Showing posts with label information system. Show all posts
Showing posts with label information system. Show all posts

Thursday, December 11, 2008

purpose of information system planning and what it is major challenges




There is a fundamental, certain reality that needs to be clearly taken into consideration in information system planning. These are its purpose and major challenges prior the information system plan. This evolution is a reality that must be recognized and addressed directly and responsibly. Although many of us, no doubt, already know what is behind information system planning, that is not a realistic option. Nor it is a responsible one for future generations. The purpose of IS planning are many and diverse, but there focus is one at the same time, namely, to make the business grow.

Does a business need to plan an information system strategically? What are their grounds in making these things possible? I am a little bit confused thinking of a better idea that could possibly considerable and significant. As always, I look for better answers and found out that the simple purposes why a company needs information systems planning is to implement a universal system of data transfer and data access and to develop automated reports to assist in managing the workforce development programs, to compile, analyze and coordinate the collection of data relevant to the needs of the business. In its simplest terms, the main intention why a business does information system planning is in order to improve service to their clients.

The reason why organization does IS planning, these includes the constant competition of measures and countermeasures, the tendency to keep weakness out of mind or perhaps the ordinary failures of design or execution. Planning method is designed for taking an occasional fresh look at the future challenges and possible strategies, for rethinking matters such as impressive strategy and higher-level defense planning. The essence of Information system planning is to deal with future uncertainty by generating capabilities usable for different purposes and circumstances.

Strategic planning for information system is essential to organizational success, especially in times of increasingly rapid change. The reason why a business needs to plan an information system is simply because the impact of information system as well as information technology contributes a lot in the performance of the business and to the success of the organization. The purpose is to promote capabilities-based planning for diverse contingencies, both large and small and emphasize the need for hedge capabilities permitting future challenges. While we are hopeful that technological changes will play important roles in helping us to adapt to this coming reality, we also need to acknowledge and address the fact that information system plan constitute a major part in the development of the business scheme.


An information system planning has begun to make more efficient use of its resources to serve its growing demand. However, to meet the growing demand for many resources, a company or an organization must carry out a plan to realign its capital resources and to acquire support service more efficiently. At the same time, an organization needs to improve its process for allocating resources.

Information system planning is somehow a necessity for the same reason that every now and then technology changes. IS planning has become a part of a company’s over-all plan because it assist the business in the improvement of the company’s information technology. Information systems are a primary part of organizations, and when they change, the organization also changes. Since technology is always changing, a need for a new and updated information system is a must. Thus, in support with this fast change an information system needs redesigning. Change is a part of the process and must be carefully managed. The term completion, when talking about a new system, refers to the entire process of organizational change surrounding the introduction of a new system.

That is why in an ideal world, a comprehensive information system planning would solve all the problems that information system manager face and the organization itself. That is mainly the reason why we elaborated more clearly the purpose of information system because Information system planning sometimes involves the whole organization. Unfortunately, the world continues to change at such a rate that plans must be continually updated. Without information system plan a business plan will not be completed for the reason that IS plan itself were critical success factor. That is why many companies particularly those large ones has developed a complete and inclusive technology planning procedure to boost technology project launch and approval. That is also the main reason why a continuous and ongoing information system planning is really a must.

Businesses does information system plan for the reason that it enhances productivity of the business itself. By observation, information systems often do seem to greatly increase productivity. It helps the business in creating better and efficient output that could possibly satisfies the need of the clients. It plays in the success or failure of mergers and also acquisitions. Manager throughout the information system planning have strongly embrace linking performance with resource and operations management responsibilities. Evaluating the direct impact of information system planning on the business processing and accuracy may be difficult to achieve. IS plan is effective in providing employees the knowledge they need to accurately and consistently business process. In applying that knowledge, a number of factors may get involved, making it difficult to isolate the effects of IS plan in the business from other factors that might influence those same results. This remains a critical issue and a great challenge for all organizations.



Challenges, what are the most frequent challenges we always come upon during the IS planning. I did not attempt to list every challenge, just the primary ones. There are lots of challenges but I just want to focus on one major challenge that always occurs when an organization develops an information system, it is planning for change in a changing world. Change is a continuing presence in all forceful and successful businesses. The challenge lies in knowing what, where, and how to change – and what, where, and how not to – and proactively planning to make the business in the future even better than they are today.

A common challenge of information system planning is that they fail to spend enough time in the early stages of their planning processes providing the community with information about the changes and challenges that lies ahead and the consequences of failing to plan for them. This challenges still remains as a constant challenge because during the IS plan, developers mostly fail to put into action what is the real nature of the plan. Many of these instances are common since people tend to forgot to elaborate what are the possible consequences when the plan fails.

Because of such reason, during IS planning an accurate prediction of the course of events sometimes not even possible. That is, hesitation is not only everywhere and large, but also impossible to get rid of it by merely working hard to do so. So what do we do about this burden of uncertainty? In a phrase, we should get on with business – learning to plan in a way that includes the expectation of surprises and the need for adaptations.

Information system planning a long time ago was possible only because all design and development was centralized and during those times was acceptable preliminary part because budgets were ever increasing, schedules always falling and information was not yet part of the corporations’ critical edge. Well, today is different, really different. Budgets are decreasing, and slipped schedules are being cited as preventing business alternatives. Budgets are one of the major challenges in IS planning. In the business world even outside world, constant change always happens and so high budget demands and poor funds. This two causes the IS plan to fail, not always but sometimes.

Businesses face significant challenges addressing information security program requirements and establishing a comprehensive and integrated security program. Information security is critical to the confidentiality, integrity and availability of data, and to protect assets required to support the business. Lack of management oversight contributes to inefficient practices and weaknesses in electronic information and physical security. These factors can also be a major challenge during the IS plan.

Since information technology has become commonplace in organizations, the potential for wasting time and money on unwise choices has not diminished, but rather has increased. Since every program and every task can benefit from computers and related technology, need for new and improve system continual arise within the organization. If systems are designed and implemented without some kind of plan, an organization risks having systems that are incompatible, cannot share data, require different hardware, or otherwise less than best possible. In other words, a technology investment – whether a purchase of technology or the development of a new system – may be cost effective in relation to its original justification, but be wasteful when in the context of all the other programs of the organization. Thus, managers’ responsibility to make decisions about individual systems has been complicated by the need to ensure long-range compatibility and connectivity. Making sound decisions now requires looking at the technology of the organization as a whole, rather than program by program or task by task. An IS planning provides conceptual models for making decisions where wide and long-range compatibility is required.

Developing and sustaining a knowledgeable workforce is a significant challenge for most businesses and information system planning is just one initiative to address this critical issue. We recognize that we must have a properly trained workforce to analyze the complex details of information system and all information that needs extensive study.


Planning for a better future, for both current and future generations, is one of the most important and long-lasting functions of local businesses. It is very important, therefore, that it be undertaken for the right reasons and with the right attitudes. We live in a rapidly changing world in which the failure of the information system planning team to plan for and adapt to changing conditions can adversely affect our economy, our environment, and our social well-being – both within and beyond the organization. So, when we make changes on our information system plans, it is important that we do so with a great sense of responsibility to ourselves and to future generations – not just to fulfill legal obligations under state law or not just because our current plans may be “out of date.”


Planning without context is merely wishful thinking. Effective planning needs to take place with a conscious awareness not only of current conditions, but also of the changes and challenges that lie ahead. While we face serious, even frightening, challenges in the years ahead, we must face them with a spirit of optimism and determination to confront and address them effectively.


An important factor of a successful information system plan is the awareness of how important and relatively extraordinary they are. Given the major changes and challenges we will be facing in the coming years and decades, and the urgent need for us to begin addressing them as soon as possible, this next round of information systems plan may be the most important in our lifetimes. As a result, it is critical that they be done responsibly and well, because the opportunity to do them again may not occur for another decade.

To top it all, businesses develops information system plan to build a high performing organization. Since most businesses spent lots of funds on its information technology they established support and is making steps in developing an integrated business that produces satisfying and pleasing outcomes. To preserve or maintain financial and benefits payment information and produce reliable performance and workload data, the organization must sustain its commitment.


During these times, a few words that will still remain even if it is expounded in 2000 words is that every organizations in a business world either in a competition or not still needs information system plan for this can help in the pursue of the main reason why they land a business – high revenue.



hiphip huri..

Friday, December 5, 2008

two most frequently experienced causes of frustration in IS professionals and users while working on an IS plan?

What are the two most frequently experienced causes of frustration in IS professionals and users while working on an IS plan?


At first, I am still in the midst of finding my brain to help me shop for wonderful answers but unfortunately I cannot find one. I think I should rest, a kind of deep rest. Well, I know and I must know that I should keep on going.

As human we do have frustration or dissatisfaction, even vampires. When we fail, it keeps repeating because during the time of failure we also lose self esteem and self confidence. One of the best examples is that when we are having an exam and we study for all night but suddenly when the examination comes we don’t have any answers because the content of the exam are different form the one we have studied. Failure does not always have to be negative, it can also be a positive experienced if the procedures involved in the failure are analyzed and corrected. If one does something always right, there is no opportunity for learning. Failure gives opportunity for learning from previous mistake. When one does something right, only one confirms what is already known and how to do it. Learning takes place when a mistake is identified and it is corrected (Ackoff 1994). The idea is to take advantage of the failure and turn the negative feeling around by analyzing what went wrong and correcting it for future times.

But what if we are swimming on a broader sense? What if we are talking about those Information system professionals and users who are working on an Information system plan? As we all know, this kind of planning needs lots and series of research and serious study. Thus, if it is not successfully done, it will be one of the cause of frustrations of some IS professionals. It will be difficult for them to accept the fact that after all of their little feelings of distress and efforts their work will just be seen in the trash and not in the company.

But it is not actually the most frequently causes of frustrations but the minor one. Let us focus now on the frequent reactions of IS professionals while working on an IS plan. One of the things that make continuous efforts at the same time motivating and frustrating is what often seems to be a constant watercourse of problems. Strong skills in solving problem are essential to successful continuous improvement activities. Without which one will be doomed to solve the same problem repeatedly. Sometimes when life is playing with us, system failures can be the most frequent problem. It happens when a system does not meet its requirements. It is like a bullet in gun failing to designate its target.

Let us just put ourselves in the situation as an IT student having a laboratory exam in JAVA or any programming subjects. We are in the middle of making our program work and then all of a sudden (sometimes expected in our own Laboratory room) the computer shuts down. What will we feel? We are not just frustrated but we want to kill whoever person we saw, right? We know that we need to start over again but we are already running out of time. We always said “it is really the end of my IT life. Wala nako’y future ani. Huhuhuhu.” It is just like ending our life at the very exact moment because we already know what will be the outcome of the said exam.

The same scenario or problems also happens in IS professionals while working on an IS plan. Since they are always facing technologies they are always prone to system failures or even system breakdown.

In the business world, failures can be looked as opportunities to improve the process that contribute to business objectives and since information systems play a very important role in the daily operations of most businesses hence the development of such systems has become very important. It is known that project managers are guided throughout the development and successful completion of the projects. But still there are still many failures in IS projects.

One of the two common causes of frustrations is the project management failure itself. This is a common fact and even more complex in most companies. The common reasons behind these failures are poorly trained or inexperienced project managers who fails to set and manage expectations, poor leadership at any and all levels, failure to adequately identify, poor plans and planning processes or misalignment between the project plan and the business or other organization it serves and poor communication. Since the great deal of responsibility lies on project managers, they need to focus their interpersonal skills to get people accomplish their work. That is why we need to learn from our own mistake and the importance of learning about project failure so that we won’t repeat the same mistake in the future. Project manager is like a bridge that links key pieces together. And in order to reach pieces effectively he needs to have a balance of soft skills and technical knowledge.

But these sources of failures can be lessened. The most common practice is by having the project planned in totally different environment and trained those people with little or no specific knowledge in project planning. To top it all, the task of analysis and design must be carried out attentively. The team should be able to spot the weaknesses in a timely manner through the use of appropriate project management tools.

We need not to be affected with any kind of causes we will encounter that will just make us frustrated. As professional, we should act like one. Although during the time of making an IS plan it has still remain largely touched by crisis and failures. In the face of these problems, there has been always some distinguished technological or physical initiative.

Be strong and always be strong for it is the best approach for meeting the environmental challenges that lie ahead.

relationship between IS plan and business plan...

What should be the nature of the relationship between the business plan and the IS plan?

What is really the nature between these two types of planning? We often identify their relationship for they both relates to businesses. Business plan and information systems plan are both decision making tools. They are quite related because they have the same purpose in which they prepare the business through planning to set out a convincing way to secure financing, internal or external or for the start-up or expansion of a business scheme. It has a goal which is to deliver the most valuable business information at the earliest time possible in the most cost effective manner.

But before I can put in plain words the nature of the relationship between the business plans and IS plan, I must first define what does these both means. Business plan as we all know is a formal statement or set of business goals, the reasons why they are believed attainable, and the plan reaching these goals. It may also contain background information about the organization or team attempting to reach these goals. The business goals being attempted may be for profit which typically focuses on financial goals or non-profit which tend to focus service goals or focuses on maximizing profit. Business plans may also target changes in perception and branding the customer, client, tax payer, or larger community. Business plan may be internally focused which target immediate goals required to reach the peripheral goals and external focused which targets goals that are important to external stakeholders, particularly external stakeholders. Having a formal, written business plan is so accepted as being crucial to success that there haven't been many studies or surveys to test this principle. If business plans were such a wonderful thing, there would be a significant and conclusive difference between businesses that have them and those that don't. Simply stated, business plan is a plan that sets out the future strategy and financial development of a business, usually covering a period of several years.

Information system plan on the other hand determines the sequence for implementing specific information systems. This kind of plan focuses on not only one information system but the entire suite of information systems for the enterprise. In lay mans term, information system plan is the end product of the information system project.

The nature relationship of the both plan is that without which there can be no exact view of the future plan of the company or shall we say it can give a hard time analyzing, solving or maybe in creating best plans for the company’s future.

Since business plan is one of the most important document of a company it is most frequently used by the managers and executives for internal planning. For a newly established business enterprise, the process of preparing a business plan serves a road map to the future by making entrepreneurs and the business owners itself think through their strategies. It can help in evaluating the basic business concepts; recognize the business limitations to avoid variety of mistakes. Thus, business plan serve as a blueprint or a guide in information systems planning.

The relationship between the two is that when the company is developing an information system plan which sometimes involves the whole organization, all members of the staff look at the overall organization to anticipate problems. This is where business plan completes the information system plan using the list of information systems needed, and many documents must be reviewed in which all the files are already been stated in the business plan. There are virtually no resources to help us set up what today’s business environment really demands. Since we are now living in a world where technologies are fast changing and the needs not just for good government services but also for better living would also continue to grow. But the sad part of it is that when the technology increases the need for new resources also increases but the availability of such resources decreases due to economic crisis. That is why effective use of information technology was viewed as a major approach that could assist government and companies in managing this change. It was also understood that well defined business planning and information system planning processes were critical success factor. That is why many companies particularly those large ones has developed a complete and inclusive technology planning procedure to boost technology project launch and approval. That is also the main reason why a continuous and ongoing planning system is really a must.

IS plan is an allied of business plan for when planning an information system, the staff under the planning team will review the strategic business plan for the company, including the statement of mission, goals, objectives and priorities that set business direction. They will ensure that the company information technology strategy is carried out and that the projects are appropriately targeted to support specific business strategies and ensures that the authorized projects are in line with business needs and direction. A common accepted theory is that for a business to survive and prosper it must be flexible and nimble. It is just like applying linear thinking to a non linear situation.

Writing a business plan without a planning system in place is a massive effort that is done very rarely. Many or mostly businesses write three to five year plan and update them annually. If a continual, ongoing process is in place, a written plan is not just important. Setting up an information system plan allows and sometimes forces the company to focus on strategy. But as we all see and as what I hear from those people living in a corporate world that a significant percentage of successful businesses don’t have written business plans. As professor Albert Shapero said, “Companies that plan do better than companies that don’t, but they never follow their plan.”

To sum it all up, information system plan is somehow connected to business plan in the development of the companies’ future success. Without which there will be possibilities that they can’t meet what the people needs for these two types of plan must work hand in hand. AJA…

hephep....HURI..

Wednesday, July 9, 2008

Information system keeps on failing


Information Systems are the foundation of today’s up-and-coming businesses. Creating an information technology system is a difficult task for it needs generally experienced workers who have advance technical knowledge and expertise in managing and understanding business principles. But instead of making this system successfully implemented, it turns out that it keeps on failing due to

• poor planning
• shortage of knowledge and skills of the team
• lack of top management commitment
• inadequate project management
• improper definition of roles and responsibilities

Misunderstanding the objective and scope of the information system could also lead to system failure because it needs greater realism in setting targets, greater financial control and flexibility.

Ideas from:

http://www.intosaiitaudit.org/intoit_articles/26_p12top17.pdf