Systems Request and Review Committee Quiz

Chapter 2: Analyzing the Business Case

• Learning objectives of the chapter include describing strategic planning, conducting SWOT analysis, explaining how tools support strategic planning, explaining business case concepts, summarizing reasons for systems requests, and describing factors affecting systems projects.
• Learning objectives also include explaining how systems requests are processed, assessed, prioritized, and involve preliminary investigations.
• Strategic planning involves identifying long-term organizational goals, strategies, and resources. It begins with a mission statement reflecting vision, purpose, and values. A critical success factor is a high-priority objective. SWOT analysis considers strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. It also examines technical, human, and financial resources.
• A SWOT analysis example on web design staff turnover, upgraded networks and several legacy systems. Opportunities for expansion, being first with new software, and high potential for B2B growth exist. Opportunities are balanced with threats including aggressive new web competition and other firm offering better benefits. A SWOT analysis can focus on particular company assets like a patent with strengths in valuable technology. However, patents have a limited life.
• Strategic planning also involves the role of the IT department supporting business strategy and needs. Scope is well-defined and goals are realistic. Goals are tied to specific statements, assumptions, constraints, factors, and other inputs.
• Strategic Planning Tools can vary and include Microsoft Word and Excel, CASE tools, mind maps, balanced scorecards, and gap analysis.
• Business Case justification provides a comprehensible and easily understood proposal description of the project, its justification to proceed, and financial impact estimations. Answering questions like the project's purpose, cost and time requirements, risks, and success measurement metrics. What alternatives exist?
• System requests are the starting point for information systems projects, providing ways to ask for IT support, stronger controls, more information, better performance, improved service, and more support for new products and services. Reasons for system requests include stronger controls, more support, improved service, better performance, reduced costs, and more information. Systems are related.
• System requests are processed through a review committee or computer resources committee. Formats for evaluating requests, streamlining requests, ensuring consistency, clarity, instructions, supporting documents and electronic submissions are necessary.
• Feasibility studies can be simple or exhaustive, initial fact-finding often involves studying organizational charts or performing interviews. Current documentation, observing operations, and surveying users are also considered. Operational, technical, economic, and schedule factors are part of feasibility studies.
• Operational feasibility focuses on effective use post-development, potential organizational cultural impact, and careful study. Questions around management and user support, workforce reduction, and legal/ethical considerations are part of this process.
• Economic feasibility considers the projected benefits outweighing the TCO. Determining TCO requires cost analysis, including personnel (including IT), hardware/equipment, software, formal/informal training, licenses, consulting/facility costs and cost estimations of not starting or delaying developments. Intangible costs and benefits are significant for organizational performance. Intangible benefits are important for the company.
• Technical feasibility assesses needed technical resources, hardware/software/network resources, expertise, platform capacity for future and any prototype requirements.
• Schedule feasibility considers project completion within an acceptable timeframe. Important considerations include time v costs, company/IT team control over contributing factors, defined timelines, accelerated schedule posing risks and other project management techniques availability.
• Setting priorities involves understanding dynamic priorities, factors affecting request priorities, and evaluating cost reduction, revenue increase, information/result improvement, customer / organization service improvement. Factors affecting setting priorities also include if the project can be implemented within a reasonable time period, and if the necessary resources (financial, human, and technical) are available. Discretionary versus nondiscretionary projects are identified. Nondiscretionary projects often follow a predictable pattern, such as annual payroll updates and calculated values like tax percentage changes, or quarterly variations.
• Preliminary investigation involves planning the investigation, meeting with key stakeholders like managers, users, and IT staff, describing the project, clarifying roles, answering questions proactively, and focusing heavily on improvements, not necessarily problems. Six main steps in a preliminary investigation: understanding issues, defining scope and restraints, conducting fact finding, analyzing collected data, studying feasibility, presenting recommendations to management, and documenting the whole project.