Chapter 8 Understanding the MIS Organization plus an introduction to Extreme Programming

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Chapter 8 Understanding the MIS
Organizationplus an introduction to Extreme
Programming

• Managing and Using Information Systems A
  Strategic Approach, 2nd ed.

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Chief Information Officer (CIO)

• Gartner group definition of the CIOs role
• To provide technology vision and leadership for
  developing and implementing IT initiatives that
  create and maintain leadership for the enterprise
  in a constantly changing and intensely
  competitive marketplace.

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The CIOs Responsibilities

• Championing the organization
• Architecture management
• Business strategy consultant
• Business technology planning
• Applications development
• IT infrastructure management
• Sourcing
• Partnership developer
• Technology transfer agent
• Customer satisfaction management
• Training
• Business Discontinuity/Disaster Recovery Planning

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Nine Essential CIO Skills

• Strong business orientation
• Ability to realize benefits manage costs and
  risks associated with IT
• Ability to bridge gaps between available
  technologies and business needs
• Familiarity with clients needs
• Strong organizational skills
• Ability to conceive and build multiple IT
  projects
• Ability to articulate and advocate for a mgmt IT
  vision
• Ability to mesh with existing mgmt structure
• Strategic enterprise vision extending beyond IT

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Related Job Titles

• CKO Chief Knowledge Officer
• CTO Chief Technology Officer
• CTO Chief Telecommunications Officer
• CNO Chief Network Officer
• CRO Chief Resource Officer
• Divisional CIOs/Corporate CIO

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Figure 8.1 The CIOs lieutenants
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Other Information Systems Organizational Roles

• IS Managers
• Systems Developers
• Business Analysts
• Database Administrators
• Operations Personnel
• Support Personnel
• Developers
• Webmaster, Web Designer, Web Developer, etc.

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Figure 8.2 IS organization roles
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Figure 8.3 Sample IS Organizational Chart
CIO
CTO
CKO
CNO
GM
IS Managers
Bus. Analysts
Other
System Devs.
DB Admins.
Support Personnel
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IS Organization Processes

• Systems Development
• Systems Maintenance
• Data Center Operations
• Information Management and Database
  Administration
• Internet Services and Web-based Systems
  Development
• Networking Services
• New Technology Introduction
• Resource Management
• General Support

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What to Expect from IS

• Anticipating New technologies
• Strategic Direction
• Process Innovation
• Internal Partnerships
• Supplier Management
• Architecture and Standards
• Human Resource Management

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Anticipating New Technologies

• Business and IS staff must work closely to
  evaluate which technologies can best advance the
  business strategy.
• It is the job of the IS department to scout new
  technology trends and help the business integrate
  them into planning and operations in terms of the
  following ?

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What IS doesnt do

• There is still a need for management to partner
  with IS to make sure business goals and needs are
  met.
• General managers generally set the business
  strategy, not IS professionals.

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Outsourcing

• Since the 1970s, IT managers have turned to
  outsourcing as an important weapon in the battle
  to control costs.
• Outsourcing means the purchase of a good or
  service that was previously provided internally
  with IT outsourcing an outside vendor provides IT
  services traditionally provided by the internal
  MIS department.
• Over the years, however, motives for outsourcing
  have changed.

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Factors driving outsourcing

• Cost savings
• Qualified IT staff are difficult to find and
  retain
• By bringing in outside expertise, management
  needs to focus less on IS operations and more on
  the information itself.
• Outsourcers are specialists, should understand
  how to manage IS staff more effectively.
• Outsourcers may have larger IS resources that
  provide greater capacity on demand.
• Outsourcing can help a company overcome inertia
  to consolidate data centers that could not be
  consolidated by an internal group, or following a
  merger or acquisition.

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Figure 8.6 Drivers and disadvantages of
outsourcing
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Avoiding Outsourcing Pitfalls

• Dont focus solely on price
• Use life-cycle service contracts that occur in
  stages
• Establish short-term supplier contracts
• Use multiple, best of breed suppliers
• Develop skills in contract management
• Thoroughly evaluate outsourcers capabilities
• Choose an outsourcer whose capabilities
  complement yours.
• Base choice on a cultural fit as well as
  expertise
• Determine if outsourcing relationship produces a
  net benefit for your company

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Centralized vs. Decentralized Organizational
Structures

• Centralized reduces duplication since resources
  under one control and, often, in one location.
• Decentralized creates flexibility because
  resources not in the same location or control
• Federalism combines centralization with
  decentralization.
• For example
• Bethlehem Steel allows major business units
  (plants) to decentralize and operate
  independently while
• Levi-Strauss centralized to minimize the
  duplication of resources and save on costs.

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Centralized vs. Decentralized Approaches

• Bethlehem Steel has taken a decentralized
  approach, which mirrors their decentralized
  business strategy as its managers believed that
  computing power and decision-making should be
  located within local business units
• Levi Strauss adopted a centralized strategy as it
  wanted to gain better control over strategic IT
  resources, minimize duplication across its
  business, and maximize sharing of scarce resources

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How does the management of IT differ when the
scope is global, rather than local?

• Large global MIS organizations face many of the
  same organizational issues as any other global
  department.
• For IS, a number of issues arise that put the
  business at risk beyond the typical global
  considerations. Table 8.12 summarizes how a
  global IT perspective affects six information
  management issues.

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Figure 8.12 Global Considerations for the MIS
Organization
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Going Offshore for IS Development

• Countries such as India, the Philippines, etc,
  offer offshoring, an alternative to in-house
  systems development
• Many Indian enterprises, for example, are well
  known for their use of the Capability Maturity
  Model (CMM) Level 5 software development
  processes, making them extremely reliable, and
  ultimately desirable as vendors
• The types of tasks that are outsourced are
  usually those that can be well-specified
• It raises the issue of what to send offshore, and
  what to keep within your enterprise MIS
  organization.

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Offshoring Problems

• Companies engaged in or considering offshoring
  express concern about
• quality of the work performed,
• unexpected costs, and
• project delays
• future maintenance
• not developing skills in-house

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and now for something completely different
Extreme Programming
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Extreme Programming (XP)

• A disciplined approach to software development
• Good for risky projects with dynamic requirements
• Emphasizes customer involvement and teamwork
• Deliver software to customer asap and implement
  changes as suggested

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When to Use XP

• When customer does not have firm idea of
  requirements
• When functionality is expected to change in
  short-term
• When the time-line is compressed and risk is
  higher

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The XP Approach

• Set up for small teams of programmers between 2
  and 12
• Cannot use XP on a project with a huge staff
• Must be able to create automated unit and
  functional tests
• User stories
• Paired-programming
• Small releases

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The XP Team

• Developers (work in pairs)
• Managers
• Customers

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XP User Stories

• Customers create stories to describe
  functionality needed
• Drive creation of acceptance tests for
  verification
• Developers estimate how long each story will take
  to implement

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XP Release Planning Meetings

• RPM used to create a release plan
• Release plan used to create iteration plans
• Project velocity estimates of user stories
  completed in the last iteration

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XP Iteration Planning

• Each iteration is 1 3 weeks long
• User stories are broken down into programming
  tasks
• Each task should be 1 3 days in duration
• Use project velocity to determine if the
  iteration is overbooked
• Adds agility to the process

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XP Lessons Learned

• Customer is always available
• Move people around
• Avoid adding unnecessary functionality
• Follow coding standards

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Network Security

• SSL the Web standard
• SET a consortia standard favored by financial
  institutions
• Digital signatures provide authenticity
• Firewalls come in different flavors

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SSL

• Secure Sockets Layer, a protocol developed by
  Netscape for transmitting private documents via
  the Internet.
• SSL works by using a private key to encrypt data
  that's transferred over the SSL connection. Both
  Netscape Navigator and Internet Explorer support
  SSL, and many Web sites use the protocol to
  obtain confidential user information, such as
  credit card numbers.
• By convention, URLs that require an SSL
  connection start with https instead of http.
• Supports non-repudiation for merchant only!

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SET

• Secure Electronic Transaction, a standard that
  will enable secure credit card transactions on
  the Internet. SET has been endorsed by virtually
  all the major players in the electronic commerce
  arena, including Microsoft, Netscape, Visa, and
  Mastercard.
• By employing digital signatures, SET will enable
  merchants to verify that buyers are who they
  claim to be. And it will protect buyers by
  providing a mechanism for their credit card
  number to be transferred directly to the credit
  card issuer for verification and billing without
  the merchant being able to see the number.
• Supports non-repudiation for both buyer and
  merchant

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Firewalls

• Combine software and hardware
• Normally between LANs and WANs
• Can reside between LANs
• May only check header information
• May check content
• Can take time to configure
• Can slow down network
• Can be assigned to one or multiple ports

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END OF CHAPTER 8