Strategic Information System Planing
The
Ad Doc Approach
This approach towards development of information
systems is the worst possible approach as people in the development process are
in the process of perpetual fire fighting. There in no plan available and the
development work is carried out as per wises of the developer based on his
understanding of what the needs of the user should be. The outcome of this kind
of approach is a set of systems that are not synchronized or synergized into
one system but a host of systems that work in isolation.
The
Data Collection Approach
In this approach, all possible data about the need
for the system and about the system is collected. This approach assumes that
information systems are best developed based on data from all quarters. This
results in lack of focus and understanding as the systems development process
gets mired unnecessarily into other issues, like projecting the future
information requirement in granular detail by the user.
The
Organization Chart Approach
In this approach the information system is developed
with the organization structure in mind. It assumes that information strictly
flows on the basis of organizational structures. Junctions of information
exchange are made on an ad hoc basis which complicates the flow of information
and brings in redundancy in the system.
Now that we know how not to approach IS development
in an organization, let us discuss the appropriate approaches for IS
development.
The
Top-down Approach
The top-down approach is used to develop IS with
the objectives in focus. The objectives of the IS become the most important
priority. The objectives are clearly defined in the first step, followed by
identification of the activities of the organization. This in turn is followed
by the third step in which the decision-making needs of managers within the
organization are analyzed and the necessary information flow for facilitating
information delivery to managers for decision-making is understood in detail.
Once all the details are available, the application is developed. In this type
of system the objectives become the mainstay of the system. However, for this
kind of system, the requirements from the systems have to be clearly understood
upfront to avoid any problems in the development process. This is because the
strategy of development is such that the design is not adequately dynamic.
The
Bottom-up Approach
In the bottom-up approach, we find out the type of
information that is produced in the operational subsystem and then work
backward to integrate this with the entire IS structure to have an organization
wide impact. In this design, there is more flexibility to change the
information system deliverables even during the development process as the
individual subsystems are not designed according to the demands of the upper
layers as in the case of top-down approach. On the contrary, here the upper
layers are integrated with the lower layer subsystems to create the IS. Thus,
bottom-up systems can expand in response to real-world changes and needs of the
organization.
No comments:
Post a Comment