (IS) Plan

• A diagram illustrates the information systems plan, including organizational mission, informational inventory, mission and objectives of IS, constraints, long-range IS strategies, short-term plan, and conclusions, with projects flowing from the plan.

Electronic Commerce Applications and Internet Basics

• Electronic Commerce (EC): Internet-based communication to support day-to-day business activities
• Internet: a large worldwide network of networks that use a common protocol to communicate with each other
• Intranet: Internet-based communication to support business activities within a single organization

Electronic Commerce Applications and Internet Basics (Cont.)

• Extranet: Internet-based communication to support business-to-business activities
• Electronic data interchange (EDI): the use of telecommunications technologies to transfer business documents directly between organizations.

Electronic Commerce Applications and Internet Basics (Cont.)

• A table shows unknowns that must be addressed when designing and building Internet applications, including the user, connection speed, and access method.

Summary

• Describes the project identification and selection process, corporate strategic planning and information systems planning, and the relationship between corporate strategic planning and IS planning.

Summary (Cont.)

• Describes how IS planning can assist in system development project identification and selection, analyzes IS planning matrices, and describes three classes of E-Commerce applications.

This quiz focuses on the key concepts of Chapter 4 in the Information Systems Analysis and Design course. Examine essential elements such as stakeholder involvement in project selection, types of e-commerce applications, and the relationship between corporate strategic planning and information systems planning. Test your understanding of prioritizing IS development projects and the analytical processes involved.