Preface xxiv
Guided tour of the book xxxii
Guided tour to student resources on the web xxxiv
Acknowledgements xxxvi
1 Software enables a user to interact with a computer system to complete their work and manage information. There are two major categories of software: systems software and applications software.
2 Systems software such as the Microsoft Windows operating system or Linux manages the resources of the computer system such as its input and output devices, memory and processor, which are described in Chapter 3.
3 Applications software enables users to perform different tasks. Applications can be defined according to their scope – enterprise resource planning applications support users performing tasks across the organization, specialist departmental software may be used in some departments while office software is used to create different forms of document.
4 There are a range of choices when selecting software including packaged, offthe-shelf versions which may be freely available as open source. Hosted solutions used on a pay-per-use basis are also available. In some cases, organizations may decide to build their own bespoke applications or combine applications from different vendors.
5 E-business is a concept describing how applications can be delivered to stakeholders inside and outside the organization.
6 E-commerce applications are part of e-business and can be divided into buyside applications such as e-procurement and sell-side applications such as online retail which may be with business organizations (B2B) or consumers (B2C).
7 Information provided via Internet technology can be limited to different audiences.
Intranets restrict access to employees only and extranets to partners such as suppliers and distributors.
8 Two key applications of e-business are customer relationship management which is used to support the marketing of products and services and supply chain management which is used to support the sourcing of materials and distribution of goods.
1 A distinct information management strategy is developed in many organizations to help exploit and protect information assets. An information management strategy will include the following themes and strategies.
2 IM Theme 1: Information value. Involves prioritization of information assets to focus on the most valuable. High-value assets must be protected and distributed and should be commercially exploited.
3 IM Theme 2: Information quality. Information quality, which is its suitability for end-users, depends on its content-relevance, timeliness and form.
Procedures need to be in place to evaluate and improve information quality.
4 IM Theme 3: Information security. Information should be safeguarded from accidental and deliberate modification or deletion by both people and natural events. Many organizations develop an information security management system or information security policy to protect their information assets.
5 IM Theme 4: Legal and ethical compliance. Organizations should ensure their information usage is consistent with legal and ethical norms in the countries in which they operate.
6 IM Theme 5: Knowledge management. Strategies for capturing, developing and sharing knowledge within an organization are developed.
7 IM Theme 6: Technology support. Technology support to achieve the objectives of the information management strategy involves deploying the information systems applications and infrastructure.
8 IM management approach 1: Structuring the information management function.
An organizational unit focusing on managing information can be created.
9 IM management approach 2: Responsibilities and training. Responsibilities should be understood for governance, stewardship, infrastructure and usage.
10 IM management approach 3: Information resource analysis. Techniques such as information mapping and information audits can be used to support the IM themes described above.
11 IM management approach 4: Risk management. Threats to information are identified and plans put in place to minimize these risks.
1 The technology infrastructure of an organization is made up of the hardware, software, content and data used to deliver information services to employees, customers and partners.
2 A client/server architecture is commonly used as part of the infrastructure with networks of client computers such as PCs or Macintoshes connected to one or more server machines that provide additional resources such as applications, data storage or printers.
3 The main components of an individual computer are microprocessors, memory, permanent storage, screen and printer output devices, and mouse and keyboard input devices.
4 Computer networks are defined according to their scale (local-area or widearea), the telecommunications channels (guided and unguided or wireless media) and the components such as modem, hubs and routers.
6 The World Wide Web is the primary method of information publication and service delivery on the Internet. Standards such as HTML are used for presentation of data and documents and XML is widely used for exchange of data.
5 Wireless technologies for accessing the Internet such as Wi-Fi and 3G are increasing in importance.
1 A distinct information management strategy is developed in many organizations to help exploit and protect information assets. An information management strategy will include the following themes and strategies.
2 IM Theme 1: Information value. Involves prioritization of information assets to focus on the most valuable. High-value assets must be protected and distributed and should be commercially exploited.
3 IM Theme 2: Information quality. Information quality, which is its suitability for end-users, depends on its content-relevance, timeliness and form.
Procedures need to be in place to evaluate and improve information quality.
4 IM Theme 3: Information security. Information should be safeguarded from accidental and deliberate modification or deletion by both people and natural events. Many organizations develop an information security management system or information security policy to protect their information assets.
5 IM Theme 4: Legal and ethical compliance. Organizations should ensure their information usage is consistent with legal and ethical norms in the countries in which they operate.
6 IM Theme 5: Knowledge management. Strategies for capturing, developing and sharing knowledge within an organization are developed.
7 IM Theme 6: Technology support. Technology support to achieve the objectives of the information management strategy involves deploying the information systems applications and infrastructure.
8 IM management approach 1: Structuring the information management function.
An organizational unit focusing on managing information can be created.
9 IM management approach 2: Responsibilities and training. Responsibilities should be understood for governance, stewardship, infrastructure and usage.
10 IM management approach 3: Information resource analysis. Techniques such as information mapping and information audits can be used to support the IM themes described above.
11 IM management approach 4: Risk management. Threats to information are identified and plans put in place to minimize these risks.
1 Knowledge has become a crucial element in the competitive business environment.
2 The key stages of developing a knowledge management strategy are: definitions, audit, objectives, strategy approaches, implementation and quality measures.
3 There are a number of ways to define knowledge: a distinction between tacit and explicit knowledge can be made. Developing a working definition of knowledge is vital to the success of a knowledge management strategy.
4 Knowledge management can be broken down into five processes: store, identify, share, create and use can be applied to business processes. Individual and organizational capabilities will impact upon how knowledge is managed in organizations.
5 All organizations must develop a working definition of knowledge management before developing a knowledge management strategy.
6 A knowledge audit enables an organization to understand knowledge assets, processes and flows. The audit data can be matched against an ideal state so that a knowledge gap analysis can be undertaken. An inventory of knowledge assets, knowledge maps and profiles of employees is the tangible output.
7 Using evidence from a knowledge audit, organizations take different approaches to knowledge management depending on relationship between knowledge and key business processes.
8 The main approaches are codification versus personalization, exploiter versus explorer, aggressive versus conservative and technocratic versus behavioural.
9 Communities of practice are ways employees share knowledge and learn across organizational boundaries.
10 Competitive intelligence relates closely to knowledge management and develops a link to developing knowledge about the external competitive environment.
11 Identifying and developing the right skills for the different roles in knowledge management will have an important impact on the success of a knowledge management strategy.
1 The purpose of information systems strategy development is to define how resources including information resources, software applications, human resources and technology infrastructure will be used to support and impact an organization’s strategy.
2 Information systems strategy is at the core of business information management, but is supported by more detailed information and knowledge management strategies.
3 A measurable, repeatable and continuous process for IS strategy development is essential for an organization to maximize investments in information technology.
4 Michael Earl, summarized in Earl (1996), has identified these approaches to the IS strategy process or Strategic Information Systems Planning (SISP) which are still evident in IS strategy development: business-led, method-driven, administrative approach, technological approach, organizational approach.
5 IS strategy development has four main parts – strategic situation analysis, objective setting, strategy definition and strategy implementation.
6 Strategic situation analysis involves analysis of the internal status and external influences on an organization environment from a business and technology perspective.
7 Strategic objective setting involves setting specific goals for how IS can contribute to an organization.
8 Strategy definition identifies the major strategic priorities for IS by assessing how the applications portfolio can align with organizational objectives.
1 Goals of project management for information systems. To deliver a product that meets the business and user needs and is delivered within time and budget constraints.
2 Types of projects. These include operational applications, information and knowledge management projects and infrastructure. Projects may include at least one of these.
3 Approaches to building IS. Range from bespoke applications developed from scratch to off-the-shelf or packaged solutions installed in a company or externally hosted which offer varying options for tailoring or configuration. They may be created in-house, or using a systems integrator.
4 The project management process. The standard approach includes estimation, resource allocation, scheduling or planning, budgeting and monitoring and controls of deliverables at key milestones.
5 The systems development process. A series of controlled stages for building information systems that are described below. The traditional approach to systems development was the sequential waterfall model, but this has been superseded by iterative, rapid applications development methods such as DSDM.
6 Risk management. A project management technique that involves identification and assessment of likely sources of project failure and approaches to manage these risks.
7 Systems initiation phase. The start-up stage in a project which involves developing a feasibility study and project plan.
8 Systems analysis phase. What the system should do. Involves determination of requirements through techniques such as surveys, interviews and observation and definition of requirements using a requirements specification and related documents.
9 Systems design phase. How will the system work? Involves specification of software, hardware and information architecture.
10 Systems development phase. A physical system is created through programming, database management and configuration of inputs and outputs.
11 Systems implementation phase. Introduction of the system to the organization.
Involves data migration, testing and changeover to the live system.
12 Systems maintenance phase. Monitoring and control of the system once it is live.
1 Managing change associated with information management initiatives is important since often users will be faced with new ways of working and new software tools. The response to change must be managed to ensure the new system is adopted by staff to achieve the return on investment.
2 Across an industry, change occurs at two scales – incremental change involving small adjustments to improve efficiency and respond to normal changes in its environment and discontinuous change which is caused by a significant change in the business environment.
3 Information management initiatives may support either incremental or discontinuous change.
4 Models of supporting organizational change illustrate the need to manage the transition from one dynamic state to the next. Change management does not end when a project has been completed since otherwise behaviour may revert to an original state.
5 There is a well-established transition model of human response to change with stages of awareness or shock, denial, depression, letting go, testing, consolidation and acceptance.
6 Associated with these reactions, individuals exhibit resistance to change which in an information systems context may involve not using the system or actively voicing concerns about it.
7 Organizational culture may also affect the ability of individuals to react to change.
8 Structured approaches to managing change involve identifying change agents who work out the best way to manage the transitions from one state to another including the human response.
9 Identification of key staff in managing change is important since these will influence others. The role of senior managers is critical in communicating the vision for change and then supporting it through their actions. Team members who legitimize systems and opinion leaders also need to be involved to support change.
10 Approaches to motivating staff need to be reviewed. The approaches we looked at include education and persuasion, participation and involvement, facilitation and support, negotiation and agreement, manipulation and cooption, direction and a reliance on explicit and implicit coercion. Training and changes to job design are also important approaches.
11 In the final section of the chapter we considered approaches to managing change for four information management initiatives that are often subject to problems of change. These are the corporate information portal, sell-side ecommerce, customer relationship management and business intelligence.
1 Information architecture provides the structure that makes information systems a usable reality.
2 Information architecture strategies and policies will be developed drawing upon IM, KM and IS strategies.
3 Systems analysis must research user requirements and identify stakeholders.
4 Object orientation is an alternative to structure and process models.
5 Card sorting can provide a method for allowing users to be actively involved in the modelling process.
6 Normalization is part of the design process, simplifying entities and making sure duplicate data are removed.
7 The difference between websites and intranets must be understood by web designers.
8 Page design can be represented using a wireframe.
9 Taxonomy, thesauri and controlled vocabularies enable interoperability through defined language and relationships between terms.
10 Security analysis will asses the information assets, the risks and associated vulnerabilities.
11 Information security can be broken into logical and physical categories.
Logical concerns blueprints and policies. Physical concerns the implementation using technology.
1 The DIKAR model (Data–Information–Knowledge–Action–Results) is useful for understanding different forms of information quality. Ultimately information quality is important in supporting decisions to produce organizational actions and results.
2 Data quality or inherent information quality describes the degree to which data accurately reflect the object they represent. Its main attributes are accuracy, completeness, validity and consistency.
3 Information quality refers to the degree of usefulness and value data have in context, to support organizational processes. Its main attributes are relevance, presentation, timeliness and availability.
4 Knowledge quality is dependent on the capability of people to attach significance to information to inform their decisions and the ability to convert it into information to convey to other people.
5 Corporate performance management is an important aspect of information quality which defines the capability of an organization to develop business metrics which can be used to improve its competitive performance.
6 The information audit assesses information and knowledge quality within an organization by analysis of information resources, usage and flows. It is a key tool in understanding information quality.
7 An information quality policy specifies systems controls (typically software controls) and human controls which are developed through training and education to improve information quality.
8 Data quality improvement is achieved through defining data quality, systems controls such as data validation, data quality auditing, profiling and data cleansing and human controls such as setting data quality targets, training and review.
9 Information quality control is achieved through defining information quality, understanding human factors and providing clear responsibilities for information quality.
1 Laws have been enacted in many countries to protect the privacy of personal information and also to protect organizational data from unauthorized access.
Managers need to be aware of these laws to comply with them.
2 Some controls on information management are not covered fully by law. In these cases, managers need to make ethical judgements about what activities are acceptable.
3 Data protection and privacy legislation have been enacted in many countries to protect personal data and so maintain privacy of individuals.
4 In the EU, laws have been developed to end unsolicited e-mail and limit the use of Website cookies for monitoring.
5 The monitoring of employee communications is now commonplace using scanning and filtering software to prevent access to categories of websites and transmission of certain types of e-mail. Legal constraints require companies to adopt appropriate monitoring and be open with employees about this.
6 Identity theft is becoming increasingly common through access to individuals’ information both online and offline.
7 Managers need to be aware of the range of external and internal threats of unauthorized access to computer systems such as hacking and viruses. Suitable countermeasures can then be put in place.
8 Intellectual property law protects the rights of the originators of online information resources such as articles, music, film and software through copyright, trademarks and patent laws.
Glossary G1
Index I1
