Characteristics of Information

1. Characteristics of Information

2. Characteristics of Information • Availability / Accessibility • Information should be easy to obtain or access • Accuracy • Information needs to be accurate enough for the use to which it is going to be put. • Reliability or Objectivity • Reliability deals with the truth of the information or the objectivity with which it is presented. • Relevance / Appropriateness • Information should be relevant to the purpose for which it is required. It must be suitable.

3. Characteristics of Information • Completeness • Information should contain all details required by the user. • Level of Detail / Conciseness • Information should be in a form that is short enough to allow for its examination and use. There should be no extraneous information. • Presentation • Information can be more easily assimilated if it is aesthetically pleasing. • Timing • Information must be on time for the purpose for which it is required. Information received too late will be irrelevant.

4. Characteristics – Value and Cost • Value • The relative importance of information for decision-making can increase or decrease its value to an organisation. • Cost • Information should be available within set cost levels that may vary dependent on situation. • The difference between value and cost • Valuable information need not cost much. • Information costly to obtain may not have much value.

5. Categorisation of Information

6. Categorisation of Information • Information can be categorised under several headings that allow us to determine its overall usefulness. • Main categories • Source • Nature • Level • Time • Frequency • Use • Form • Type.

7. STRATEGIC TACTICAL OPERATIONAL Levels of Information Long-term decisions - both internal & external sources Top level of management Medium-term decisions - mostly internal but some external sources Middle management Day-to-day decisions - largely internal sources Lowest level of staff

8. Uses of Information within Organisations • Planning is the process of deciding, in advance, what has to be done and how it is to be done. • Planning is decisions by management about: • What is to be done in the future • How to do it • When to do it • Who is to do it • An objective is something that needs to be achieved. • A plan describes the activities or actions required to achieve the objective.

9. Uses of Information within Organisations • Control is the monitoring and evaluation of current progress against the steps of a pre-defined plan or standard. • Operational level • the manager’s time will be spent on control activities • At higher levels • planning and control are more closely linked, with management being concerned with the monitoring of progress against the plan, assessing the suitability of the plan itself, and predicting future conditions.

10. Uses of Information within Organisations • Decision-making – • means selecting an action or actions from those possible based on the information available. • involves determining and examining the available actions and then selecting the most appropriate actions in order to achieve the required results. • is an essential part of management and is carried out at all levels of management for all tasks.   • is made up of four phases: ·Finding occasions for decision making · Finding possible courses of action · Choosing among these courses of action · Evaluating past choices.

11. Planning, Decision Making or Control? • Bart woke up and wondered if he should be bad or good today. A devil appeared on his left and whispered “Be bad!” A Bart with a halo appeared on his right and whispered “Be good!” • “It’s too hard to decide,” he thought, “I’ll open the dictionary at random and see what word catches my eye first.” • The first word he saw was “Angelic.” • “Best of three,” he said.

12. Planning, Decision Making or Control? • Bart thought he would spend the day helping others. But who needed his help? He looked out the window to see if he could see any old ladies wanting to cross the road. (One looked as if she might.) • He looked in the neighborhood newsletter to see if anybody wanted chores done. (Mow my lawn – 3 ads; Kind boy wanted to read newspaper to a blind old lady – 4; Have you seen my cat – answers to the name of Spider – 5).

13. Planning, Decision Making or Control? • He asked his mom who needed help. (“You could help me, Bart,” said Marge.) • He asked Lisa. (“The person you can best help Bart is yourself. Why don’t you do your homework?”) He even asked Maggie. • Then he made a list of everybody he was going to help.

14. Planning, Decision Making or Control? • At six o’clock Bart returned home, tired but happy. • “Have I achieved what I set out to do today?” he asked. • He pulled from his pocket his original list, plus eleven dollars and 30 cents, 3 packs of candy, 1 of gum, and a slightly squashed cat.

15. Source – Primary or Secondary • A primary source provides the data to an information system from an original source document. • e.g. an invoice sent to a business or a cheque received. • sales figures for a range of goods for a tinned food manufacturer for one week or several weeks and one or several locations. • A secondary source of information is one that provides information from a source other than the original. • e.g. an accounts book detailing invoices received, or a bank statement that shows details of cheques paid in. Where statistical information is gathered, such as in surveys or polls, the survey data or polling data is the primary source and the conclusions reached from the survey or the results of the poll are secondary sources

16. Source – Internal • All organisations generate a substantial amount of internal information relating to their operation. • Examples of internal sources: • Marketing and sales information on performance, revenues, market share, distribution channels, etc. • Production and operational information on assets, quality, standards, etc. • Financial information on profits, costs, margins, cash flows, investments, etc. • Internal documentation such as order forms, invoices, credit notes, procedural manuals.

17. Source – External • An external source of information is concerned with what is happening beyond the boundaries of the organisation. • telephone directories • computer users’ yearbook • gallup & national opinion polls • Ordnance Survey maps • Financial services agencies such as Dunn and Bradstreet • the Internet • census figures • judgments on court cases • legislation, e.g. the Data Protection Act • trade journals • professional publications • industry standards

18. Staff lists Internet Census Court judgements Staff Phone nos OS maps Bulletins, newsletters Manuals Polls Phone book Staff Holidays Prof publics Health & safety docs Internal job apps Trade journals Industry standards Internal email Legislation Internal or External?

19. Source - Nature • Formal Communication • information presented in a structured and consistent manner • main methods • the formal letter, properly structured reports, writing of training materials, etc. in cogent, coherent, well-structured language.  • Informal Communication • less well-structured information • transmitted within an organisation or between individuals who usually know each other. • Quantitative Information • information that is represented numerically.   • Qualitative Information • information that is represented using words.

20. Time • Historic • Information gathered and stored over a period of time. • It allows decision makers to draw comparisons between previous and present activities. • Historic information can be used to identify trends over a period of time. • Present • Information created from activities during the current work-window (day, week or month). • In real-time systems this information would be created instantly from the data gathered (e.g. the temperature in a nuclear power plant turbine) giving accurate and up-to-date information. • Future • Information that is created using present and historic information to try to predict the future activities and events relating to the operation of an organisation.

21. Frequency of Information • Continuous • This is information created from data gathered several times a second. It is the type of information created by a real-time system.   • Periodic • Information created at regular time intervals (hourly, daily, monthly, annually). • Annually – On an annual basis a company must submit its report and accounts to the shareholders. • Monthly – Banks and credit card companies produce monthly statements for the majority of their customers. • Daily – A supermarket will make daily summaries of its sales and use the product information to update its stock levels and reorder stock automatically. • Hourly – A busy call centre will often update totals for each operator on an hourly basis and give the top employee for the hour some reward. 

22. Forms of Information • Written • Hand-written, word-processed, e-mails. • Reports from different classes of software. • Reports, memos and tables, receipts, invoices, statements, summary accounting information. • Aural • Speech, formal meetings, informal meetings, talking on the phone and voice-mail messages. • Employee presentations to a group where there may be use made of music and sound effects as well as speech. • Visual • pictures, charts and graphs. • Presentations via data projects, DVDs, etc.

23. Types of Information • Detailed • An inventory list showing stock levels • Actual costs to the penny of goods • Detailed operating instructions • Most often used at operational level • Sampled • Selected records from a database • Product and sales summaries in a supermarket • Often used at a tactical level (maybe strategic) • Aggregated • Totals created when detailed information is summed together • Details of purchases made by customers totalled each month