Recap of GIS Lab

1. Recap of GIS Lab • A Geographic Information Systems is actually a perfect example of one of the 6 types of information systems © Pearson Prentice Hall 2009

2. Everything is connected in this course • Recall that Information Systems process Data into Information • Raw Data  processing  Information • Consider raw data: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_Human_Development_Index • Seeing it on a map transforms numbers into something more meaningful • Information  intelligence  Knowledge • Information tells you what is going on • Knowledge is being able to explain why © Pearson Prentice Hall 2009

3. Data is meaningless without context Evolution of data  information  knowledge • The value 31 is meaningless • Add meaning • 31 cars per minute • Add context • at 688 New Loudon Road • Intelligence allows you to combine relevant and related information to explain the store at 667 New Loudon Road • Loudon Road is a divided highway • 12 cars per minute is enough to support 1 DD store • 7 out of 10 drivers won’t turn around on a highway to get coffee. © Pearson Prentice Hall 2009

4. Why GIS processing is so valuable • At the Core, a GIS processes raw data by displaying in on a map. • Maps can have layers of relevant information: • Consider the WTC case? • Layer 1: Engine & Ladder Districts • Layer 2: Buildings • Layer 3: Population • Layer 4: Location of hazardous materials including details and quantities • Layer 5: Arial Photographs © Pearson Prentice Hall 2009

5. Why GIS processing is so valuable • Each layer represents relevant information that can help one make decisions. • WTC case: Decision about response to a fire. • DD example: • What are the decisions? • What are the relevant layers of information? • GIS’s also include tools to help make decisions • Measure distance, radius, elevation. • You can ask and answer geographic questions © Pearson Prentice Hall 2009

6. Chapter 2 Information Systems for Collaboration

7. Collaboration What really is collaboration? • It is actually a way to yield better ideas through • feedback and • iteration. • Collaboration is often essential for businesses to achieve the most important goals • Rarely does one person have the best idea. • The synergy of different ideas often leads to innovative problem solving.

8. Three Drivers • Collaboration systems improve team communication? • But they also help to manage content? • And, control workflow? © Pearson Prentice Hall 2009

9. Key Questions Businesses use collaboration systems for… • decision making? • problem solving? • project management?

10. What is collaboration? • two or more people work together to achieve a common • Goal • Result • Work product • …Greater than individuals working alone • …more that just breaking up the work (divide and conquer)

11. What is collaboration? • Proceed in a series of steps (iterations) by continuously reviewing and revising each other’s work • Learn from each other rather than working in isolation • Ultimately produce a product that’s greater (and better) than an individual could accomplish working alone

12. Q1 – What is collaboration? • The three critical collaboration drivers are: • Communication • Content management • Workflow control

13. Q1 – What is collaboration? • Communication • Consider the role of Information Technology? • Email, • Text messaging, • Teleconferencing • New devices: iPhone, Blackberry, etc.

14. Q1 – What is collaboration? • Content management • avoid conflicting with other team members. • system that will help them track and report changes. • Google Docs • SharePoint is another example • assigns permissions to team members depending on their functionality within the group.

15. Q1 – What is collaboration? • Workflow control • Microsoft Outlook, Lotus Notes, early examples • Create a Task • Assign it to employees • Employees report on their progress and eventual completion • It ensures tasks are completed in an orderly manner. • Managers can monitor task, see the big picture.

16. Q1 – What is collaboration? • Q2 – How can you use collaboration systems to improve team communication? • Q3 – How can you use collaboration systems to manage content? • Q4 – How can you use collaboration systems to control workflow? • Q5 – How do businesses use collaboration systems for decision making? • Q6 – How do businesses use collaboration systems for problem solving? • Q7 – How do businesses use collaboration systems for project management?

17. Q2 – How can you use collaboration systems to improve team communication? • Synchronous communication • Team members meet at same time, • but not always same geographic location. • conference calls, face-to-face-meetings, or online meetings. • Asynchronous communication • Team members do not meet at the same time or in the same geographic location. • discussion forums or email exchanges.

18. Q2 – How can you use collaboration systems to improve team communication? • Pros/Cons • Conference calls – can be difficult to arrange the right time • Multiparty text chat – easier to arrange if everyone has mobile texting • Videoconferencing – requires everyone to have the proper equipment • Email – most familiar but has serious drawbacks in content management • Discussion forums – content is more organized than email • Team surveys – easy to manage but don’t provide very much interactive discussion

19. Q1 – What is collaboration? • Q2 – How can you use collaboration systems to improve team communication? • Q3 – How can you use collaboration systems to manage content? • Q4 – How can you use collaboration systems to control workflow? • Q5 – How do businesses use collaboration systems for decision making? • Q6 – How do businesses use collaboration systems for problem solving? • Q7 – How do businesses use collaboration systems for project management?

20. Q3 – How can you use collaboration systems to manage content?

21. Q3 – How can you use collaboration systems to manage content? • Content sharing with no control • Email attachments are the most primitive but have numerous problems. • Someone may not receive the email or ignores it. • It’s difficult to manage attachments. • A shared file server provides a single storage location for all team members. • It uses FTP technology to access files. • Problems can occur if multiple team members try using the same file at the same time.

22. Q3 – How can you use collaboration systems to manage content? • These methods of content sharing provide version management • Wikis – Wikipedia is an example • Google Docs and Spreadsheets • Microsoft Office Groove © Pearson Prentice Hall 2009

23. Q3 – How can you use collaboration systems to manage content? • Wikis are shared knowledge bases, repositories of team knowledge, which have or use tracking mechanisms for changes. • wikipedia.com is the most widely known, but • Wikis were first used for business collaboration.

24. Q3 – How can you use collaboration systems to manage content? • Google Docs, Spreadsheets, and Presentation • Access it at http://docs.google.com with a Google account • Documents are stored on Google servers making them accessible from anywhere. • Team members can track revisions and review change summaries. • It’s a free service but you must use Google programs for processing.

25. Q3 – How can you use collaboration systems to manage content?

26. Q3 – How can you use collaboration systems to manage content? • Microsoft Office Groove • You create a workspace and invite others to join. • Document changes are automatically provided to all team members. • You can use VoIP rather than separate phone lines for conversations. • Each user must purchase a license and install it on each computer (may be exceptions).

27. Q3 – How can you use collaboration systems to manage content?

28. Q3 – How can you use collaboration systems to manage content? Shared content with • version management - just maintains past versions • version control – provides strict control over files and content. • Users are given permissions that limit what they can do with the documents. • requires users to check out documents and check in. • Microsoft SharePoint is the most popular for business use. • It requires a publicly accessible server. • It’s difficult to install.

29. Q3 – How can you use collaboration systems to manage content?

30. Q1 – What is collaboration? • Q2 – How can you use collaboration systems to improve team communication? • Q3 – How can you use collaboration systems to manage content? • Q4 – How can you use collaboration systems to control workflow? • Q5 – How do businesses use collaboration systems for decision making? • Q6 – How do businesses use collaboration systems for problem solving? • Q7 – How do businesses use collaboration systems for project management?

31. Q4 – How can you use collaboration systems to control workflow? • Sequential workflow • When documents are reviewed by multiple members of a team one after another • Parallel workflow • When documents are reviewed by multiple members of a team simultaneously • SharePoint site • Defines workflows and ensures team members perform required tasks

32. Q4 – How can you use collaboration systems to control workflow?

33. Q1 – What is collaboration? • Q2 – How can you use collaboration systems to improve team communication? • Q3 – How can you use collaboration systems to manage content? • Q4 – How can you use collaboration systems to control workflow? • Q5 – How do businesses use collaboration systems for decision making? • Q6 – How do businesses use collaboration systems for problem solving? • Q7 – How do businesses use collaboration systems for project management?

34. Q5 – How do businesses use collaboration systems for decision making? • Operational decisions • Obtain data from transaction processing systems • Require very little collaboration • Managerial decisions • Focus on the allocation and utilization of resources • Require some collaboration • Strategic decisions • Are broader in their scope and center around organizational issues • Are almost always collaborative

35. Q5 – How do businesses use collaboration systems for decision making? • Decision process • Structured • Understood and accepted method for making decisions • Require very little collaboration • Unstructured • No agreed-on decision-making method • Are often a collaborative process

36. Q5 – How do businesses use collaboration systems for decision making? • What is the relationship between decision types and decision processes? • Operational decisions typically use a structured process. • Managerial decisions use both structured and unstructured processes. • Strategic decisions typically use an unstructured process.

37. Q5 – How do businesses use collaboration systems for decision making?

38. Q5 – How do businesses use collaboration systems for decision making? • Decision making and collaboration systems • Structured decisions • No feedback or iteration are necessary • Unstructured decisions • Feedback and iteration are crucial • Communications systems are very important to the process © Pearson Prentice Hall 2009

39. Q5 – How do businesses use collaboration systems for decision making?

40. Q1 – What is collaboration? • Q2 – How can you use collaboration systems to improve team communication? • Q3 – How can you use collaboration systems to manage content? • Q4 – How can you use collaboration systems to control workflow? • Q5 – How do businesses use collaboration systems for decision making? • Q6 – How do businesses use collaboration systems for problem solving? • Q7 – How do businesses use collaboration systems for project management?

41. Q6 – How do businesses use collaboration systems for problem solving? • Problem definition • The first step in solving a problem is to define it. • A problem is a perceived difference between what is and what ought to be. • A good problem definition defines the difference between what is and what ought to be by describing both the current situation and the desired situation.

42. Q6 – How do businesses use collaboration systems for problem solving? • Problem solutions and solution brokering • Collaboration systems provide team members with feedback and iteration that helps them: • Identify numerous solution alternatives rather than just one. • Make a choice by allowing them to discuss the pros and cons of each alternative. • Broker the selected solution and make necessary adjustments that benefit all parties.

43. Q6 – How do businesses use collaboration systems for problem solving? • Problem solving and collaboration systems are more effective when they successfully employ the three collaborative drivers: • Communication systems that allow a regular and reliable exchange of ideas and information • Content-management systems that control document changes and revisions so everyone has the most current version • Workflow control is less important because of the nature of the unstructured decision-making process

44. Q1 – What is collaboration? • Q2 – How can you use collaboration systems to improve team communication? • Q3 – How can you use collaboration systems to manage content? • Q4 – How can you use collaboration systems to control workflow? • Q5 – How do businesses use collaboration systems for decision making? • Q6 – How do businesses use collaboration systems for problem solving? • Q7 – How do businesses use collaboration systems for project management?

45. Q7 – How do businesses use collaboration systems for project management? • Project • Dynamic application of people and other resources for creation of a product or achievement of some aim • Dynamic because the application of resources will be changed as events unfold and learning takes place. • Projects normally: • have a limited duration • are start and completed • are not usually ongoing • Project management • Application of tools and techniques to achieve project’s goals within time and budget constraints

46. Q7 – How do businesses use collaboration systems for project management? • Project Management Stages and Tasks

47. Q7 – How do businesses use collaboration systems for project management? • Project Management Stages and Tasks • Scope refers to the requirements to be achieved by project. • It is arguably the most important project-management task. • Trade-off refers to the choices among scope, time, cost, quality, risk, people, and other resources that must be made. • Project management requires extensive feedback and iteration.

48. Q7 – How do businesses use collaboration systems for project management? • The three collaborative drivers are important to ensure the success of a project. • Communication systems help decision makers communicate with one another and deal with unexpected problems as they occur. • Content-management systems control document changes and revisions that occur during the project. • Workflow control is important because of task dependencies inherent in projects.

49. Q7 – How do businesses use collaboration systems for project management?