Information Systems & Organizational Change: A Deep Dive
1. Four Types of Organizational Change Supported by IT
Automation
Automation improves employee efficiency and effectiveness. Early examples include automated payroll, instant access to client files for bank tellers, and nationwide airline reservation networks.
Process Structuring
Structuring often reveals bottlenecks and cumbersome procedures, leading to streamlined standard operating procedures.
Business Process Reengineering (BPR)
BPR analyzes, simplifies, and redesigns business processes, reorganizing workflows to reduce waste and eliminate repetitive paper-intensive tasks.
Paradigm Shifts
Paradigm shifts involve rethinking the nature of business, establishing new business models, and often changing the organization’s nature. While paradigm shifts and BPR offer high rewards, they are challenging due to the difficulty of managing widespread organizational change.
2. Business Process Reengineering (BPR)
Rethinking and redesigning business processes before building information systems can yield significant returns on IT investments. Workflow management streamlines processes for efficient document movement.
Steps for Effective BPR:
- Strategic analysis: Focus on business processes crucial to company success.
- Affliction analysis: Address processes with the most complaints.
- Identify inputs and outputs.
- Identify the flow of goods/services.
- Identify the network of activities and gaps.
- Identify all resources.
- Identify the structure and information flow.
- Identify process owners.
- Identify actors and decision-makers.
- Determine process cost, time, quality, and flexibility.
- Replace sequential steps with parallel steps.
- Enrich jobs with decision-making authority and information.
- Enable information sharing.
- Eliminate gaps.
- Transform batch processing to flow processes.
- Automate tasks where appropriate.
BPR is typically a one-time effort focused on radical change in strategic processes. Business process management and quality improvement programs offer more incremental and continuous change.
3. Information Systems and Quality Improvement
Total Quality Management (TQM) and Six Sigma are more gradual than BPR. TQM focuses on continuous improvement, while Six Sigma uses statistical analysis for minor adjustments. Information systems support quality goals by simplifying improvements based on customer demands, reducing cycle time, increasing design and production quality, and enforcing benchmarking standards.
4. Systems Analysis vs. Systems Design
Systems analysis defines what a system should do, while systems design details how it will achieve those goals.
5. Reporting Requirements
Information requirements involve identifying who needs what information, where, when, and how. Defective requirements analysis is a major cause of system failures and high development costs.
6. Testing in Systems Development
Thorough testing ensures the system produces correct results. Three types of tests include:
- Unit testing: Checks each program individually.
- System testing: Checks the entire system operation.
- Acceptance testing: Certifies the system for production use.
7. Roles in Systems Development
- Programming: Translates design specifications into code.
- Conversion: Changes from the old system to the new (parallel, direct, pilot, or phased).
- Production: Reviews the system’s performance against objectives.
- Maintenance: Modifies hardware, software, documentation, or procedures to correct errors, meet new requirements, or improve efficiency.
8. Object-Oriented vs. Structured Modeling
Structured methods are good for process modeling but less effective for data modeling. They treat data and processes separately. Object-oriented development treats objects (combining data and processes) as the basic unit.
9. Traditional Systems Life Cycle
This method involves a formal division of labor between end-users and specialists. It’s suitable for large, complex systems requiring rigorous analysis and control, but can be expensive, slow, and inflexible.
10. Prototyping Information Systems
Prototyping builds an experimental system for user evaluation. Steps include:
- Identify basic user requirements.
- Develop an initial prototype.
- Use the prototype.
- Review and improve the prototype.
11. Application Software Packages
Packages offer pre-built applications for common business functions (e.g., payroll, inventory). They eliminate the need for custom software but limit control over system design.
12. End-User Development
End-users can develop some systems without specialist assistance. This is faster but poses organizational risks. Management should monitor end-user development, require cost justification, and establish standards.
13. Subcontracting for Systems Development
Companies can outsource system development or operation to specialized organizations.
14. Rapid Application Development (RAD)
RAD creates functional systems quickly using tools like object-oriented reusable software, prototyping, and fourth-generation tools.
15. Component-Based Development and Web Services
Component-based development combines commercial components with custom software. Web services enable communication and data sharing across platforms, reducing costs and enabling collaboration.