ITE 480 - Needs Assessment / Technology Analysis 8/26/99 ======= Questionnaires - do something on needs. We need something you can do a one page questionniare on. Identify: Students coming in are computing deficent. Questionnaire to work with this might be: No more than two pages, front and back, What questions might you ask to find out what kind of skills they have already? Need: Descrepency between the students capabilities between hardware and software, and what we want them to have entering the program. (have computers, access to computers, internet, email, multimedia capability, can they run distance ed programs on their systems effectively?) =================================================================== Questionnaire and what you're trying to assertain from that question should be included. ==================================================================== A gap might be perceived that the 'workers' are not performing enough work. The company might be meeting every goal of the company, but if the boss does not feel that way - that is his perception. The Needs Analysis is a SYSTEMATIC event. It's more like the 'scientific method'. Target Groups: have to be considered in doing an analysis. 8/31/99 ======= We come to problem solving with pre-approved notions. That's not exactly the way things should be. :) Goal is to understand what the problem is - not what the pre-concieved problem is. PRE-ASSESSMENT ============== Purpose: 1. Investigate what is known about need. You must understand the context of the question. What do we know about the need? You might neeved to ask about: (A) Detemining the area that comprises the need - IF you have a large need, it could be spread over several areas of a company or organization. IF dalechamps called you in and said we're not making nough profit, becuase people can't check out quick enough -- if you went into that organization and studied what they checkers did, you'd be looking into a broader picture. This may be related to items not having a barcode ; and therefore, the problem could come from THAT dept. (B) Determine the kind of information that will provide knowledge from need? What if the employees are not smiling? That could be another good example. (C) Where will the data come from, and how do you collect it? (D) Determine the stakeholders. (word used throughout the needs analysis topic) - These are people who might loose or gain because this new thing is done -- it means people who have something at stake. Example - from Dalechampsmanagement, produce, checkers, et cetera, (even customers) 2. Determine the purpose, focus, and the scope of the needs assessment. focus - the extent the assessment applies to. the number of events that should be investigated, and the number of possible solutions. scope - how far you are allowed to go to collect the data. example - if they called you in and told you the problem was with the checkers and the people , you could question the scope. who would you be allowed to collect data from? how far can you "Range" to gather information that you might feel important to identify a problem and make suggestions as to a solution. use - we need to understand what the need of the information is supposed to be about. we don't want to get caught up in some other purpose other than what you were hired for. the outcome data is an objective reporting of the facts that confirm or support the gap that is there, and how to make the gap go away. 3. Stakeholders - figure out who they are - various people have various committments about various people in the groups. When you listen to the same types of people, you'll hear the different views of people and find out who the groups are, what their committment is to the change that the needs assessment matter is going to propose.... These people are important - you have to find out what stake they have, because they will affect what is going on. 4. Determine the committment to the needs assessment. There are two areas that you have to have in terms of committment. (a)Authority to gather data: The people who commission the needs assessment are the holders of the authority. One group might be the authority to gather data (to interview people, look at records, talk to vendors, talk to customers, all of this requires resources and authority granted by the origization). Interesting enough, while someone is committed to the Needs Assessment, they might not grant you authority to all the information. Financial information is a very good example of this (This widget costs us .65 cents to make, and we're selling it for $40.00). (b)Accept the Needs Analysis and implement suggestions: If there is a goal or committment to doing something, the person really should know before hand. Are you REALLY interested in this? or not? Do you have something that can actually help ? DESIGNING THE NEEDS ASSESSMENT (ACTIVITIES AND TASKS) ======================================================= Determine WHY - - We want a clear understanding of why ; the political climate ; what we're going to do with it. One of the biggest problems in determining this, if you're not internal to the company, you can't see some of these points -- they're hidden. (The boss isn't going to tell you he's out to fire everyone..) If you're an inside person, you have that WHY? part to apply extra insight to. How many questionnaires am I going to have to make. How much data will I collect? What if I'm asked to collect data for the whole University? - you're up from the school of CIS to the whole University. There are several ways to look at this. Big Scope - lots of data - problems - resources. Resources are things, people, time, and money. Scope uses resources, some of it is good, some is bad. Small Scope - If the scope is too small, you run a potential risk of missing the root cause of the problem. If dalechamps told you the problem was ONLY in the checkers, and you didn't look at the stuff that was coming in to the checkers -- and you didn't notice the produce department wasn't barcoding...you miss the entire scope of the problem. 9/2/99 ====== What's the basic question? ========================== Once you figure out what it is, you must transmit it, as you see it, back to the people you are going to study -- ie, communicate the basic question to different groups -- additionally, the NA team must clearly understand what they are after Who conducts the needs assessment? =================================== Internal: may be commissioned by the org or they are already employed by the org. the people that comprise the team, has to be more than one person (some from each stakeholder group) it is a team effort External: hiring a consultant or a consultant organization ometimes they come in to do the first part (preassessment and design) Advantages and disadvantages 1. internal biases 2. external might miss hidden political agendas due to lack of knowledge Documentation: ultimately when you finish this process, there needs to be some kind of statement of acceptance in order to move on to the next phase -- includes the contract with external group Data Activities =============== what kinds of data will answer the question? some questions are easy to figure out how to get the data (quantitative), but just might be part of the question where will the data come from? ============================== Once you start the collection process, you might never get the chance to get it again, so you must get it the first time too much data is always better, but don't get too much as to make the process miserable, could cost too much or take too much time how will the data be collected? =============================== sometimes it is easy with surveys and such, on the other hand, it could be intrusive into the day-to-day operations of the business 9/7/99 ====== Be doing the questionnaires - due Thursday. Resources and Timelines ======================= Resources: 1) Needs Assessment Team and data collection people - resouces which must be identified - the needs analysis information itself, and the data collection people. 2) Sample Groups - for example,a class is assembled weekly, so we make a good target group. Sometimes you need to have an inducement for groups which are not under your control. 3) Organizational Data - if it's computer data, maybe someone needs to write a program to allow someone to gain access to it. 4) Infrastructure Resources - The types of material needed during the phases of assessment. From an internal organization, the internal company will handle things like long distance calls. If you're outsourcing, the other company will handle it; but, they'll bill you back. Timelines: For each activity you need: Start Date Length Personnel Sample Group (3 techniques for management here) Project Management: Pert Charts - Diagram that shows the critical path graphed.. Gant Charts Critical Path Analysis - technique which takes each activity and strings it together (you can't do b before a) , it'll help create the end day. Identify Groups and Communication methods: =========================================== Needs Assessmnt team must understand: Type of language level of detail Organization of report You must apprize people of what is happening along the way so they are not surprised. When communicating with people, use positive language. Design Analysis =============== Methodology - The kinds of data you are going to be collecting suggests statistical analysis methods. Before you gather other pieces of data, you need to be able to tell people about the type of data you are going to be getting. Example - if someone said Dr. Owen was an effective teacher, and someone else took the average of the test grades were, the methodology might be compromised right away. (someone might be getting adjusted to the first test...) IN PARTICULAR - when dealing with humans is what to do with OUTLIAR data? (your stats that are outside your mean, condratictory data) Get Needs Assessman Plan Approval ================================= The goal through all of this is to outline what is going to happen in the assessment, who is going to see the reports, the questions you are going to answer, and the people resources, timelines, and people and costs - then someone SHOULD give approval. :) 9/9/99 ====== Lets pick a company to pick on - and actually go through the pre-assessment phase. step 1 - what are some of the questions we should be able to ask? what is the problem? (Potential problems which can lead to gaps) they don't have the right brand they don't have the right flavor they're not quite as neat as they used to be layout of the store is difficult (people leave because of this) you have to have the 'gold card' to get discounts non-friendly employees can't find a manager / someone to work the service desk it's hard to checkout in dalechamps step 2 - determine the stakeholders. find out who owns the company people who are affected or touched by the outcomes of this ie: managers, stock holders, employees (all the different groups), customers, vendors, community, and government step 3 - what are the problems? using #5 , gold card, examing: who do we talk to about gold card issues? customers. what are your perceptions about the program? why do they collect that information? cashiers ? it is causing you to slow your work? Is it causing other problems? how long does it take grandma to pull it out of her stocking? ;-) management ? What are the design goals? Is it working? Is it working how you intended for it to work? What are you doing with the information you're collecting? Are there actually privacy issues in place? step 4 - what specific questions would you ask to help determine what is happening? look at data, et cetera... 9/14/99 ======= Second phase of the project - assessment phase. Talks about collecting and analysing information from the first phase. Methods of gathering data. In 271, there are only 2 or 3 methods for gathering data. From people, there are several people or methods: surveys questionnaires Among these, there are closed ended questions and open ended questions. Closed end questions don't really allow a custom answer, whereas open ended questions are designed for that. List two questions you found beneficial (open ended) Was this questionnaire helpful? yes. no. (closed ended) You also can use open ended to expand understanding about the question. You can use closed ended questions to QUANTIFY (mark a,b,c) your answers. Surveys and/or questionnaires are generally either: printed computer based web based There are some advantages and disadvantages: advantage: pretty low cost to cover large audiences "offline" - you're not connected to the people doing the survey. (for example, an interview might be considered "online" disadvantage: low response rate - there's not much enducement. question clarity or completeness. If you took your questions - froze them - mailed them - and when they come back, you're stuck. There's not much you can do. That means the DEVELOPMENT of the questionnaire is more important because you only have ONE SHOT to collect your information. INTERVIEWS ========== Another way to collect information from people is INTERVIEWS There are two types of interviews: Structured - Everyone is asked the same set of questions. Unstructured - You might ask a dalechamps worker "what do you like about your job" - and they might reply "the light from the ceiling". You set it up where you ask more detail about the light. You (the interviewer) - ask questions other than the ones set in a structured approach. ADVANTAGES: You get additional information (probably) [specially in unstructured] You also get re-enforcing information (if you are NOT there, you don't get body language, et cetera.....like stress, or like hesitation) DIS-ADVANTAGES: It's actually VERY time consuming - it's one on one. Also, someone has to be paid N times - based on how many interviews are made in person. The expert develops and trains for the interview. He then sends out trained interviewers. OBSERVATION ============ Generally starts with an OBSERVATION PROTOTOL. Someone says go watch the checkers at dalechamps. What do you watch? What do you do? Design a protocol - when the customer comes up, what is the first thing the checker does? - That's one of three behaviors for that first contact. Does the checker say hello? Does the checker push a button? Does the checker reach for an item? If not only have this protocol for what to look for -- what to observe, you need to know how to record it as well. (in bulding an observation protocol, it's similar to a statistical questionnaire outlining what you'e looking for) Generally, the employees either know you're watching them or not watching them. The Hawthorne effect is a problem associated with this. ADVANTAGES ========== You get to see natural behaviors. You also get to see (and collect) the information in a natural environment. DISADVANTAGES ============== Hawthorne effect. How well did the observers train? You may actually miss data! You may actually not be able to see the person you are observing due to some type of obstruction. COMPUTER-BASED REPORTS ====================== Computer-based reports on people's equipment. Such as a log on the checker's terminal. Data not only comes from people, but it also comes from STUFF. Data collected from computers and machenery. For example, if you went to SCOTT PAPER COMPANY which makes toiler paper, if you went to their 1930's legar books, someone probably wrote "we made 27,000 tons of toiler paper" at the end of the day. Now, they can probably tell you how much toilet paper they make per second. Also - derived data would be included, but it's from your origional observations or data. 9/16/99 ======= It is planned to review the questions - and make the assignment Tuesday. 9/21/99 ======= III. Assessment Phase ===================== A. Purpose - To Collect data about the current state of the system. ("What is") To Analysis to determine the gaps or the needs The questionnaire from 1997 has questions on it which are no longer any good - they are outdated. That's why this is a continuous process. There are TASKS for this phase: 1. Set boundaries - this includes your focus and your target groups. example - standford acheievement test - which boundaries? the teachers, students, family, possibly even the society. (could be a poor community, and when people get out of school they go work 14 jobs so food can be on the table..) example - consider complaints from customers at the grocery store. if someone complains about slow check outs, but boundry might be the checkers, management, and people who trained the checkers. Focus of your assessment - you want to assess WHAT you want to find and HOW are you going to find it. (the problem might not be the checkers, yet, the people in the line) - This prevents you from collecting useless information Target Groups - these are the people who have to be sampled. they are the information sources. this is where you will understand what the need is and gather information to understand the need. (in most cases, you simply need to do a pilot study to understand what you are doing) problem with this - if you used 10 people for a pilot study, you've only got 10 people left for the real survey. 2. Gather Data - this includes sources, and types of data. example sources - there are two types of data - facts, and opinions. When you go out and talk to people, you will collect information that is actually opinion, but it sounds like a fact. "We're all students" - it sounds like a fact, but it's actually an opinion. "Everyone has to wait to checkout at Delechamps" - it's fact, AND opinion. (some people have to wait 2 seconds to get TO the checkout....other people have to wait hours in line) - collect data and arrive at a solution via independent means. What might EXCESSIVE wait time be considered? Types of sources: ================= EXTANT DATA - this is data the company generally already has on file. We're going to use this data for information other than what it was stored for, usually. This can be organization data (like McDonalds collects how many #1 combos are sold ...?) Demographic information - information about your customers, your people, and socioeconomic information. (buy a tool from sears, and you fill out information to tell you about where you're from, et cetera...) Census and socioeconomic-- COMMUNICATION PROCESS - Interactive - the level of interaction varies from very little to very complex, and very complex information leads to opinions and people making statements about them. We collect information that is generally qualitative. (this is generally opinions). The other is non-interactive communication. This is data collected through surveys, opinions, where we have structured forms and get structured answers. Non interactive methods generally collected structured answers with forced responses (you can't say Not avail, or I don't know) You must remember quantitative is only as good as the person making that response. 9/23/99 ======== ANALYTIC DATA (or derived data) Data that you get as a function of either the analysis or combinations of other data put together. If you told me you collected information about the number of transactions someone did, and I figured out how many transactions per hour occurred from that, that is a derived number. We get analytic data using features like: Doing Analysis Task Analysis Trend Analysis Data Sources Description Information Produced: Archival This data is found in Provides Quantitative info the orginizations provides a picture of current state has little info about causes. Computer Data Usually requires some processing. Corporate Data Demographic Data Census Data Data from prior Ndsass Communications include: Provides: Interactive Covers groups Mainly Qualitative (from one to many) Interviews requires various levels Opinions of interaction Consensus Judgements Focus Groups Perceptions Group Hearings Delphi Non Interactive =============== Questionnaires Use structured forms to gather information Surveys Use formal protocols Analytic DATA (determine factors which might cause/affect the problem) ============= Causal Analysis All types of data collection causes of the problem Fishboning (groups, surveys, derived) Tasks you can get consequence data Factors 9/28/99 ======= Analysis - second phase: (3) - Analysis of the data that you collect. Once the data has been collected, you are supposed to be able to determine the gap... you have GATHERED DATA - this would be considered a causal analysis. What do we do? 1) Identify factors we think came from data we collected which might affect the need. They can come from two areas: (within the system, and not within a system) METHODS TO COLLECT DATA ======================= Group processing requires several people interacting at a time At the very least, there are the data collectors and the one or more group participants. Surveys and questionnaires: The participants have valuable information the data collectors want to gain. If you want to have a group meeting or group process then there are several things you have to for it: 1) planning - initially you have to have a purpose (agenda). be sure you have the physical factors are taken care of. Location, Time, and STUFF are important. location - meeting, space, et cetera time - certain deadlines take place, et cetera, you take whatever you can take. length is IMPORTANT. stuff - if it's a big formal meeting, everything has to work through it all... physcial factors - there has to be some kind of leader or facilitator of the meeting. 2) identify the participants - get them to come - if goals of the meeting and data collection on the meeting are accurate from the start, you're in good shape. 3) hold a meeting varies by meeting type - we might have a "lab" on this :) 4) followup activities that happen after the meeting. in general, you have all this collected data. there are several steps to analyse data, extrapolate the data, aggrigate the data. (especially if data collection people are seperate from needs analysis people) then you have to communicate the results - to the needs analysis team, and secondly - to the participants. important facts on some of those topics: ======================================== 1) site location - when you pick a site, and you have participants that are busy with an organization, you better not have the meeting AT that organization. people will be quite distracted 2) leadership - having a leader is very important. If you let someone with a dominant personality take over the meeting, you're not actually going to learn anything. The leader must have some characteristics to go along with this: a) listening - a leader listens to what is being said, analyses the information being said, and keeps the meeting on track. b) summarizing - a leader will provide summaries during a meeting to lessen disagreements between members. 9/30/99 ======= c) opening - responsible for moving the group from one topic to the next. d) tracking - the characteristic that a group leader may use to keep on target. Remaining on the agenda uses, making progress towards the goal. e) pacing - the task that the leader has to keep the meeting moving - where you cover all the information in an allocated period of time. TASKS FOR THE LEADER ==================== Insure full participation - Make sure everyone participates Refrain from bias and other opinionated comments during a meeting. Should also be enthusiastic and energetic about the meeting. INVOLVING THE PARTICIPANTS =========================== I have to feel like giving you my time and expertese is going to be with it - that you are going to listen to what I have to say. That it will be used in some way. Participants can LISTEN. Good listening skills are good because people can inherently listen. It is difficult because people can hear and process the information about five times faster than a person can speak. Characteristics on people (from bad to good) : Being present physically but not mentally. Hearing the speaker but doing something else at the same time. Inturrupting the speaker, prematurely and frequently. Allowing the speaker to finish, but meanwhile thinking intensely about your response. Allowing the speaker to finish, and then pausing -- summarize -- what was heard, only then replying. ACHIEVING CONSENSUS =================== "Yah...we're going in the right direction" - once you agree one a compromise everyone seems to like. Recording Group Ideas: ======================= If we're collecting data and information about a meeting, you need to record group ideas. TEST TUESDAY: ============= Phase one and Phase Two of the needs assessment process. two areas: 1) discussions about the process itself (idea of collecting , analysis , determining needs, et cetera) for spercific topics, we'v ecovered spercific things, there should be, will be , questions of a very specific nature. example: advantages and disadvantages or questionnaires and surveys small type discussion - paragraph answers. more global answers - type of issues involved in needs assessment pre-analysis, collection data, et cetera. analysis is basically analysis... ask checkers how are you going to make them more efficent? et cetera - might cover this on the test. here's this problem - identify what you would do with the needs assessment. where would you begin? what groups of people might you deal with. review the information, intelligently discuss this topic. 10/12/99 ======== continuing methods...for data collection (defintion, group size, planning, leadership, follow-up) ======================================== community forum =============== Definition of a community forum - similar to a town meeting where a large group of people are called together to discuss an important event. group size - is exceedingly large. Ideally, around 50. planning for this method is 2-3 issues. how do you make sure people discuss the issues they came to discuss? leadership - how do you allow for one person to talk at a time, only? in a group meeting, the leadership is vital comments about running the meeting - one of the difficulties is about collecting the data. follow-up - after the meeting has been held, the data should be collected and aggrigated to find out what was said. generally, afterwards, some kind of media synopsis will be released containting the information that was collected in the meeting. nominal group technique (cullman.com initial discussion) ======================= definition - this is a group technique which uses a small group definition which uses a small group to generate ideas rapidly. there is little interaction between group members. you put a problem up - you sit around and think about it - and then you write down as much as you can about it. group size - works with small groups ; most books say 6-10. planning - the senior task is to generate ideas and order them if possible. you need specific questions. which people do you want to involve? you should pick people who are representative of the group, but also who can follow the rules. pick people who don't know each other. leadership - must know how to conduct a meeting and keep everyone coming up with new ideas. followup activities- follow up the meeting ; structured after the meeting. there's some question and answer time in the middle sometime. summaries are prepared...along with the rankings. 10/14/99 ======== focus group interview ===================== definition - a small group technique that uses structured methods (small groups) probably 8-12 which uses a structured interview process to arrive at perceptions and opinions. group size - 8 to 12. planning - you have to identify the important issues or questions. participants have to be selected whereas they have information about what they are being asked about (duhh!) leadership - must keep group focused on topic questions. you shouldn't make fun of other people's opinions. phrasing of questions, tone of voice, body language - all bad indications of leadership's views. you pose a question, give them time to know each other on a first name basis, then get the questions going. conducting - short meeting, up to two hours? followup activities - data is aggrigated, summarized, and presented to the people who had the focus group called together initially. it is generally difficult with focus group people to get the information to them directly...because usually you do not know them. group delphi ============ definition - get together a bunch of military think tanks and get opinions on a large thing. you call them a group - but you don't want to get them as a group. you control the communication between them? say..from time to time you'll fill out a questionnaire and then, at some point, you'll send it back to each other members of the group. you do not let each member of the group get together. (they might sway each other's opinion) size - any size that is managable. planning - the larger the group is, the larger the planning cycle is going to be. you might even have members of the group around the world. form the group ; identify topics or issues and develop some communications method (mail / email / et cetera) leadership - done more as a facilitating to nag people to get their things in, et cetera. conducting group meeting with these concepts is the entire goal. followup - the people who are really paying attention will see the delphi process drop down to the last sub-issue. electronic groups ================= definition - try to improve operations of other types of meetings for example - improve upon turn around time of group delphi. group support software - (gss) - can minimize the effects of some of the other types of discussions. there is a lot of data on this on the internet... next topic....phase three 10/21/99 ======== Idenfity Critical Information (that affects the needs gap) 2) When brainstorming, you want to focus on areas that will improve the conditions which are causing problems. 3) Develop solutions - a) some solutions you develop might be obvious - such as to turn on all the cash registers. some solutions, of course, are not as obvious - such as the check out lines being full all the time. b) develop alternative solutions - look for things people don't always think on. for example, if we are focusing on the checkout problem there is a temptation to say the problem is right here (software, people checking, et cetera) - but in the NA phases, 1 and 2 , remember your evaluation needs to exceed the obvious. (is this code for this product stored correctly?) c) evaluate potential solutions 1) common criteria include feesibility - - can we afford to buy the extra equipment? can we hire extra people? do we have the space to implement this? 2) acceptability - who will actually accept chip-n-dale's as checkers at Dalechamps? I don't think so :) 3) effect - what if you wrote a computer program to use much more efficent algorithms to check out? - and the transaction could be less by one secend each time...what's your point? the average transaction is five minutes. d) rank the solutions / classify solutions - if you have a sufficiently complex analysis, you're not going to talk about all of them. rank them by categories. in classifications, we have two categories - one is BROAD (broad goals), and the other is critical needs - if you have a specific problem. might include criteria or issues (such as time and money to implement ; investment ; et cetera) you might come up with a solution that says we'll do this quickly and cheaply, and you'll recover your money asap. 10/26/99 ======== Please try to read through the case studies :) For first two case studies, write an analysis and description and compare and contrast their technologies effectiveness. Finally - give some thought to what kinds of redesigns you would do. Reporting Results: ================== 1. Audience - We have to produce reports - generally we report to stake holder groups and there are different writing styles and different levels of complexity from the groups as well. you can't write one big report that you could give to everyone - it would be useful for some, but useless for others. You can provide different types of information for different types of information. 2. Report Parts - These contain different types of writings for different types of people. Can Include: A. Executive Summary - a short statement of the findings B. Introduction - provides coverage of problems and reasons for doing the study. Also included is information about the problem, the environment, and the sponsoring organization. 3. Methods and Proceedures - A. Subjects - which populations were used to gather data? (on gathering data, if opinions in a communist country were 'edited' - your subjects will not be honest) B. Data Collection Instruments - this is more of a justification and reporting in which you will address how you will ask your questions (similar to our first writing questionnaire) C. Data Collection Proceedures - We went to dalechamps, observed the checkers, went back into the break room and asked the manager to send a checker back and sat down and interviewed them when they took a break. You also discuss any problems which might have occurred (did your equipment not function properly?) D. Statistical Analysis - We used a T-Test because it was an approphriate test proceedure to accomplish your goals. 4. Results - Traditionally ONLY includes results. Generally always OBJECTIVE. 5. Discussion - Subjective information - can draw conclusions. 6. Recommendations - If you are attempting to provide solutions, this is where you do this. 7. Appendix and Bibliography - Any full documents you have referenced in the front and think it might be a good idea to present them fully in the back. Bibliography would include all the documents you used in collecting data. Sample Results, Contact Information, et cetera This concludes needs assessment - this is a general technique, and it can be used for ANY kind of problem solving. It's general for EVERYTHING. You can study an organization, social conditions, technical question - all equally well. The techniques of system ananly sis and design take specific intances such as this and apply it to specific topic domains. if you take the general method and apply it elsewhere, it should work. 11/02/99 ======== Alternative Approach / Alternative Systems =========================================== (start with chapter 11 and 12?) TECHNOLOGY EVALUATION : 1. Aquiring New Systems: Companies can come up with needs for new systems. Aquiring that new system - generally, there are two ways to do it. While the goals are the same, the methods are different. A. Build it from scratch approach - one of the ways you can do it is to have the staff on hand to do it or go out and hire the staff. In either case, use the SDLC. 1. SDLC 2. Cost - Generally the people in management has to come up with some kind of management for cost. There are two kinds of costs that can be identified that must be estimated while doing the analysis that determines rather or not this project is to be done. A. Time B. Money There are certain amounts of risks involved with build it yourself systems. 1. Poor requirements specifications (tools) 2. Poor understanding of the development environment 3. Poor developer skills (estimating time required) 11/4/99 ======= 4. Poor acceptance by the users. (find needs of the users) ==OR== B. Purchase the equipment - Purchase Process ================ definition phase - what are we going over? feasibility - is it technically feasible? is it economically feasable? is it technically feasable? economically feasable - will a technology improvement make money for the organization? operationally feasable - the new equipment coming in must be able to replace the old way of doing it. One of the techniques for doing all this stuff is to do something called a COST-BENEFIT analysis. requirements ============ RFP - Request for Proposal. You send out to different people that says "we're looking for a product that has this functionality". The vendors read it and respond with perspective products. Even though you might buy a system, you need to know what kind of functionality it will have when you get it. Develop a short list - suppose we want to have an HTML development tool. If we left it at this, then we'd have a HUGE list of HTML tools. If we say we want WHYSWYG, thou, you'll eliminate some of the matches. Should shorten list of people before you do ANY evaluations. Create or specify the selection criteria. They must be delivered in 30 days. They must cost $21.00 for each copy we're going to buy...et cetera. EXACT specifications. 11/16/99 ======== Organizational Needs Product Capabilities \ / Identity Discrepencies | Choose Alternative / | \ Change Organ Modify Package Live with it! :) Modify Package - change size and length of part numbers or something Make no changes - live with the differences, do things by hand, et cetera. ? Most people who buy software packages go with the "modify package" concept. If you implement modification, you have a modification PHASE: (construction / modification) Follow software development life cycle no modification: installation & testing - (adminstrator testing, training, et cetera) Training: for users and administrators Planning: for the actual switch over Modifications to require: ========================= (a) vendor made modification (b) can have a standard package to which you add location specific software modules and you create a custom version of the software. How are future updates handled? Oracle is notorious for not actually updating anything. IF you get the package in, get it installed, et cetera, it's rough. - you're stuck having to do all that. In house modification - expertese, understanding, et cetera you must understand the new system Set of acceptance tests - to see if the whole system works. make sure the package is completely functional - including all modifications. Implementation Phase ==================== (installation phase) we install the system - (find hardware , get ready for "production") and there has to be adequate documentation. conversion of existing data to the existing format - hope there is documentation out there somewhere... (training needs) administrators need to be trained first users customers - need to be trained OPERATION ========= new systems should be "seamlessly intregrated" :) before they go online as a "new system" MAINTENANCE =========== operational maintainence - what does it take to let a system run for five years? depreciate the value over five years UPDATE maintainance =================== maintaince that is periodically taken to fix bugs, add new functionality, or change the system in response to the changing world. ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES ============================ (of aquiring software via purchasing) advantages =========== If you're purchasing software or having it customly developed, it clearly reduces implementation time It lowers the aquisition cost. Quality MUST be known! Gain expertese quickly Frees the in-house staff to do other things 11/18/99 ======== Disadvantages ============= - Meeting exact needs of organization.- it's unlikely for sophisticaed products to come up with a method to fill potential products. - modification risk - if a software package is purchased, it know it has to be modified, than (a) it can be modified and verify the modifications work, and (b) it might not work anymore after an update - vendor dependence - if you choose a package from a 3rd party dependence, you become dependent on that company. you're stuck here, and it's really really bad to get a divorce. if you do, you generally have to marry very quickly, and you don't want to do that. so if someone discontinues their product, you're back to square one. COST-BENEFIT ANALYSIS ===================== Does BENEFIT > COST ? ? considering a car: won't have costs new costs ================================ less fix costs monthly payments no breakdown costs less monthly fixes you should also get: improved productivity Determine costs: =============== Direct costs - money you pay for aquiring a new system ; collecting costs for computer systems and software (pretty easy for tangible items) - but training and costs of using the system are less. Example - that lots of people miss - buy a new system, with a pre-determined type of invoice. As soon as you change to a new system, you have to change to the new invoice system. Indirect costs - You also have an indirect cost of the old invoives which no longer work. Could also be like...training for the new system. This is something that WASN'T PLANNED initially. (for the upgrade). Computing the benefits - You have to determine what plus's you're going to get out of the new system. You're going to buy a system for increased productivity. Some of it is pretty easy to figure out. Suppose I wanted to aquire a faster computer system. It would be real easy to compute the benefit of having the new system - figure out the # of transactions per hour for the old system as opposed to the new system. (say...10,000 transactions per hour vs 20,000 transactions per hour) New capabilities can come in forms you can either be aware of or not be aware of. :) Sometimes, you can put in new systems and when they come online, people start to look at different ways of doing things than you initially planned. Benefits have to be greater than the cost - it can be proved to everyone that it can be a good thing to do. TS / TS - time savings, time salery. The way we compute the benefit is to figure out how much time is saved, and how much potential benefit we might get. This actually displaces workers, because it can get people OUT of the organization. 11/23/99 ======== OUTLINE - (page 2, section b, #'s 1-7 Don't hire your cousin, larger hard drive, et cetera - if you're trying to maximize your profit. In an ideal organization, there are slots and relationshiups to employee's saleries get "out of whack". Number of each type of employees are optimal - depending on the types of work you must do. Organization has more comparable work to do - if you evaluate the value you get from using a new system (saving time) - that means that person would have to work at doing the value of work that matches their salery. Worker does teaching responsibility, coordinator, professional service, et cetera. Might be 50% admin, 40% teaching, 10% service PROBLEMS WITH DOING THIS ========================= Human nature causes these assumptions to be stretched and broken. IF someone gave you a faster computer, would you do more work or less work in the same time? #2 - if you save part of my day, say, 10% free time, than I could allocate my time to lesser value (sweeping, toner cartridge, et cetera) Might even do work of greater value - finish initial note, do something else with 20 minutes...which leads to something else which is major improvement. Cost of having someone plus cost of the company - should bring in profit. Sometimes, it's clear, that some people's worth to the company is greater than that! Like..someone who steers a client into the company. Example...people go places because they like THE PEOPLE. :) HEDONIC WAGE MODEL =================== Trys to save the savings and saleries of the benefits. Lets don't focus on the saleries or the savings, but on the kind of work and benefit to try to calculate the benefit and productivity. Increased effectiveness means the system will allow you to do higher calibar work - for example, in IMT, where they were entering data more than once. If you want to compute benefits, go for systems that will allow you to increase your high calibar work. ASSUMPTIONS ============ 11/30/99 ======== Look through chapter 13 (managing info technology and resources) To manage, there are components of a management plan 1. mission statement - the fundamental statement about the reason's existance. The reason an organization exists and why it exists. There are three things to review: a) Be efficient b) Be effective c) Competitiveness - is the organization doing what it must do to remain viable? 2. information mission - the future desired use for information we should have a vision as to how we're supposed to use the information 3. information technology archetecture - describes the information resources and how they can and should be used to help the "mission". 4. Stetegic plan - This includes strong goals for how an organization plans to meet its mission statement. Does not include specifics, though. A strategic plan might be "we intend in 5 years to have 3 new divisions "... example - increase community awareness of USA 5. Operational plan - is a more specific set of activities (projects, systems, hardware) - that facilitate the statigic plan. this is short range and focused. examples - hire a public relations person create ads for tv write articles for paper have each professor talk about community things in class (page 530...) B. Planning Process - (1) Strategic Planning - Determine how resources should be used. Periodically should be reviewed. (2) Operational Planning - More detailed on specific details, time frames, et cetera.... (3) Planning methods - There are two planning methods (page 537) a. Needs based IS planning - a bottom up approach that says we realized this is what we need to do, this is our available resources, this is what we have t owork with. b. project based planning - over time, it becomes reactive in nature that some part of an organization whereas you're meshing with theirs or doing something instead of figuring out what the most important thing is. (4) To plan the vision of an organization, you must understand the current use of an organization and the future requirements. (determining the gap) (5) Planning the information architecture - composed of two components, the technological components (hardware, software) , communications facilities (networks), and the data itself. Also - do not forget about the "human assetts". - personnel. Corporate Value / Cultures - management system / policies. Defined as the methods of decision making - what do I do and how do I do it? STRATETIC PLANNING ================== 4 tasks: (page 545) Objective setting: Determine how the resources are going to be used Do an analysis of the internal environment - this is a needs analysis of internal and external environment. Establish strategic initiatives - Figure out where you're going to go first...prioritize. (S - Strengths W - Weaknesses O - Opportunities T - Threats) 11/2/99 ======= OPERATIONAL PLANNING ==================== A. Short Term Planning - there usually has to be some short duration (a year) and it corosponds to an organization's accounting cycles. It focuses on specific tasks and time frame for completion times. B. They are linked to the business operations - they reflect things that the business does and reflect the business limitations that the business deals with. Must have budgets, resources, and people. C. Short term plans also examine the impact on the operation of the organization MANAGING DATA ============= Why manage data? Well, data is a resource. It contains valuable information without with it can not survive. Data represents a real cost in money. If you loose it, it's going to cost you something. If you don't have it anymore, you have the "lost of use". In that case, there is a cost to replace it. There is a low cost (From restoring a backup) to having to restore it from paper based records (ouch!!) Inconsistant data is costly and confusing. An organization that depends on data has to resolve inconsistancies before you can go forward. DATA MANAGEMENT CONCEPTS ======================== Data Permanence - The data you collect and use changes (sears no longer sells washing machines) The data still sticks around...for quite a while. Data Pyramid - = upper management ==== middle management ======== "lower" management ============== production area of company ====================== upper management - reviews stretegic information ( example - sells 4.6 percent of all profits...) middle management - these are the people who make simple stretegic and operational decisions. concerned with the current state of the company - are we making enough money? "lower" management - deals with everyday operational management of the system. production area of company - deals with collection of the information, don't do much with the information. DSS - Decision Support Systems - follow along with this same concept. ========================================= Application Independence - In the past, systems were built for their own programs. (application and data were married). Now, we're hoping the data and applications can be independent of each other (sql server?). Capture Data only ONCE - capture it at its source. Also, provide its use everywhere else. Don't enter redundant data. Data Standards - if an organization is going to use data, than they probably should think about the data - and a way to standardize the data. One method of doing that is to build a data dictionary. Build concepts that relate to the data. Every operator must have a unique name. definition which describes the object (field name) data dictionary (probably has valid values - use validation) usage rights? (who can and can't , et cetera) 12/7/99 ======= DATA MANAGEMENT PROCESS ======================= To manage data, you need a plan. You must generally outline the types of data that are going to be managed and their relationships to one another. If you were building a data management system, you would want to: 1) Determine the types of data - their relationships 2) Their sources. 3) Aquire and maintain the data. 4) Define and describe the data (for all people who might need it) 5) Organize the data. 6) Data Quality and Intregrity. (so that each user can rely on the data they've stored) (did you collect it reliably?) 7) Profit and security Might solve some of these problems by "shifting" the validation from one step to another (example, manually enterting student ID numbers if they were two characters....say, someone entered their age instead of their student ID num) 8) Account for use - if you build data and you believe it to be a valueable resource with monetary value, than you should account for its use. You might count how many times people gain access to the information. You might assess some value or cost for collecting the information, et cetera. (example - there was an otturtunity in home listing / real estate - to take pictures with a digital camera, and send it around with cd-rom). Using this data, you could figure out what's required to make it. Look at frequency of use, type of use, do it for accounting purposes. It's all set by the benefit of using it. Evaluate predective trends. (we've done that before?) 9) Recover, restore, and update - If you build data and you store it, than the preservation is done by this. Restoring is if you messed up, you can restore it directly from backup media. Recover is the ability to put the data back from other electronic medias. (if the computer center burned down, the student record from grimes might be lost. however, the backups were back.) Restored from the administration building. 10) Retension and disposal - if you keep data than an issue that is certainly out there is how long do you have to keep it? It costs money to keep unwanted data. For example, the lawsuits against tobacco companies are mostly winning because there is information contradicting what they were concerned with. 11) Train and Consult - For an organization that collects a lot of data over a long period of time, it's entirely possible that the people who did initial collections of data are NOT the people who are currently using the data. Therefore, you must be able to train people who currently using the data so they can use the ORIGIONAL data. **This is all in your book in the mid-500's** (560?) FINAL ===== 10:30 am - Tuesday. Primarily focus on activities since the midterm. This is also a WHY? class. WE've talked about lots of issues, so, part 2 is evaluating technology - we looked at aquiring systems, technology, and we covered some of these ideas both in lecture and in readings of the case studies. case studies won't be covered. aquriing systems building system purchasing systems cost-benefit analysis (should you buy software to increase productivity of an organization?) the goal is to make the organization better. management of data in information technology. we've talked about the data more than anything else. we really haven't talked about the infrastructure (hardware / software) topics not covered / nor to be tested: change management (diffusion of information, early adaptors) risk management (how do you deal with risk?)