MIS 300 Management Information Systems

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MIS 300 Management Information Systems

• Welcome?

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First Class Overview

• Introductions
• What is MIS?
• MIS 300 A Process Focused Approach
• Syllabus review
• Schedule of topics
• First assignment

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Prof. Mark Isken

• BSE, MSE, Ph.D. in Industrial and Operations
  Engineering from University of Michigan
• Operations analyst for William Beaumont Hospital
  and Henry Ford Health System (7 years)
• Joined OU Fall 1999 as full-time faculty member
  of Dept. of Decision and Information Sciences

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Prof. Mark Isken (cont.)

• Teach MIS 436 - Decision Support Systems and MIS
  300
• Im a techie love working with computers and
  mathematical models to help solve business
  problems
• Office is 317 BIT

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What is MIS?

• The standard definition
• A supporter of business
• A program in the SBA at OU
• A career
• A mindset, a way of thinking

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What is MIS? Some Standard Definitions
A work system produces products for internal and
external customers through a business process
performed by human participants with the help of
information and technology.
A management information system is a work system
that uses information technology to capture,
transmit, store, retrieve, manipulate or display
information, thereby supporting other work
systems.
Management information system - A set of
interrelated components that collect, manipulate
disseminate data information provide
feedback to meet an objective.
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What is Information Technology?

• Hardware
• Computers PCs, mainframes, workstations,
  handheld
• Data input keyboard, mouse, pen, touchscreen
• Data storage hard disk, CD, magnetic tape,
  removable disks
• Date output monitor, paper, audio
• Data transmission networks, cables, routers,
  hubs
• Software
• Programming languages C, C, Visual Basic,
  COBOL
• Applications spreadsheets, database managers
• Operating systems Windows XP/2000/98, NT,
  Linux, Unix

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What is MIS? A Supporter of Business

• MIS is about applying information technology to
  business problems. The emphasis is on finding
  solutions.
• To the MIS professional, information technology
  is a tool, not an end in itself.

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MIS Examples

• SAIL
• Voyager
• Amazon.com
• Quicken Quickbooks
• ATM
• Airline ticket reservations

• Healthcare
• Dr. Koop
• Federal Express
• Computer Aided Design
• IRS Tax Forms
• SAP

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The Federal Express Legend

• "The concept is interesting and well-formed, but
  in order to earn better than a 'C', the idea must
  be feasible." -- A Yale University management
  professor in response to Fred Smith's paper
  proposing reliable overnight delivery service.
  (Smith went on to found Federal Express Corp.)

Plenty of room in MIS for someone with a good
idea.
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What is MIS? Program in DIS
Using data, mathematical models and IT to analyze
and solve business problems.
ATiB
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A Shameless Advertisement

• MIS 436/636 Decision Support Systems
• Im teaching now and every FallWinter
• Spreadsheet based modeling course
• An über business analysis course
• ExcelAccessVBAmodeling solve tough business
  problems
• Applications in Finance, Marketing, MIS, POM,

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What is MIS? A Career

• MIS/IT professionals in demand
• IT skills business skills value
• But.

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Tough year for MIS job market

• 6 salary increases
• Bonuses and perks reduced
• Ridiculous entry level salaries gone
• Job market flooded with former dot commers
• Dont burn bridges
• Still plenty of room for good people
• Network admins, web developers, systems analysts,
  database admins

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Computer Worlds 2001 Salary Survey
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(No Transcript)
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The Business Analyst
Business analyst is one of the least well-defined
IT titles. Most observers agree that it can mean
a technical person with some business expertise,
or a business person with some technical skills.
"The business analyst is a squishy job title,
but it's important, and those people are hard to
come by," says Tony Graffeo, divisional vice
president for global information services and
head of the internal IT department at Computer
Associates International, in Islandia, N.Y.
"There are technical people who know bits and
bytes but can't speak in end-user terms, and
business people who lack enough technical
expertise to make things happen in IT."
Source 1999 InfoWorld Compensation Survey
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What is MIS? A Way of Thinking

• An aversion to repetitive, manual tasks
• A desire to creatively apply information
  technology to improve the way we do business
• Logical, systematic, yet appreciative of elegance
  and aesthetics
• An obsessive need to make it work
• Example The Joy of debugging
• An inquisitiveness and willingness to explore
• Always learning technology changes too fast

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Important IT Trends

• Greater miniaturization, speed, portability
• Greater connectivity
• Greater use of digitized information and
  multimedia
• Better software techniques and interfaces with
  people

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Transaction Processing Systems

• Process business exchanges
• Maintain records about the exchanges
• Handle routine, yet critical, tasks
• Perform simple calculations

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Management Information Systems (MIS)

• Routine information for routine decisions
• Operational efficiency
• Use transaction data as main input
• Databases integrate MIS in different functional
  areas

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Decision Support Systems (DSS)

• Interactive support for non-routine decisions or
  problems
• End-users are more involved in creating a DSS
  than an MIS

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Often a nice mix
MIS
TPS
Amazon
DSS
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Information Systems Development

• Investigation whats the problem or
  opportunity?
• Analysis How to solve the problem?
• Design Build the system
• Implementation Get it working
• Maintenance Keep it working

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MIS Warnings

• Unrealistic expectations and techno-hype
• Can you say dot com?
• Difficulty building and modifying systems
• Difficulty integrating systems
• Organizational inertia and problems of change
• Genuine difficulty anticipating what will happen

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Not for the weak and squeamish

• Sabre to migrate airline reservation systems from
  IBM mainframes to Compaq servers(who was
  purchased by HP this week)
• 100M project over 3-4 years
• C, Java, SQL
• double its developer productivity and reduce
  total cost of ownership by 40
• IT operations outsourced to EDS in July

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Sabre migration (continued)

• real time integration of Sabre data into a
  single database in a single location
• Build business logic into reservation system
• Release unsold seats at lower price at release
  date
• Sell seats to 3rd parties to divest risk of
  unsold seats
• Technical migration not as difficult as
  convincing airlines to change the way they do
  business
• Sharing data internally among different
  departments
• Stay tuned .

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New system shaves time on 911 calls Det. Free
Press (9/2/98)
All right!

• 2M center in Southfield Civic Center
• Should improve response time to serious and
  emergency calls (4-15 min for serious previously)
• Computer aided dispatch, easier access to radio
  frequencies, paperless record management

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New system shaves time on 911 calls Det. Free
Press (9/2/98)
All right!

• Call triggers address phone to pop-up
• Call info sent to dispatcher
• Tracks
• location of responding police, fire, EMS
• Time spent at scene
• Type of situation

Uses for this data?
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New system shaves time on 911 calls Det. Free
Press (9/2/98)
All right!

• Mammoth radio consoles gtgtgt mouse click
• Real time status info aids shift change
• Immediate access to info
• Up to 16 hours of training
• How will incident reports get into system?
• What about the address database?

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London Ambulance Service Case

• Carries over 5000 patients/day
• Previous system
• London divided into 3 zones
• Telephones, radios, and computers used for
  communication
• New system
• One zone
• Automatic computer dispatching based on location
  of ambulances and calls
• October 26, 1992 a complete nightmare

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London Ambulance Service Case

• Calls missed, multiple ambulances to same site,
  system deadlock
• Technology not ready
• People not ready
• System required perfect information in
  inherently imperfect environment
• Disaster had been predicted by competing vendor

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Technology Predictions - 1

• "Computers in the future may weigh no more than
  1.5 tons." -- Popular Mechanics, forecasting the
  relentless march of science, 1949.
• "I think there is a world market for maybe five
  computers." -- Thomas Watson, chairman of IBM,
  1943.

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Technology Predictions - 2

• "There is no reason anyone would want a computer
  in their home." -- Ken Olson, president, chairman
  and founder of Digital Equipment Corp., 1977.
• "640K ought to be enough for anybody." --
  Attributed to Bill Gates, 1981, but believed to
  be an urban legend.

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The Tone for the Class

• Ask questions
• Usually no one right answer (no cookbooks)
• Well use IT as much as possible in MIS 300
• Office 2000
• Email
• MIS 300 Web
• Try things, use on-line help, try things, use
  on-line help, ask classmates, try things, ask
  Prof. Isken

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After MIS 300, you should be able to

• Identify opportunities for information systems to
  support business processes,
• Recognize your potential role in the use,
  development, analysis, and management of
  information systems,
• Define and classify information systems with
  respect to structure and function,
• Develop basic working knowledge of representative
  technologies used in the development and
  deployment of information systems,
• Recognize ethical, social and global issues
  related to information systems.

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OK, but what will MIS 300 be like?

• Well read text, articles, tutorials, cases
• Well discuss cases, technical gizmos, readings
• Well have software demos, in class work, lab
  sessions
• Well do frequent, short, focused, hands-on
  homework assignments
• Office 2000 -MS Access, MS Excel, Visio, MS
  Powerpoint, MS Word
• Internet
• Well learn useful stuff
• You will become more IT-savvy

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How to do well in MIS 300

• Come to class
• Check class web site regularly
• 215 EH Open PC Lab
• Do homework assignments in groups when permitted
• Start homework assignments early
• Take advantage of impromptu, unofficial lab
  sessions
• Come see me if youre having trouble

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Beyond MIS 300

• MIS majors foundation for remainder of the
  program
• Other business majors gt an IS/IT-literate student
• Marketing market research databases,
  statistical analysis
• Management information drives decision making
• Finance financial information systems are
  mission critical
• Accounting has own SBA concentration in
  Accounting Information Systems

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Why MS Office 2000?

• You will use Office 2000 in SBA at OU.
• Highly, highly likely you have or you will use MS
  Office in your professional work.
• MS Office is comprehensive
• Office productivity software
• Information systems development environment
• End-user tools
• Prototypes
• Office 2000 is good vehicle for illustrating MIS
  concepts

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Office 2000 and Office 97

• Excel (.xls), Word (.doc), Powerpoint (.ppt) have
  same file format for Office 2000 and 97.
• Some 2000 features will be lost (e.g. Pivot
  Charts)
• MS Access 2000 (.mdb) has new file format
• Access 2000 can open Access 97 mdbs as read-only
  or can convert them to Access 2000
• Can save an Access 2000 database back to an
  Access 97 database (some 2000 features may be
  lost)

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Syllabus and Course Web
http//www.sba.oakland.edu/faculty/isken/MIS300/

• MIS 300 Course Web site will be the place to go
  for course information and materials.
• Get used to checking it frequently
• Announcements
• Homeworks
• Downloads
• Grades