Chapter Nine

Information Systems Planning Process

Information Systems Planning Process• Strategic information systems planning (SISP) is a critical issue facing

today’s businesses.

• Because SISP can identify the most appropriate targets for computerization, it can make a huge contribution to businesses and to other organizations.

• Effective SISP can help organizations use information systems to implement business strategies and reach business goals. It can also enable organizations to use information systems to create new business strategies.

• Recent research has shown that the quality of the planning process significantly influences the contribution which information systems can make to an organization’s performance.

• • Moreover, the failure to carry out SISP carefully can result in lost

opportunities and wasted resources.

Information Systems Planning Process

• To perform effective SISP, organizations conventionally apply one of several methodologies. However, carrying out such a process is a key problem facing management. SISP also presents many complex technical questions.

• These deal with computer hardware, software, databases, and telecommunications technologies.

• In many organizations, as a result of this complexity, there is a tendency to let the computer experts handle SISP.

• However, SISP is too important to delegate to technicians.

• Business planners are increasingly recognizing the potential impact of information technology, learning more about it, and participating in SISP studies despite their lack of technical experience.

What is SISP?• Information systems planning has evolved over the last 15 years.

• In the late 1970s, its primary objectives were to improve communication between computer users and MIS departments, increase top management support for computing, better forecast and allocate information system resource requirements, determine opportunities for improving the MIS department and identify new and higher payback computer applications.

• More recently, two new objectives have emerged. They are the identification of strategic information systems applications – those that can give the organization a competitive edge – and the development of an organization-wide information architecture.

• While the importance of identifying strategic information systems applications is obvious, the importance of the organization-wide information architecture of information systems that share common data and communicate easily with each other is highly desirable.

• Just as new business ventures must mesh with the organization’s existing endeavours, new systems applications must fit with the existing information architecture.

What is SISP?• Unfortunately, an organization’s commitment to construct an organization-wide information

architecture vastly complicates SISP.

• Thus organizations have often failed to build such an architecture. Instead, their piecemeal approach has resulted in disjointed systems that temporarily solved minor problems in isolated areas of the organization.

• This has caused redundant efforts and exorbitant costs.

• Thus, this chapter embraces two distinct yet usually simultaneously performed approaches to SISP. On one hand, SISP entails the search for high impact applications with the ability to create an advantage over competitors.

• Thus, SISP helps organizations use information systems in innovative ways to build barriers against new entrants, change the basis of competition, generate new products, build in switching costs, or change the balance of power in supplier relationships.

• As such, SISP promotes innovation and creativity.

• It might employ idea generating techniques such as brainstorming, value chain analysis, or the customer resource life cycle.

What is SISP?• On the other hand SISP is the process of identifying a portfolio of

computer-based applications to assist an organization in executing its current business plans and thus realizing its existing business goals.

• SISP may mean the selection of rather prosaic (unimaginative, or ordinary) applications, almost as if from a predefined list that would best fit the current and projected needs of the organization.

• These applications would guide the creation of the organization-wide information architecture of large databases and systems of computer programs.

• The distinction between the two approaches results in the former being referred to as attempting to impact organizational strategies and the latter as attempting to align MIS objectives with organizational goals.

Carrying out SISP• To carry out SISP, an organization usually selects an existing methodology and

then embarks on a major, intensive study.

• The organization forms teams of business planners and computer users with MIS specialists as members or as advisors.

• It is likely to use the SISP vendor’s educational support to train the teams and consulting support to guide and audit the study.

• It carries out a multi-step procedure over several weeks or months. The duration depends on the scope of the study.

• In addition to identifying the portfolio of applications, it prioritizes them.

• It defines databases, data elements, and a network of computers and communications equipment to support the applications.

• It also prepares a schedule for developing and installing them.

Carrying out SISP• Organizations usually apply one of several methodologies

to carry out this process.

• Four popular ones are Business Systems Planning, PROplanner, Information Engineering, and Method/1.

• These will be described briefly as contemporary, illustrative methodologies although the four undergo continuous change and improvement.

• They were selected because, together, they accounted for over half the responses to the survey described later.

Business Systems Planning (BSP)• Business Systems Planning (BSP), developed by IBM, involves top-down

planning with bottom-up implementation.

• From the top-down, the study team first recognizes its firm’s business mission, objectives and functions, and how these determine the business processes.

• It analyses the processes for their data needs. From the bottom-up, it then identifies the data currently required to perform the processes.

• The final BSP plan describes an overall information systems architecture comprised of databases and applications as well as the installation schedule of individual systems.

• BSP places heavy emphasis on top management commitment and involvement. Top executive sponsorship is seen as critical. MIS analyses might serve primarily in an advisory capacity.

PROplanner, • PROplanner, by Holland Systems Corp. in Ann Arbor, Michigan, helps planners analyse major

functional areas within the organization. They then define a Business Function Model.

• They derive a Data Architecture from the Business Function Model by combining the organization’s information requirements into generic data entities and broad databases.

• They then identify an Information Systems Architecture of specific new applications and an implementation schedule.

• PROplanner offers automated storage, manipulation, and presentation of the data collected during SISP.

• PROplanner software produces reports in various formats and levels of detail.

• Affinity reports show the frequencies of accesses to data.

• Clustering reports guide database design. Menus direct the planner through on-line data collection during the process.

• A data dictionary (a computerized list of all data on the database) permits planners to share PROplanner data with an existing data dictionary or other automated design tools.

Information Engineering (IE)• Information Engineering (IE), by Knowledge Ware in Atlanta, provides techniques

for building Enterprise Models, Data Models, and Process Models. These make up a comprehensive knowledge base that developers later use to create and maintain information systems.

• In conjunction with IE, every general manager may participate in a critical success factors (CSF) inquiry, the popular technique for identifying issues that business executives view as the most vital for their organization’s success.

• The resulting factors will then guide the strategic information planning endeavour by helping identify future management control systems. IE provides several software packages for facilitating the strategic information planning effort.

• However, IE differs from some other methodologies by providing automated tools to link its output to subsequent systems development efforts.

• For example, integrated with IE is an application generator to produce computer programs written in the COBOL programming language without handcoding.

Method/1• Method/1, the methodology of Andersen Consulting (a division of Arthur Andersen & Co.), consists

of ten phases of work segments that an organization completes to create its strategic plan. The first five formulate information strategy.

• The final five further formulate the information strategy but also develop action plans. A break between the first and final five provides a top management checkpoint and an opportunity to adjust and revise.

• By design, however, a typical organization using Method/1 need not complete all the work segments at the same level of detail. Instead, planners evaluate each work segment in terms of the organization’s objectives.

• Method/1 focuses heavily on the assessment of the current business organization, its objectives, and its competitive environment. It also stresses the tactics required for changing the organization when it implements the plan.

• Method/1 follows a layered approach. The top layer is the methodology itself. A middle layer of techniques supports the methodology and a bottom layer of tools supports the techniques.

• Examples of the many techniques are focus groups, Delphi studies, matrix analysis, dataflow diagramming and functional decomposition. FOUNDATION, Andersen Consulting’s computer-aided software engineering tool set, includes computer programs that support Method/1.

Evidence of SISP problems: carrying out plans

• Below are the 18 most severe problems. Because each can be seen as closely tied to Leadership, Implementation, or Resource issues, they are categorized into those three groups.

• Leadership issues– It is Difficult to Secure Top Management Commitment for

Implementing the Plan

– The Success of the Methodology is Greatly Dependent on the Team Leader

– It is Difficult to Find a Team Leader who Meets the Criteria Specified by the Methodology

– It is Difficult to Convince Top Management to Approve the Methodology

Evidence of SISP problems: carrying out plans

• Implementation issues– Implementing the Projects and the Data Architecture Identified in the

Plan Requires Substantial Further Analysis

– The Methodology Fails to Take into Account Issues Related to Plan Implementation

– The Documentation does not Adequately Describe the Steps that Should be Followed for Implementing the Methodology

– The Strategic Information Systems Plan Fails to Provide Priorities for Developing Specific Databases

– The Strategic Information Systems Plan Fails to Determine an Overall Data Architecture for the Organization

– The Strategic Information Systems Plan Fails to Sufficiently Address the Need for Data Administration in the Organization

Evidence of SISP problems: carrying out plans• Resource issues

– The Methodology Lacks Sufficient Computer Support

– The Planning Exercise Takes Very Long

– The Strategic Information Plan Fails to Include an Overall Personnel and Training Plan for the MIS Department

– It is Difficult to Find Team Members who Meet the Criteria Specified by the Methodology

– The Strategic Information Systems Plan Fails to Include an Overall Financial Plan for the MIS Department

– The Planning Exercise is Very Expensive

– The Strategic Information Systems Plan Fails Sufficiently to Address the Role of a Permanent MIS Planning Group

– Many Support Personnel are Required for Data Gathering and Analysis During the Study

summary• In summary, strategic information systems planners are not particularly satisfied

with SISP.

• After all, it requires extensive resources. Top management commitment is often difficult to obtain.

• When the SISP study is complete, further analysis may be required before the plan can be executed. The execution of the plan might not be very extensive.

• Thus, while SISP offers a great deal – the potential to use information technology to realize current business strategies and to create new ones – too often it is not satisfactorily done.

• In fact, despite its complex information technology ingredient, SISP is very similar to many other business planning endeavours.

• For this reason alone, the involvement of top management and business planners has become increasingly indispensable.