Identify and discuss the steps for "critical success factors" approach? (at least 1,500 words)

Before identifying the steps for the critical success factors approach, let us take first an overview about this so that we are able to know what is that all about.

Critical Success Factors
The idea of identifying critical success factors as a basis for determining the information needs of managers was proposed by Daniel (1961) but popularized by Rockart (1979). The idea is very simple: in any organization certain factors will be critical to the success of that organization, in the sense that, if objectives associated with the factors are not achieved, the organization will fail - perhaps catastrophically so. Rockart (1979: 85), by referring to Daniel (1961), gives the following as an example of the CSFs: new product development, good distribution, and effective advertising for the food processing industry - factors that remain relevant today for many firms. The CSFs approach was combined with the value chain concept by Porter (1985) in order to form an information audit. Competitive advantage, following Porter (1985), was taken to mean, the ability of a firm to provide better value for its customers through lower prices, higher quality, or benefits not available elsewhere. The primary purpose was to test the idea that the information intensive areas of an organization could be identified within the value chain by using the CSF technique to indicate the critical areas and, thereby, enable the identification of corporate information needs. Corporate information needs were defined as those needs for information that must be satisfied if the organization is to achieve its strategic aims. The proposition was that those parts of the value chain that were perceived by organizational members to be of critical significance would be the areas in which effort ought to be concentrated so that the information systems could be effective.

Ref:http://informationr.net/ir/6-3/paper108.html

For most businesses, executives and employees spend a fair amount of time doing things which don't really make the business more successful. When you stop to consider it, there are only generally a limited number of areas - like sales or product development - which make your business succeed. With insight and analysis you can select these things, the critical success factors. Guaranteed: your business will succeed or fail depending on how you approach your unique set of critical success factors. Understanding these factors and paying 100% attention to them is a sure way to add power to your efforts and jump start towards a new level of performance. Here's how.

Step 1: Identify your critical success factors
The first step is to identify your special set of critical success factors. You may have thought this through in the past; you may think you know them intuitively. When asked "What matters?", many executives reflexively say things like sales, customers, people, or product development. These are all good answers, and they may be correct answers, but you will want to think deeper and broader. Below is a list to start you thinking. It is set in no particular order and contains only the most obvious factors. Review the list and circle areas you believe are critical to your enterprise. You may have to add other, more specific or subtle factors to the list to describe the critical influences on your business' success.
-Distribution - this could be direct sales, telesales, third- party sales, etc.
-Lead generation
-Customer satisfaction
-Referrals
-Research
-Product development
-Production, including quality, costing, run-rates, etc.
-Sufficient investment capital, sufficient working capital
-Customer support / technical support
-Quality assurance
-Sales process / sales life cycle
-Market research
-Customer education
-Sales compensation
-Recruiting
-Personnel retention programs
-Expense management
-Intellectual capital development
-Training
-Marketing communications
-Logistics
-Employee equity
-Executive leadership
-Training and development
-Corporate goals / strategic objectives
-Values and beliefs
-Mission/purpose
-Individual accountability
-Productivity & effectiveness metrics
-Internal communications
-Strategic and tactical planning
-Executive team
-Board of directors/advisors
Be specific when you identify your factors. Don't say "people" when the issue is recruiting, employee satisfaction, training or compensation. Don't say "marketing" or "sales" when the issue is lead generation. Test your assumptions by imagining a decline in a particular factor. How would that impact your business? Now imagine an improvement in that factor. How would that impact your business? In selecting factors, limit your list to no more than seven. Why seven? Cognitive theory suggests that human minds are efficient at juggling from five to nine separate trains of thought - the average and oft- quoted number is seven. Our plan is for you to keep your eye on the ball, you want to limit the balls to those you can keep your eye on.
Step 2: Establishing the measurements
Your next step is to establish a measurement scale for each critical factor. Some of these measures will be quantitative; some qualitative. Sales is an easy one: dollars of revenue measured against budget. Leads generated is also easy - how many? You can further break down sales by product and leads by sources, or you can stick to the consolidated numbers. Choose the measure which best reflects your understanding of how the issue affects your business.
Everything is measurable, you just need the right system. How can you measure your effectiveness in sales compensation? You could establish a compound metric which includes total compensation as a percentage of sales revenue, juxtaposed against goal attainment. Marketing communications is also difficult. One way to measure this is to subjectively assess the quality of your marcom pieces; you could also measure whether you have the total complement of marcom pieces you require. Or, measure whether prospects respond to your marcom efforts. Most likely you will combine all three to get one measure.
A final example is measuring your efforts in the area of your Board of Directors / Board of Advisors. Measures include: do you have one? Are all the board seats filled? Is the board effective for your intended purpose? Measuring the Board factor would likely blend each of these.
Step 3: Setting the baseline
Once you've established a measurement structure for a factor, the next step is setting a baseline. Each factor should be set against a normalizing scale ranging from 1 to 10. Subjectively this can translate into non-performing(1), poor (2-3) , mediocre (4-5), good (6-7), great (8-9), and outstanding (10).
If your sales run-rate is $10 million, determine whether that is a 1, a 5, or a 10. Your answer depends of course on whether you consider performance against budget, performance against stretch goals, or performance against "home-run-out-of-the-park" goals. If your baseline for Board of Directors is two unfilled board seats - is that a 5 (mediocre) or a poor (2-3)? Only you can decide. Although this ultimately is a subjective process, you want to make it as objective as possible.
Step 4: Set new goals
Next, create a "gap" between where you are - your baseline - and your target for that factor. You already have a sales plan, so your gap exists between your current revenue and your budgeted revenue. You may consider your baseline a 5, and your target an 8. Implicit in this 1- 10 scale are judgements about your intentions: will reaching your budgeted revenue put you at 8 (almost great) or 10 (outstanding)? Where do you want to peg your efforts? If you've assessed your employee training at a 4 (mediocre), are you shooting for a 7 (good) or a 9 (great)? You can see from this how your measurement structure and goal system will impact how you allocate your company's resources and energy.
Step 5: Closing the gap
You now have a baseline and a target for each factor. Between them they define a factor gap - your challenge is to close it. Each gap becomes the focus of a meditation which asks the question: What will close the gap between our current level of this factor and our desired level? What possible actions will raise that measurement? You may have intuitive responses to these questions, and when appropriate, trust your gut. If need be, back that gut response with research - but only when cost effective. (Sometimes the most cost effective research is implementation, particularly in simple matters.) Use any idea generation process you are comfortable with. Develop several possible initiatives to raise the level of that factor. With luck your ideas will work together and harmonize in terms of impact or implementation requirements. If you create competing ideas, select the best alternatives. Choose based on return on investment, required resources, scheduling conflicts, time to impact, total cost, and likelihood of success versus risk of failure. Depending on the specific factor, and the size of the gap, you may plan to close it in stages or shoot the gap all at once. You can launch one initiative at a time, or implement several initiatives in parallel. You may find my GamePlan!" methods useful in designing your gap-closing programs. Once you launch your gap-closing initiatives, continually measure your results. Report your progress to participants and stakeholders, and post it publicly.
Step 6: The Ben Franklin Rotation Program
As a young adult, Ben Franklin identified thirteen virtues he aspired to. In order to implement these virtues in his life he devised a "Plan for Self Examination", a program whereby he focused his attention, one virtue at a time, for one week at a time, rotating through the entire list four times a year. He kept a detailed log of the actions he took to develop the virtues in himself, along with his personal results. Paul Lemberg adapted Franklin's concept and called it the Ben Franklin Rotation Program. At any point in time, you will have in place a program for improving every one of your critical factors. But in any given week, your primary attention will be on only one factor. Using Franklin's principles, at the beginning of each week, focus your mind - or collective mind of your management team - on improving that week's factor. What new actions can you take, what new attitudes can you adopt, what new or renewed approaches are available - which will enhance your performance in that one specific area? Do that "thing" wholeheartedly for the entire week. Franklin also shows us how to track your progress in this venture. Create a score sheet detailing your Critical Success Factors. This sheet should detail each factor, its measurements, your current 1-10 rating and your target rating, along with your next action steps for improving that rating. Each factor also gets a weight, which enables you to develop an overall score. Each week, re-rate all the factors on the score sheet, and graph your progress. You may also graph the overall score. Publish the score sheet and the graphs. You can establish a reward system based on individual progress, or, using the factor weights, you can develop a bonus structure which incentivizes total progress. This simple system will focus your attention on improving each one of your critical success factors. With carefully selected factors, you insure both rapid performance increases and balance in your company.

Ref:http://www.paullemberg.com/criticalfactors.html

Successful people have the following:
*Good, well thought out plans.
*The passion for their ambitions.
*Willingness to extend time and effort.
*A willingness to sacrifice in order to achieve.
*The right attitude or the willingness to get the right attitude.

These Critical Success Factors are the most important keys that help to make up the arsenal of your average (or less than average) high achiever.
Some people are lucky that they inherently possess these traits, but even if you don't you can obtain and possess them for yourself. In conclusion,the solution to succeeding lies in many variables, but there are some that are ever present that account for the majority of accomplishments. By seeking to develop your own key factors you can proceed to emulate the feats of the successful or better yet overtake them altogether. These examples of critical success factors should highlight to you the very things that are needed to succeed and make valuable achievements, but they should also make you value the effort that must be exerted in order to accomplish your goals.

In the spectrum of organizational change, which is the most radical type of change: automation, rationalization of procedures, business reengineering, or paradigm shifts? (you are expected to read an article about this question) .. at least 3000 words

What is meant by "Organizational Change"?
These are the companies that are undergoing or that have undergone a transformation. Typically, the concept of organizational change is in regard to organization-wide change, as opposed to smaller changes such as adding a new person, modifying a program, etc. Examples of organization-wide change might include a change in mission,restructuring operations (e.g., restructuring to self-managed teams, layoffs, etc.), new technologies, mergers, major collaborations, "rightsizing", new programs such as Total Quality Management, re-engineering, etc. Some experts refer to organizational transformation. Often this term designates a fundamental and radical reorientation in the way the organization operates.

What Provokes "Organizational Change"?
Change should not be done for the sake of change -- it's a strategy to accomplish some overall goal.Usually organizational change is provoked by some major outside driving force, e.g., substantial cuts in funding, address major new markets/clients, need for dramatic increases in productivity/services, etc. Typically, organizations must undertake organization-wide change to evolve to a different level in their life cycle, e.g., going from a highly reactive, entreprenueral organization to more stable and planned development. Transition to a new chief executive can provoke organization-wide change when his or her new and unique personality pervades the entire organization.

Spectrum of change
1. automation
2. rationalization of procedures
3. business reengineering
4. paradigm shift



Automation refers to computerizing processes to speed up the existing tasks or using the computer to speed up the performance of existing tasks. It improves efficiency and effectiveness. It also involves assisting employees perform their tasks more efficiently and effectively.

Rationalization of procedures refers to streamlining of standard operating procedures, eliminating obvious bottlenecks, so that automation makes operating procedures more efficient.It improves efficiency and effectiveness.This follows quickly from early automation.

Business reengineering refers to radical redesign of business processes.Aims at eliminating repetitive, paper-intensive, bureaucratic tasks,reducing costs significantly and improving product/service quality.Involves radical rethinking.Can change the way an organization conducts its business. Strikes fear, its expensive, its very risky and its extremely difficult to carry out and manage.Develop the business vision and process objective. Identify the processes to be redesigned (core and highest payback).Understand and measure the performance of existing processes.Identify the opportunities for applying information technology. And it build a prototype of the new process. Business reengineering includes BPR or the business process reengineering. Reengineering is the fundamental rethinking and radical redesign of business processes to achieve dramatic improvements in critical, contemporary measures of performance such as cost, quality, service, and speed. And Business Process is a collection of activities that takes one or more kinds of inputs and creates an output that is of value to a customer.

Paradigm shift refers to a more radical form of change where the nature of business and the nature of the organization is questioned. It improves strategic standing of the organization. It is the radical reconceptualization of the nature of the business and the nature of the organization. Here, deciding which business process to get right is half the challenge for which 70% of time programmatic reengineering efforts fail.

One of the most important things to know about building a new information system is that this process is one kind of planned organizational change. Frequently, new systems mean new ways of doing business and working together. The nature of tasks, the speed with which they must be completed, the nature of supervision (its frequency and intensity), and who has what information about whom will all be decided in the process of building an information system. This is especially true in contemporary systems, which deeply affect many parts of the organization. System builders must understand how a system will affect the organization as a whole, focusing particularly on organizational conflict and changes in the locus of decision-making. Builders must also consider how the nature of work groups will change under the impact of the new system. Builders determine how much change is needed.New information systems can be powerful instruments for organizational change.

The most common form of IT-enabled organizational change is automation. The first applications of information technology involved assisting employees perform their tasks more efficiently and effectively. Calculating paychecks and payroll registers, giving bank teller’s instant access to customer deposit records, and developing a nationwide network of airline reservation terminals for airline reservation agents are all examples of early automation. Automation is akin to putting a larger motor in an existing automobile.

A deeper form of organizational change – one that follows quickly from early automation – is rationalization procedure. Automation frequently reveals new
bottlenecks in production, and makes the existing arrangement of procedures and structures painfully cumbersome. Rationalization of procedures is the streamlining of standard operating procedures, eliminating obvious bottlenecks, so that automation can make operating procedures more efficient.

A more powerful type of organization change is business re-engineering, in which business processes are analyzed, simplified, and redesigned. Re-engineering involves radically rethinking the flow of work; the business procedures used to produce products and services with a mind of radically reduce the costs of business. A business process is a set of logically related tasks performed to achieve a defined business outcome. Some examples of business processes are developing a new product, ordering goods from a supplier, or processing and paying an insurance claim. Using information technology, organizations can rethink and streamline their business processes to improve speed, service and quality. Business re-engineering reorganizes workflows, combining steps to cut waste and eliminating repetitive, paper-intensive tasks (sometimes the new design eliminates jobs as well). It is much more ambitious than rationalization of procedures, requiring a new vision of how the process is to be organized. Rationalizing procedures and redesigning business processes are limited to specific parts of a business. New information systems can ultimately affect the design of the entire organization by actually transforming how the organization carries out its business or even the nature of the business itself.

The still more radical form of business change is called a paradigm shift. A paradigm shift involves rethinking the nature of the business and the nature of the organization itself. Banks, for instance, may decide not to automate, rationalize, or reengineering the jobs of tellers. Instead they may decide to eliminate branch banking altogether and seek less expensive source of funds, like international borrowing. Retail customers may be forced to use the Internet to conduct all their business, or a proprietary network. A paradigm shift is akin to rethinking not just the automobile, but transportation itself.

Paradigm shifts and re-engineering often fail because extensive organization change is so difficult to orchestrate. Some experts believe that 70% of the time they fail. Why then do so many corporation entertain such radical change, because the rewards are equally high. In many instances firms seeking paradigm shifts and pursuing re-engineering strategies achieve stunning, order-of magnitude increases in their returns on investment (or productivity).


ref: http://alexandra.di.uoa.gr/courses/mis/docs/lecture6.ppt., http://faculty.kfupm.edu.sa/cem/bushait/cem515/term-papers/Business-Process-Reengineering.ppt. , http://www.ignou.ac.in/edusat/mba/ms-07/ms7b4.pdf

You were invited by the university president to prepare an IS plan for the university, discuss what are the steps in order to expedite the implementation of the IS Plan. (at least 5000 words)

When we talk about IS plan, we all know that it is Information System Planning. And IS plan is a process for developing a strategy and plans for aligning information systems with the business strategies of an organization. It is the step-by-step plan to be able to meet the needs of an organization and to reach its goal and objectives. Many enterprises do not have model-based information systems development environments that allow system designers to see the benefits of rearranging an information systems development schedule. Consequently, the questions that cannot be answered include:
-What effect will there be on the overall schedule if an information system is purchased versus developed?
-At what point does it pay to hire an abnormal quantity of contract staff to advance a schedule?
-What is the long term benefit from 4GL versus 3GL?
-Is it better to generate 3GL than to generate/use a 4GL?
-What are the real costs of distributed software development over centralized development?
If these questions were transformed and applied to any other component of a business (e.g., accounting, manufacturing, distribution and marketing), and remained unanswered, that unit's manager would surely be fired! We not only need answers to these questions NOW!, we also need them quickly, cost effectively, and in a form that they can be modeled and changed in response to unfolding realities. This paper provides a brief review of a successful 10-step strategy that answers these questions.
Too many half-billion dollar organizations have only a vague notion of the names and interactions of the existing and under development information systems. Whenever they need to know, a meeting is held among the critical few, an inventory is taken, interactions confirmed, and accomplishment schedules are updated.
This ad hoc information systems plan was possible only because all design and development was centralized, the only computer was a main-frame, and the past was acceptable prologue because budgets were ever increasing, schedules always slipping, and information was not yet part of the corporation's critical edge.
Well, today is different, really different! Budgets are decreasing, and slipped schedules are being cited as preventing business alternatives. Confounding the computing environment are different operating systems, DBMSs, development tools, telecommunications (LAN, WAN, Intra-, Inter-, and Extra-net), and distributed hard- and software.
Rather than having centralized, long-range planning and management activities that address these problems, today's business units are using readily available tools to design and build ad hoc stop-gap solutions. These ad hoc systems not only do not interconnect, support common semantics, or provide synchronized views of critical corporate policy, they are soon to form the almost impossible to comprehend confusion of systems and data from which systems order and semantic harmony must spring.
Not only has the computing landscape become profoundly different and more difficult to comprehend, the need for just the right--and correct--information at just the right time is escalating. Late or wrong information is worse than no information.
Information systems managers need a model of their information systems environment. A model that is malleable. As new requirements are discovered, budgets modified, new hardware/software introduced, this model must be such that it can reconstitute the information systems plan in a timely and efficient manner.
Characteristics of a Quality ISP
A quality ISP must exhibit five distinct characteristics before it is useful. These five are presented in the table that follows.
1.)Timely - The ISP must be timely. An ISP that is created long after it is needed is useless. In almost all cases, it makes no sense to take longer to plan work than to perform the work planned.
2.)Usable - The ISP must be useable. It must be so for all the projects as well as for each project. The ISP should exist in sections that once adopted can be parceled out to project managers and immediately started.
3.)Maintainable - The ISP must be maintainable. New business opportunities, new computers, business mergers, etc. all affect the ISP. The ISP must support quick changes to the estimates, technologies employed, and possibly even to the fundamental project sequences. Once these changes are accomplished, the new ISP should be just a few computer program executions away.
4.)Quality - While the ISP must be a quality product, no ISP is ever perfect on the first try. As the ISP is executed, the metrics employed to derive the individual project estimates become refined as a consequence of new hardware technologies, code generators, techniques, or faster working staff. As these changes occur, their effects should be installable into the data that supports ISP computation. In short, the ISP is a living document. It should be updated with every technology event, and certainly no less often than quarterly.
5.)Reproducible - The ISP must be reproducible. That is, when its development activities are performed by any other staff, the ISP produced should essentially be the same. The ISP should not significantly vary by staff assigned.
Whenever a proposal for the development of an ISP is created it must be assessed against these five characteristics. If any fail or not addressed in an optimum way, the entire set of funds for the development of an ISP is risked.

The information systems plan is the plan by which databases and information systems of the enterprise are accomplished in a timely manner. A key facility through which the ISP obtains its Adata@ is the meta data repository. Their role within an organization perform functions in the accomplishment of enterprise missions, they have information needs. These information needs reflect the state of certain enterprise resources such as finance, people, and products that are known to the enterprises. The states are created through business information systems and databases.
The majority of the meta data employed to develop the ISP resides in the meta entities supporting the enterprise=s resource life cycles , the databases and information systems, and project management.

The ISP Development Steps
The information systems plan project determines the sequence for implementing specific information systems. The goal of the strategy is to deliver the most valuable business information at the earliest time possible in the most cost-effective manner.
The end product of the information systems project is an information systems plan (ISP). Once deployed, the information systems department can implement the plan with confidence that they are doing the correct information systems project at the right time and in the right sequence. The focus of the ISP is not one information system but the entire suite of information systems for the enterprise. Once developed, each identified information system is seen in context with all other information systems within the enterprise.

1.)Create the mission mode - The mission model, generally shorter than 30 pages presents end-result characterizations of the essential raison d=etre of the enterprise. Missions are strategic, long range, and a-political because they are stripped of the Awho@ and the Ahow.@
2.)Develop a high-level data model - The high level data model is created in two steps: building database domains, and creating database objects. It is critical to state that the objective of this step is the high-level data model. The goal is NOT to create a low level or fully attributed data model. The reasons that only a high-level data model is needed is straight forward:1.)No database projects are being accomplished, hence no detailed data modeling is required,2.)The goal of the ISP is to identify and resource allocate projects including database projects and for that goal, entity identification, naming and brief definitions is all that is required for estimating. The message is simple: any money or resources expended in developing a detailed data model is wasted.The high-level data model is an Entity Relationship diagram created to meet the data needs of the mission descriptions. No attributes or keys are created. 2.1..) Create Database Domains- Database domains are created from the “bottom” leaves of the mission description texts. There are two cases to consider. First, if the mission description’s bottom leaves are very detailed, they can be considered as having being transformed into database domains. That is they will consist of lists of nouns within simple sentences. The other case is that the mission descriptions have been defined to only a few levels, and the lists of nouns that would result from the development of database domains have yet to be uncovered. A series of diagraming techniques created especially for data and the relationships among data is called entity-relationship (ER) diagraming. Within one style of this technique, the entities are drawn as rectangles and the relationships are drawn as diamonds. The name of the relationship is inside the diamond. Another style of ER modeling is to just have named lines between the entities. In this methodology, since the domain of the diagram is data, it is called the database domain diagram. The purpose of the database domain diagram is not to be precise and exacting but to be comprehensive. The goal is to have the reviewer say, “that's just the right kind of data needed to satisfy the required mission description.” When all the database domain diagrams are created, siblings are combined. Entities that are named the same are not presumed to be the same. Analysis must show that to be true. If not, one or both of the entities must have their name and definition changed. As the sets of sibling diagrams are merged from lower to higher levels, the quantity of commonly named entities on different diagrams diminishes. Diagram merger becomes optional when the use analysis of a common entity is subject to update (add, delete, or modify) in one diagram and is only referenced (read) in another diagram.2.2.) Define Database Objects - In today's parlance, a lucid policy-procedure pair is called a business object. When the policy procedurepair are completely defined within the language constructs of ANSI/SQL and is stored, retrieved, and maintained in an ANSI/SQL database through a sequence of well-defined states, the business object is a database object. The goal of database object analysis is to enable the definition of both the data structure and the data structure transformations that: a.)Installs a new database object in the database b.)Transforms a database object from one coherent state to another c.) Removes a database object from the database.Database objects are found by researching business policies and procedures. Database objects are however much more than just collections of policy-homogeneous entities. In fact database objects consist of four main parts: 1.Data Structure: the set of data structures that map onto the different value sets for real world database objects such as an auto accident, vehicle and emergency medicine incident. 2.Process: the set of database object processes that enforce the integrity of data structure fields, references between database objects and actions among contained data structure segments, the proper computer-based rules governing data structure segment insertion, modification, and deletion. For example, the proper and complete storage of an auto accident.3. Information System: the set of specifications that control, sequence, and iterate the execution of various database object processes that cause changes in database object states to achieve specific value-based states in conformance to the requirements of business policies. For example, the reception and database posting of data from business information system activities (screens, data edits, storage, interim reports, etc.) that accomplish entry of the auto accident information. 4. State: The value states of a database object that represent the after-state of the successful accomplishment of one or more recognizable business events. Examples of business events are auto accident initiation, involved vehicle entry, involved person entry, and auto accident DUI (driving under the influence of alcohol/drugs) involvement. Database object state changes are initiated through named business events that are contained in business functions. The business function, auto accident investigation includes the business event, auto-accident incident initiation, which in turn causes the incident initiation database object information system to execute, which in turn causes several database object processes to cause the auto accident incident to be materialized in the database.A database object is specified to the SQL DBMS through the SQL definition language (DDL). All four components of a database object operate within the “firewall” of the DBMS. This ensures that database objects are protected from improper access or manipulation by 3GLs, or 4GLs. A DBMS that only defines, instantiates, and manipulates two dimensional data structures is merely a simplified functional subset of the DBMS that defines, instantiates, and manipulates database objects. Database objects are completely defined within the database object column of the Knowledge Worker Framework. They are interfaced to the “outside world” by means of business information systems through SQL views. Each view represents the entire set of data, or some subset of a set of data that truly reflects a known value state of the database object. Culling out the database objects from 600 or so entities requires three simple questions:a.)Does the entity represent only a single value? For example, when the entity, Salary is really a business fact, it should be represented in the metabase as a data element, b.)Does the entity represent a collection of business facts from withing another context? For example, when the entity, Critical Contract Dates, represents multiple business facts, but within the context of the contract, the entity is a property class, and is stored in the metabase as such, c.)Does the entity represent multiple collections of business facts and is self-contained as to context? For example, when the entity, Contract, contains multiple property classes such as critical dates, signatories to the contract, terms and conditions, items and item quantities, and the like, the entity is a database object and is stored in the metabase as such.
3.)Create the resource life cycles (RLC) and their nodes - Resources are drawn from both the mission descriptions and the high level data model. Resources and their life cycles are the names, descriptions and life cycles of the critical assets of the enterprise, which, when exercised achieve one or more aspect of the missions. Each enterprise resource Alives@ through its resource life cycle. A mission might be human resource management, where in, the best and most cost effective staff is determined, acquired and managed. A database object squarely based on human resources would be employee. Within the database object, employee, are all the data structures,procedures, integrity constraints, table and database object procedures necessary to “move” the employee database object through its many policy-determined states. A resource might also be named employee, and would set out for the employee resource the life cycle stages that reflect the employee resource’s “journey” through the enterprise. While an enterprise may have 50 to 150 database objects, there are seldom more than 20 resources. Enterprises build databases and business information systems around the achievement of the life cycle states of its resources. Business information systems execute in support of a particular life cycle stage of a resource (e.g., employee promotion). These information systems cause the databases to change value-state of contained database objects to correctly reflect the resource’s changed state. The state of one or more database objects in the database is the proof that the resource’s state has been achieved. Resources become the lattice work against which database and business information systems are allocated. The table that follows presents the basic components of resources and their life cycles.
Resources and Resource Life Cycles
Resource - A resource is an enduring asset with value to the enterprise
Resource Life Cycle - A resource life cycle is the linear identification of the major states that must exist within life of the resource. The life cycle of a resource represents the resource’s "cradle to grave" set of state changes.
Precedence Vector - A precedence vector is a relationship between two nodes of different RLCs that indicates that the Target RLC node is enabled in some significant way by the Source RLC node.
RLC Matrix - The RLC matrix is the set of all resources, their life cycles and the precedence vectors among the nodes. Properly drawn the RLC Matrix resembles a PERT chart.
The ultimate goal of resource life cycle analysis is the identification and description of the major resources essential to the enterprise’s survival, and the ultimate goal of the ISP is the identification and accomplishment sequencing of the information systems projects required to implement the enterprise resources in the most effective manner possible.
3.1.)Determine the Resources - The enterprise’s product and/or service resources are defined; they may be either concrete or abstract. Ron Ross provides two guidelines to assist in resource identification: 1.Define the product or service that constitute the enterprise’s resources from the customer perspective.2. Define the resource as it is managed between the enterprise and its customers.
Characteristics of a resource are:
Basic - The resource must exist for the enterprise to exist
Complex - The resource requires development and management
Valuable - The resource must be protected, exploited, and/or leveraged by the enterprise.
Enduring - The resource exists beyond business cycles
Shareable - The resource is shared by different functions of the enterprise.
Structured - The resource can be described and organized
Centralized - The resource can be controlled and monitored centrally, even if distributed in creation or use.
Additional tests for resources are:
a.)The resource must be monitored and forecasted. By the time the resource is required, it is too late to be produced.
b.)The resource must be optimized. The resource is of such a cost that an unlimited supply is not possible.
c.)The resource must be controlled and allocated. The resource is desirable and necessary, and must be shared among functions of the enterprise.
d.)The resource must be tracked. Each stage of the resource is important to the enterprise, including its demise.
3.2Determine The Resource Life Cycles - The second step is to determine a life cycle for each resource. Each node in the life cycle represents a major state change in the resource. The state change is accomplished by business information systems and is reflected through the enterprise’s database objects (conformed into databases). The three figures below, developed in support of an enterprise database project for a state-wide court information system, shows the resource life cycles for Document, Case, and for Court’s Personnel.

4.)Allocate precedence vectors among RLC nodes - Tied together into a enablement network, the resulting resource life cycle network forms a framework of enterprise=s assets that represent an order and set of inter-resource relationships. The enterprise Alives@ through its resource life cycle network. A precedence between resources is created when a resource life cycle state, that is, a specific life cycle node, cannot be effective or correctly done unless the preceding resource life cycle state has been established or completed. A precedence arrow, renamed precedence vector, is drawn from the enabling resource life cycle state to the enabled resource life cycle state. The most difficult problem in establishing the precedence is the mind set of the analyst. The life cycle is not viewed in operational order, but in enablement order: that is, what resource life cycle state must exist before the next resource life cycle state is able to occur. This is a difficult mind set to acquire, as there is a natural tendency to view the life cycle in operational order. The test of precedence becomes: what enables what, and what is it enabled by what? For example, project establishment precedes the award of a contract. This does not seem natural, since a project would not operationally begin until after a contract is awarded. However, there must be an established infrastructure to create the project and to perform the work prior to the contract award. A workforce must be in place to perform work along with the ability to assign work to the employee on the contract, and the ability to bill the customer. Therefore, the project enables the contract. There are three possible meanings for enablement. That is, a resource life cycle state precedes another resource life cycle state because: 1. The accomplishment of the preceding resource life cycle state saves money. 2. The resource life cycle state leads to rapid development of another resource life cycle state 3. The resource life cycle state permits faster, more convenient accomplishment of another resource life cycle state.If one or more indicators exists, then a precedence vector should be created. Two alternatives exist relative to the existence of the enterprise: newly established or existing. Experience shows the preferred perspective is that of an already-existing enterprise. RLC states may or may not occur during a life cycle, or events may occur in parallel. For example, an employee may receive an award, but then again, may never receive an award. An employee may work before and after a security clearance is granted. The strategy to deal with parallel or optional RLC states is to create a single stream of RLC states in which none are parallel or optional by “pushing down” the parallel or optional RLC states to a lower level.
5.)Allocate existing information systems and databases to the RLC nodes - The resource life cycle network presents a Alattice-work@onto which the Aas is@ business information systems and databases can be Aattached.@ See for example, the meta model in Figure 2. The Ato-be@ databases and information systems are similarly attached. ADifference projects@ between the Aas-is@ and the Ato-be@ are then formulated. Achievement of all the difference projects is the achievement of the Information Systems Plan. Once the resource life cycle network has been created, it is stored into the metabase. Once there, its lattice can be employed to attach the databases and business information systems. Databases and their business information systems exist within a data architecture framework. The five distinct classes of databases are:a.)Original data capture (ODC) b.)Transaction data staging area (TDSA) c.)Subject area databases (SDB) d.)Data warehouses (wholesale and retail (a.k.a. data marts)) e.)Reference data
Most resource life cycle nodes contain at least one original data capture database application. The data from these ODC databases should be pushed to their respective TDSA databases. Once there, various subject area databases pull the data to build the longitudinal and broad subject area databases. It is likely that there is one subject area database for one or more resources. Data from the subject area databases, also called operational data stores by Bill Inmon, is again pulled to create one or more data warehouse databases. Most databases employ one or more reference data tables as standard semantics for selection, control-breaks and printing. Databases and business information systems exist in two forms: “as-is” and “to-be.” An “as-is” database or information system, as it’s characteristic implies, represents the existing state of the information technology assets. A “to-be” database or information system is a proposal for some technology improvement, functional enhancement, or an under-way project effort. 5.1 Allocate Existing (As-is) Databases or Files to Resource Life Cycle Nodes - Within the class of existing databases or files, there are three prototypical examples:a.)A file for every distinct process or purpose, b.)A single database for all reasons, c.)Multi-data architecture database classes.
Knowledge about these existing set of databases and files should already reside in the metabase. If their metadata is not in the metabase, these databases and files must be discovered. A good way is to research all the reports produced by the information systems department and allocate the file that was employed to produce the report to the RLC node that best fits the representation of the data. Once all the databases and files are allocated, reports can be produced by the metabase that show RLC nodes that have a “bountiful” quantity of databases and files (not a good sign). and those that have no allocated databases or files (also not a good sign). In the later case, there probably are databases and files but they are either “private” or undiscovered. Either case is “not a good sign.”sign.” In any case, allocating them to resource life cycle nodes is a matter of distilling the intended purpose of the database or file and then creating the relationship. It is likely that some files or databases will allocate to multiple nodes and even to different nodes of different life cycles. The quality of mapping relationships is inversely proportional to the encapsulation of the data to the resource life cycle node. For ODC databases or files, there should be few multi-node mappings. For data warehouse databases there will probably be many multi-node mappings.
6.)Allocate standard work break down structures (WBS) to each RLC node - Detailed planning of the Adifference projects@ entails allocating the appropriate canned work breakdown structures and metrics. Employing WBS and metrics from a comprehensive methodology supports project management standardization, repeatability, and self-learning.
7.)Load resources into each WBS node - Once the resources are determined, these are loaded into the project management meta entities of the meta data repository, that is, metrics, project, work plan and deliverables. The meta entities are those inferred by Figure 2.
8.)Schedule the RLC nodes through a project management package facilities. - The entire suite of projects is then scheduled on an enterprise-wide basis. The PERT chart used by project management is the APERT@ chart represented by the Resource Life Cycle enablement network.
9.)Produce and review of the ISP - The scheduled result is predicable: Too long, too costly, and too ambitious. At that point, the real work starts: paring down the suite of projects to a realistic set within time and budget. Because of the meta data environment (see Figure 1), the integrated project management meta data (see Figure 2), and because all projects are configured against fundamental business-rationale based designs, the results of the inevitable trade-offs can be set against business basics. Although the process is painful, the results can be justified and rationalized.
10.)Execute and adjust the ISP through time - As the ISP is set into execution, technology changes occur that affect resource loadings. In this case, only steps 6-9 need to be repeated. As work progresses, the underlying meta data built or used in steps 1-5 will also change. Because a quality ISP is Aautomated@ the recasting of the ISP should only take a week or less.
Collectively, the first nine steps take about 5000 staff hours, or about $500,000. Compared to an IS budget $15-35 million, that's only about 3.0% to 1.0%.
If the pundits are to be believed, that is, that the right information at the right time is the competitive edge, then paying for an information systems plan that is accurate, repeatable, and reliable is a small price indeed.

IT projects are accomplished within distinct development environments. The two most common are: discrete project and release. The discrete project environment is typified by completely encapsulated projects accomplished through a water-fall methodology.
In release environments, there are a number of different projects underway by different organizations and staff of varying skill levels. Once a large number of projects are underway, the ability of the enterprise to know about and manage all the different projects degrades rapidly. That is because the project management environment has been transformed from discrete encapsulated projects into a continuous flow process of product or functionality improvements that are released on a set time schedule. Figure 3 illustrates the continuous flow process environment that supports releases. The continuous flow process environment is characterized by:
Multiple, concurrent, but differently scheduled projects against the same enterprise resource
Single projects that affect multiple enterprise resources
Projects that develop completely new capabilities, or changes to existing capabilities within enterprise resources
It is precisely because enterprises have transformed themselves from a project to a release environment that information systems plans that can be created, evolved, and maintained on an enterprise-wide basis are essential.
There are four major sets of activities within the continuous flow process environment. The user/client is represented at the top in the small rectangular box. Each of the ellipses represents an activity targeted to a specific need. The four basic needs are: a.)Need Identification b.)Need Assessment c.)Design d.)Deployment
Specification and impact analysis is represented through the left two processes. Implementation design and accomplishment is represented by the right two processes. Two key characteristics should be immediately apparent. First, unlike the water-fall approach, the activities do not flow one to the other. They are disjoint. In fact, they may be done by different teams, on different time schedules, and involve different quantities of products under management. In short, these four activities are independent one from the other. Their only interdependence is through the meta data repository.
The second characteristic flows from the first. Because these four activities are independent one from the other, the enterprise evolves by means of releases rather than through whole systems. If it evolved through whole systems, then the four activities would be connected either in a waterfall or a spiral approach, and the enterprise would be evolving through major upgrades to encapsulated functionality within specific business resources. In contrast, the release approach causes coordinated sets of changes to multiple business resources to be placed into production. This causes simultaneous, enterprise-wide capability upgrades across multiple business resources.
Through this continuous-flow process, several unique features are present:
All four processes are concurrently executing.
Changes to enterprise resources occur in unison, periodically, and in a very controlled manner.
The meta data repository is always contains all the enterprise resource specifications: current or planned. Simply put, if an enterprise resource semantic is not within the meta data repository, it is not enterprise policy.
All changes are planned, scheduled, measured, and subject to auditing, accounting, and traceability.
All documentation of all types is generated from the meta data repository.
In summary, any technique employed to achieve an ISP must be accomplishable with less than 3% of the IT budget. Additionally, it must be timely, useable, maintainable, able to be iterated into a quality product, and reproducible. IT organizations, once they have completed their initial set of databases and business information systems will find themselves transformed from a project to a release environment.The continuous flow environment then becomes the only viable alternative for moving the enterprise forward. It is precisely because of the release environment that enterprise-wide information systems plans that can be created, evolved, and maintained are essential.

Ref: http://www.tdan.com/view-articles/5262
ref: http://www.clarionmag.com/cmag/v3/informationsystemsplanning.pdf

What are the two most frequently experienced causes of frustration of IS professionals and users while working on an IS plan? note: you are required to interview an IS professional/s for your answer ...(at least 3000 words)

Before anything else(chaar),let us first define what frustration means. Base from wikipedia, frustration a common emotional response to opposition. Related to anger and disappointment, it arises from the perceived resistance to the fulfillment of individual will. The greater the obstruction, and the greater the will, the more the frustration is likely to be.

What are the causes?

We all have situations in our lives that cause stress. And while many of us are stressed by the same things--demanding jobs, super-busy schedules, critical relatives--not everything causes stress equally in all people. Our own emotions can make us frustrated, like misunderstandings, misinterpreting the situation, suspicion, pride, arrogance etc. can unnecessarily bring the frustration. Every work that is done means is a unified combination of task and our performance or efficiency so as to get that work done. To avoid frustrations, we need to accept our factual position instead of putting hopes on vague imagination in which the situation would have been different. We need to co-relate our dreaming behavior to actual situation. When we observe ourselves carefully, we can actually realize our limitations and hence can work towards exploring our available resources unless it would cause even more frustration. Our surrounding factors as well as assisting team play major role on our working ability. If our working ability gets hampered by external factors like non-cooperation of workers, that will bring frustration. We cannot expect any improvement against expressed will of other person if one is unwilling to put in the effort for it. If we waste our energy on such futile team that in fact is not interested in co-operating us, we get frustrated, we waste precious energy and attention and we will find ourselves stuck in a downward spiral of performance. Often the causes of "Frustration" are more mental than physical. A bad relationship, poor self image, a history of abuse, stress, frustration and many other factors can change your overall attitude towards life which may directly impede your overall performance. Such tendencies are deep-rooted in mind and nurtured by excessive Negative Emotions.It is needless to mention that these negative emotions are tremendously powerful. They can debilitate lives extremely quick by causing disparity in energy system, which triggers a sequence of emotional imbalance which ultimately culminates in ill health.To the individual experiencing frustration, the emotion is usually attributed to external factors which are beyond their control. Although mild frustration due to internal factors (e.g. laziness, lack of effort) is often a positive force (inspiring motivation), it is more often than not a perceived uncontrolled problem that instigates more severe, and perhaps pathological, frustration. An individual suffering from pathological frustration will often feel powerless to change the situation they are in, leading to frustration and, if left uncontrolled, further anger. Frustration can be a result of blocking motivated behavior. An individual may react in several different ways. He may respond with rational problem-solving methods to overcome the barrier. Failing in this, he may become frustrated and behave irrationally. An example of blockage of motivational energy would be the case of the worker who wants time off to go fishing but is denied permission by his supervisor. Another example would be the executive who wants a promotion but finds he lacks certain qualifications. If, in these cases, an appeal to reason does not succeed in reducing the barrier or in developing some reasonable alternative approach, the frustrated individual may resort to less adaptive methods of trying to reach his goal. He may, for example, attack the barrier physically or verbally or both.

After knowing the causes, let us know what are the symptoms. Frustration can be considered a problem-response behavior, and can have a number of effects, depending on the mental health of the individual. In positive cases, this frustration will build until a level that is too great for the individual to contend with, and thus produce action directed at solving the inherent problem. In negative cases, however, the individual may perceive the source of frustration to be outside of their control, and thus the frustration will continue to build, leading eventually to further problematic behavior (e.g. violent reaction). Stubborn refusal to respond to new conditions affecting the goal, such as removal or modification of the barrier, sometimes occurs. As pointed out by Brown, severe punishment may cause individuals to continue nonadaptive behavior blindly: “Either it may have an effect opposite to that of reward and as such, discourage the repetition of the act, or, by functioning as a frustrating agent, it may lead to fixation and the other symptoms of frustration as well. It follows that punishment is a dangerous tool, since it often has effects which are entirely the opposite of those desired”. One example would be the worker who is refused time off to go fishing may "cuss out" his supervisor to his face or behind his back. If he is sufficiently aroused, he may strike out at him with his fists or with the nearest weapon. If the supervisor is not present or the worker's fear of the consequences of direct attack is stronger than his desire to attack, he may transfer his aggression to someone or something else. Taking his frustration out on his family or on some object like his car or his equipment are typical ways of transferring aggression. Another "solution" to frustration is regressive behavior — becoming childish or reverting to earlier and more primitive ways of coping with the goal barrier. Throwing a temper tantrum, bursting into tears, or sulking are examples of regression. Wearing a long face and a worried look are other signs of this method of dealing with frustration.

Sir Docdocil said as we asked him, for him, the two most frequently experienced causes of frustration of IS professionals and users while working on an IS plan are 1.)Team working not in tandem due to office politics, jealousies, personal conflicts, etc. and 2.) Support from top management – not 100%. And I searched the internet, there are eight( ways on how to deal with it.

First, Ask Yourself, “What Is Working in This Situation?” Even if feels like nothing is working, look closely and you will probably find at least something that is going right. So, that’s good. You’ve found something that’s working. Now, how do you improve it? By asking this question, you’ve taken yourself out of the negative mindset of “it’s hopeless” and are back to focusing on the positive.
There's something that’s working and that will give you a clue of what direction to focus on. You may find that even if your previous issues come up you’ll be able to resolve them in the process of concentrating on your improvements.

Second, Keep an Accomplishments Log: Write down everything you accomplish in a log. If you do it in a monthly format you will be able to see all that you have accomplished in just one month. You may be surprised by how much you have done. If you realize there’s not much on the list, it may open your eyes to the fact that you may be procrastinating more than working or that you are using too much of your energy going in too many directions and that you need to focus more. Hopefully, you will have lots of items on your list then you can see that even though it may not feel like it, you are moving forwards. The log will also help to highlight where you were the most effective and where you need to work harder.

Third, Focus On What You Want to Happen: Go back to the big picture. What is the desired outcome? Sometimes, we get so wrapped up in one problem and trying to solve it that we forget what we were originally trying to accomplish. Try not to ask yourself, “Why did this happen?” Asking questions like that will keep you rooted in the past. It doesn’t offer a solution to the problem. The important thing is knowing the answer to the following two questions:
- What do you want to happen differently this time?”
- What do you need to do in order to get there?

Fourth, Remove the “Noise” and Simplify: When you’re trying to solve a problem, you can get so wrapped up in trying to find a solution that you add unnecessary clutter, noise, and tasks to a project because you thought they “might” be a solution.
Working on this website, I get bombarded by offer after offer of “easy ways to run your website”, “get more traffic”, “make more money” etc. They’re just noise though and usually a waste of my time even reading them. These people are just trying to make money off of me. They have no interest in whether I succeed or not. When people are frustrated by how slow the hard work process is taking, they get tempted by these “here’s what you’ve been missing” and “I’ll make it easy for you” offers. Usually, it ends up that if you do get tempted by the offers you discover 6 months down the road that if you had just stuck with your first plan and just kept working at it, you’d be a lot further ahead by now. Not to mention richer from not having spent money on the Get Rich Quick schemes. Believe in yourself. Simplify and go back to the basics. Determine what is really necessary and remove everything else. Anything that takes your time and effort that isn’t adding value, should be eliminated.

Fifth, Multiple Solutions: You always have options. You just need to brainstorm and figure them out. Tell yourself you need to come up with 8 possible options to what you’re dealing with. Just knowing that you have lots of options will help to make you feel better. You won’t feel like you are trapped in one negative situation. From your list, figure out the best direction and go for it.

Sixth, Take Action: When you get into serious frustration with a problem, you tend not to want to work on it anymore. It’s hard, it’s frustrating, and you’re not getting anywhere. So, anything to avoid having to be in that situation may be far more attractive. Procrastination may start to set in. If you can keep taking steps forwards, you will probably make it past this temporary hump. As Thomas Edison said, “Many of life's failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up” and “Surprises and reverses can serve as an incentive for great accomplishment.”
The other thing that can happen is that you start to spend a lot of time worrying. Worrying is a definite way of energy and does not move you in a forwards direction. Only taking action will. Once you start moving forwards again, you will most likely find that you worried for no reason.

Seventh, Visualize a Positive Outcome to the Situation: A lot of times you can get stuck on focusing on what you don’t want to happen or fearing the absolute worst thing that could happen. The top athletes of the world will imagine themselves competing flawlessly over and over again. There is no room for failure in their minds. This is what you need to focus on as well. See yourself achieving your desired outcome. What will it look like? What will it feel like? What will you say? How will you feel? Take the time to visualize it and really feel it. It will inspire you to keep moving forwards.

And the last, Stay Positive: Things are usually not as bad as they first appear. Sometimes, things seem much worse simply because we’re tired or mentally drained. Taking a break and remembering to keep your sense of humour can also help. This time of frustration will pass. A positive mind is far more open to solutions and answers than a negative one that thinks it’s just “hopeless” and thinks “what’s the use?” A closed mind will not be able to see the possible solutions when they do come along. Stay positive.

As with any problem, the solution is to figure out what your options are, decide on a plan, focus, and then take action. By using the above 8 steps, you should find that you’re running into fewer problems and feeling less frustration. Instead, you may find that you’re running into opportunities and you know exactly how to take advantage of them.

Lessen "Negative Emotions" in psyche,boost latent inner ability Mold the inherent behavior in accordance with the existing circumstances and surrounding conditions get rid of worries, tensions and sufferings achieve peace of mind and bring the Ultimate Happiness!"Balancing Emotions" will purge Negative Emotions in psyche and shape your innate behavior in a way to face every life challenge by avoiding pessimistic approach towards life; while you will be able to derive maximum life pleasure from whatever resources are available with you! According to Bach Flower Therapy, often any ailment or ill-health condition --at most of the time and in majority of the cases-- is the result or expression of persistent "emotional imbalance" that takes place at the core of your psyche and persists over a period of time due to gradual accumulation of numerous Negative Emotions, those originates either from your mind itself or from your surrounding circumstances. As soon as your mental state improves the physical trouble disappears. Therefore a person --which implies his overall nature, his general attitude towards life and his inimitable surrounding circumstances-- is more important than his disease or ill-health condition.

Every situation that looks bad has an equal amount of good, if you look for it. Everything that happens just "is". Like two sides of a coin, it has a side that looks 'bad' and it has a side that looks 'good'. You get to choose. Whatever you call it, it becomes for you. In any situation you need to:“Remind yourself that the universe is friendly to you. There is a virtually infinite supply of everything you need. There is always enough money, customers, time, love, friends, etc so that no situation can leave you without those things for long. You do not absolutely need 'that one', you can move on to the next. Next, you remind yourself that you get to decide what to call the situation - good or bad. You know the good is there (and, yes, I know, it is sometimes hard to see when you're in the thick of it), but you do know it's there."