“You were invited by the university president to prepare an IS plan for the university, discuss what are the steps in order to expedite the implementation of the IS Plan.”
First let us define the important terms mentioned above...
Information is the result of processing, manipulating and organizing data in a way that adds to the knowledge of the person receiving it.
System originates from the Greek term systema, which means to “place together.” It is a group of interdependent items that interact regularly to perform a task. A set of interacting or interdependent entities forming an integrated whole. The concept of an integrated whole can also be stated in terms of a system embodying a set of relationships which are differentiated from relationships of the set to other elements, and from relationships between an element of the set and elements not a part of the relational regime.
A plan is typically any procedure used to achieve an objective. It is a set of intended actions, through which one expects to achieve a goal. Planning helps assure that an organization remains relevant and responsive to the needs of its community, and contributes to organizational stability and growth. It provides a basis for monitoring progress, and for assessing results and impact. It facilitates new program development. It enables an organization to look into the future in an orderly and systematic way. From a governance perspective, it enables the Board to set policies and goals to guide the organization, and provides a clear focus to the Executive Director and staff for program implementation and agency management. Planning is designed to help an organization define its vision for the future and then determine systematically how it will get there, understanding obstacles and figuring out ways to overcome them. It is very difficult to plan in a crisis, and unrealistic to look five years ahead unless an organization has some confidence that it will exist next year, and that most of its key staff and its Board leadership will continue to be affiliated with the organization. Board and staff also need the time to plan, which means that they must not be using every minute to carry out functions required for survival. Moreover, while planning provides increased organizational definition, a sound base for planning is consensus concerning a well-defined mission statement and/or organizational goals – these must often be developed as a foundation for longer-term planning. It is also difficult to plan if the organization is so young or its leadership so new that they do not have a good sense of the community and of the broader external environment. Most new organizations, or groups which have undergone major institutional difficulties or change, find that they do best by first attempting to reach consensus on an organizational mission statement and then doing shorter-range planning, usually for a single year. Learning from that experience, they can begin a longer-term planning process. There may need to be a formal community needs assessment as input to planning. This is extremely valuable, but also demanding. Moreover, planning is not a one-time effort; any plan needs to be reviewed, monitored, and updated. The benefits to an organization can be significant -- a clear focus, a sense of joint purpose and agreed-upon priorities, consensus on strategies, and a basis for measuring progress and impact.
What is information system?
Information systems help to control the performance of business processes. An information system is a work system whose activities are devoted to processing (capturing, transmitting, storing, retrieving, manipulating and displaying) information. An information system is not only the technology an organization uses, but also the way in which the organizations interact with the technology and the way in which the technology works with the organization’s business processes. Information systems are distinct from information technology in that an information system has an information technology component that interacts with the processes components. Critical to most information systems are information technologies, which are typically designed to enable humans to perform tasks for which the human brain is not well suited, such as: handling large amounts of information, performing complex calculations, and controlling many simultaneous processes.
What is information system planning?
Planning is a process that is frequently done, but rarely done well. Planning helps assure that an organization remains relevant and responsive to the needs of its community, and contributes to organizational stability and growth. It provides a basis for monitoring progress, and for assessing results and impact. It facilitates new program development. It enables an organization to look into the future in an orderly and systematic way.
The planning process can be viewed as a somewhat circular flow of topics and action steps, where the results from one step initiate study and action in the next step. However, the process does not necessarily always flow in one direction. Issues that arise in a particular step may cause the planning team to go back to an earlier step to do additional work. If desired, the order of the steps can even be altered to suit the particular needs of the planning team. The implementation step also does not end the planning process. Analysis of results could easily result in additional analysis or a change in strategic direction. Also, it is recommended that the plan be reviewed on an annual basis to verify that all the base assumptions are still valid and that the implementation plan is progressing according to expectations.
Strategic planning is the process by which the guiding members of an organization envision its future and develop the necessary procedures and operations to achieve that future. The process by which leaders of an organization determine what it intends to be in the future and how it will get there. To put it another way, they develop a vision for the organization's future and determine the necessary priorities, procedures, and operations (strategies) to achieve that vision. Included are measurable goals which are realistic and attainable, but also challenging; emphasis is on long-term goals and strategies, rather than short-term (such as annual) objectives. Strategic planning assumes that certain aspects of the future can be created or influenced by the organization. Strategic planning is ongoing; it is "the process of self-examination, the confrontation of difficult choices, and the establishment of priorities" (Pfeiffer et al., Understanding Applied Strategic Planning: A Manager's Guide). Strategic planning involves "charting a course that you believe is wise, then adjusting that course as you gain more information and experience" (Wilder Foundation, Strategic Planning Workbook).
Rather than having centralized, long-range planning and management activities that address these problems, today's business units are using readily available tools to design and build ad hoc stop-gap solutions. These ad hoc systems not only do not interconnect, support common semantics, or provide synchronized views of critical corporate policy, they are soon to form the almost impossible to comprehend confusion of systems and data from which systems order and semantic harmony must spring. Not only has the computing landscape become profoundly different and more difficult to comprehend, the need for just the right--and correct--information at just the right time is escalating. Late or wrong information is worse than no information. Information systems managers need a model of their information systems environment. A model that is malleable. As new requirements are discovered, budgets modified, new hardware/software introduced, this model must be such that it can reconstitute the information systems plan in a timely and efficient manner.
Steps in information system plan:
Analyse the current situation “Where are we now?”
An internal analysis that encompasses assessing company strengths and weaknesses, financial performance, people, operational limitations, corporate culture, current positioning in the market(s), the overall characterization of the condition of the company and critical issues facing the organization.
An external analysis that focuses on analyzing competitors, assessing market opportunities and threats, evaluating changing technology that could impact the organization, analyzing regulatory or legislative concerns, changes and trends in the market(s) the company operates in and other potential outside influences on the organization.
Summarizing the current situation based on the information gathered and evaluated. This step is important to the process because it brings together relevant and critical data and information and allows members of the planning team to more easily get a feel for what opportunities and obstacles lie ahead.
Assess current responses “What have we been doing to make a difference?”
This is called a response analysis and the information can be collected and assessed from key informants or reports, such as the impact assessment.
Describe the future scenario “Where will we be in (3, 5 or 10) years if we continue doing what we are doing now?”
Again the information from the impact assessment will enable this to be answered.
Vision, mission, goal and objectives “Where do we want to be in (3, 5 or 10) years?”
This step is important perhaps more because of the process that the team will go through to develop it than the words that eventually end up on paper. In this step, the team is starting the process of focusing the organization and its people on what the organization is all about and what is important to the organization.
Vision is an activity of forming an idealized image of the company's future position. It is the driving force in guiding the company's progress towards goals. A strategic vision is usually thought to be solely future oriented. A vision provides an organization a forward looking, idealized image of itself.
• Moves outside the usual assumptions.
• Concentrates on the end goal, not the means to reach the goal.
• Followers gain ownership by developing the means (action plan).
• Vision is not a destination, but an intangible structure that surrounds us and guides our daily activities. From this perspective, a shared vision is a form of self-identity.
The mission is the ultimate purpose for why the organization exists. It is a brief description about the purpose of an organization's existence. It explains the company's services or products, the segmentation of the market, the distribution strategy. Every organization needs goals. Focus is a critical element in the success of any business. This step may be the most important of all of the strategic planning steps because it establishes the framework and basis for the development of the other key elements of the plan. A goal is a broad statement of intent. It should be phrased as an impact statement in the present tense. Objectives are statements of what needs to be done to achieve a goal. Objectives are more specific in nature and are supportive of the goal. They bring into even greater focus the goals of the organization.
Define strategies and activities “How do we get where we want to be?”
Strategies are the means to reach the objective (advocacy, education, care, etc.). Activities are discrete, specifications or sets of actions that need to be taken to reach an objective.
Select priorities, define target groups and sequence activities “Which are the most important activities that will make the greatest impact for whom?”
Use the following criteria against which to test each activity and discard or amend those that fail this test:
• Impact;
• Acceptability (by leaders, staff , partners and clients/beneficiaries);
• Feasibility (can it be done?); and
• Affordability and cost efficiency.
From the situation and response analysis there should be a sense of who the target groups should be, and these can be confirmed now in light of the prioritised activities. Finally, for the activities that remain after this process, agree on the optimal sequence and attach time frames to each.
Allocate roles and responsibilities “Who will lead and who will partner?”
For each activity identify the lead person or portfolio or unit, as well as the partners who can assist with the activity.
• Personal values of the Planning team
- not to change, but to understand each other
• Values of Organization as a whole
- profit vs. growth
- to what extent is this to be a value added organization
- importance of being a good "corporate citizen"
- importance of being a "good" place to work
• Company's operating philosophy
- How work is done
- How conflict is managed
- Accounting procedures
• Impact of and on other stakeholders
Numerous internal, cultural factors determine the approach an organization will take to the planning process and how the resulting plan will be implemented across the organization. Some corporate soul searching will be required:
• Willingness to seriously engage in the strategic planning process
• Ability to confront itself in the performance audit and gap analysis phases
• Assumptions about the corporate mission
• Assumptions about communicating the strategic plan
Set targets and indicators of progress and success “How will we know we are making progress?”
The targets and indicators should be realistic and linked to specific activities or objectives. Make sure that, for each indicator, there are ways to obtain the necessary information with a reasonable level of effort and cost.
Find the resources “What inputs are needed to make the activity happen?”
The inputs may be human, financial, material or technical and these need to be identified for each activity, as well as the sources.
Put it all together
Characteristics of a Quality ISP
A quality ISP must exhibit five distinct characteristics before it is useful. These five are presented in the table that follows.
Timely - The ISP must be timely. An ISP that is created long after it is needed is useless. In almost all cases, it makes no sense to take longer to plan work than to perform the work planned.
Useable - The ISP must be useable. It must be so for all the projects as well as for each project. The ISP should exist in sections that once adopted can be parceled out to project managers and immediately started.
Maintainable - The ISP should be maintainable. New business opportunities, new computers, business mergers, etc. all affect the ISP. The ISP must support quick changes to the estimates, technologies employed, and possibly even to the fundamental project sequences. Once these changes are accomplished, the new ISP should be just a few computer program executions away.
Quality - While the ISP must be a quality product, no ISP is ever perfect on the first try. As the ISP is executed, the metrics employed to derive the individual project estimates become refined as a consequence of new hardware technologies, code generators, techniques, or faster working staff. As these changes occur, their effects should be installable into the data that supports ISP computation. In short, the ISP is a living document. It should be updated with every technology event, and certainly no less often than quarterly.
Reproducible - The ISP must be reproducible. That is, when its development activities are performed by any other staff, the ISP produced should essentially be the same. The ISP should not significantly vary by staff assigned.
Whenever a proposal for the development of an ISP is created it must be assessed against these five characteristics. If any fail or not addressed in an optimum way, the entire set of funds for the development of an ISP is risked.
The steps listed above are just one approach to developing and implementing an information system plan. Planning process needs communication with the people involve in the organization, without proper communication the plan would be worthless. There should be staff to focus on the action plan and a Board session to review and approve the plan. According to what I’ve research the key planning sessions often work best when facilitated by an outsider knowledgeable about the organization or about community-based organizations generally. A facilitator should be someone skilled in group processes and experienced in strategic planning who is non-directive, committed to assuring full discussion of issues but also task-oriented and able to move the process forward. Put in mind that planning is not a one-time effort; any plan needs to be reviewed, monitored, and updated.
References:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_system
http://www.answers.com/topic/management-information-system
http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/S/system.html
http://www.amicaall.org/publications/toolkit/Tool%2011.pdf
http://www.entarga.com/stratplan/plngsteps.htm
http://www.clarionmag.com/cmag/v3/informationsystemsplanning.pdf
http://www.strategicbusinessplanning.net/strategic_planning_steps.html
_________________
-=♥yhang♥=-
First let us define the important terms mentioned above...
Information is the result of processing, manipulating and organizing data in a way that adds to the knowledge of the person receiving it.
System originates from the Greek term systema, which means to “place together.” It is a group of interdependent items that interact regularly to perform a task. A set of interacting or interdependent entities forming an integrated whole. The concept of an integrated whole can also be stated in terms of a system embodying a set of relationships which are differentiated from relationships of the set to other elements, and from relationships between an element of the set and elements not a part of the relational regime.
A plan is typically any procedure used to achieve an objective. It is a set of intended actions, through which one expects to achieve a goal. Planning helps assure that an organization remains relevant and responsive to the needs of its community, and contributes to organizational stability and growth. It provides a basis for monitoring progress, and for assessing results and impact. It facilitates new program development. It enables an organization to look into the future in an orderly and systematic way. From a governance perspective, it enables the Board to set policies and goals to guide the organization, and provides a clear focus to the Executive Director and staff for program implementation and agency management. Planning is designed to help an organization define its vision for the future and then determine systematically how it will get there, understanding obstacles and figuring out ways to overcome them. It is very difficult to plan in a crisis, and unrealistic to look five years ahead unless an organization has some confidence that it will exist next year, and that most of its key staff and its Board leadership will continue to be affiliated with the organization. Board and staff also need the time to plan, which means that they must not be using every minute to carry out functions required for survival. Moreover, while planning provides increased organizational definition, a sound base for planning is consensus concerning a well-defined mission statement and/or organizational goals – these must often be developed as a foundation for longer-term planning. It is also difficult to plan if the organization is so young or its leadership so new that they do not have a good sense of the community and of the broader external environment. Most new organizations, or groups which have undergone major institutional difficulties or change, find that they do best by first attempting to reach consensus on an organizational mission statement and then doing shorter-range planning, usually for a single year. Learning from that experience, they can begin a longer-term planning process. There may need to be a formal community needs assessment as input to planning. This is extremely valuable, but also demanding. Moreover, planning is not a one-time effort; any plan needs to be reviewed, monitored, and updated. The benefits to an organization can be significant -- a clear focus, a sense of joint purpose and agreed-upon priorities, consensus on strategies, and a basis for measuring progress and impact.
What is information system?
Information systems help to control the performance of business processes. An information system is a work system whose activities are devoted to processing (capturing, transmitting, storing, retrieving, manipulating and displaying) information. An information system is not only the technology an organization uses, but also the way in which the organizations interact with the technology and the way in which the technology works with the organization’s business processes. Information systems are distinct from information technology in that an information system has an information technology component that interacts with the processes components. Critical to most information systems are information technologies, which are typically designed to enable humans to perform tasks for which the human brain is not well suited, such as: handling large amounts of information, performing complex calculations, and controlling many simultaneous processes.
What is information system planning?
Planning is a process that is frequently done, but rarely done well. Planning helps assure that an organization remains relevant and responsive to the needs of its community, and contributes to organizational stability and growth. It provides a basis for monitoring progress, and for assessing results and impact. It facilitates new program development. It enables an organization to look into the future in an orderly and systematic way.
The planning process can be viewed as a somewhat circular flow of topics and action steps, where the results from one step initiate study and action in the next step. However, the process does not necessarily always flow in one direction. Issues that arise in a particular step may cause the planning team to go back to an earlier step to do additional work. If desired, the order of the steps can even be altered to suit the particular needs of the planning team. The implementation step also does not end the planning process. Analysis of results could easily result in additional analysis or a change in strategic direction. Also, it is recommended that the plan be reviewed on an annual basis to verify that all the base assumptions are still valid and that the implementation plan is progressing according to expectations.
Strategic planning is the process by which the guiding members of an organization envision its future and develop the necessary procedures and operations to achieve that future. The process by which leaders of an organization determine what it intends to be in the future and how it will get there. To put it another way, they develop a vision for the organization's future and determine the necessary priorities, procedures, and operations (strategies) to achieve that vision. Included are measurable goals which are realistic and attainable, but also challenging; emphasis is on long-term goals and strategies, rather than short-term (such as annual) objectives. Strategic planning assumes that certain aspects of the future can be created or influenced by the organization. Strategic planning is ongoing; it is "the process of self-examination, the confrontation of difficult choices, and the establishment of priorities" (Pfeiffer et al., Understanding Applied Strategic Planning: A Manager's Guide). Strategic planning involves "charting a course that you believe is wise, then adjusting that course as you gain more information and experience" (Wilder Foundation, Strategic Planning Workbook).
Rather than having centralized, long-range planning and management activities that address these problems, today's business units are using readily available tools to design and build ad hoc stop-gap solutions. These ad hoc systems not only do not interconnect, support common semantics, or provide synchronized views of critical corporate policy, they are soon to form the almost impossible to comprehend confusion of systems and data from which systems order and semantic harmony must spring. Not only has the computing landscape become profoundly different and more difficult to comprehend, the need for just the right--and correct--information at just the right time is escalating. Late or wrong information is worse than no information. Information systems managers need a model of their information systems environment. A model that is malleable. As new requirements are discovered, budgets modified, new hardware/software introduced, this model must be such that it can reconstitute the information systems plan in a timely and efficient manner.
Steps in information system plan:
Analyse the current situation “Where are we now?”
An internal analysis that encompasses assessing company strengths and weaknesses, financial performance, people, operational limitations, corporate culture, current positioning in the market(s), the overall characterization of the condition of the company and critical issues facing the organization.
An external analysis that focuses on analyzing competitors, assessing market opportunities and threats, evaluating changing technology that could impact the organization, analyzing regulatory or legislative concerns, changes and trends in the market(s) the company operates in and other potential outside influences on the organization.
Summarizing the current situation based on the information gathered and evaluated. This step is important to the process because it brings together relevant and critical data and information and allows members of the planning team to more easily get a feel for what opportunities and obstacles lie ahead.
Assess current responses “What have we been doing to make a difference?”
This is called a response analysis and the information can be collected and assessed from key informants or reports, such as the impact assessment.
Describe the future scenario “Where will we be in (3, 5 or 10) years if we continue doing what we are doing now?”
Again the information from the impact assessment will enable this to be answered.
Vision, mission, goal and objectives “Where do we want to be in (3, 5 or 10) years?”
This step is important perhaps more because of the process that the team will go through to develop it than the words that eventually end up on paper. In this step, the team is starting the process of focusing the organization and its people on what the organization is all about and what is important to the organization.
Vision is an activity of forming an idealized image of the company's future position. It is the driving force in guiding the company's progress towards goals. A strategic vision is usually thought to be solely future oriented. A vision provides an organization a forward looking, idealized image of itself.
• Moves outside the usual assumptions.
• Concentrates on the end goal, not the means to reach the goal.
• Followers gain ownership by developing the means (action plan).
• Vision is not a destination, but an intangible structure that surrounds us and guides our daily activities. From this perspective, a shared vision is a form of self-identity.
The mission is the ultimate purpose for why the organization exists. It is a brief description about the purpose of an organization's existence. It explains the company's services or products, the segmentation of the market, the distribution strategy. Every organization needs goals. Focus is a critical element in the success of any business. This step may be the most important of all of the strategic planning steps because it establishes the framework and basis for the development of the other key elements of the plan. A goal is a broad statement of intent. It should be phrased as an impact statement in the present tense. Objectives are statements of what needs to be done to achieve a goal. Objectives are more specific in nature and are supportive of the goal. They bring into even greater focus the goals of the organization.
Define strategies and activities “How do we get where we want to be?”
Strategies are the means to reach the objective (advocacy, education, care, etc.). Activities are discrete, specifications or sets of actions that need to be taken to reach an objective.
Select priorities, define target groups and sequence activities “Which are the most important activities that will make the greatest impact for whom?”
Use the following criteria against which to test each activity and discard or amend those that fail this test:
• Impact;
• Acceptability (by leaders, staff , partners and clients/beneficiaries);
• Feasibility (can it be done?); and
• Affordability and cost efficiency.
From the situation and response analysis there should be a sense of who the target groups should be, and these can be confirmed now in light of the prioritised activities. Finally, for the activities that remain after this process, agree on the optimal sequence and attach time frames to each.
Allocate roles and responsibilities “Who will lead and who will partner?”
For each activity identify the lead person or portfolio or unit, as well as the partners who can assist with the activity.
• Personal values of the Planning team
- not to change, but to understand each other
• Values of Organization as a whole
- profit vs. growth
- to what extent is this to be a value added organization
- importance of being a good "corporate citizen"
- importance of being a "good" place to work
• Company's operating philosophy
- How work is done
- How conflict is managed
- Accounting procedures
• Impact of and on other stakeholders
Numerous internal, cultural factors determine the approach an organization will take to the planning process and how the resulting plan will be implemented across the organization. Some corporate soul searching will be required:
• Willingness to seriously engage in the strategic planning process
• Ability to confront itself in the performance audit and gap analysis phases
• Assumptions about the corporate mission
• Assumptions about communicating the strategic plan
Set targets and indicators of progress and success “How will we know we are making progress?”
The targets and indicators should be realistic and linked to specific activities or objectives. Make sure that, for each indicator, there are ways to obtain the necessary information with a reasonable level of effort and cost.
Find the resources “What inputs are needed to make the activity happen?”
The inputs may be human, financial, material or technical and these need to be identified for each activity, as well as the sources.
Put it all together
Characteristics of a Quality ISP
A quality ISP must exhibit five distinct characteristics before it is useful. These five are presented in the table that follows.
Timely - The ISP must be timely. An ISP that is created long after it is needed is useless. In almost all cases, it makes no sense to take longer to plan work than to perform the work planned.
Useable - The ISP must be useable. It must be so for all the projects as well as for each project. The ISP should exist in sections that once adopted can be parceled out to project managers and immediately started.
Maintainable - The ISP should be maintainable. New business opportunities, new computers, business mergers, etc. all affect the ISP. The ISP must support quick changes to the estimates, technologies employed, and possibly even to the fundamental project sequences. Once these changes are accomplished, the new ISP should be just a few computer program executions away.
Quality - While the ISP must be a quality product, no ISP is ever perfect on the first try. As the ISP is executed, the metrics employed to derive the individual project estimates become refined as a consequence of new hardware technologies, code generators, techniques, or faster working staff. As these changes occur, their effects should be installable into the data that supports ISP computation. In short, the ISP is a living document. It should be updated with every technology event, and certainly no less often than quarterly.
Reproducible - The ISP must be reproducible. That is, when its development activities are performed by any other staff, the ISP produced should essentially be the same. The ISP should not significantly vary by staff assigned.
Whenever a proposal for the development of an ISP is created it must be assessed against these five characteristics. If any fail or not addressed in an optimum way, the entire set of funds for the development of an ISP is risked.
The steps listed above are just one approach to developing and implementing an information system plan. Planning process needs communication with the people involve in the organization, without proper communication the plan would be worthless. There should be staff to focus on the action plan and a Board session to review and approve the plan. According to what I’ve research the key planning sessions often work best when facilitated by an outsider knowledgeable about the organization or about community-based organizations generally. A facilitator should be someone skilled in group processes and experienced in strategic planning who is non-directive, committed to assuring full discussion of issues but also task-oriented and able to move the process forward. Put in mind that planning is not a one-time effort; any plan needs to be reviewed, monitored, and updated.
References:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_system
http://www.answers.com/topic/management-information-system
http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/S/system.html
http://www.amicaall.org/publications/toolkit/Tool%2011.pdf
http://www.entarga.com/stratplan/plngsteps.htm
http://www.clarionmag.com/cmag/v3/informationsystemsplanning.pdf
http://www.strategicbusinessplanning.net/strategic_planning_steps.html
_________________
-=♥yhang♥=-
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