Asper School of Business
9.613 Using Information Technology
Part-Time MBA, December 2001
Instructor: Bob Travica
Class 5
Systems Development
9.613 Using Information Technology
Outline
Chapter 9
• System development methodologies
• IS Project management
• System integration as system development
Chapter 10
• Managing IS staff & others
• Systems Payoff
9.613 Using Information Technology
System Development Methodologies
•Structured approach (“waterfall model”)
•Rapid Application Development (Prototyping, Joint Application
•Design, Computer Aided Software Engineering (CASE)
•Other (4th generation languages, object-oriented methods)
9.613 Using Information Technology
IS Project Management
• Business & Technology vs. It’s politics, stupid!
• Dreams vs. Daily grind:
- Management of dreams (wishful thinking) of
workers and technologists
- Daily grind of IS Project management:
project tasks, people, money, timing
• Complementary part on managing IS staff & others below
9.613 Using Information Technology
Systems Integration as System Development
• Old systems integration (from mid 1980s):
Connectivity across hardware platforms (e.g., PC to mainframe)
• New systems integration (1990s)
- “Cross pipe” information management
- Enterprise Resource Planning [ERP];
- Management thrust: Reduce info diversity by
imposing uniform data models and procedures)
More
9.613 Using Information Technology
Systems Integration as System Development
• New systems integration (1990s)
- Standardized access to organizational IS and info
repositories
- Enterprise Information Portal; intranet
- Management thrust: Bridge diverse parts
- Managing legacy systems
9.613 Using Information Technology
Managing IS staff & others
• IS roles (systems analyst, programmer, intranet-related,
e-commerce-related…)
• Burnout problem (Netscape vs. SAS Corp.)
• Motivation management (Microsoft, Netscape, UPS)
More
9.613 Using Information Technology
Managing IS Staff & Others
• Other players in system development:
Executive
Expert User
Department
Manager
Development
Project
Team
Vendor
End-User
?
• Related to IS project management above
9.613 Using Information Technology
Systems Payoff
• Cost-Benefit Analysis
• Financial Assessment
(payback period, return on investments…)
• Non-Financial Assessment
(intangible benefits, scoring method…)
• Problems with assessing IT-related benefits
9.613 Using Information Technology
Outline
• Both slower and rapid system development methodologies used
• IS Project management needs to balance dealing with the
big picture (expectations, goals) and daily issues (people, money…)
• Waves of system integration have moved systems development
• Managing IS staff & others is a complex task
• Systems payoff can be assessed in financial and pother terms,
but there are persistent problems of IT-related benefits
9.613 Using Information Technology