1. Chapter 11Information System Planning

2. Information Systems Planning • Process of Information System Planning • Strategic Alignment of Business and Information Technology • Selecting Systems to Invest In • Project Management • Role of Systems Analysis

3. Introductory Case… • Owens Corning SAP installation • Badly needed • Very costly • Will it pay back? • What could have gone wrong? • What still can go wrong? • What did they do right? • Did you like the project team approach? • Should they have done it differently?

4. A WCA approach... • CUSTOMER • Building supply companies and contractors that purchase building materials from Owens Corning • PRODUCT • Reengineered work systems that aremore responsive to market needs

5. WCA, continued... • BUSINESS PROCESS • Major steps: • Create a vision for how company operations should change • Select SAP R/3 as the approach for improving information systems • Create a large project team at headquarters • Analyze how to use SAP • Install SAP on computers • Train people to use it • Use SAP in practice • Rationale: • Replace multiple, incompatible information systems with an integrated information system that makes it possible to serve customers more effectively.

6. WCA, continued... • PARTICIPANTS • Project team consisting of half business professionals and half IS professionals • Users who were trained and then used the new information system • INFORMATION • Company strategy • Project goals • Details of business operations • Selected options for using SAP • TECHNOLOGY • SAP R/3 software package • Computers and other hardware

7. Process of Information System Planning • What is an information system plan? • Challenges in IS planning • Principles for IS planning • Role of IS and user departments • Allocating (and reallocating) resources • Project roles of IS staff

8. What is an information system plan? • Who • is responsible for each part of the plan • What • does IS need to do • When • do things need to be completed • How • Will we do it (what technology) • What is the desired result?

9. Why is IT planning challenging? • Difficult to foresee and assess opportunities • Difficult to mesh with organizational plans & objectives • Tough to build systems • Owens Corning case… • Difficult to maintain system performance • Saga of web registration at UNC

10. Principles for IS Planning • Support organizations IT architecture • what is an IT architecture? • Technology is part of the system, not all • Recognize life cycle costs • Design for maintainability • Remember the humans! • Support the evolution of the technical system

11. Roles of IS and users • IS department produces IS plan…but can’t do it in a vacuum • Need help and input from the users • User roles (what are these?) • Sponsors • Champions • Steering committee

12. Resource allocation • Maintaining existing systems and supporting users • New development, infrastructure, R&D • Important to do this; will often pay significant benefits • Technical • Political

13. IT staff roles • Large system development projects involve many roles such as the following -- can you define their roles? • Project managers • Application programmers • Systems analysts • Programmer-analysts • Technical writers • Computer operators • Database administrators • System managers • Systems programmers • User support staffs

14. Strategic Alignment of Business and IT • Consistency with business priorities

15. Strategic Alignment of Business and IT • Reengineering & downsizing • Enterprise-wide and inter-organizational systems • Information systems architecture • Let’s look at the Orange County template

16. Strategic Alignment of Business and IT • Centralization?

17. Strategic Alignment of Business and IT • Business infrastructure • Outsourcing • Good or bad? What’s your opinion?

18. Selecting systems to invest in • Cost/benefit analysis • Risks • Financial comparisons (NPV, IRR, payback,etc.)

19. Project Management Issues • Division of labor • IS department • Users • Keeping on schedule… • Gantt chart

20. Why is it hard to develop/deliver the right system?

21. A Gantt chart in action… • Take 5 minutes and develop a Gantt chart for the steps in buying a home audio system

22. Role of Systems Analysis • Information sources for analyzing systems • Interview • Inputs, outputs and documentation of existing systems • On-site observation • Questionnaires • Benchmarking • Interviews • Watch for • missing viewpoints • superficial information • distorted information