Chapter 12: Systems Planning and Development

1. Management Information Systems, Sixth Edition Chapter 12: Systems Planning and Development

2. Objectives • Explain the importance of and steps in IT planning • Describe the systems development life cycle, which is the traditional approach to systems development • Explain the challenges involved in systems development • List the advantages and disadvantages of different system conversion strategies Management Information Systems, Sixth Edition

3. Objectives (continued) • Enumerate and explain the principles of agile systems development methods • Be able to contribute a meaningful set of requirements when serving on a project development team for a new or modified IS • Explain the concept of systems integration • Discuss whether IS professionals should be certified Management Information Systems, Sixth Edition

4. Planning Information Systems • Enterprise ISs are gaining in popularity • However, they: • Require a substantial investment • Carry a high risk in implementation • Successful integration of the system is vital • Must align IT strategies with the overall organization strategies • Careful planning of an IS implementation is necessary Management Information Systems, Sixth Edition

5. Steps in Planning Information Systems • IT planning includes several key steps: • Create a corporate and IT mission statement • Articulate the vision for IT within the organization • Create IT strategic and tactical plans • Create a plan for operations to achieve the mission and vision • Create a budget to ensure that resources are available to achieve the mission and vision Management Information Systems, Sixth Edition

6. Management Information Systems, Sixth Edition

7. Steps in Planning Information Systems (continued) • Mission statement: communicates the most important overarching goal of organization • Includes how the goals will be achieved • IS mission statement: describes the role of IT in the organization • Should be compatible with the organizational mission statement • Includes the ideal combination of hardware, software, and networking to support the mission Management Information Systems, Sixth Edition

8. Steps in Planning Information Systems (continued) • CIO develops a strategic plan for implementation of IT in the organization: • What technology will be used by employees, customers, and suppliers • Goals in the plan are broken down into objectives, such as: • Resources to be acquired or developed • Timetables for acquiring and implementing resources • Training Management Information Systems, Sixth Edition

9. Steps in Planning Information Systems (continued) • Objectives are broken down to operational details • IT planning is similar to planning of other resource acquisitions • Growing proportion of IT funds is spent on software in recent years • More purchasing and adapting of software • Less developing in-house software Management Information Systems, Sixth Edition

10. Management Information Systems, Sixth Edition

11. The Benefits of Standardization in Planning • One major goal and advantage of planning is standardization • Benefits include: • Cost savings: better bargaining power in purchasing and leasing hardware and software • Efficient training: a smaller variety of software reduces employee training needs • Efficient support: enables more staff specialization Management Information Systems, Sixth Edition

12. From Planning to Development • After planning, management must decide how to obtain the systems (usually software) • Approaches to systems development are the same for in-house or purchased systems • Two general approaches: • Systems development life cycle (SDLC), the traditional approach • Nontraditional methods, including agile methods • Prototyping: fast development of an application based on initial user requirements Management Information Systems, Sixth Edition

13. The Systems Development Life Cycle • Large ISs are conceived, planned, and developed within the systems development life cycle (SDLC) framework • Also known as waterfall development • Consists of four major sequential phases: • Analysis • Design • Implementation • Support Management Information Systems, Sixth Edition

14. Management Information Systems, Sixth Edition

15. Analysis • Systems analysis: a five-step process • Investigation • Technical feasibility study • Economic feasibility study • Operational feasibility study • Requirements definition Management Information Systems, Sixth Edition

16. Management Information Systems, Sixth Edition

17. Analysis (continued) • Investigation • Is a system really necessary? • Is the system, as conceived, feasible? • Small ad hoc team usually performs a preliminary investigation by interviewing employees • Feasibility studies: a larger analysis conducted after preliminary results indicate an IS is warranted Management Information Systems, Sixth Edition

18. Analysis (continued) • Technical feasibility study: • Determines if components exist or can be developed • Determines if the organization has adequate hardware • Economic feasibility study: • Determines if the new IS is economically justified • Cost/benefit analysis: spreadsheet showing all costs and benefits of the proposed system • Benefits must outweigh the costs over the life of the system Management Information Systems, Sixth Edition

19. Analysis (continued) • Return on investment (ROI): most accurate economic analysis • Calculates the difference between the stream of benefits and the stream of costs over the life of the system • May be difficult to justify the cost of a new IS because many benefits are intangible and cannot be quantified in dollar terms • Examples: business intelligence (BI) and knowledge management (KM) systems Management Information Systems, Sixth Edition

20. Management Information Systems, Sixth Edition

21. Analysis (continued) • Operational feasibility study: • Determines how the new system will be used • Organizational culture: general tone of the corporate environment • Must determine the new system’s compatibility with the organizational culture • Requirements definition: details what the system should be able to do • System requirements: detail the functions and features expected from the new system Management Information Systems, Sixth Edition

22. Design • Design: the second phase in systems development • Systems design: includes three steps for devising the means to meet all the requirements • Description of the components • Construction • Testing • If purchasing a system: • Design phase determines how to adapt the existing software • Construction: actual changes in program code Management Information Systems, Sixth Edition

23. Management Information Systems, Sixth Edition

24. Design (continued) • Symbols are used to communicate ideas about data, processes, and information • Visual information can be grasped more quickly • Data flow diagram (DFD): describes the flow of data in a business operation using four symbols • External entities: individuals and groups external to the system (customers, employees, etc.) • Processes: an event or events that affect data • Data store: any form of data at rest • Direction of data flow: indicates how data moves Management Information Systems, Sixth Edition

25. Management Information Systems, Sixth Edition

26. Design (continued) • The simplicity of a DFD is its advantage • DFD symbols are suitable for describing any IS, including noncomputer-based ISs • Can help pinpoint weaknesses: • Where processes can be automated • What is shared by different processes • What can be changed to strengthen the IS • A DFD cannot describe a system completely • Does not depict computations within processes or timing relationships among data flows Management Information Systems, Sixth Edition

27. Management Information Systems, Sixth Edition

28. Design (continued) • Unified modeling language (UML): de facto standard for visualizing, specifying, and documenting software • Helps developers communicate and logically validate desired features • Is independent of programming languages • Provides standard symbols and notations for depicting object-oriented elements Management Information Systems, Sixth Edition

29. Design (continued) • UML consists of diagrams: • Use case: an activity of the system in response to the user (an actor) • Class: describes class structure and contents • Interaction: describes interactions of objects and the sequence of their activities • State charts: indicate the states through which objects pass and their responses to stimuli • Activity: represents highly active states triggered by completion of other actions • Physical diagrams: high-level descriptions of software modules Management Information Systems, Sixth Edition

30. Management Information Systems, Sixth Edition

31. Design (continued) • Construction • Consists of mostly programming activities • May take months or years • Completed modules are tested via a walk-through of the program logic or a simulation of actual program execution • System testing • Tests the entire integrated system, comparing results to the system requirements • Testing period often is the victim of schedule or budget compression, resulting in poor testing Management Information Systems, Sixth Edition

32. Implementation • Implementation: delivery of a new system • Consists of two steps: • Conversion • Training • Training may or may not precede conversion • Conversion: switching from the old system to the new system • Can be a very difficult time Management Information Systems, Sixth Edition

33. Implementation (continued) • Four basic conversion strategies: • Parallel conversion: the old system is used simultaneously with the new system at first • Phased conversion: breaks the new IS into modules and integrates one at a time • Reduces risk but delays some benefits • Cut-over conversion (or flash cut conversion): immediately replaces all modules • Risky but may be inexpensive • Pilot conversion: introduces the IS into one business unit at a time • Beta site:a site that tests the new system Management Information Systems, Sixth Edition

34. Management Information Systems, Sixth Edition

35. Support • Support: begins after delivery, and includes two responsibilities • Maintenance: postimplementation debugging, updates, and adding postponed features • User help • Maintenance comprises up to 80% of IS budgets • Support is the longest phase of the system life cycle • Effective maintenance requires good system documentation Management Information Systems, Sixth Edition

36. Agile Methods • Agile methods: alternative development methods • Treat software development as series of contacts with users • Goal: fast development of software • Improve software after user requests for modifications received • Agile methods use iterative programming Management Information Systems, Sixth Edition

37. Agile Methods (continued) • Popular agile methods include: • Extreme programming (XP) • Adaptive software development (ASD) • Lean development (LD) • Rational unified process (RUP) • Feature driven development (FDD) • Dynamic systems development method (DSDM) • Scrum • Crystal Management Information Systems, Sixth Edition

38. Management Information Systems, Sixth Edition

39. Agile Methods (continued) • Major advantage of agile methods: • Fast development of application software • Agile method risks include: • Analysis phase is limited or eliminated, increasing the risk of incompatibilities • More emphasis on programming, resulting in less documentation, which may make it difficult or impossible to make later modifications Management Information Systems, Sixth Edition

40. Agile Methods (continued) • Manifesto for Agile Software Development expresses these priorities: • Individuals and interactions over processes • Working software over comprehensive documentation • Customer collaboration over contract negotiation • Responding to change over following a plan • Agile methods aim to have light but sufficient development processes Management Information Systems, Sixth Edition

41. Agile Methods (continued) • User involvement is encouraged throughout the process • Modules are tested immediately after completion • Communication with users is informal • Extreme programming uses two programmers per module working on the same computer • Fosters constructive criticism and feedback • Domino’s Pizza successfully implemented XP method; DaimlerChrysler did not Management Information Systems, Sixth Edition

42. When to Use Agile Methods • Agile methods are best used: • When a desired system is small • Analysis is less important • Requires a smaller investment of resources • For unstructured problems • For developing user interfaces • When users cannot specify all requirements at the start of the project • They may be unfamiliar with the technology • Requirements may be difficult to conceptualize Management Information Systems, Sixth Edition

43. When Not to Use Agile Methods • Do not use agile methods when: • The desired system is large or complex • System failure entails great financial loss • The desired system must interface with other systems • SDLC recommended for complex systems • Documentation is key for integration Management Information Systems, Sixth Edition

44. Management Information Systems, Sixth Edition

45. Project Planning and Management Tools • Several tools exist to help plan and manage a development project, including IS projects • IBM’s Rational Portfolio Manager: • Helps plan investment in a new system and manage the development project and delivery • Primavera’s ProSight: • Helps plan and manage application portfolios, resources, budgets, and compliance with government regulations Management Information Systems, Sixth Edition

46. Project Planning and Management Tools (continued) • Primavera’s eProject: • Web-based tool that allows members and customers to define tasks and manage projects Management Information Systems, Sixth Edition

47. Systems Integration • Systems integration: • Examines the needs of entire organization • Produces a plan to combine disparate systems to allow data to flow between units • Some service companies specialize in systems integration • Integration is more challenging than development • Legacy systems may need to be interfaced with new systems Management Information Systems, Sixth Edition

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49. Systems Integration (continued) • Systems integrators must be skilled in hardware and software • May be difficult to overcome hardware and software incompatibility issues between systems • Systems integration may span several organizations, requiring integration using telecommunications Management Information Systems, Sixth Edition

50. Summary • IT planning is important because of high investment costs and high risk in implementing enterprise applications • Standardization is an important part of IT planning • Systems development life cycle (SDLC) has well-defined phases: analysis, design, implementation, and support • Purpose of systems analysis is to determine what needs the system will satisfy Management Information Systems, Sixth Edition