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As a business professional in the 21st century, you should: ... As a business manager, you are unlikely to develop new technologies, but you are very ...
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1. Using MIS 2e Chapter 1 David Kroenke
2. Kevin Hamilton Every significant advance in business will involve technology.
Too many executives do not understand technology and do not understand the importance of technology in business strategy. Therefore, they are forced to trust the advice of others and they do not know who they can trust, so they make many ineffective, inefficient, and non-productive IS investments.
Knowledge of information systems is part of the core competency of any business professional today. If you understand the value of technology, and you know enough to gauge the expertise of others, you will have a competitive advantage.
Globalization: The cost of data storage and data communications is so low, essentially free, that it is possible to move massive amounts of data around the world which results in an enormous increase in globalization. Therefore, organizations collaborate across a broad spectrum of companies, people, opportunities, and cultures using information technology (IT).
3. Kevin Hamilton Because of globalization, organizations can take advantage of low costs, worldwide. Developed countries just cannot compete with routine products and skills. Anything that can be commoditized will go to the cheapest vendor. If it’s routine, it can be done at the cheapest source.
For developed countries to compete, they must provide value to justify their relative high costs. Innovation and service are the keys. If you can innovate by using new technologies or new ways of using technologies, or you use IT to provide a non-routine service, and then apply your intellectual capital to emerging opportunities, you can compete globally.
Information systems professionals work on a continuum between the poles technology and business management.
What can you do to increase your effectiveness? Work on your soft skills. Learn to get along. Use IT to connect with different types of people. Be malleable. Be interested, not interesting. Understand what drives someone, what they want, what incentives they respond to. It’s all about people and influence. The soft skills are hard and the hard skills are easy.
4. Study Questions Q1 – What is MIS?
Q2 – What should you learn from this class?
Q3 – How can you use the five-component framework?
Q4 – What is information?
Q5 – What are the characteristics of good information?
Q6 – What is the difference between information technology and information systems?
Q7 – How can you enjoy this class?
5. Q1 – What is MIS?
Q2 – What should you learn from this class?
Q3 – How can you use the five-component framework?
Q4 – What is information?
Q5 – What are the characteristics of good information?
Q6 – What is the difference between information technology and information systems?
Q7 – How can you enjoy this class?
6. Q1 – What is MIS MIS (management information systems) is the development and use of information systems that help businesses achieve their goals and objectives.
Three key elements in the MIS definition:
Information systems, which are composed of components
Development and use of information systems
Achieving business goals and objectives
A system is a group of components that interact to achieve some purpose.
An information system (IS) is a group of components that interact to produce information.
“Information system” is a synonym for computer-based information systems in this course.
7. 1st Element: Information systems (IS) components for a computer-based IS Q1 – What is MIS
8. 2nd. Element: Development and Use of Information Systems
You must take an active role in specifying requirements and managing development projects because you are the one whowill be using the system to do your job.
Your responsibilities also include using IS responsibly and protecting the system and its data.
3rd Element: Achieving Business Goals and Objectives
Businesses themselves do not “do” anything. It is the people within a business who sell, buy, design, produce, finance, market, account, and manage.
Information systems exist to help people in business achieve the goals and objectives of that business.
Q1 – What is MIS
9. 3rd Element: Achieving Business Goals and Objectives
There is much more to an IS then buying a computer, writing a program or working with a spreadsheet.
Everyday, some business somewhere is developing an IS for the wrong reasons. The firm is not asking the following important questions:
“What is the purpose of this IS?”
“What is it going to do for us?” “
“Are the costs sufficiently offset by the benefits?”
“Who is the customer for this IS?”
“Does the customer really care?”
“Will the customer pay for this IS?”
“What business goal or objective is accomplished by this IS?”
Q1 – What is MIS
10. Q1 – What is MIS?
Q2 – What should you learn from this class?
Q3 – How can you use the five-component framework?
Q4 – What is information?
Q5 – What are the characteristics of good information?
Q6 – What is the difference between information technology and information systems?
Q7 – How can you enjoy this class?
11. Q2 – What should you learn from this class? As a business professional in the 21st century, you should:
Have sufficient knowledge to be an informed and effective consumer of information technology products and services
Be able to ask pertinent questions
Be able to correctly interpret the responses to your questions
Be able to make wise decisions and manage effectively
You need to go beyond basic definitions. You need to know how to use the knowledge to be a better manager and to find innovative ways of accomplishing your goals and objectives.
12. Q2 – What should you learn from this class? You will relate to IS in three ways:
You will be a user of IS so you need to know enough to accomplish your work. You also will need to be able to express your requirements to IS professionals.
You will be a manager so you will need to know enough to ensure that your people have the systems they need. You need to ensure that the IS requirements of your department are met. You need to judge the quality of work that IS personnel produce for your area.
You need to think strategically about IS. How can you use IS in new and innovative ways to accomplish the objectives of your area?
13. Q2 – What Should You Learn from This Class?
14. The 21st Century at Work (RAND Corporation) This RAND report in the textbook predicts the shape of the future workplace and describes the skills required for workers in the 21st century.
Demand will be strong for those who possess strong non-routine cognitive skills, including abstract reasoning, problem-solving, communication, and collaboration.
To succeed, workers will need to be comfortable with ambiguity, uncertainty, uniqueness, instability, and complexity and be willing to take risks and to experiment.
15. The 21st Century at Work (RAND Corporation) As a student, you are likely to be most comfortable with assignments that have definite answers and which can be solved using a routine method. That type of work is commoditized and shipped via the global economy to a location where someone working for a very low wage can provide the answers.
The type of work for well-paid managers that remains in the U.S. will require communication, coordination, collaboration (the soft skills), the willingness to experiment (innovation) and the willingness to use non-routine thinking (creative).
As a business manager, you are unlikely to develop new technologies, but you are very likely to need to find novel ways to use technology, if you are going to succeed.
16. Q1 – What is MIS?
Q2 – What should you learn from this class?
Q3 – How can you use the five-component framework?
Q4 – What is information?
Q5 – What are the characteristics of good information?
Q6 – What is the difference between information technology and information systems?
Q7 – How can you enjoy this class?
17. Q3 – How Can You Use the Five-Component Framework? The five components are symmetrical and interact with each other to create a complete system
Actors – hardware and people take actions
Instructions – software and procedures provide instructions for actors
Bridges – data bridges hardware/software and people/procedures
The Most Important Component – YOU
You are part of every information system that you use.
Your quality of thinking is a large part of the quality of an information system. You cannot change your IQ but you can change the quality of your thinking.
Even if you have the perfect IS, if you do not know what to do with the information that it produces, you are wasting your time and money.
18. Q3 – How Can You Use the Five-Component Framework?
19. Q3 – How Can You Use the Five-Component Framework? High-Tech Versus Low Tech – how do you tell the difference?
Low tech – using an email program and its addresses is low tech because just a small amount of work is being accomplished by a computer system.
High tech – implementing a customer support system is high tech because a large amount of work is being accomplished by the computer system rather than humans.
The determining factor in the degree of “tech” is the amount of work that is moved from the human side to the computer side in Fig 1-3. Also, the more work you shift from the human side to the computer side, the more value the IS adds, the more cost effective the system is, and the more likely your competitors will suffer if they do not follow your lead.
20. Q3 – How Can You Use the Five-Component Framework? You can understand and evaluate new information systems by evaluating and asking questions about each component separately and then as a whole system.
What new hardware will you need?
What programs will you need to license?
What databases and data must you create?
What procedures will you need to develop for use and administration of the new IS?
What will be the impact of the new technology on people?
Which jobs will change? What new jobs will you need?
Who will need training?
How will the technology affect morale?
Will you need to hire new people?
Will you need to reorganize?
The five components can also be evaluated based on the order of difficulty and disruption – hardware is the easiest part while people are the most difficult.
21. Q1 – What is MIS?
Q2 – What should you learn from this class?
Q3 – How can you use the five-component framework?
Q4 – What is information?
Q5 – What are the characteristics of good information?
Q6 – What is the difference between information technology and information systems?
Q7 – How can you enjoy this class?
22. Q4 – What is Information? We know what an information system is – an assembly of hardware, software, data, procedures, and people that interact to produce information. Data is recorded facts but what is information?
Definitions vary. Information is:
Knowledge derived from data.
Data presented in a meaningful context.
Data processed by summing, ordering, averaging, grouping, comparing, or other similar operations.
A difference that makes a difference. This definition would be considered vapid and useless by quantitatively oriented professionals but very useful by managers.
All of these definitions will do. Choose the definition that works best for the situation – remember the important point is to discriminate between data and information.
23. Q4 – What is Information? Information is Subjective
What is a meaningful context? Context varies from person to person.
Information in one person’s context is just a data point in another person’s context since what may be important to you may not hold the same level of importance to someone else.
Context changes occur in information systems when the output of one system feeds a second system. Data in a manufacturing system may be very important to that system. When it’s combined with data from other systems, it may lose its prominence in the larger context.
Information is always understood in a context, and that context varies from one user to another. Therefore, information is always subjective.
24. Q4 – What is Information?
25. Q1 – What is MIS?
Q2 – What should you learn from this class?
Q3 – How can you use the five-component framework?
Q4 – What is information?
Q5 – What are the characteristics of good information?
Q6 – What is the difference between information technology and information systems?
Q7 – How can you enjoy this class?
26. Q5 – What are the Characteristics of Good Information? All information is not equal – some information is better than other information.
Good information must be
Accurate – correct, complete, and processed correctly. Entering incorrect sales data creates false information. Be skeptical and validate an IS.
Timely – produced in time for its intended use with regard to a due date/time or an event. Knowing that production doesn’t have enough raw materials for next week’s schedule will be reactive information three weeks from now, but proactive information now.
Relevant – both to the context and to the subject. If your boss needs to know how many shipments were late last month, you shouldn’t give him a list of all items that shipped with their dates.
Just barely sufficient – for the purpose for which it is generated. If your boss wants to know how to send an email, you shouldn’t teach him/her the complete email application. A critical decision we must make throughout each day is what information do we need to ignore.
Worth its cost – the cost of information should be equal to or less than its value. Is it cost worthy to map out the entire U.S. if you only need one state?
27. Ethics of Misdirected Information Use Should you listen to professional discussions not intended for your ears?
Should you read professional e-mail not intended for you?
Should you use information from these discussions and e-mails?
The answer is NO to all of these questions. When your knowledge becomes known, you will not be trusted again.
One strike and you are “out” with regard to integrity issues.
Never do anything you do not want published on the front page of your newspaper.
28. The Work of Nations, Robert Reich Firms that are surviving and succeeding are shifting from high volume to high value. High-value firms produce unique products tailored to particular customer demands, typically in low volume.
Three categories of work:
Routine production services – high-volume, few skills, simple calculations, reliable, simple reading, take directions, low pay, moved offshore
In-person services – face-to-face, simple, repetitive, simple communication skills, cannot be moved offshore, demand high, pay low
Symbolic-analytic services – high-value, deal with information, abstract reasoning, judgment-based skills, innovation, can be moved offshore because of communications facilities, jobs do not go to lowest bidder but to highest qualified bidder
29. The Work of Nations, Robert Reich Types of symbolic-analytic workers:
Problem-identifiers – process information to determine that something is not as it should be - can be moved offshore.
Problem-solvers – use technology and other assets to create problem solutions - can be moved offshore.
Solution brokers – link problem-identifiers with problem-solvers. They understand the underlying domain of the problem and of the solutions, and are able to raise money and influence decision makers to create the solution – cannot be moved offshore.
30. Q1 – What is MIS?
Q2 – What should you learn from this class?
Q3 – How can you use the five-component framework?
Q4 – What is information?
Q5 – What are the characteristics of good information?
Q6 – What is the difference between information technology and information systems?
Q7 – How can you enjoy this class?
31. Q6 – What is the Difference Between Information Technology and Information Systems? Because many people confuse the two terms, compare what each one consists of and how the two differ.
Information technology drives the development of new information systems. Information Systems include five components
Hardware
Software
Data
Procedures
People
32. Q6 – What is the Difference Between Information Technology and Information Systems? Moore’s Law
“The number of transistors per square inch on an integrated chip doubles every 18 months.”
Dramatic Reduction in Price/Performance RatioThe ratio has fallen dramatically for over 40 years and is estimated to continue to fall in accordance with Moore’s Law.
You need to continuously search for and integrate new technology made possible by Moore’s Law because, if you don’t, this new technology enables competitors to gain a competitive advantage over you, such as:
33. Q6 – What is the Difference Between Information Technology and Information Systems?
34. Q1 – What is MIS?
Q2 – What should you learn from this class?
Q3 – How can you use the five-component framework?
Q4 – What is information?
Q5 – What are the characteristics of good information?
Q6 – What is the difference between information technology and information systems?
Q7 – How can you enjoy this class?
35. Q7 – How Can You Enjoy This Class? Apply what you are learning to situations and organizations of interest to you.
Think about the information systems around you and how they interact with each other. How do they affect your life and your job.
Every day you touch dozens of information systems.
Begin to ask yourself about the type of information those systems provide you. Does the information make a difference?
How do they impact you in your personal life and your job?
36. Understanding Perspectives and Points of View Every human being speaks and acts from the perspective of a personal point of view.
Everything we say or do is based on – or equivalently, is biased by – our point of view.
Conflicting points of view can all be true at the same time.
When listening, ask yourself, “What is his/her perspective?” “What is his/her goals?”
When you manage, being able to discern and adapt to the perspectives and goals of those with whom you work will make you much more effective. Be interested, not interesting.
37. Duller Than Dirt The critical resource for you is time, not money. No one, including billionaires, has more time in their day than you.
How can you maximize the return on time you are investing per hour in studying for this course?
The secret is to personalize this material. Ask yourself, and me, the following questions:
How does this material pertain to you?
How can you use this material to further your goals?
What is this topic for?
Why are we reading this material?
What are you going to do with this information later in your career?
Why is this material worth your time to study?
