Linking IS Plans to Business Plans
Business and IT professionals need to work closely to ensure that the business and IT plans are properly aligned
* Failure to do so could lead to unproductive investments and eventually to loss of
competitive advantage.
Mission
A short statement about what the organization is here to achieve.
Vision
A short statement about how the organization sees the ideal future
Objectives
A specific, measurable, future
state of affairs
Strategies
An long term plan for how an
organization will achieve its vision, mission
and key objectives.
Tactics
Specific programmes that will be used to implement the strategy.
How do organisations choose regarding Developing and/or Acquiring New Systems
–Developing in house (Make) or
–Buy (license, outsource, SaaS)
The choice Developing and/or Acquiring New Systems makes is a function of
– Resources and capabilities
– Corporate strategy
– Time pressure
– Prices
– Culture and politics
– The business environment
If the organization decides to develop its own
systems in-house it can
– use Traditional development methodologies (SDLC)
– use Agile Development Methodologies
(Prototyping, RAD, Extreme programming etc.
– Encourage End User Development
– Open Source
– Hybrid
About The Systems Development Lifecycle (SDLC)
is a phased approach to developing new systems.
* It has been around since the 1960s and is well understood. It has, however, been criticized as being too slow and costly. The SDLC is based on a step-by-step approach. Each step must be completed before moving on to the next.
First three steps on The Systems Development Lifecycle (SDLC)
-Problem/Opportunity: Average Registration time is 14 days. Opportunity to reduce to 5
minutes.
- Investigation: Why is registration taking so long? What are the steps? Where are the bottlenecks?
-Create Conceptual Design: Design of workflow,
databases, input screens, reports.
Last four steps on The Systems Development Lifecycle (SDLC)
-Development: Start writing the programs, developing screen layouts, databases and
reports.
-Testing: Test individual components. Test the
system as a whole? Get rid of bugs and bottlenecks. Does it work?
-Implementation: Out with the old, in with the
new!!
Maintenance: Student ID being expanded from 12 to 20 characters.
About agile methods
- Agile Methods have been proposed as solutions to the length of time it takes to use the SDLC. The major focus of Agile methods is speed not
perfection. Agile methods envisions small teams of users
and developers collaborating though an iterative process.
Prototyping and Extreme programming are two of the most common forms of Agile
methods.
Problem with agile methods
While Agile methods might be faster many fear that teams may overlook critical issues
(security, scalability) in a rush to get something up and running.
* For this reason, some organizations feel more
comfortable using the SDLC for critical systems and Agile methods for noncore systems.
- Or they use a hybrid methodology of SDLC/agile.
What is end user development?
is a process whereby
end users are provided with user friendly development tools and encouraged to develop
their own systems
What is end user development used for?
to reduce the bottleneck of projects that the IT
department can handle at any one time.
Examples of end user development
Tools like Microsoft Excel and Access can be used to create simple databases and models. Crystal Reports and Focus are flexible report writers that can allow end users to extract
valuable information from corporate databases.
* Dreamweaver and Microsoft Expressions can be used to develop simple Intranets and
Extranets.
Problems with end user development
However, as with Agile methods, many worry that end user development is best suited for
small, noncritical systems.
* Major systems with strategic implications are left to the professionals in the IT department.
*The pros will continue to use a combination of the SDLC and Agile Methods.
What is Open source?
Software that is shared, often free of charge
* Only restriction, is any changes need be shared with the community
What is Acquiring Systems (Buy)?
If an organization decided not to attempt to develop systems internally it can opt to
acquire a system.
* Here there are a few choices
– Licensing
– Outsourcing
About acquiring systems (buy)- Licensing
If an organization decides to buy a system it can opt to acquire a license for pre-developed
“off the shelf” software. For example, rather than developing an ERP system “in house” a company can license a
system from SAP. When an organization licenses a system it
often chooses to run the system on its own hardware.
* Note that licensing a system does not mean that you own the system. You have just been
granted a right to use it.
Advantages and disadvantages of licensing
One advantage of this method is that it is considerably faster than developing the system in house.
* Another is that it is often much less costly as the cost of development has been amortized over many customers.
* A disadvantage is that the system may not be an “exact” match for the organizations
requirements.
About acquiring systems (buy)- Outsourcing
For example, UWI could decide that Registration was a non critical function and
“outsource” it to IBM.
* IBM would then, in the background, run all UWI’s registration systems and processes. With outsourcing, the outsourced department
is often transferred to the vendor
Example of outsourcing (Saas)
Software as a Service (Saas)-The use of SaaS is predicated on the availability of a high-speed network to link the
service provider and the customer. Today, most organizations use the Internet to
provide this link.
