Assignment 8 (Due: February 5, 2010, before 01:00pm)

Posts : 182 Points : 447 Join date : 2009-06-18

fast forward ..., you were hired and have been tasked to develop a strategic information systems plan for a company. The company officers have extended an invitation for you to meet with them to discuss the direction of the company. Before this meeting, they have asked that you provide a list of questions with some explanation about the "why" of the question so they can be prepared, thus maximizing the output from this meeting.

Develop a list of questions you would ask the officers of the company and give an explanation and justification for each question. (1000 words)

If I were hired and have been tasked to develop a strategic information systems plan for a company and have asked to formulate and provide a list of questions with some explanation about “WHY” of the questions I would definitely consider some problems and assumptions regarding strategic plan.

First question in the list is:

“WHY PLAN?”

For my own perspective, the most common reasons why companies need to formulate or to have a strategic plan for the better business structure are:

- To align the Information System with the business
- To identify needed applications
- To establish goals, schedules, and milestones in order to track progress
- To provide an opportunity for communication with top management and user management

Thus in order to attain certain goals in business, companies should formulate strategic plans or should I say, plan for its success. The company head should consider the external and internal part of the business and they should also consider the entire scope of it.

The next question I should include in the list is:

“WHAT ARE THE STEPS IN PLANNING?”

– Establish a mission statement

·>These are the services that you are responsible for; it is your place in the organization
·> It is not what you are supposed to achieve, it is who you areand what you do in the company

– Assess the environment

·>The capabilities of the IT department
·>The readiness of the company to use IT
·>The status of our customers, our industry
·>The status of the economy, government regulations, environment, society, etc.
·> Technology
Assessing the environment is somewhat similar to SWOT analysis (Strengths,Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats.)

– Set goals and objectives

– Derive strategies and policies

·>Strategies for:
*Technology focus
*Personnel and career development
*Aligning with the company
*Others . . .

·> Policies for:
*Funding criteria; how much to spend on IT?
*Allocation criteria; priority setting
*Organizational arrangements
*Use of outside IT services, outsourcing
*Selling IT services to outside organizations
*Others . . .

– Develop long-, medium-, and short-range plans

Short-, medium-, and long-range plans
*Short-range – the next year, the next budget period; developing and operating current systems
* Medium-range – committing to development efforts for applications that will take more than one year to complete; meeting management’s current information needs, projected into the future for as many years as needed to complete them. This is what most organizations call “Long-Range Planning.”
* Long-range planning – preparing for management’s future information needs. These are not application specific; they are
investments in infrastructure; it is creating an information architecture.

– Implement plans and monitor results

The next question in the list is:

WHO SHOULD BE INVOLVED?

Each organization must carefully decide who should be involved in strategic planning. There are several key roles to be played in a strategic planning process including:

* Planning Process Champion. This is usually a key member of the board of directors or the executive director. The person must be someone who believes in strategic planning and will help keep the process on track. This person does not have to be an expert in strategic planning, but s/he should be someone respected by board and staff members.

*Plan Writer. Someone must assemble the planning group\'s decisions into a cohesive document. This person takes notes during planning meetings and uses them to prepare a plan, often in the form of several drafts for review by the entire planning group. Writing the plan, however, is more than simply compiling a record of planning meetings. The plan writer must also insert options and next logical steps into the drafts at each stage of the planning process.

* Planning Process Facilitator. This person may be from outside the organization, though this role also can be played by a member of the board. The facilitator\'s main responsibility is to plan each meeting\'s agenda and to ensure the group stays on track.

* Planning Team. The planning team\'s members are those who are most directly involved in laying out the issues and options for the future of the organization. This might be the entire board of directors plus the executive director. It might also be a committee of the board plus the executive director. Key staff beyond the executive director may also be involved. It might also include one (or more) representatives of people served by the organization. What is important to remember is to ensure that the people who are fairly representative of and respected by the organization\'s leadership are included on the planning team

*Board of Directors. The board of directors will ultimately adopt the plan and will use it to guide its decisions and actions. If the entire board is not involved directly in the planning process, it must at least approve a planning process and be kept informed of its progress. The process of developing a strategic plan is a special opportunity to engage the board of directors in an active role in shaping the organization\'s future.

*Staff. Staff members, particularly the executive director, have expertise and information that should be tapped during the planning process. Since they will be the ones who will carry out the plan on a day-to-day basis, they should be informed and, to whatever extent is appropriate for the organization, involved. Larger organizations often rely on representation from staff, while smaller organizations may include only the executive director on the planning team.

* Clients. Those who benefit from the organization\'s services are sometimes involved in the planning process. Each organization makes its own choices about whether to include clients on the planning team or whether to consult them in some other way.

Next up is:

WHAT ARE SOME PREPARATIONS TO MAKE BEFORE CONDUCTING STRATEGIC PLANNING?

In preparing a strategic plan for businesses, there are a lot of things to be considered. There are steps and ways which can help the people involve in it.

* The real benefit of the strategic planning process is the process, not the plan document.
* There is no \"perfect\" plan. There\'s doing your best at strategic thinking and implementation, and learning from what you\'re doing to enhance what you\'re doing the next time around.
*The strategic planning process is usually not an \"aha!\" experience. It\'s like the management process itself -- it\'s a series of small moves that together keep the organization doing things right as it heads in the right direction.
* In planning, things usually aren\'t as bad as you fear nor as good as you\'d like.
* Start simple, but start!

Next question on the list is:

WHEN SHOULD STRATEGIC PLANNING BE DONE?

The scheduling for the strategic planning process depends on the nature and needs of the organization and the its immediate external environment. For example, planning should be carried out frequently in an organization whose products and services are in an industry that is changing rapidly . In this situation, planning might be carried out once or even twice a year and done in a very comprehensive and detailed fashion (that is, with attention to mission, vision, values, environmental scan, issues, goals, strategies, objectives, responsibilities, time lines, budgets, etc). On the other hand, if the organization has been around for many years and is in a fairly stable marketplace, then planning might be carried out once a year and only certain parts of the planning process, for example, action planning (objectives, responsibilities, time lines, budgets, etc) are updated each year. Consider the following guidelines:

1. Strategic planning should be done when an organization is just getting started. (The strategic plan is usually part of an overall business plan, along with a marketing plan, financial plan and operational/management plan.)

2. Strategic planning should also be done in preparation for a new major venture, for example, developing a new department, division, major new product or line of products, etc.

3. Strategic planning should also be conducted at least once a year in order to be ready for the coming fiscal year (the financial management of an organization is usually based on a year-to-year, or fiscal year, basis). In this case, strategic planning should be conducted in time to identify the organizational goals to be achieved at least over the coming fiscal year, resources needed to achieve those goals, and funded needed to obtain the resources. These funds are included in budget planning for the coming fiscal year. However, not all phases of strategic planning need be fully completed each year. The full strategic planning process should be conducted at least once every three years. As noted above, these activities should be conducted every year if the organization is experiencing tremendous change.

4. Each year, action plans should be updated.

5. Note that, during implementation of the plan, the progress of the implementation should be reviewed at least on a quarterly basis by the board. Again, the frequency of review depends on the extent of the rate of change in and around the organization.

And the last question on the list is:

HOW DO YOU ENSURE IMPLEMENTATION OF YOUR NEW PLAN?

A frequent complaint about the strategic planning process is that it produces a document that ends up collecting dust on a shelf -- the organization ignores the precious information depicted in the document.

The following guidelines will help ensure that the plan is implemented. (Note that reference to boards of directors is in regard to organizations that are corporations.

1. When conducting the planning process, involve the people who will be responsible for implementing the plan. Use a cross-functional team (representatives from each of the major organization’s products or service) to ensure the plan is realistic and collaborative.
2. Ensure the plan is realistic. Continue asking planning participants “Is this realistic? Can you really do this?”

3. Organize the overall strategic plan into smaller action plans, often including an action plan (or work plan) for each committee on the board.

4. In the overall planning document, specify who is doing what and by when (action plans are often referenced in the implementation section of the overall strategic plan). Some organizations may elect to include the action plans in a separate document from the strategic plan, which would include only the mission, vision, values, key issues and goals, and strategies. This approach carries some risk that the board will lose focus on the action plans.

5. In an implementation section in the plan, specify and clarify the plan’s implementation roles and responsibilities. Be sure to detail particularly the first 90 days of the implementation of the plan. Build in regular reviews of status of the implementation of the plan.

6. Translate the strategic plan’s actions into job descriptions and personnel performance reviews.

7. Communicate the role of follow-ups to the plan. If people know the action plans will be regularly reviewed, implementers tend to do their jobs before they’re checked on.

8. Be sure to document and distribute the plan, including inviting review input from all.

9. Be sure that one internal person has ultimate responsibility that the plan is enacted in a timely fashion.

10. The chief executive’s support of the plan is a major driver to the plan’s implementation. Integrate the plan’s goals and objectives into the chief executive’s performance reviews.

11. Place huge emphasis on feedback to the board’s executive committee from the planning participants. Consider all or some of the following to ensure the plan is implemented.

12. Have designated rotating “checkers” to verify, e.g., every quarter, if each implementer completed their assigned tasks.

13. Have pairs of people be responsible for tasks. Have each partner commit to helping the other to finish the other’s tasks on time.

REFERENCES:

http://www.managementhelp.org/plan_dec/str_plan/str_plan.htm#anchor4293651425
http://www.wmich.edu/nonprofit/Guide/guide7.htm
http://humanresources.about.com/od/strategicplanning1/Strategic_Planning_Resources.htm

VISIT MY BLOG Assignment 8 (Due: February 5, 2010, before 01:00pm) Icon_arrow

http://fujiwarayumi.blogspot.com/

Today’s organization, information has emerged as an agent or tool in integrating and enabling new competitiveness as enterprise with concern in dealing in the global marketplace. As electronic business and electronic commerce grow in popularity and more firms digitize their operations, having useful information is becoming even more important to the global business community. Technology can have a powerful effect on allowing the organizations to use less energy to produce something which will give them a cost advantage in competition. Since the world is so competitive, the strategic level of management will invest in information system which is a strategic system to help a corporation to achieve competitive advantage and to adapt in changes. Information technology is being used by many businesses worldwide to increase efficiency, save money, and create better relationships between suppliers and customers. Strategic Information System Planning has to be incorporated with the activities within the company's planning policies to ensure the effectiveness of investing Information System in the said organization. Information technology is being used by many businesses worldwide to increase efficiency, save money, and create better relationships between suppliers and customers. With the good technology and proper planning, the organization will achieve their desired goals. It will lead to have a productive company and build a strong camaraderie of the people behind the success of the company.

Given a chance to develop a strategic information systems plan, I must have a guidelines on what will I do. Maybe questions that will help the officers understand the ideas I have in my mind. Following are the list of questions that would ask to the management.

Why Information Systems important?

It’s really obvious that companies nowadays are equipped with the technology that will be used in dealing with competition with other organization. The work is done easier and faster. All medium to large organizations depend on the technology for their continued survival. Many large organizations could last no longer than 24 hours without IT support. There should be little wonder that attitudes to the development of information systems have changed over the years from a manual approach to professionally managed, disciplined, planned and strategic approach. Simply put, effectively managing your organization's information technology and resources will increase the productivity and effectiveness of the company. With the right technology, workers can increase the amount of work they are able to accomplish in less time than ever before. Likewise, businesses and organizations simply can't stick their heads in the sand and ignore all of the improvements and inventions that are available nowadays. If they choose to do so, chances are their competition won't. It's not just the improvements in current processes that are available but the opportunities for new products or services that businesses can take advantage of with information systems.

Why do Strategic Information System Planning needed for the development of the organization?

If development is concerned, typically with good strategies the company will have a great path in achieving their goals. Planning is a crucial one when it comes to development of a certain organization. With good strategic planning scheme, it is easy for the organization to compete with others. It would serve as a tool for obtaining competitive advantage. Having the SISP, there is a comprehensive solution that would brought together a complete analysis of an organization's people, processes, and technologies, as aligned to support a company's business strategy, all with a focus on those areas that are relevant to Information Technology. These elements of an organization are reviewed against current and future strategic business objectives and consideration of industry and technology best practices to develop a comprehensive future-state view of Information Technology.

Posts : 46 Points : 47 Join date : 2009-06-19

Ahhh…me..getting hired and tasked to develop a strategic information systems plan for a company is so rewarding and such a lifetime opportunity to handle with. And voila! I am given a situation to work on and to think about. Wow…so related to how do I foresee myself one day, maybe five or ten years from now…funny thoughts anyway. But what really is this Strategic Information System all about? According to Lederer, Albert J. and Sethi, Vijay, 1996 Strategic information systems planning (SISP) has been defined as the process of identifying a portfolio of computer-based applications that will assist an organization in executing its business plans and realizing its business goals. SISP is an important activity for helping information executives and top management identify strategic applications and align IT with business needs.

Well, as expected, the company officers have extended an invitation for me to meet with them to discuss the direction of the company and before this meeting, they have asked that I provide a list of questions with some explanation about the "why" of the question so they can be prepared, thus maximizing the output from this meeting. Hmmmm…thoughts to ponder. But most of all I should know the over-all structure of my company. And to do this, I should start listing down all issues and concerns I should raise and what I wanted to know for this is where my life as a career person would revolve.

What is the mission and vision of this company? These are the services that you are responsible for and it is your place in the organization or in the company and it is not what you are supposed to achieve but it is who you are and what you do in the company.

What are its goals and objectives? Once goals and objectives are set then strategies and policies could then be eventually derived. What do you want to achieve and what are your specific and measurable targets?

What is the organizational structure of the company? Who composed the company? Who are the people behind it and who are working on it? Human resource..what is it composed of?

Why Plan and what are its plans? The scope of planning must be studied. For sure, planning is very important to obtain resources from all departments of the company in financial and facilities, staff, to align information system with the business, identify needed applications, To establish goals and schedules, to provide opportunity for communication with top management and user management, to know and analyze the outcomes and the process whether it is proactive or reactive. Planning and forecasting play very important role in this phase and must be considered also. And all these plans must be implemented and results be monitored.

Is there a need of a short term, medium term or long range plan? Why?
Yes, a need of short, medium, and long-range plans are also suggested. It is in a short range plan where the next year, the next budget period developing and operating current systems be initially done.

A medium range plan, it is when committing to development efforts for applications that will take more than one year to complete meeting management’s current information needs be protected into the future for as many years as needed to complete them. And the Long range planning is into preparing for management’s future information needs. These are not applications specific but they are investments in infrastructure and it is more on creating information designs.

What are to be assessed and why assess? The capabilities of the IT department must be assesses to know if it is ready to use the Information Technology, the status of the customer and industry, the status of the economy and government, regulations, and the technology itself.

This is actually very similar to SWOT which means Strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and Threats.

What are the strategies and policies?
Why are strategies and polices have to be identified and derived? It is very important to derive strategies and policies for a most effective and focused Technology, personnel and career development, and aligning with the company. Policies have to be emphasized for funding criteria, to know how much to spend on its Information technology and information system. Allocation criteria is always a priority setting in an organization or company and its organizational arrangements must well be organized. The use of outside IT services must also be identified to be able to locate and identify outsourcing for this area. Likewise, selling IT services to outside organization might as well be of use on this purpose.

Finally, according to Somendra Pant and Cheng Hsu, 1995, planning for information systems, as for any other system, begins with the identification of needs. In order to be effective, development of any type of computer-based system should be a response to need -- whether at the transaction processing level or at the more complex information and support systems levels. Such planning for information systems is much like strategic planning in management. Objectives, priorities, and authorization for information systems projects need to be formalized. The systems development plan should identify specific projects slated for the future, priorities for each project and for resources, general procedures, and constraints for each application area. The plan must be specific enough to enable understanding of each application and to know where it stands in the order of development. Also the plan should be flexible so that priorities can be adjusted if necessary. King (King, 1995) in his recent article has argued that strategic capability architecture - a flexible and continuously improving infrastructure of organizational capabilities – is the primary basis for a company's sustainable competitive advantage. He has emphasized the need for continuously updating and improving the strategic capabilities architecture.

SISP is the analysis of a corporation’s information and processes using business information models together. Lastly, the task of strategic information systems planning is difficult and often time organizations do not know how to do it. Strategic information systems planning is a major change for organizations, from planning for information systems based on users’ demands to those based on business strategy. Also strategic information systems planning changes the planning characteristic in major ways. For example, the time horizon for planning changes from 1 year to 3 years or more and development plans are driven by current and future business needs rather than incremental user needs. Increase in the time horizon is a factor which results in poor response from the top management to the strategic information systems planning process as it is difficult to hold their attention for such a long period. Other questions associated with strategic information systems planning are related to the scope of the planning study, the focus of the planning exercise corporate organization vs. strategic business unit, number of studies and their sequence, choosing a strategic information systems planning methodology or developing one if none is suitable, targets of planning and deliverables. Because of the complexity of the strategic information systems planning process and uniqueness of each organization, there is no one best way to tackle it (Vitale, 1986).

fast forward ..., you were hired and have been tasked to develop a strategic information systems plan for a company. The company officers have extended an invitation for you to meet with them to discuss the direction of the company. Before this meeting, they have asked that you provide a list of questions with some explanation about the "why" of the question so they can be prepared, thus maximizing the output from this meeting.

Develop a list of questions you would ask the officers of the company and give an explanation and justification for each question. (1000 words)

Idea

Here in this world, in all you do should have what we call plan. Like us, we are created by GOD because He has a plan to each and every one of us. In other words, the purpose in which we are going to do as we are living here on earth. It is also the same with all the things that we've seen and touch. They have also plan and purpose why they are here. Like in an organization, the people responsible for the establishments of that kind of an organization have plans and purpose why he/she built that.

Idea

Strategic information systems planning ( SlSP) is the process of deciding the objectives for organizational computing and identifying potential computer applications which the organization should implement. The primary objectives of systems planning were to improve communication with users, to increase top management support, to better forecast resources, to determine more opportunities for improving the MIS department, and to identify new and higher payback computer applications.

Idea

SISP involves understanding what the business goals are and identifying how IS can support those goals by delivering benefits. And to do that, each should understand what the business is all about. Includes also the strategies and purpose. Another thing is to know what IS does the company have. To know if it is effective or not and if it is meeting the business needs. Another thing to consider is what the technological opportunities exist and how could the new IT support the business. IS should be an integrated resource within the organisation which contributes to the organisation’s core competencies which may result in sustainable competitive advantage.

Idea

In an organization, strategic information systems plan (SISP) is really important because it is a tool in which the organization can attain their successful development and improvement of the system. By doing that, of course all the people involved should gather to discuss what to do. And one way to understand what will be doing is the guidelines which are the questions that everyone should talk about and discuss. For me, these are some of the questions to consider:

1.) What are the business mission, objectives, and goals?

Here, it analyses the processes for all the data needed. It will identify the data currently required to perform the processes. It describes the overall information system architecture comprised of databases and applications as well as the installation schedule of individual systems.

2.) What will be the expected output of this project you want to have?

After knowing their business mission, objectives and goals, it should be given an emphasis of what the company wants to have in a certain project and to know exactly the expected output or finish product so that it will be concentrated to what is its goal to achieve.

3.) Who are the persons involved in this project?

The PEOPLE Issue represents the readiness of the organization to absorb technology and awareness factors. This if overlooked can be a major cause of failure for any plan during the implementation phase. By this, everyone will know all the persons they will be working with or dealing with so that in times of there will be something wrong happen, they used to know who to ask or to talk to fix such problem.

4.) Does your company willing to provide sufficient budget either it will be big or small project?

Factors that become critical at the stage of doing projects are the availability of budget. All plans should be supported through a justification on the basis of cost savings, (but, of course) opportunity cost and strategic rationale like competitive advantage, perception etc. amongst other factors. Asking this is a big help because budget is the mainly needed for it is in here in which the project will be going through whatever it takes. It is the one in which why certain project will be establish or is established.

5.) Ready to reengineer?

It provides techniques or building enterprise models, data models, and process models. These form a comprehensive knowledge base which then creates and maintains information systems.

6.) How much is the allotted time for the project?

Persons involved should have to discuss about how much time will be consume to take for this project. By knowing this, each can have a managed time and how they will use it to finish certain project.

7.) How company deal with the changes?

Changes here means that everyone should study also of the existing TECHNOLOGY platform within the company, the infrastructure, the state and format of the data and information present. Along with all this, the governance of technology is also something to watch out for. It becomes important to manage the chaos that would naturally result from too many ‘technology’ cooks in a company. The standards, responsibility and approval structure in selecting and implementing technology choices have to be clear and specific in order to avoid pain of integration and obsolescence.

Idea

Questions above are just few to mention to have an effective strategic plan. Improved strategic information systems planning (SISP) is the most critical issue facing information systems executives. Because the purpose of SISP is to identify the most appropriate targets for automation and to schedule their installation, SISP has the potential to make huge contributions to businesses and other organizations. Effective SISP can help organization use information systems to reach business goals, a major objective of senior IS executives. It can also enable organizations to use information system so significantly impact their strategies. However, the failure to carefully carry out SISP can result both in lost opportunities and the waste of expensive IS resources.

For any comments and violent reactions, just click here: http://d-unexpected-one.blogspot.com/

Posts : 54 Points : 54 Join date : 2009-06-19

fast forward ..., you were hired and have been tasked to develop a strategic information systems plan for a company. The company officers have extended an invitation for you to meet with them to discuss the direction of the company. Before this meeting, they have asked that you provide a list of questions with some explanation about the \"why\" of the question so they can be prepared, thus maximizing the output from this meeting.

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Strategic information systems planning (SISP) has been defined as the process of identifying a portfolio of computer-based applications that will assist an organization in executing its business plans and realizing its business goals. SISP is an important activity for helping information executives and top management identify strategic applications and align IT with business needs. Previous researchers and practitioner observers have identified measures of successful SISP and have recommended many prescriptions for achieving success. The following are the characteristics of strategic information system plan

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Comprehensiveness- the extent to which an organization attempts to be exhaustive or inclusive in making and integrating strategic decisions
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Formalization- the existence of structures, techniques, written procedures, and policies that guide the planning process
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Focus- the balance between creativity and control orientations inherent within the strategic planning system
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Top-down flow- SISP should be initiated by top managers, with the aid of support staff.
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Broad participation- Even though the planning flow is top-down, participation must involve multiple functional areas and, as necessary, key stakeholders at lower levels of the organization
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High consistency- SISP should be characterized by frequent meetings and reassessments of the overall strategy.

The recommendations found in the SISP literature have been echoed in the operations management literature. It has been suggested that firms should institutionalize a formal top-down planning process for linking information systems strategy to business needs as they move toward evolution in their management orientation, planning, organization, and control aspects of the IT function.

Develop a list of questions you would ask the officers of the company and give an explanation and justification for each question.

1. What are the Vision, Mission, Goals and Objective of this company?

I want to know the organization’s VMGO because sometimes, the organization focuses on how to get profit and forgetting what is really their VMGO’s in the organization. VMGO are the way to understand what is really the needs of a company and the first step to do the strategic planning.

2. How the organization uses IT in their business?

I want to know how the company uses Information Technology in their business. In business planning Information Technology creates new opportunities for innovation in products and services. Services which used to be delivered in person can now be delivered over networks. In that, I want to know what the current status of the company.

3. What is the organizational chart of the organization?

This one, I want to know the organizational chart so that I can be able to identify the structure of an organization and the relationships and relative ranks of its parts and positions/jobs.

4. What is the organization’s business approach? More on IT? Or Business? Or equal?

I want to know if the company’s approach is align to their MIS objectives with organizational goals and the latter to “impact” organizational strategies.

5. Why the organization needs strategic information system plan?

I want to know if Strategic Information System Plan is an important activity for helping information executives and top management in this organization. And through this planning is it identifies strategic applications that align IT with business needs.

Links:
http://www.jmis-web.org/articles/v13_n1_p35/index.html
http://viu.eng.rpi.edu/publications/strpaper.pdf
www.ebrc.fi/kuvat/Makipaa_paper.pd

Posts : 43 Points : 45 Join date : 2009-06-22

Why change?
This would be the first question that I would address to the officers of the company which will help assess and evaluate themselves and improve whatever process that needs to be improved. This question is a best way to catch their attention to take them from better to best. If they are satisfied with their current situation, with what they have and what they cater, then there is no need for them to change and plan. But if they still want to leap and go higher, then they should start identifying the things that need to be changed especially when it comes to information system. There is a need to change their current situation in order cater the needs of the people the best that they can do. Though it may cost a lot on their efforts and money, it will be overpowered with the return of investments in the long run.

Change takes something or someone from average to excellence. It will take you to the top as long as you are willing to leave unnecessary things and start to build up for the best. Changing and innovating the current status of the information system of the company will lead them to an organized and systematic process of gathering, preserving and securing the data of the entire business and people.

Why plan?

This is one of the basic questions that we need to ask in the company. Why do we need to plan or is there a need to plan? We need to plan in our company for whatever actions we are taking and are about to take in order to fulfill the purpose of the establishment and to satisfy the need of the client and/or customers. Planning, specifically strategic planning will help identify the goals, targets, missions and visions of the company. It plays a vital role and gives essential part before taking the first step of entering into the business world. It will also help improve the company in fixing the lapses, strengthen the weak points as the business goes by. Planning will keep the whole process and the whole people especially the key people in focusing on the things being planned. It keeps the company on the track in the whole process.
Without Planning, the company or the whole system/process of the company may not work properly because it’s not being organized in the first place through planning. The company cannot take off or cannot reach its dreams if plans were not made before starting the business.
When it comes to information system, this is one of the most important parts of an establishment, keeping all the records of the employee. If plans were not taken into account in the first place, information of the employees and all the people involved in the business may not be recorded and may overlook if problems occur in the system. Thus, it will be a loss of the company.

Therefore, planning plays a vital role in a company. As one author says, “if we fail to plan, we plan to fail”. And it’s very true and should be visible in a company. Planning keeps the company on its competitive edge because it always improves whatever weaknesses made along the way.

This article I have read is connected with planning. The author was giving Ten Reasons why you need to do a business plan. As I have observed, relating in to strategic information system, it establishes milestones making it realistic for employees. It will monitor the record-keeping of the business and information of the people inside the company.

A business plan is the cornerstone of starting a business as well as a significant tool for monitoring the progress and growth of your company. Below are 10 key reasons why you should have a business plan.
1. To Attract Investors. Before investors can decide whether or not to back your business financially, they will need to know as much as possible about how the business will operate and how their investment will be spent.
2. To See If Your Business Ideas Will Work. By writing a business plan and outlining each aspect of your business, you can determine if your idea is actually viable.
3. To Outline Each Area of the Business. A business plan will provide an overview of all aspects of the business. You will be able to detail the who, what, where, when, and why of your day-to-day business operations, costs, and projected profitability.
4. To Set Up Milestones. By forecasting where your business will be in six months, one year, or five years, you are not only letting potential investors know your plans, but also setting up realistic milestones for yourself and your employees.
5. To Learn About the Market. Researching, analyzing, and writing about the market not only provides you with an overview for the business plan, but gives you greater insight into the overall market.
6. To Secure Additional Funding or Loans. Your business plan can demonstrate that you have met goals and illustrate the company’s growth and need for additional funding.
7. To Determine Your Financial Needs. The process of writing your business plan will force you to analyze your financial picture.
8. To Attract Top-Level People. Your business plan will give talented people an overview of your business.
9. To Monitor Your Business. A business plan should serve as an ongoing business tool that you can use to monitor your progress.
10. To Devise Contingency Plans. While business plans often include some contingency plans, by virtue of having the document available, you can see how and where you can make such changes relatively quickly if, and when, necessary.

Reference:
http://www.allbusiness.com/business-planning-structures/business-plans/1716-1.html

So… I’m about to interview some officers in a company, and they want to know first what kind of questions I’m going to throw to them. Well, after some critical and analytical thinking (I guess), I’ve come up with these questions for them to answer:

1. Can you give me a background of your company?
I would ask this question because I would like to know how they would describe what their business is all about. It’s kind of impossible that I wouldn’t know what their company is and what their company does, but for formality’s sake, I’d ask them about their company so after they would answer my question, they would know that I have knowledge already about their company. Their answers here could include the history of the company, the founders, the target clients and their business activities, to name a few.

2. What are the vision, mission and goal/objectives of your company?
Of course, I have to ask this question to them. Why? Simply because if I have to make a Strategic Information Systems Plan for a company, I have to know what the company or the business wants to attain so that I can also align it with the strategic plan that I am going to make. The strategic plan would be no use if what the plan that I put in it has no connection with the company’s vision, mission and goals.

3. For you, what are the critical success factors and core competencies of the company?
Critical success factors (CSF’s), as we discussed from previous assignments, are the critical factors or activities required for ensuring the success of your business. These have been used significantly to present or identify a few key factors that organizations should focus on to be successful.
If the officers could point out to me what the critical success factors of their company are, then it would be easier for me to formulate a strategic information systems plan that could maximize the output of the company by means of information technology.
Same goes for the core competencies. Core competencies as defined from Encarta are areas of expertise that are fundamental to a particular job or function. It’s the same with the CSF’s. If they could pinpoint the core competencies earlier for me, then that could help in my formulation of the SISP.

4. What is the company’s current strategy and plan? A brief answer would be acceptable.
By this question, the answer I am looking for would be concerned with the company’s Strategic Plan. But I won’t need the whole answer from them; I’d just like to hear from them the summary of what their plan is and what their strategy is when we are going to meet face-to-face for the meeting. After the meeting, that’s when I’m going to look more closely and deeply in their company’s strategic plan, and then formulate a plan according to the information that I have gathered from it.

5. What is your company’s external business environment? (the industry the organization is in, competitive position of the org. in the industry, relationship with major buyers an suppliers)
If we asked for the company’s internal business environment (critical success factors, objectives, core competencies), then why not ask the external business environment, right? After all, it’s also essential for the formulation of a SISP.

6. What is the current internal IS/IT environment of your company? (present IS organization, skills and attitudes of people in the organization, IT environment and the IS/IT budgets)
If you would tell me that the company officers don’t know a thing about their IT / IS department so they can’t answer this question, I would just answer that these questions are given to them in advance so they have the time to prepare and interview their personnel about these data.

7. What do you expect from the Strategic Information Systems Plan that I’m going to formulate?
I will ask this to them because I want to know even a little from them on what they think they want from the information systems / information technology side of their company. And also, if what they want is not achievable, then the earlier we know it, the earlier we can inform them about it so there won’t be any complications.

8. On what grounds have you chosen me as the one to formulate the strategic information systems plan for your company?
This question would be kind of like an evaluation question for me. I don’t know if this is important or something, but I’d like to know their basis on hiring me so that I could meet their expectations when formulating the SISP for their company. I could also exceed on what they expect me to do so I gain more points from them.

Subject: Assignment 8 Fri Feb 05, 2010 10:47 am

Strategic Information System Plan (SISP), as defined by Allan Warr, is the process of deciding upon the direction, development and policies for an organization’s use and management of information and networking technologies. It also involves the developments of Information Technology infrastructure, determining the application for the information system and the improvements to the management and sourcing of Information System/Information Technology resources. Today, public and private sectors of most large organizations are practicing the Strategic Information System Plan approach.

As I defined IS plan and strategic IS plan in my previous post, Information System Plan can also be compared with strategic information system plan. In developing an IS plan, one thing we need to do is projecting the firm’s objectives and formulized the policies and authorization and above all is you must identify what specific project you want in the future. An IS plan should be useable, timely, maintainable and flexible so that for some circumstances it can be modified if needed. As I mentioned on my post on the fourth assignment on management information system subject that was based on an article written by Somendra Pant and Cheng Hsu, strategic information system plan is a management function not a technical one. SISP is typically the analysis of a corporation’s information and processes using business information models as well as the evaluation and analysis of the possible risk, current needs and requirements. It is used to determine the best targets for purchasing and installing new Management Information System and help an organization maximize the return on investment (ROI) in their information technology.

Now, if I would be hired and given the task to develop a Strategic Information System Plan for a certain company and required to provide a list of questions that I would probably ask in the meeting for the discussion on the direction of the company. Here the list of question with its corresponding explanation why I derive that question and how important the information can be taken on answering those questions.

1. What are the vision, mission, goals and objectives of your company?

Explanation: When you do a strategic information system plan or any plan for the benefit of the company, it is necessary that as a developer I should know what are the organization’s vision, mission, goals and objectives. It is important to know how the management visualizes their company and what the company wants to be in the future and determine the reason why the organization exist and identify what are the things they aim to achieve which is also necessary to be successful.

2. Can you specify the project that you want in the future?

After knowing the firm’s vision, mission, goals and objectives, as a developer I must know what kind of project they want me to develop. Knowing the type of project, what are the things they want to add for the system and what are the things that they need to make their work easier are very important before I start creating a strategic plan for their information system. Part on the project specification is to recognize the company’s current state, needs and the things that their company lacks.

3. Is your company willing to provide the sufficient budget for this project?

The main risk in developing an information system for the company or even just planning for it is the budget or cost. Often times, the organization has various needs that they aim that their information system would cater but they don’t have the sufficient budget. The bigger the project a developer does, the bigger the expense the larger need for budget allocation. It essential to make sure that the company has enough budget ensure that the strategic information system plan would be of great success and in implementing the information system will also be successful.

4. Who composed the company? Who are the top-management officers?

It is necessary to know who those people on the highest ranks are so that for unexpected circumstances with relates to the company, as a developer I will know who are those people that I can approach. And I must also know who composes the company before working on the firm.

5. What are your plans for your company?

Though I will develop a plan for the company, it would be more convenient if I know what the officer’s plans are for the company so that we could work together for the success of the organization and be competitive.

6. How do you handle change?

Even if the company don’t have a strategic information system plan yet, changes come from time-to-time and with that I assume that the company have its own strategy on how to face those changes. In the real world of business, coping up with change is a great challenge for the firm. Knowing their methods will also help me as a developer in the development of the strategic information system plan.

7. What are the changes that affect their company?

Companies develop a strategic information system plan that will serve as a tool in coping up the changes that occurs such as information technology, globalization and rapid organizational change. Asking would simply ask for the reason why they want to have an information system plan.

8. What are the things that need to be assessed?

The capabilities of every employee especially on the IT department and even the employer must be assessed to know if the available information technology is ready to use and know the needs of the costumer and the status of the industry.

9. What is the allotted maximum length of time for the development of the strategic information system plan?

Developing a Strategic Information System Plan is not that easy. It needs extensive data gathering and thorough analysis. It needs time for the feasibility analysis, risk management and gathering of data, information and requirements.
Strategic planning is a competitive advantage for a firm. Organizations use information systems for strategic purposes and to improve the firm’s services. Changes always exist and with the rapid growth of information technology every firm aims to be competitive not only in business but also with the information technology present in the company. That is why Strategic Information System Planning is essential for a company to develop.

Subject: Assignment 8 (Due: February 5, 2010, before 01:00pm)
fast forward ..., you were hired and have been tasked to develop a strategic information systems plan for a company. The company officers have extended an invitation for you to meet with them to discuss the direction of the company. Before this meeting, they have asked that you provide a list of questions with some explanation about the "why" of the question so they can be prepared, thus maximizing the output from this meeting.
Develop a list of questions you would ask the officers of the company and give an explanation and justification for each question.

Strategic information systems planning for me, is the process of identifying a portfolio of computer-based applications that will assist an organization in executing its business plans and realizing its business goals Strategic information systems planning is an important activity for helping information executives and top management identify strategic applications and align IT with business needs. Previous researchers and practitioner observers have identified measures of successful SISP and have recommended many prescriptions for achieving success.

These are my questions:

What are the goals and objectives of the company?
Goals indicate the intended future direction of the state, agency, or program. Having a review of the organization’s mission, goal is a step to know how to improve and to elevate the efficiency and effectiveness of the business process. It defines the major IT objectives. Its like taking a wide look around at what's going on outside the organization.

What are the strengths of the company?
It would determine the strong point of the company also it would help determine what things should be given much attention and what things should be given less attention.

What are the weaknesses of the company?
It would help know what were the customer needs and the workers need. It would determine the weak point of the company also it would help determine what things should be given less attention and what things should be given much attention.

What are the opportunities of the company?
It determines the competitive environment and the competitive information opportunities. It also defines strategic information needs. It would also help identify the opportunities for improvement

What are the threats of the company?
Knowing the threats will determine what to improve and how to compete with other competitors.

Tell me about the operation of the company?
It will assess the effectiveness of information services, also to know the functional operations to assess the present operations and evaluate the competitiveness of the operation. It would also help to describe the present and planned application characteristics, architecture, and capacity. It would determine the planning issues and determine the project scope to organize the project team and obtain management commitment. It also helps analyze IT trends to determine information needs. It defines the business in terms of what you do for your customer or your company.

What do we have to work with?
Examination of recent history and changing contexts both internal and external of the organization allows participants to assess current positions. Answering the question of what we have to work with involves consideration of strengths and weaknesses and determination of how to capitalize on strengths.

Where do we want to be?
This question involves all of those who are related in the achieving the vision. The vision is then translated into a mission statement it is like a broad, comprehensive statement of the purpose of the system.

Knowing the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats of the company - Its like taking a wide look around at what’s going inside and outside the company and how it might effect the organization. Strategic planning must be aligning with the business plan. Strategic planning is an organization's process of defining its strategy, or direction, and making decisions on allocating its resources to pursue this strategy, including its capital and people. Various business analysis techniques can be used in strategic planning, including SWOT analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats) and PEST analysis (Political, Economic, Social, and Technological analysis) or STEER analysis involving Socio-cultural, Technological, Economic, Ecological, and Regulatory factors. According to other source, strategic plan is a document used by an organization to align its organization and budget structure with organizational priorities, missions, and objectives. It is also a process of comprehensive, integrative program planning that considers, at a minimum, the future of current decisions, overall policy, organizational development, and links to operational plans. And according to the project management club, strategic planning is a basic document for planning of different projects of the programmed and their sub-projects. A satisfactory strategic plan must be realistic and attainable so as to allow managers and entrepreneurs to think strategically and act operationally. In align with that, strategic plan must be reliable and suitable for the need of the company. Failure to secure top management commitment for carrying out the final plan frequently in almost all major projects, it may be on school or other situations like in business.

fast forward ..., you were hired and have been tasked to develop a strategic information systems plan for a company. The company officers have extended an invitation for you to meet with them to discuss the direction of the company. Before this meeting, they have asked that you provide a list of questions with some explanation about the "why" of the question so they can be prepared, thus maximizing the output from this meeting.

Develop a list of questions you would ask the officers of the company and give an explanation and justification for each question.

These are the list of questions:

Does your company use Modeling techniques to facilitate IT planning? Why?

In a Strategic planning, it is important to create a reference model and methodologies because it captures and characterize the enterprise which shortens the response cycle form Information Systems employment and deployment. This is in order to achieve competitiveness among other companies. It also establishes the relationship between the overall organizational
plan and the IT plan.

Why do you think that strategic planning for information systems is essential to your organization?

Strategic planning is essential because it process your organization to establish priorities that a company would use in its future endeavor. For organizational success, strategic planning is moreover very important especially in times of increasingly rapid change in technology. Also the organization must also consider that Strategic Plans cannot succeed without people, time, money, and other key resources

Does your company identify tools and methodology for your Information Technology planning? Why?

During strategic planning, several tools and methodologies have been used to ease the development of Information Technology planning within the organization. Thus, methods existed to help the organizations to align their business strategies with the organizational strategies. It is an aid to identify the opportunities for the company to utilize Information Technology for competitive advantage. And in analyzing the internal processes of an organization, these methodologies start with the evaluation of the strategies that check the industry, competition and competitiveness. Other methodologies have been used to help create and rationalize the new uses of Information Technology to the company.

Does your organization prepare for an approach for Critical Success Factors? Why?

Critical Success Factors is an approach to Information Technology Planning that has been developed to help identify the information needs of managers. It is a must to be used in order to ensure the organization’s survival and success across its very competitive marketplace. There also a lot of basic statement that an every organization shall possess which are the three to six factors that will eventually result to an organization’s success if only been used very well. Therefore, through Critical Success Factors approach, the company could continuously determine their performance in different areas especially during the stage of strategic IT planning.

What is the mission, vision, goals of your company? Does it support your business needs? Why?

In every strategic planning, it is important for an organization to identify their vision, mission and goals. An organization should assure that the plan they have been establishing aligns what the organization really need. These capture the essence why an organization still exists. This also has a reference to the organization company profile. It also explains fundamental needs of the organization need to suffice. It basically conveys the core values of an organization towards its clients. It tries to express the unique nature of your company among others. On the other hand, a vision of an organization wanted to perceive what would be their organization look like in the future. How successful they would be someday. It is use to show the desire of the organization towards an end state. It definitely challenges every people in the company to reach something higher and something significant for the success of everyone in the compelling future. Since every organization has this vision, it affords a long-term focus for the entire organization to achieve. The goals and objectives of the company also describe the desired outcome of the organization that mainly sympathize the company’s mission and vision. It is very needed to clear the choices of the organizations about the future. All of these things should be flexible enough to easily adopt form the fast-emerging changes of technology towards the environment.

What are the principles and values does your company have been using? Why is it necessary?

It is very important for an organization to be guided with a standard set of values and belief in order for their company to follow certain viewpoint in life that could be use for the success of the company. They provide an underlying structure for the decision making of the company which later on is a part of the organization’s culture. These values and beliefs should be applicable to the entire organization for them to understand each other within the organization. Values may be appropriate for the sake of the management, for the quality of service and for the customer’s exceptional treatment.

Does your company develop an Action Plan? Why?

An action plan is an immediate stroke from the organizations goals and objectives. It is very important for a strategic planning to identify the explicit steps that should be followed to achieve the initiatives and strategic objectives for the plan. Each step just before the strategic planning has been associated with these action plans that geared towards the organizations processes, operations and procedures that been aligned to its business. The action plans illustrated who does what, when does a strategic planning be completed and how will an organization know that the steps they are doing are already completed. Action plans require the supervision of the progress of the objectives for evaluating the performance needed just like what initiatives does.

These are the following questions that I would like to us if ever I would be hired and be invited to develop an organization strategic planning for information systems.

In building a Corporate Strategy, there should be processes that need to be done to come up in much more strategic planning. There should be a gathering of information from the industry, checking the capabilities of the company and also the consideration of reaching the desired objectives in a much broader way. It is also important to analyze the gap between the current state and the future desired state of the company and of course the systems. While I tried to look for the most critical parameters to be considered in developing a strategic IS planning, I find the best areas to get more focused during analyzing. These are plan, people, operation and implementation and technology.

Here are the questions I tried to develop out of those areas in making a Strategic Planning:

1. What are the issues outside your organization? And how it affects your organization?

Explanation: Before getting on what is inside, let’s try to look on what is outside the organization. Having an environmental scan can help us analyze on the issues that we are going to address.

2. Is your organization ready for Strategic Planning?

Explanation: This question will assess the level of readiness of the organization to conduct a strategic planning while there are number of issues that must be addressed. This will determine whether the top management down to the lowest level is willing to participate and committed to do the effort until the results will be known. In order to have an organized process, readiness should be determined by answering these issues below:

a. Specific issues must be identified/ choices that the planning process should address
b. Organizational profile should be developed
c. There should be a creation of Planning committee
d. Individual roles should be clarified (like who does what during the process)
e. Information that must be collected to help make sound decisions must be identified

3. What business is in your company?

Explanation: In developing a strategic planning, it is very much important to define the business clearly. There should be a clear definition of the business in terms of their responsibility in their customers, on what they really do in their customers or in their company. Try to see the things that the company needs to reduce, stop or avoid based on the current state of the organization.

4. What are the basic Plans of the company?

Explanation: It is important to realize that a basic plan is basically required in line with the budget and the organization’s strategic objectives. The said plan should summarize the details of a coordinated approach within the organization to reaching the envisioned state. It is like setting a goal and objectives for the organization and asking the question “What do you want to achieve?” and “What are your specific, measurable targets?”

5. What are the Strength, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats inside your organization?

Explanation: After wide look on external issues, let’s take a hard look on the internal issues. Having the S.W.O.T analysis will help you find and create much more strategic plans.

6. Assuming that things will be the same they are today, what business will be in?

Explanation: It is important to look at the possibility of changes. Will you like to continue the line of business that you have now or you would like to change it? Based on the performance that your organization had during the past years, is it an intelligent decision to pursue on the same strategy or it is better to change the way it used to be.

7. What are the capabilities of the IT department?

Explanation: This is the people issues where it represents the readiness of the organization to absorb and use technology and the awareness factors. Knowing the organizations capability in this area will help to develop a much more strategic planning and effective results.

8. What is the status of your customers or the industry itself?

Explanation: The success of the operation and implementation will define the capability of the organization to handle projects in information technology. This will evaluate the readiness of the organization on implementing complex IT projects and then how will they managed it afterwards. Therefore, status can help in adjusting strategic planning.

9. What are their technologies?

Explanation: This will help in the study of their existing technology platforms, the infrastructure, the state and format of the data and information present. Along with this is the governance of their technology. Many technologies present in the company will sometimes result to difficulties management. There should be clear and specific choice in the standards, responsibility and approval structure in selecting and implementing technology to avoid difficulty of integration.

References:

http://www.allianceonline.org/content/index.php?pid=172
http://managementhelp.org/fp_progs/sp_mod/str_plan.htm

Posts : 47 Points : 47 Join date : 2009-06-22

fast forward ..., you were hired and have been tasked to develop a strategic information systems plan for a company. The company officers have extended an invitation for you to meet with them to discuss the direction of the company. Before this meeting, they have asked that you provide a list of questions with some explanation about the "why" of the question so they can be prepared, thus maximizing the output from this meeting.

Develop a list of questions you would ask the officers of the company and give an explanation and justification for each question.

Here are the list of questions that I would like to ask the officers of the company provided with an explanation(later):

What are the Vision and Mission of the company?

What are the goals/objectives of the company...their short-term goals and long term goals?

What is the organizational structure of the company?

What are their core competencies?

What are the company's business strategies?

What are their company policies?

What are the priorities of the company?

What are the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats of the company?

.....

If I am being tapped by a certain company asking me to conduct a strategic information systems plan for them, I will be gladly honored and will do the best of my ability to conduct the plan accordingly. My first step would be to know more about that company: their business activities, plans, goals and objectives for the incoming years. As to how I will be able to realize those things, of course the involvement of the top management and executives will be of great help. The best way to know more about the company in the process of strategic information systems planning is to involve the major stakeholders of the company. The questions I’d like to ask those people will be as follows:

1. Please explain the business flow of your company.

This question will let me know more about the company. This will give me an understanding of the business from the top, various information sources present in the company and outside in platforms that need to be collated, combined and extracted into a tool to helprun the company in a more informed and responsive manner.

2. What are the company’s mission, vision, goals, and objective?

This question will help me identify the appropriate strategy for the company. With this, I’ll be able to gather information from the industry, injecting the capability of the company and strategizing towards reaching the desired objectives. This then becomes one of the basic materials for me to design the Strategic information systems plan.

3. In what aspects do the company thinks they have a competitive advantage?

This question will help me as an interviewer identify the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats for the particular field of the company. The results of my analysis through identifying the SWOT of the company will be a better understanding of how to leverage the company’s strengths to take advantage of perceived opportunities or to respond to threats and how to compensate for known weaknesses.

4. What are the company’s capabilities in handling projects with regards to information technology?

With this question, I will be able to evaluate the company’s need for information systems. It dwells in the realm of readiness in terms of implementing complex IT projects and then managing them afterwards. Process and technology related trainings at times are needed before throwing the in-house team out in the hands of vendors and consultants.

5. How will the company be able to manage the fast changing environment of technology nowadays?

This question will help me determine the capability of that certain company to adopt the changes in terms of technology in the industry. It is really important to manage the chaos that would naturally result from too many ‘technology’ cooks in a company. The standards, responsibility and approval structure in selecting and implementing technology choices have to be clear and specific in order to avoid pain of integration and obsolescence.

Subject: fast forward... Fri Feb 05, 2010 12:08 pm

Looking forward and into the coming years, being hired to make a strategic plan for the company is not far from possibility. But it takes foundation of knowledge and experience considering that the task is a critical element of the firm. Big deal. However, provided that I have read, reviewed, and studied the basic aspects about it, I may be able to explain to them the essential elements of the plan. I have gathered all related data regarding the previous lessons on Strategic Information Systems (IS) Planning and Strategic Planning Retreat, and perhaps, I have enough to mention some vital points which I could be used in developing the strategic questions.

First, let us talk about the strategic information systems (IS) plan of an organization. It has been stressed that planning is a major step and a necessary one when it comes to running a business. So to begin a clearer perspective on the purpose of having a strategic IS plan for the firm who hired me, I will warm it up by this question:

Why plan? The organization is established to do business. And for business to grow, it has to aim for success. Success can only be accomplished if there is a concrete game plan which is to be followed so to make things organize and keep them on the right path. A firm plans to obtain resources – the financial, facilities, and staff of the company. These things are essential to run a business. Secondly, an organization plans to align information systems (IS) with business. We may have business targets that are to achieve, and because the IS of the company is considered as the heart of business, it shall be fueled making its goals in one with the overall goals of the company as what we see it from the general business aspect. Thirdly, we plan to identify needed applications. Fourthly, plans are made to establish goals, schedules, and milestones in order to track progress (which could be the very point why I am called in to develop a plan). Finally, we plan to provide an opportunity for communication with top management and user management. I would like to emphasize here, since the company officers invited me to discuss with them the direction of the company, planning is somewhat diverse than plain forecasting, or calculating what is likely to happen in the future of the business. Yes, forecasting is predicting the future, but planning is being prepared for that future. And this is the rationale of the task.

So now that we have warmed up a little bit, let us get in to this more serious. In a general point of view, a strategic information systems plan involves establishing a mission statement, assessing the environment, set goals and objectives, deriving strategies and policies, developing long-, medium-, and short-term plans, and implementing these plans and monitor results.

Where are we now?

This question examines first, the world we face. This is a broad environmental analysis. The company officers should be able to respond on the issues like, what is going on in the world today? Be it on the political, social, economic aspects, demographical, cultural, and educational facets. Then, will tomorrow’s environment be different or still the same? The management could give relevant information from media or other resources. Assessing the environment is evaluating the capabilities of the IS/IT department for example, the readiness of the company to use IT, the status of our customers and the industry, and the status of the society.

Second, it evaluates, after the issues in the world we face today, what is happening in other like industries. What can we learn from their strengths and weaknesses? Who are the competitors in the field? What do we need to know about them? These will give us the idea of our competitors and their edge from us or our edge from them. Typically, it will give us a basis for comparison from somebody of the same industry where we belong.

Thirdly, this will urge us to have an internal analysis – of who we are and why we are here? So from here we could specify the company strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT).

Lastly, what do we value? What values have guided us to this present time? These are the organization’s core values that every employee strives to live with. Do we still hold these values? If we do have it?

Why do we exist?

This question focuses us on evaluating what is our mission. Typically, it answers: what are we? What do we do? Who are our customers? What is the benefit to our members? What makes us unique? These are the services that we are responsible for – the place in the organization – of what you do in the company.

Where do we want to be?

This is the question which leads to our vision for the strategic plan. Key questions include: what is our vision for the future? What should be our focus for the coming years? What vision do we have for our organization in the next five years? These questions are visionary and not process. They are also measurable. In other words, all these make up on what is/are our dream(s) in the future?

How do we fill the gap from where we are and where we want to be?

After assessing ourselves and being able to answer the previous questions, we now have a basis on our focus questions: how wide is the gap between where we are and where we want to be? How do we measure that gap? What barriers keep us from reaching our vision? How can we bridge those barriers? What steps can we take to fill the gap?

So the first step is to identify critical success factors – think of the goals to accomplish the mission, the business processes to achieve these goals. Questions that should be focused in to are: what would it take to achieve these goals? What are the business processes that we need to achieve each critical success factor or goal?

So we should make out what plans do we have to make. What people resources and financial resources do we need? Are any new structures necessary? If so what are they?

Filling the gap is addressed by formulating long- and short-term goals to be achieved. These goals should also be achieved by breaking it down into objectives (specific and measurable targets) to be aimed. In every strategic goal are critical success factors or outcomes (how will we get there).

Wrap-up

To have the closing part, we should answer the questions, what could we do to establish this mission and attain these goals, given who we are and what we represent. Where do we go from here?

Those essential points I have mentioned above are also guide questions I have taken from my research in my report topic. They are simple and straightforward, yet you will be forced to think critically since even planning involves planning. What you think of right now shall make out the consequence of the future aspects of business. That is why in strategic planning, every factor is intensively deliberated because it will determine better and efficient results.

That’s it. I hope I was able to satisfy the company officers who hired me. These may be a lot of questions but they were necessary to have a thorough reflection.

study

I would like to express my acknowledgment and gratitude to the following resources I used as references in the above statements:

E.R. McLean and J.D. Soden, Strategic Planning for MIS, Wiley-Interscience, (1977)

Strategic Planning Retreat, Volunteer Power: Mobilizing the Power and Passion of the Volunteer Network, Copyright 2010
http://www.volunteerpower.com/resources/Retreat.asp

Marilyn Snider & Michelle Snider, Pacific Northwest Cooperative Ecosystem Studies Unit (Pnw Cesu) Strategic Planning Retreat, Center for Urban Horticulture, University of Washington, Seattle, (April 30, 2001)

Microsoft Encarta Dictionaries
lol!

Feel free to visit my blog, a soul's reflections and drop your comments..

Posts : 50 Points : 57 Join date : 2009-06-19 Age : 105

fast forward... you were hired and have been tasked to develop a strategic information systems plan for a company. The company officers have extended an invitation for you to meet with them to discuss the direction of the company. Before this meeting, they have asked that you provide a list of questions with some explanation about the "why" of the question so they can be prepared, thus maximizing the output from this meeting.

Develop a list of questions you would ask the officers of the company and give an explanation and justification for each question. (1000 words)

Quick Overview:

Strategic Information System Planning as for any other system do begin with the identification of the needs- whether needs of the organization or need of the system itself. To be more efficient and effective, development of any type of computer-based system should be a response to need--whether at the transaction processing level or at the more complex information and support systems levels. The mentioned planning for information systems is much akin to strategic planning in management.

Note that objectives, priorities, and authorization for information systems projects need to be formalized. The systems development plan should identify specific projects slated for the future, priorities for each project and for resources, general procedures, and constraints for each application area. Furthermore, the strategic plan must be precise enough to make possible the understanding of each application and to know where it stands in the order of development. Also, it should be flexible so that priorities can be adjusted if necessary in some cases. I am also referring to the need for continuously updating and improving IS architecture.

I have read that “SISP is the analysis of a corporation’s information and processes using business information models together with the evaluation of risk, current needs and requirements.” (Pant, Hsu, 1995). The result is an action plan showing the desired course of events necessary to align information use and needs with the strategic direction of the company (Battaglia, 1991).

The following are the questions I am going to raise during the said meeting. It is grouped according to the areas a question is concerned to.

1. Study Internal Business Environment
This is a prerequisite to determining the business IS needs. The following questions are to be considered.

a. What is the mission and objectives of the organization?

It is important to know and understand the organization’s mission and objectives for me to be able to align the Strategic Information System Plan I am looking to work with.

b. What are the organization’s business strategies and plans? Define all of them. If possible, may I have a copy it. It would serve as my references.

I would say that the organization’s business strategies and plans are considered requirements for supporting the overall IT strategy. Thus, it is really important in making the SISP.

c. What are the company’s major business activities?

In my readings and as observed, there is a growing realization that the application of information technology (IT) to a firm’s strategic activities has been one of the most common and effective ways to improve business performance. But before it is made, I must consider the business’ major activities to be able to identify appropriate IT to use.
It is also the basic block that is to be considered in the SISP formulation.
It is a form of Business Activity Analysis which decomposes an enterprise into its parts. Information systems are derived from this analysis.

d. Define the organizational environment.

This is a summary of needs of each major functional department. We need to document the overview of the present systems, assess effectiveness of the recent information services, review functional operations of the organization, and assess present operations. Also, evaluate competitive IT position.
This assessment of present operations, architecture, and capacity would help me identify the constraints of our SISP.

e. What are the organization’s core competencies?

It is referred to a Business and Competitive Assessment Study. I need this to know the competitive environment and to identify competitive information opportunities of the organization so that I can decide/analyze how to use information more competitively.

f. Define its critical success factors.

These are applications which are critical for future success. Examples: computer-integrated manufacturing, links to suppliers, etc.)
These are applications which may be of future strategic importance. Examples: electronic data interchange with wholesalers, electronic mail, etc.)
These are applications which are critical to sustaining existing business. Examples: employee database, maintenance scheduling, etc.)

g. Label the internal value chain.

I have read an article of Michael Porter (Porter, 1984) about value chain. He considered this as Value Chain Analysis. According to him, ‘every firm is a collection of activities that are performed to design, produce, and market, deliver, and support its product. All these activities can be represented using a value chain.”
This helps in identifying critical points of inter-departmental collaboration. In such reason, this is vital to consider in making my SISP.

2. Study External Business Environment
The following questions I may throw under this area will help us or the organization to focus attention on the forces and pressure groups that the latter encounters. These external forces put forth an especially strong influence on the business strategy of the said organization.

a. What is the status of the organization about its competency against to the other industry? In a nutshell, what is your industry background? And what is the competitive position of your organization in the industry it belongs to?

We should acknowledge limitations and hopefully initiate a corrective action if necessary. The parallel formulation of information systems development tasks is expected to formalize and structure these steps and provide automated support for carrying those alternative solutions out in an interactive manner. This will be included in the SISP.
If competent, we should give strong consideration on it and involve these in making the SISP.

b. Does your management give the critical success factors significant attention?

Critical Success Factor is an activity that should receive constant and careful attention from management. Rockart (1979) defines critical success factors as being ‘for any business the limited number of areas in which results, if they are satisfactory, will ensure successful competitive performance for the organization.’

c. How well is the relationship of the organization to its major buyers and suppliers? How do you deal to them during business transaction?

We should also identify the relationship of the organization towards its major buyers and suppliers. Remember, it is true that they are involved in your future Information System. Thus, it should be reflected on in making my SISP.

3. Internal IS/IT Environment
This is mainly comprised of the current and planned applications portfolio that supports the business.
a. What is the structure of your present IS organization?

I should be able to familiarize the organization structure of the present IS so I would be able to relate to it and know the people I should contact/deal with f there is any more concerns left behind.

b. How well it is organized? How effective is the structure? Are you willing to re-engineer it?

This is to assess the current IS organization. The assessment would result to whether re-engineer the structure if there is any undesired arrangement for the benefit of the new IS that we are looking forward to.

c. Is the skills and attitudes of people in your organization would not hinder the implementation of the proposed new Information System?

This is to identify the risk/likeliness of having resistance to the new IS. It is good to identify it as early as possible.

d. How much is the budget allocated in this project? How good is your IT environment?

It is a need to know the overall budget of the project. This is to identify the constraint in implementing it. This is to identify whether the organization has a good or bad IT environment.

These systems, as embedded in the business process, need to cater to the strategic demands of organizations, i.e., serving the business goals and creating competitive advantage as well as meeting their data processing and MIS needs. According to Pant and Hsu, “Note that the key point here is that organizations have to plan for information systems not merely as tools for cutting costs but as means to adding value.”(Pant, Hsu, 1995).

An appreciation to:

Somendra, Pant and Cheng Hsu, 1995). Strategic Information Systems Planning: A Review. Information Resources Management Association International. January 1995.

Posts : 43 Points : 46 Join date : 2009-06-23 Age : 33

With the wide acceptance of information system as a valuable organizational resource that can potentially give back a huge amount of return of investment, strategic planning of information system has been considered to be a crucial part of the business plan of most companies nowadays. By definition, strategic information systems planning, also known as simply SISP, is the process whereby an organization establishes a long-range plan of computer-based applications in order to achieve its goals. With the huge potential benefits of an effective information system, it is very important for an IS consultant to know the right questions to ask to the company officers not only to fully assess the information system needs of the company but also develop an effective strategic information system plan.
If I were hired to develop a strategic information system plan for a company, I would develop the questions to be asked to the company officers based on the three phase methodology of strategic information system planning.

Phase 1 Preliminary Assessment

1. What are the present capabilities of the IS department of your company (if there is one)?
2. Describe the readiness of the company to use IS.
3. What is the status of the customers and the industry with respect to your company?

Phase 2 Business Strategy Analysis

1. What are the current management strategies of your company with respect to IS?

( ex. Bleeding edge, leading edge, lagging edge, single vendor strategy, outsourcing)
2. How effective are your current IS strategies?
3. What are the problems that your company encountered with your current IS strategy?

Phase 3 Strategic IS planning
1. What do you want to achieve in the future? ( Setting Goals)

The answer to this question will help me assess the goals of the company of acquiring an information system strategy. This would enable me to generally set the goals of the SISP that I will develop for the company.

2. What are your measurable targets? ( Setting Objectives )

The answer to this question will help me assess the effectiveness of the steps and strategies that I have chosen as the SISP of the company. The answer to this question generally sets the objectives of the company’s SISP. The objectives of the SISP should be measurable in order to measure the effectiveness of the strategy and
An example of a measurable target would be the return of investment over a specific period time.

3. What are your company policies when it comes to acquisition of an information system?

During one of our MIS discussions, I learned that the one of the qualities of a good strategic information system plan is that it should align with the company goals and vision. It is important to take the company policies into consideration in order for me to develop a scope and limitation with the development of the information system plan. Usually, this question addresses the policies for funding and allocation an information system plan. This should be discussed in order to assess the limitations and follow the company's rule when it comes to acquisition.

Subject: Assignment 8 Fri Feb 05, 2010 12:34 pm

Strategic Information Systems Planning (SISP) is the process of aligning an organization\'s business strategy with effective computer-based information systems to achieve critical business objectives. SISP is a top concern of major executives and considerable resources (time and money) are spent in SISP activities. Many SISP initiatives are not successful due to the difficulty of implementing the recommendations

These are the list of questions:

• What are the objectives and goals of the company?

Setting objectives and goals is of essential importance for any planning activity and is the center of its success, or failure and also goal is where the business wants to go in the future. Knowing how to set objectives is not exactly shooting up in terms of complexity, but any strategist should know the basic rules of how to formulate and propose the objectives. Objectives give the business a clearly defined target. Plans can then be made to achieve these targets. This can motivate the employees. It also enables the business to measure the progress towards to its stated aims.

• Why the company needs strategic information systems plan?

To determines where an organization is going over the next year or more and how it\'s going to get there. Typically, the process is organization-wide, or focused on a major function such as a division, department or other major function. Review how your external environmental factors have changed: particularly market segments, supplier markets, competition, regulation and the economy. Review your internal situation: particularly profitability analysis. You will now be able to craft your revised course and direction, goals, objectives and action plans.

• What are the factors associated with the SISP process?

• Increased cost of information systems
• Ability to develop systems across organizational boundaries
• Ensure that critical success factors/problem areas are addressed
• Attempt to control data redundancy and maintentance costs
• Application backlogs necessitate identifying important systems early

• What are the benefits, requirements, and drivers in SISP processadoption?

Clearly define the purpose of the organization and to establish realistic goals and objectives consistent with that mission in a defined time frame within the organization’s capacity for implementation. Ensure the most effective use is made of the organization’s resources by focusing the resources on the key priorities. Produces great satisfaction among planners around a common vision and increases productivity from increased efficiency and effectiveness and also you can solves major problems.

• When Should Strategic Information System Planning Be Done?

In this situation, planning might be carried out once or even twice a year and done in a very comprehensive and detailed fashion (that is, with attention to mission, vision, values, environmental scan, issues, goals, strategies, objectives, responsibilities, time lines, budgets, etc) and if the organization has been around for many years and is in a fairly stable marketplace, then planning might be carried out once a year and only certain parts of the planning process,. Should also be done when an organization is just getting started. (The strategic plan is usually part of an overall business plan, along with a marketing plan, financial plan and operational/management plan.).

References:
http://scm.ncsu.edu/public/facts/facs060329.html
http://managementhelp.org/plan_dec/str_plan/basics.htm
http://www.computer.org/portal/web/csdl/doi/10.1109/HICSS.2000.926735

mY bLog:http://stihlyn.blogspot.com/ Assignment 8 (Due: February 5, 2010, before 01:00pm) Icon_arrow

In many organizations, planning is considered not just a requirement but a vital tool to use in order to adopt organizational standards and to take actions towards the future of an organization. If an organization has the foresight to boost the basic functions of organizing the controlling the operations it can be difficult without establishing the right plan suited for an organization. Besides planning can make a difference between the success or failure of many business. Poor planning is said to be one of the reasons for a business failure. Strategic planning on the other hand is an organization’s process on defining its strategy; it is a long-range planning to assist the organization in establishing priorities and to better serve the needs of the constituents.

Given the privilege to be invited in a company’s meeting with the officers for Strategic Information System Planning, here are my questions with corresponding explanation and justifications why a certain question should be asked:

• Why the company wants to establish SISP (Strategic Information System Plan)?

It is important to ask this question to merely know what prompts and what motivates the company, its officers to engage in this kind of plan. Besides, I will know what the occurring problems that need to be solved are. As the one tasked to develop the plan, I will benefit out from their answers in the sense that I will understand what feasible approaches I will deploy in the development of the said strategic plan. Acquiring this understanding inevitably involves a great deal of research and works, however will benefit the company if it will be successful.

• What are the primary benefits?

In an organization one must know beforehand the benefits that the plan will cover towards the organization. It will determine how the company will work if deployed with the approach. It seems useless if the officers of the company do not know the benefits, as a result they will not be able to establish the performance to measure progress towards the objectives of the company.

• What are the organizational trends?

As a developer of the strategic information system plan, I will nee to consider the organizational trends in terms of the trends in business environment to merely help monitor what are those emerging threats and opportunities that can negatively or positively affect the operations of the company. Some other trends are market, economy, and competitive landscape. By assessing the trends of the organization, the company can adopt various approaches to the changing business environment.

• What limitations do you want to impose on the planning towards process in terms of time?

In an organization, a developer must know the time limitations towards the process. The company might want that the process of development of strategic plan may last for three or more months and the implementation will last for some years as wished by the company. There are cases, that the company will change its strategic plan, maybe because they want their approaches to cater the present scenario of the company and also to the needs of the people. Time limitation is very important to quantify and target results to appropriately measurable outcomes.

• What is the boundary of what you want to achieve?

As the one tasked to develop the plan time is not the only limitation to be considered among those limitations that involves in planning. Scope can also be considered, scope will define to what extent that the plan will be working, apparently a scope will determine the range of company’s perception and thoughts. Basically, scope definition is a step that sets the tone for much of the remaining planning effort. If this process is poorly done, it is unlikely that the rest of the project planning will be well-done.

• What are those factors that relate to the success of this Strategic Information System Planning?

As a developer I am expected to be exposed in planning especially strategic planning, though I have this specific edge still my approach will be all subjective. Meaning to say, I will not depend on my knowledge acquired out of the exposure I have gained, I still have to consult the stakeholders of the company what factors should I consider that will help contribute to the success of the planning. In some sources, some factors that are related to the success of the Information System process are the following:

 the need to align the corporate objectives with the IS strategy
 the underlying motivation for the initialization of the planning process
 the level of maturity of the organization
 the methodology used in developing the IS plan
 the framework used for setting Information Technology investment priorities
 the measurement of the effectiveness used for the Information system department

• How well is your current Information System applications meeting the business needs today? How well can they meet the need of your business in the future?

Planning is a universal step or tool in any project implementation in any field of interest. In planning one must examine the current system that the company is involved, you need to examine the resources before making assumptions to the new project that the company has targeted. From the evaluation, you will know the scenario of the current system as to its strength and weaknesses, later on you will come up to a set of deliverables of the planning that will likely result to an effective plan for the company. You will need to examine also if the system is based on a long-term strategic plan that will cater in the time limitations set by the company.

 What Information system mission, objectives and strategies necessary to successfully meet the business challenges of the future?

These items (mission, objectives, and strategies) should come from the stakeholders of the company. They are the ones responsible of setting the company’s targets for their constituents. They know what projection they will mark towards their customers. It is also important that there objectives are clear, measurable and most importantly, attainable.

In the present world, most organizations in all sectors of industry are dependent on the information systems (IS). Rockart (1988) thinks that, IT is becoming an “increasingly important part of the ongoing, integral operations of the business.” The organizations are not only looking at the use of technology to support the existing business operations. They are also looking to create new opportunities that will provide a source of competitive advantage.

In past few years, the importance of the information systems and technology has changed and the need to manage IS/IT strategically has increased. Many organizations are looking at IS/IT and are concerned about obtaining acceptable rate of returns from the investments. They are concerned about meeting the current and future business requirements. These concerns require effective planning and management in the changing business environment.

The use of Strategic Information Systems Planning (SISP) process can address the concerns related with the implementation of IS/IT systems and provide communication between the IS/IT and the business function.

Information has emerged as an agent of integration and the enabler of new competitiveness for today’s enterprise in the global marketplace. Looking fast forward, if I were hired and have been tasked to develop a strategic information systems plan for a company and the company officers have extended an invitation for me to meet with them to discuss the direction of the company. Before this meeting, they have asked that you provide a list of questions with some explanation about the "why" of the question so they can be prepared, thus maximizing the output from this meeting.

These are list of questions you would ask the officers of the company and give an explanation and justification for each question.

Is strategic planning changed sufficiently to support the new role of information systems and technology?

The task of strategic information systems planning is difficult and often time organizations do not know how to do it. Strategic information systems planning is a major change for organizations, from planning for information systems based on users’ demands to those based on business strategy. Information-based enterprises must be planned in an integrated way whereby all stages of the life cycle are engaged to bring about agility, quality, and productivity. This integration is similar in nature to the integration of product life cycle for an enterprise.

What is IS/IT Strategy?

This question examines the capabilities of the company on how to deal with the company’s goals in fulfilling its business. Clarke (2005) defines strategic information system (SIS) as “an information system which supports an organization in fulfilling its business goals”. According to Ward and Peppard (2002), SIS functions in ways that are similar to data processing and management information systems, however, it is the impact it causes on the business due to the continual changes the enable or cause that makes the difference. SIS help improve business competitiveness by changing the way business is conducted.

What are the competitive advantages of SISP?

In a company it is important to know the competitive advantage of Strategic Information Plan, to know the capabilities, competencies and resources of the company to provide a distinct attraction to the customers of the company.

What strategy model is used for developing a IS plan?

Model is very important in a company because it helps the company to know the sequence of their plan. This question examines the process of the company and how they help them in improving the status of the company.

What is the effect of the implementation of IS Plan on the business?

The implementation of IS plan does impact the business activities. There is a certain effect on the business processes and the overall business. Their views on the effects of the implementation of the systems on the business processes and the overall business will be compared if there are improving our not.

What types of implementation in the systems is use (in-house or outsourced)?

Company needs a system that will cater their needs. Implementing the system needs a specialize person who will develop and maintain the system. This time outsourcing and in- house come. Outsourcing is a contracting transaction through which one company purchases services from another while keeping ownership and ultimate responsibility for the underlying processes. It occurs when the staffs of the company has no enough knowledge in the system. While, in- house is opposite to outsource, it often involves bringing the specialists person in the company to fill temporary needs or training existing personnel to perform tasks.

Reference:
http://www.coda.ac.nz/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1000&context=unitec_scit_di

my blog:http://jevaldez.blogspot.com/2010/02/assignment-8-in-sad_06.html

fast forward ..., you were hired and have been tasked to develop a strategic information systems plan for a company. The company officers have extended an invitation for you to meet with them to discuss the direction of the company. Before this meeting, they have asked that you provide a list of questions with some explanation about the "why" of the question so they can be prepared, thus maximizing the output from this meeting.

Develop a list of questions you would ask the officers of the company and give an explanation and justification for each question.

***Below are the questions that I formulated for the upcoming meeting for the development of the SISP of the company.

1. Why did you have chosen me to develop a strategic information systems plan for your company?

Reasons why they have chosen me to develop the SISP of their company.

2. What would you want the company to achieve?

This means the goals of the company. Goals can be summarized in the phrase "dream with a deadline," a goal is an observable and measurable end result having one or more objectives to be achieved within a more or less fixed timeframe. In comparison, a 'purpose' is an intention (internal motivational state) or mission. The question, "Has the goal been achieved?" can always be answered with either a "Yes" or "No." A purpose, however, is not 'achieved' but instead is pursued everyday.

3. What are the strengths and weaknesses of your company?

SWOT analysis is a strategic planning method used to evaluate the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats involved in a project or in a business venture. It involves specifying the objective of the business venture or project and identifying the internal and external factors that are favorable and unfavorable to achieving that objective.

4. What do you think is the reason why we have to develop SISP for your company?

Strategic planning focuses largely on managing interaction with environmental forces, which include competitors, government, suppliers, customers, various interest groups and other factors that affect the business of the company and its prospects.

5. What are your objectives for the company?

Objective is the desired or needed result to be achieved by a specific time. An objective is broader than a goal, and one objective can be broken down into a number of specific goals.

6. Would you implement whatever SISP I would develop?

The answer would depend if they would like whatever SISP I would develop for the company.

7. Can your company afford the budget to be allocated for the SISP to be implemented?

A company would not hire someone to develop SISP for them if they have no budget allocated for it.

8. What are the existing systems in your company?

Legacy systems are important for me to know to be able to include it on the SISP that I would develop.

My Blog: http://etelur.blogspot.com/2010/02/mis2-assignment-8.html

Fast forward ..., you were hired and have been tasked to develop a strategic information systems plan for a company. The company officers have extended an invitation for you to meet with them to discuss the direction of the company. Before this meeting, they have asked that you provide a list of questions with some explanation about the "why" of the question so they can be prepared, thus maximizing the output from this meeting.

I’m about to be hired and have given a task to develop a strategic information systems plan. The company officers have invited me to meet with them to discuss things. So before the meeting, they have asked me to provide a list of questions so that they can prepare, in order to maximize the output of the meeting. So, I was given a task to provide questions. These are the list of those questions that I’m going to ask them:

1. Why me?

This is the first question I would ask the officers why they hired to develop a strategic information systems plan. And also as an introductory part of the meeting. As an IT professional you also wanted to know the reason why they chose you to do the job.

2. What are your expectations?

This is the complement question in the first question which is why me? As a hired IT professional I would like to know what will be there expectations as I develop the strategic plan for them, and also for me to make an evaluation for myself.

3. What business are we in?

The first and most important question is, "What business are we in?" What business are we really in? I want to fully know what type of business am I going to develop a strategic plan. To define the business in terms of what they do for their customer or to the company. Keep expanding the definition of the business so that it is as broad as possible. Never be satisfied with the first answer.
For example, railroads defined themselves as being in the business of moving people and freight by rail. In reality, they were in the transportation business. By ignoring the other avenues of transportation that were developing, such as trucks, buses, ships, and airplanes, many railroads went out of business.

4. What is the background of your company?

This is the fourth question I would like to ask them. I would ask this question because I would like to know how what is their business all about. As a hired IT professional I would really basically know what is there business is all about, but in order to have an effective strategic plan it is better if it is coming from the officers. And also for formality’s sake, I’d ask them about their company so after they would answer my question; they would know that I have knowledge already about their company. So this is the fourth question I would ask the officers.

5. What are you mission, vision, and goals?

This is the fifth question I would ask the officers. I have to ask this question to them. Why? Because this is the reason why I am making a strategic plan for them so I need to know what are there mission, vision, and goals. I have to know what the company or the business wants to attain so that I can also align it with the strategic plan that I am going to make. The strategic plan would be useless if what the plan that I would produce has no connection with the company’s vision, mission and goals. As we all know that making a strategic information systems plan should be inclined with the business mission, vision, and goals.

6. What is your current strategic plan?

This is the next question I would like to ask to the officers. The main reason why I included this to my list because I want to know what is their current strategic plan in order for me to evaluate what are the their business flow. What processes that are important and not.

7. What is the status of your company right now?

So basically, I wanted to know if their current status is good or not. Knowing the current status of the company makes it easier to pinpoint the constraints and risk that is involve. Knowing the status of their company is a key to evaluate the company in making a strategic plan.

8. What are your needs?

In order to make a strategic plan which is efficient I would ask them what are the needs of their company. So after discussing what are the needs then you can evaluate what will the things you would do to make the SISP.

So these are the list of questions that im going to ask them in order to maximize the said meeting.

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you were hired and have been tasked to develop a strategic information systems plan for a company. The company officers have extended an invitation for you to meet with them to discuss the direction of the company. Before this meeting, they have asked that you provide a list of questions with some explanation about the "why" of the question so they can be prepared, thus maximizing the output from this meeting.

GUIDE QUESTIONS FOR SISP MEETING

The task for this particular assignment is to consider myself being hired by a certain company to develop a strategic information systems plan or SISP. The company officers have invited me to meet with them to discuss the direction of the company. Before the meeting, I was asked to provide a set of questions so that they can be prepared. Moreover, these questions should be answered with explanations to maximize the output.

Thus, I have to develop questions that start with “why”. Or I can also include questions that begin in “what” or “how” for as long as it is followed up with “why” or needs some elaborations.

I have provided set of queries which touches the behavioral aspects of the company which encompasses the adaptability to change, flexibility, development, management, business goals, analysis and decision making, business thinking, skills, innovation, orientation, motivation, planning and organization so on and so forth.

Provided the explanations and justifications, below are possible questions I would provide the officers which are obviously things that relate to the forthcoming meeting.

• What are the mission, vision, goals, and objectives of your company? How and why did the company obtain these ambitions?

First and foremost, before I discuss on the thing such as plans, I have to acquire the knowledge of the company. It is because planning serves as a guide in achieving the company’s purpose. It also evaluates if the company is doing the right thing to the attainment of its goals.

• How does each of the department or unit contribute to the attainment of the over-all company goals?

Every company is divided into units or departments. The question is to evaluate if the respective departments’ goals align with the company’s general goal. I believe that departments in the company have to work not just as an individual department but as part of the company as a whole. A failure of one department brings failure to the entire company.

• Why do you consider IT as an important aspect in the development of the company?

SISP is just a part of IT and so it pretty obvious that IT is important. The question asks the view of the personnel regarding IT as great contributor in the company’s success.

• What is the importance of having an Information System in the business processes of the company?

It is to assess on how important the role of IS in the company.

• How important is developing a strategic information systems plan or SISP in your company?

The company asked to develop SISP and so it is important to note the very reason on why SISP has to be developed although the answer is quite apparent.

• How do you adapt to the changes affecting your company?

Every company has changes that are going and already have faced, it important to note if the company has dealt with it successfully.

• Have you ever had to introduce a policy change to your work group? How did you do it?

Nothing is constant but change, the company is asked on what are the changes that they already introduced and in what approach.

• Have you ever met resistance when implementing a new idea or policy to a work group? How did you deal with it? What happened?

It is to evaluate if all the changes they introduced are easily accepted and hoe the company deal with the resistance.

• What are the plans that the company has already created in the past? Who were involved? What was the outcome?

It is to know the specific plans the company had already done and what are the results regarding these plans. It denotes on how the company handle and be guided with their plans.

• How do you handle unexpected circumstances on the way of the project development?

On developing a project which is a part of the over-all plan, it is also essential to identify the experiences on how such things are dealt with in the past.

• What are the challenges that your company has succeeded and what are those that you have failed to struggle? How did you arrive with the outcome?

It is also important to know the challenges and even the risks and difficult decisions the company has battled on. To have successfully battled against the unfavorable circumstances and stand with those difficult decisions play big part in the SISP and the company in its entirety because it proves that the company can stand with different difficulties.

• Do you consider innovation as an important part in building success in the company? Why?

It is to evaluate the company on its view regarding innovations and changes. I believe that conforming to innovations plays big part in the business processes of the company. I would just like to know if we the same view.

• Have you consider the traditional way of developing things or try to have the new approach? What was the outcome? What is the most effective way applicable in your company?

It is to assess on which type of approach is the company comfortable with. It is very essential that the company is using the specific approach in accord to its comfort and considerations of other constraints. Through this, the use of such method could be effectively implemented along the way of SISP development.

• What steps/methods you have used to define/identify a vision for company?

It is to review the existing steps the company has already undertaken in realizing its vision. These steps or method are of great contribution on the success of the SISP implementation.

With the set of questions I have provided, I believe that our meeting would be consist of a lot of discussion regarding the SISP which I believe, one of the main contributors of the success of SISP development. Thus, having a potential to bring the company to build up additional processes in their business which is positively viewed as one of the ways for success.

Reference:

http://blog.emurse.com/2007/05/21/complete-list-of-behavioral-interview-questions/

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Posts : 61 Points : 62 Join date : 2009-06-20 Age : 33

The advances in information technology have affected the lives of most of the human beings in their day-to day lives. With the passage of time, the technology has evolved immensely and so have the opportunities. Information Technology is being used in the business activities for improving the efficiency and effectiveness of the people and the business on the whole. The increasing demand of IS IT has made the management of the more and more complex and difficult. In order to manage the IS/IT based systems, it is important to have an appropriate strategy that defines the systems and provide means to manage the systems. Strategic information systems planning (SISP) is an effective way of developing and maintaining the IS/IT systems that support the business operations.

Planning typically includes several major activities or steps in the process. Different people often have different names for these major activities. They might even conduct them in a different order. Strategic planning often includes use of several key terms. Different people might use apply different definitions for these terms, as well.

Each organization needs to decide for itself when the time is right for a strategic plan. It is sometimes easier to describe when the time is not right than when it is. For example, when the roof has blown off the building, an organization should replace it, not start strategic planning. The organization should get its crisis resolved, preferably by acting strategically, and then begin planning. Something less than a "roof-blown-off" crisis, however, usually prompts organizations to begin strategic planning. Some organizations find the loss of a significant funding source or, conversely, the opportunity to obtain a new source of funds, an impetus to plan. Other organizations recognize that their clients are changing and, therefore, they ought to prepare for these changes. And so on. There are as many reasons for starting a strategic planning process as there are nonprofit organizations.

After deciding to engage in strategic planning, the organization should take the following initial steps:

• List some of the main issues that face the organization. This need not be a complete list, nor does it have to be fully organized. However, knowing some of the concerns of the organization will help those who will be asked to be involved in planning to prepare.

• Decide when the plan should be adopted by the board. Developing and drafting a plan will take a few weeks to a few months. The board should set a future board meeting to be the target date for adopting the plan.

• Set aside some time for the planning process. Members of the board and staff who will be involved in planning should agree to take time for the planning process. This could involve a few hours a week for three to four weeks or it could involve a single day or weekend. The plan writer, of course, will spend more time than others as s/he will be preparing a document that represents decisions made at planning meetings. I recommend that the total time frame from starting the planning process to adopting the plan not stretch out for more than three months for a small organization.

• Decide if a facilitator would be helpful. Some organizations find that an individual who is not directly involved with the organization's regular work can help them with their planning process.

• Decide who should be involved and how they should be involved in planning. See the list on pp. 1-2 for suggestions about the major roles.

• Find a place for the planning meetings to occur. It is often helpful to meet someplace other than the standard meeting location for the organization because a different setting can help members of the group step out of their usual patterns. The planning location should be comfortable, include tables or other surfaces for participants to write, and have room to move around. Having the ability to provide refreshments for planning participants is also needed. Some organizations use large sheets of paper to record ideas, so having a planning location that permits hanging paper (using masking tape or other nondestructive adhesive) on the walls is ideal.

Nearly every organization these days has a mission statement. It is helpful to periodically review the mission and to change it if necessary. An organization's mission is its reason for being, its purpose, or its social justification for existing. Just stating the organization's mission isn't enough. Clarifying the organization's purpose helps eliminate a great deal of unnecessary conflict and helps channel the organization's discussions and activity.

Suggested Method. Before the meeting begins, write the mission statement on an easel pad. Post the paper on the wall or an easel where everyone can see it. Ask someone in the group to read the mission aloud. Identify words or phrases that stand out and circle them. Then discuss each of the questions listed below, and write summarized responses to each on separate large sheets of paper. This is usually best done with the whole group participating.

The classic planning process begins by writing a mission statement. I recommend instead that the planning team members simply start by reviewing the mission statement, including asking the following questions to help them understand the mission better.

• Who are we? If the organization were walking down the street and someone asked who it was, what would the answer be? Distinguish what it is and what it does.

• In general, what are the basic social or political issues the organization exists to meet or what are the basic social or political problems the organization exists to address? This is the basic social justification for the organization's existence.

• What, in general, does the organization do to recognize, anticipate, and respond to those needs or problems? How does the organization find out about them and decide what to do?

• Who are the key stakeholders1 for the organization, and how should we respond to them? How do we find out what they want from the organization?

• What are the organization's philosophy, its values, and its culture?

• What makes the organization unique or distinctive; that is, what gives the organization its competitive advantage?

Stakeholders are people and other organizations for whom your organization matters. They are the people and organizations that hold your organizations accountable. They include, for example, funding entities, the landlord for the building, those who select members of the board of directors, clients or their representatives, and staff.

Once the group members have completed this task, review the items. Usually the leader reads these aloud, perhaps asking for clarification on each.

Have the group discuss the items and look for themes among them. On a separate large easel pad sheet, note the themes. They might include funding levels (obtaining grants or losing them), arrival or departure of certain leaders, successful or unsuccessful management of crises. Asking questions like the following can help clarify some of the issues:

• What opportunities has the organization had? How has the organization responded to these opportunities (taken advantage of them? unable to take advantage of them? ignored them?)

• What threats has the organization had to deal with during this time period? Which were handled successfully, which unsuccessfully, and which were ignored?

• What strengths did the organization rely on to deal with threats or opportunities? Which strengths did the organization ignore?

• What weaknesses has the organization had in dealing with threats and opportunities? What has the organization done about them?

The importance of SWOT analysis lies in its ability to help clarify and summarise the key issues and opportunities facing a business. Value lies in considering the implications of the things identified and it can therefore play a key role in helping a business to set objectives and develop new strategies. The ideal outcome would be to maximise strengths and minimise weaknesses in order to take advantage of external opportunities and overcome the threats. For example, the environment may present an opportunity for a new product but if the company does not have the capacity to produce that product it may either decide to invest in new plant and machinery or to just steer clear.

The biggest advantages of SWOT analysis are that it is simple and only costs time to do. It can help generate new ideas as to how a company can use a particular strength to defend against threats in the market. If a company is aware of the potential threats then it can have responses and plans ready to counteract them when they happen.

REFERENCES: http://www.managementhelp.org/plan_dec/str_plan/str_plan.htm#anchor4293651425
http://www.ehow.com/about_5377992_importance-swot-analysis.html

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