Developing Business/IT Solutions

Chapter 12 Developing
Business/IT Solutions
James A. O'Brien, and George Marakas.

Management Information Systems with MISource
2007, 8th ed. Boston, MA: McGraw-Hill, Inc.,
2007. ISBN: 13 9780073323091
Learning Objectives
 Use the systems development process outlined in
this chapter and the model of IS components from
Chapter 1 as problem-solving frameworks to help
you propose IS solutions to simple business
problems
 Describe and give examples to illustrate how you
might use each of the steps of the IS development
cycle to develop and implement a business IS
 Explain how prototyping can be used as an
effective technique to improve the process of
systems development for end users and IS
specialists
Chapter 12 Developing Business/IT Solutions 2
Learning Objectives
 Understand the basics of project management
and their importance to a successful system
development effort
 Identify the activities involved in the
implementation of new IS
 Compare and contrast the four basic system
conversation strategies
 Describe several evaluation factors that should
be considered in evaluating the acquisition of
hardware, software, and IS services

IS Development
 When the systems approach is applied to
the development of an information systems
solution to business problems, it is called
information systems development or
application development

Case 1 Customer-Driven
Development
 At Intuit, development of new product ideas are
driven by a psychologist
 Playing nice
 Free-association sessions
 Focus is always on the customer
 Making “pain points” less painful
 Capturing pencil-and-paper users
 Follow-me-homes
 Simplifying language

Case Study Questions
 Should Intuit’s “far-out thinking” and acceptance of failure
as part of the application software development process
be duplicated at large software development companies
like Microsoft?
 Should it be duplicated at the thousands of
small independent software companies that exist?
 Which do you prefer?
 Intuit’s customer-driven development process where
hundreds of employees and managers
are sent to consult with customer in their homes or
places of business, or
 Microsoft’s process of using professional
anthropologists to do such research
 Intuit developed the wildly successful
QuickBooks: Simple Start Edition, which
eliminated all accounting jargon
 Could this idea be the foundation of a new
version of Intuit’s top-selling TurboTax
software, which removed all tax accounting
jargon from that product to reach the 20
million Americans who do not use tax
preparation software or a professional tax
preparer?
 Would such a product be possible or
successful?
The Systems Approach
 A problem solving technique that uses a systems
orientation to define problems and opportunities and
develop appropriate and feasible solutions
 Analyzing a problem and formulating a solution
involves these interrelated activities:
 Recognize and define a problem or opportunity
using systems thinking
 Develop and evaluate alternative system solutions
 Select the solution that best meets your
requirements
 Design the selected system solution
 Implement and evaluate the success of the system

What is Systems Thinking?
 Seeing the forest and the trees in any situation
 Seeing interrelationships among systems
rather than linear cause-and-effect chains
 Seeing processes of change among systems
rather than discrete snapshots of change
 See the system in any situation
 Find the input, processing, output, feedback
and control components

Systems Thinking Example

Systems Analysis and Design
 SA&D is the overall process by which IS are
designed and implemented
 Includes identification of business problems
 Two most common approaches
 Object-oriented analysis and design
 Life cycle

Systems
Development
Lifecycle
(SDLC)

Systems Development Process
 Systems Investigation
 The first step in the systems development
process
 May involve consideration of proposals
generated by a business/IT planning process
 Also includes the preliminary feasibility study
of proposed information system solutions

Systems Development Process
 Feasibility Studies: a preliminary study to
determine the
 Information needs of prospective users
 Resource requirements
 Costs
 Benefits
 Feasibility
 In some cases, a feasibility study is unnecessary

Operational Feasibility
 How well the proposed system will
 Support the business priorities of the
organization
 Solve the identified problem
 Fit with the existing organizational structure

Economic Feasibility
 An assessment of
 Cost savings
 Increased revenue
 Decreased investment requirements
 Increased profits
 Cost/benefit analysis

Technical Feasibility
 Determine the following can meet the needs of a
proposed system and can be acquired or
developed in the required time
 Hardware
 Software
 Network

Human Factors Feasibility
 Assess the acceptance level of
 Employees
 Customers
 Suppliers
 Management support
 Determine the right people for the various
new or revised roles

Legal/Political Feasibility
 Assess
 Possible patent or copyright violations
 Software licensing for developer side only
 Governmental restrictions
 Changes to existing reporting structure

Systems Analysis
 An in-depth study of end user information needs
 It produces the functional requirements used as
the basis for the design of an IS
 It typically involves a detailed study of the
 Information needs of a company and end users
 Activities, resources, and products of one or
more of the information systems currently being
used
 Information system capabilities required to
meet the information needs of business
stakeholders
Organizational Analysis
 Study of the organization, including…
 Management structure
 People
 Business activities
 Environmental systems
 Current information systems
 Input, processing, output, storage, and
control

Analysis of the Present System
 Before designing a new system, it is important to
study the system to be improved or replaced
 Hardware and software
 Network
 People resources used to convert data
resources into information products
 System activities of input, processing,
output, storage, and control

Logical Analysis
 A logical model is a blueprint of the current
system
 It displays what the current system does,
without regard to how it does it
 It allows an analyst to understand the
processes, functions, and data associated
with a system without getting bogged down
with hardware and software

Functional Requirements
 This step of systems analysis is one of the most
difficult
 Determine what type of information each
business activity requires
 Try to determine the information processing
capabilities required for each system activity
 The goal is to identify what should be done,
not how to do it

Examples of Functional
Requirements
 User Interface: automatic entry of product
data and easy-to-use data entry screens for
Web customers
 Processing: fast, automatic calculation of sales
totals and shipping costs
 Storage: fast retrieval and update of data from
product, pricing, and customer databases
 Control: signals for data entry errors and quick
e-mail confirmation for customers

Systems Design
 Systems design focuses on three areas

Prototyping
 Prototyping is the rapid development and
testing of working models
 An interactive, iterative process used during
the design phase
 Makes development faster and easier,
especially when end user requirements are
hard to define
 Has enlarged the role of business
stakeholders

Prototyping
Life Cycle

User Interface Design
 Focuses on supporting the interactions between
end users and their computer-based
applications
 Designers concentrate on the design of
attractive and efficient forms of user input and
output
 Frequently a prototyping process
 Produces detailed design specifications for
information products, such as display screens

Checklist for Corporate Websites
 Remember the customer
 Aesthetics
 Broadband content
 Easy to navigate
 Searchability
 Incompatibilities
 Registration forms
 Dead links

System Specifications
 Formalizing the design of
 User interface methods and products
 Database structures
 Processing procedures
 Control procedures

Examples of System Specifications
User interface Use personalized screens that welcome repeat Web
specifications customers and that make product recommendations
Database Develop databases that use object/relational database
specifications management software to organize access to all
customer and inventory data and to multimedia product
information
Software Acquire an e-commerce software engine to process all
specifications e-commerce transactions with fast responses, i.e.,
retrieve necessary product data and compute all sales
amounts in less than one second
Hardware Install redundant networked Web servers and sufficient
and network high-bandwidth telecommunications lines to host the
specifications company e-commerce website
Personnel Hire an e-commerce manager and specialists and a
specifications webmaster and Web designer to plan, develop, and
manage e-commerce operations
End User Development
 IS professionals play a consulting role, while
uses do their own application development
 A staff of user consultants may be available
to help with analysis, design, and installation
 Other support
 Application package training
 Hardware and software advice
 Help gaining access to organization
databases

Focus on IS Activities
 End user development should focus on the
fundamental activities of an IS
 Input
 Processing
 Output
 Storage
 Control

Focus of End User Development

Doing End User Development
 Application development capabilities built into

software packages make it easier for end users
to develop their own solutions

Encouraging End User Web
Development
 Look for tools that make sense
 Some are more powerful or costly than needed
 Spur creativity
 Consider a competition among departments
 Set some limits
 Limit what parts of a web page or site can be changed and
who can do it
 Give managers responsibility
 Make them personally responsible for content
 Make users comfortable
 Training will make users more confident
 It can save the IT department the trouble of fixing problems
later on
 It can limit the need for continuous support
Implementing New Systems
 The systems implementation stage involves
 Hardware and software acquisition
 Software development
 Testing of programs and procedures
 Conversion of data resources
 Conversion alternatives
 Education/training of end users and
specialists who will operate the new system

Implementation Process

Case 2 Managing Radical Change
 HP is embarking on a makeover of its internal
tech systems
 Replacing 85 loosely connected data centers
around the world with 6 cutting-edge facilities
 Cutting thousands of smaller projects to focus
on a few corporate-wide initiatives

 Scrapping 784 databases for one data
warehouse
 Laying off thousands of IT workers
 Building its own fiber-optic network to connect
Chapter 12the sixBusiness/IT
Developing dataSolutions
centers 40
 Will the initiatives being undertaken by CIO Randy Mott to
implement major changes to the IT function at HP make
IT a more efficient and vital contributor to HP’s business
success?
 Defend your position on each of the major initiatives he
is implementing
 Do you approve of the change management job Mott is
doing, including his meetings with HP employees
throughout the world, and having “coffee talks” with them?
 Assume you have been hired as a management
consultant or coach to CIO Mott
 What are several suggestions you might give him to
help him successfully implement his ambitious plans
for IT changes at HP?
Project Management
 The skills and knowledge necessary to be
a good project manager will translate into
virtually any project environment
 The people who have acquired them
are sought after by most organizations

What is a Project?
 Every project has
 A set of activities with a clear beginning and end
 Goals
 Objectives
 Tasks
 Limitations or constraints
 A series of steps or phases
 Managing a project effectively requires
 Process
 Tools
 Techniques

Sample Implementation Process

Phases of Project Management
 There are five phases in most projects
 Initiating/Defining
 Planning
 Executing
 Controlling
 Closing

Initiating/Defining Phase
 Example activities
 State the problem(s) and/or goal(s)
 Identify the objectives
 Secure resources
 Explore the costs/benefits in the feasibility
study

Planning Phase
 Identify and sequence activities
 Identify the “critical path”
 Estimate the time and resources needed for
project completion
 Write a detailed project plan

Execution Phase
 Commit resources to specific tasks
 Add additional resources and/or personnel
if necessary
 Initiate work on the project

Controlling Phase
 Establish reporting obligations
 Create reporting tools
 Compare actual progress with baseline
 Initiate control interventions, if necessary

Closing Phase
 Install all deliverables
 Finalize all obligations and commitments
 Meet with stakeholders
 Release project resources
 Document the project
 Issue a final report

Evaluating Hardware, Software,
Services
 Establish minimum physical and performance
characteristics for all hardware and software
 Formalize these requirements in an RFP/RFP
 Send RFQ to appropriate vendors
 Evaluate bids when received
 All claims must be demonstrated
 Obtain recommendations from other users
 Search independent sources for evaluations
 Benchmark test programs and test data

Hardware Evaluation Factors
 Major evaluation factors
 Performance
 Cost
 Reliability
 Compatibility
 Technology
 Ergonomics
 Connectivity
 Scalability
 Software
 Support
Software Evaluation Factors
 Hardware evaluation factors apply to software,
as do these
 Quality
 Efficiency Software that is slow,
 Flexibility hard to use, bug-filled,
or poorly documented
 Security is not a good choice
 Connectivity at any price
 Maintenance
 Documentation
 Hardware

Evaluating IS Services
 Examples of IS services
 Developing a company website
 Installation or conversion of
hardware/software
 Employee training
 Hardware maintenance
 System design and/or integration
 Contract programming
 Consulting services

IS Service Evaluation Factors
 IS evaluation factors include
 Performance
 Systems development
 Maintenance
 Conversion
 Training
 Backup facilities and services
 Accessibility to sales and support
 Business position and financial strength
 Hardware selection and compatibility
 Software packages offered

Other Implementation Activities
 The keys to successful implementation of
a new business system
 Testing
 Data conversion
 Documentation
 Training

System Testing
 System testing may involve
 Testing and debugging software
 Testing website performance
 Testing new hardware
 Review of prototypes

Data Conversion
 Data conversion includes
 Converting data elements from the old
database to the new database
 Correcting data errors
 Filtering out unwanted data
 Consolidating data from several databases
 Organizing data into new data subsets
 Improperly organized and formatted data is a
major cause of implementation failures

Documentation
 User Documentation
 Sample data entry screens, forms, reports
 System operating instructions
 Systems Documentation
 Method of communication among those
developing, implementing, and maintaining
a computer-based system
 Detailed record of the system design
 Extremely important when diagnosing
problems and making system changes

Training
 End users must be trained to operate a new
business system or its implementation will fail
 May involve only activities, such as data
entry,
or all aspects of system use
 Managers and end users must understand
how the new technology impacts business
operations
 System training should be supplemented with
training related to
 Hardware devices
 Software packages
Major System Conversion
Strategies

Direct Conversion
 Direct conversion
 The simplest conversion strategy
 The most disruptive to the organization
 Sometimes referred to as the slam dunk or
cold-turkey strategy
 May be the only viable solution in cases of
emergency implementation or if the old and
new system cannot coexist
 Has the highest risk of failure
 Involves turning off the old system and turning
on the new one
Parallel Conversion
 Old and new systems are run simultaneously until
everyone is satisfied that
 The new system functions correctly
 The old system is no longer needed
 Conversion to new system can be single
cutover or phased cutover
 Has the lowest risk, but the highest cost
 Can cost 4 times more than using the old
system
 Best choice where an automated system is
replacing a manual one

Pilot Conversion
 Scenarios best suited to a pilot conversion
 Multiple business locations
 Geographically diverse locations
 Advantages of single location conversion
 Can select a location that best represents
the conditions across the organization
 Less risky in terms of loss of time or delays
in processing
 Can be evaluated and changed before further
installations

Phased Conversion
 A phased or gradual conversion
 Takes advantage of both the direct and
parallel approaches
 Minimizes the risks involved
 Allows the new system to be brought online
as logically ordered functional components
 Disadvantages
 Takes the most time
 Created the most disruption to the
organization over time

Post-Implementation Activities
 The single most costly activity
 Correcting errors or faults in the system
 Improving system performance
 Adapting the system to changes in the
operating or business environment
 Requires more programmers than does
application development
 May exist for years

Systems Maintenance
 There are four basic categories of system
maintenance
 Corrective: fix bugs and logical errors
 Adaptive: add new functionality
 Perfective: improve performance
 Preventive: reduce chances of failure

Post-Implementation Review
 Ensures that the newly implemented system
meets the established business objectives
 Errors must be corrected by the maintenance
process
 Includes a periodic review/audit of the system
as well as continuous monitoring

Case 3 Indiana University
Financial Aid
 Success or failure is in the eye of the beholder
 A PeopleSoft implementation at Indiana
University resulted in denials of financial aid
 Contributors to the problem
 Software did not align with business processes
 Limited time for testing and training
 Interface issues between the loan systems at
lending institutions and the university
 Transactions blocked for minor exceptions
 Poor project management and tracking

Case 3 Indiana University
Financial Aid
 Project management violations
 Poor or no due diligence
 No user training
 Absence of system alerts
 System interface problems were ignored
 The complex project wasn’t broken down
into smaller, progressively delivered chunks

 As with any story, there are always two sides.
Indiana University sees the problem as a surprise;
outside observers see the problem as predictable
and preventable
 What do you think?
 Is it possible that some implementation problems
cannot be easily foreseen or prevented?
 What could Indiana University have done differently
to prevent this unfortunate even from occurring?
 Is there evidence to suggest that it learned
from this experience?

Case 4 In-House Development
 Custom code continues to be the secret sauce
that gives many businesses an edge
 Making business processes faster and more
efficient
 Delivering new services
 Improving customer support
 Innovation in other ways, usually something
unique

Case 4 In-House Development
 The do-it-yourself approach isn’t cheap
 High salaries for developers and IT managers
 Dozens or hundreds of personnel needed
 Before, computer hardware dictated the choice
of operating systems and development software
 Developing in C++ costs half as much as
developing in Cobol
 Newer packages unhitch programmers from
mainframes and proprietary platforms

 Jeff Brandmaier, senior VP and CIO at H&R Block
Inc., describes in-house developed applications as
“the stuff that gives you competitive advantage.”
 Why do you think he feels this way?
 Can a modern organization be competitive without
developing any applications in-house?
 The case points out that despite the use of vendor
applications, there is “still a lot of manually
intensive work that goes on in the development
process.”
 Why do you think vendor applications still
require in-house developers?

Developing Business/IT Solutions

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Chapter 12 Developing

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 Application development capabilities built into

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