KEYBOARD-SHOUT!

Case study 2: Future technology

2011-01-05T04:42:00.001-08:00

College is simply a medium of pursuing our dreams. In our college life we are trained according to the field that we chose and equip us with knowledge that we can use throughout our life. Since I have chosen Information Technology as my field, technology plays a vital role in my course. But being an IT professional needs frequent training and enough experience with our field of expertise.

Below are the list of my possible contributions for the development of technology in the future:

develop innovative systems
In college we are thought how to develop software. We are challenge to think creatively and be open of what we could do to help our industry especially our school. Our professors trained us with the different skills that we should acquire and prepare us with what it will be in the real world of industry.

promote Free and Open Source Software (FOSS)
FOSS is software that is liberally licensed to grant the right of users to use, study, change, and improve its design through the availability of its source code. In the near future I would help promote the use of FOSS technology. In college we are thought of what FOSS is and from that I have seen the advantages that it could give especially for students and even in the government.

encourage Green Computing
One of the effective contribution i could do is to encourage everyone with green computing. Green computing refers to environmentally sustainable computing. Green Computing aims to reduce the use of hazardous materials, maximize energy efficiency during the product's lifetime, and promote recyclability or biodegradability of waste. As an IT enthusiast, I think we should do our part in helping out and conserving the environment.

Future Technology: Use and influenced of technology

2010-12-22T22:23:00.000-08:00

Use of technology today:
- To devise things in order to lower our effort and increase our comfort.
- To make our lives simple and easy.
- For easy and effortless communication
- In order to help businesses increase their productivity and profitability.

What Influenced us?
- The people around us.
- The advantages and the help of technology in our day-to-day activities.
- The people's ideas for the future.
- Our own curiosity.

Factors involved in Technology Change.
- People's demand.
- Needs of the society
- fast-evolving technology
- The capacity of the people to adapt.
- miniaturization ( allows us to do more work in smaller spaces with less energy)

Technology today is very vital. Our life mostly depends on it. As technology get more powerful this may result to an exponential technological boost that will have the world in shock.

SAD 2: Assignment 4

2010-09-02T17:34:00.000-07:00

Contrast and discuss the enrolment input form (PRF) with the enrolment university interface. (atleast 1000words, not to include illustrations/figures/diagrams)

Pre-registration form was a simple sheet of paper wherein the enrollees should fill in after the advising process during the enrollment process. This is where the students would write down the course code, course description, schedule, and room of the subject that they are allowed to enroll. Below is a snapshot of an actual Pre-registration form or enrolment input form from Ms. Joverly Gonzales post.

Basically, it serves as the manual input of students data that will be utilized as the bases of the encoder for saving all the data given in an automated system which is the SRIS (Student Record Information System).Data that can be taken out of this PRF are college name, name, ID number, address, semester, school year, course, class, section, sex, type of student, scholarship, course code, course title, course description, units, section, days and time schedule, and room information.

Another tool used for the enrolment process was an automated system usually manipulated by an encoder. Student Record Information System serves as an interface wherein the encoder would input all the information from the filled in pre-registration form of a student. Below is a screenshot of the actual Student Record Information System. This image was taken in Ms. Joan Rose Dandoy’s post.

As observed on the above image, the data needed are semester, ID Number, student’s name, address, class, gender, civil status, birth date, contact, email add, religion, year, type, desired career, college/unit, course, major, subject code, subject name, subject description, unit, room, time, and days. There are buttons that enables the encoder or the college secretary for instance to view students grade, subject enrolled and official add and drop subjects.

Comparing the two, obviously PRFs are used by students while the SRIS is used by the encoder. It’s comparing a manual system against an automated one. As what I have observed, there are data needed on the automated system that are nowhere to be found on the enrolment input form. Basically, the PRF serves as a guide for the encoder. Every data filled in on the pre-registration form are used as an input on the automated one. However, data such as civil status, birth date, email add, religion, desired career, and major are not present on the pre-registration form which means that not all fields are necessary since the PRF don’t give such data. If we look on the PRF, there are fields such as scholarship and section that are not present on the automated system. The major problem between the two tools is the inconsistency of data fields. Though we all know that PRF is a tool used for manual operation and the SRIS is a tool used for automation, it is still necessary that there should be a consistency on the data fields.

After a thorough observation, I would suggest that it would be more convenient that both tools would embrace similar fields. Data given by the PRF should be the exact data needed by the SRIS. Another thing is on how those fields should be placed. It’s more convenient if both tools would have similar placement of the fields. Even if they are different in operation, it would be best that what you see on the manual operation would exactly be the same on the automation. Advantages of doing so are consistency, more convenient, and avoid unnecessary data.

Pre-registration form and the Student Record Information System are really a big help on the enrollment process. Through the enrolment input form, the encoder doesn’t need to ask individually the enrollee about the data needed by the system. Though the automated system will automatically generate the subjects that the student can enroll, it’s still a big help as a guide for the encoder to assure that what was generated are all correct.

SAD 2: Assignment 3

2010-07-29T19:13:00.001-07:00

Interview your university network specialist. Ask how various parts of the system communicates with each other throughout the university. (Q) Given the chance to redesign the existing setup, enumerate and discuss your keypoints for an effective and efficient network environment ideal for the university.
(at least 3000 words)

A network specialist or a network specialist, as defined by the Wikipedia, concentrates on network design and security. Since we are asked to interview our university's network specialist, we request for a discussion with Mr. A. Reyes, university's network administrator. Due to some unexpected circumstances, we aren't able to conduct the interview instead he let us send our queries and he will be the one to answer those questions. A network administrator has a relative role on a network specialist. Based on a post from Wikipedia, A network administrator is a modern professional responsible for the maintenance of computer hardware and software that comprises a computer network. This normally includes the deployment, configuration, maintenance and monitoring of active network equipment.

The first query we have on the list asks, In system development, how various parts of the system communicate with each other throughout the university? In what way? According to him, the best person to asked about system development are the university's programmers, Mr. Fortich and Dr. Mercado. We also include in our list of queries the various components involved in the university's system. Once again, he commented that his not the right person to discuss the details of software components because there are personnel who are responsible for the job. However, he were able to list some specifications for the university's server used. Since he is the one entrusted to maintain the various servers and make sure it runs 24 hours a day and seven times a week. Currently, we have Web Servers hosted in the university using HP ProLiant ML350 Server. The said server has been used for years but it is still stable. This server was set-up in the Network Office. here are the list of specifications needed for this type of server:
• Intel Xeon 3.0 GHz, 3.2 GHz, or 3.4 GHz processors (dual processor capability) with 1MB level 2 cache standard. Processors include support for Hyper-Threading and Extended Memory 64 Technology (EM64T)
• Intel® E7520 chipset
• 800-MHz Front Side Bus
• Integrated Dual Channel Ultra320 SCSI Adapter
• Smart Array 641 Controller (standard in Array Models only)
• NC7761 PCI Gigabit NIC (embedded)
• Up to 1 GB of PC2700 DDR SDRAM with Advanced ECC capabilities (Expandable to 8 GB)
• Six expansion slots: one 64-bit/133-MHz PCI-X, two 64-bit/100-MHz PCI-X, one 64-bit/66-MHz PCI-X, one x4 PCI-Express, and one x8 PCI-Express
• New HP Power Regulator for ProLiant delivering server level, policy based power management with industry leading energy efficiency and savings on system power and cooling costs
• Three USB ports: 1 front, 1 internal, 1 rear
• Support for Ultra320 SCSI hard drives (six hot plug or four non-hot plug drives supported standard, model dependent)
• Internalstorage capacity of up to 1.8TB; 2.4TB with optional 2-bay hot plug SCSI drive
• 725W Hot-Plug Power Supply (standard, most models); optional 725W Hot-Pluggable Redundant Power Supply (1+1) available. Non hot plug SCSI models include a 460W non-hot plug power supply.
• Tool-free chassis entry and component access
• Support for ROM based setup utility (RBSU) and redundant ROM
• Systems Insight Manager, SmartStart, and Automatic Server Recovery 2 (ASR-2) included
• Protected by HP Services and a worldwide network of resellers and service providers. Three-year Next Business Day, on-site limited global warranty. Certain restrictions and exclusions apply. Pre-Failure Notification on processors, memory, and SCSI hard drives.

Here is a listof the servers used by the university:

* HP ProLiant ML350 Server

* Proxy servers

* Enrollment servers

Based on the questionnaires answered by our interviewee, here are some ideas that he have shared that I would discuss on this post. The university's servers are connected in a shared medium which is grouped as one subnetwork. generally, the network follows the extended star topology and was connected to a dual WAN router. This router serves as the load balancer between our two Internet Service Providers of the university. Every workstations are grouped into various subnetworks as in star topology branching out from the servers subnetworks as in extended star opology. As of now, they are using a class C IP Address for assigning private IP addresses. Workstations are configured either statically or dynamically ane are connected via proxy servers which basically filters user access controls on the internet aside from router filtering/firewall management.

SAD 2: Assignment 2

2010-07-29T19:12:00.000-07:00

Based on my personal experience and relative on my post on the first assignment that talks about the current enrollment process of the university, I’m so grateful that the administration was looking forward to improve university’s enrollment system. Though they kept on changing the processes of the enrollment, I know that they are just aiming to make every step easier, faster, and hassle free.

Upon evaluating the current enrollment system, I would suggest that there are some processes that can be integrated to lessen the steps that a student must undergo. I have declared three problems on the enrolment process that can be resolve or can be work out. First, as I have observed, student have several fees to pay such as local council fees, headlight, OCSC fee, tuition fee and etc and they are processed on different stations. Why not join them inorder to lessen the time and effort especially on falling in lines. It would be a hassle free for students. Second was about the scholarship renewal. Luckily, I’m not a scholar so I don’t need to stay longer waiting for my name to be called or stay in a long line just to validate my card. It would be better if they will have additional personnel to cater all the scholars to minimize the queue. Third was focused on the advising and pre-enrollment procedure. Last semester, I have to spend too much time on queue before it was officially my turn for advising. Due to one personnel caters 2 or 3 year level (I guess) that’s why I have to stay on a long queue. It would be better that each year level will be accommodated by one personnel to be in-charge.

Moreover, for the administration, it would be better if they would be aware the feedback of the students and faculties about the enrollment system of the university. The enrollment procedure needs to be improve in order to ease the burden of the students, faculties and other personnel that are involved in the enrollment.

SAD 2: Assignment 1

2010-07-29T19:08:00.000-07:00

Assuming you were tapped by the university president to evaluate the new enrollment system implemented this semester, enumerate your observations/comments and suggest possible areas and ways where improvements can be made.

I would agree to Ms. Kate Karen Rasonable’s post that this semester was not the first time we had experience enrolling using the new enrolment process since it was already implemented a year ago. Last year, there are big tarpaulins placed in some area of the university and one was laid on the engineering building lobby. I managed to grasp those tarpaulins before so the images presented by Ms. Reasonable were familiar. The images presented by Ms. Rasonable and Mr. Plariza are somewhat similar. But for this assignment, I’ll refer to Mr. Plariza’s posted image as a reference since it was taken for this semester’s enrollment. However, I have constructed a diagram that looks exactly the same on the image posted by Mr. Plariza for us to have a clear view of the enrollment process.

Here is a clear view of the enrollment process of the university. With the help of Edraw, I manage to create a flow diagram that’s almost similar with the image given by Mr. Plariza. I have used a work flow diagram shapes to illustrate properly the enrollment procedures.

Enrollment System for SY 2010-2011

Given the job to evaluate the new enrollment system implemented this year, the new enrollment process is quite better than those previous enrolment processes. I have stayed in this university for more than four years so I have experienced different processes implemented every enrollment days. That’s why I conclude that they have improved well the enrollment process but it was not perfect at all. There are still long queues and delays.
Diagrams are scattered on some areas of the university to assist those new and old enrollees. After observing the given diagram, I am a bit confused with the big arrow sign and the long arrow that points to nothing. The step-by-step procedure was illustrated well except of those arrows that I mentioned. If we try to look at the long straight arrow, the moment we are done with step 4 what will we do next. The arrow from step 4 is pointing to nothing wherein it should be pointing to the next step. Two arrows points to the same step number and different process where made but the two arrows came from the long arrow and leads us to the next step. And on the use of actors, it should be on similar size.

The diagram presented can be understood well but I would suggest that the university should construct a more detailed and clear representation of every processes of the university specifically the enrollment system. Clarity and good representation of the images is necessary.

After the diagram, lets proceed with the new enrollment system I mean literally the system used. On my first few years on the university, I really don’t care of the system used by the university. What matters for me is on how I will be officially enrolled. Long queues and crowded people in other words it’s inconvenient and not that organized. One of the unforgettable and very inconvenient and unorganized enrolment periods that I have encounter was when the university outsourced a new enrollment system. I haven’t seen the real system, maybe its good but based on what I have go through on that time, I would not give a thumbs up. But on the new enrollment system which is actually implemented last year, though we still encounter long queues but it’s more convenient and organized. I am proud to say that the university really had a great job on putting our skilled professor to be the developer of our own enrolment system. Why look for a good developer outside wherein the university has it already. Observing the latest enrollment system through my experience was the best way. As a student of the university, the new procedure on enrolling myself is quite better than before. They have organized the student well to avoid crowded and inefficient queues. The services per step are more convenient and swift. But the depressing part of having this new enrollment system is aside from long queues was some student spend more than a day maybe two to four days before they will be officially enrolled.

As tapped by the university president, here are some of my suggestions that I guess would improve the enrollment system.

First, the university should construct specific and clear diagrams. Avoid unnecessary arrows and make sure that it illustrates well every process. Clarity and appropriate images are necessary. Second, add more personnel to handle step 2, wherein those scholars need to proceed to OSS to reapply there scholarship. And with step two, though I am not a scholar, students spend too much time before they could validate their scholarship. Third, there should be one adviser every year level. This semester was tough. There is only one adviser who handles two or three year level. This is the reason why I spend more than two days to be officially enrolled. Next, there should be an additional window for the cashier. As what I have observed there are only two cashiers so adding one or two will minimize the queue. And lastly, on the last step I prefer that the university will implement one registrar per college. There are only three registrars who cater the entire student from various departments. So having a one registrar per college is a way of minimizing the queue and it will be more organized. Adding personnel on some phase will be costly for the university but it’s for the convenience of their student. The system used was already satisfactory for me since we only encounter fewer bugs. I guess.  But I would suggest that the university will maintain a good and secured system to avoid loss of data. I am really looking forward for a more effective and convenient enrollment system for the university.

Interview with th UO

2010-03-10T11:35:00.000-08:00

Last Tuesday, March 9,2010, me and my groupmates for the SAD project and two classmate had a personal interview with the developer of the first social networking site of the university, the UsepObrero. We receive a text message from our interviewee a day before that we will meet on that day at eight in the evening in Mcdonalds Bajada. The developer was also a student of the university that we are in and a former student of the institute of computing since he has taken up Bachelor of Science in Information Technology on his first year in college. I have discovered that he develop the system in fulfillment for the request of the OCSC but since the OCSC never gave any content for the site, he decided to put his own content.Unfortunately, UsepObrero no longer exist since the developer didn't renew the domain that they bought for $12 per year.

The interview lasted for several minutes and it goes well. Though I never visited UsepObrero, through the interview and with the ideas from classmates who have visited the site, totally, the system is great. Knowing that he, alone, work for it and self-thought. Probably, he just found his interest on it. When we asked him what can he advice for us,a simple "Good Luck!" and no other words:-) . Yah! his right. good luck for the three of us. It will not be easy and an extensive study and research is needed. I hope we can make it! I know we can.

SAD 1 : Assignment 12

2010-03-10T11:16:00.000-08:00

As I was searching on the internet for possible answer for this assignment, I happened to chat with a good Indian friend. A software engineering graduate and he happen to ask what I am doing. I told him am making my assignment. And luckily, he told me that their company develops an ERP which they call EPOS. It’s great to have good friends outside the country and who are willing to help without waiting for something in return.

ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning)
- is principally an integration of business management practices and modern technology. Consequently, it is an amalgamation of three most important components; Business Management Practices, Information Technology and Specific Business objectives. ERP is a massive software architecture that supports the streaming and distribution of geographically scattered enterprise wide information across all the functional units of a business house. It provides the business management executives with a comprehensive overview of the complete business execution which in turn influences their decisions in a productive way.

Company:

Company Background:
Infodrive was setup with one principal n mind that is to put the customer first. That has allowed us to expand as we have retained 98% of clients since it was formed. Their focus is to help their clients develop their IT system to maximize their efficiency and effectiveness in the workplace.

As what my friend told me, in their company they have EPOS which is according to him, “By definition, EPOS is an electronic point of sale. An EPOS solution uses computers or specialized terminals that can be combined with other hardware, such as barcode readers, cash draws etc for accurately and instantly capturing the sale / transaction. This can be a little misleading as most POS (point of sale or purchase) solutions are electronic in this day and age. The difference between the two is typically the recording and updating of stock within the business. For example a POS system could be a standalone electronic till. This records the point of purchase, but does not automatically update the stock level for that product; this is done in a manual process. With an EPOS solution, the stock data is automatically updated, saving great time and increasing efficiency.”

What you get from EPOS software:
• Cost effective solution to EPoS system
• Consultancy to understand your business and system requirements
• Years of expertise and experience in designing and developing bespoke systems
• Understanding of business needs and changes
• Comprehensive installation and training of the system
• Total support as long as you have the system
• Bespoke reporting functions that accommodates your business
• Remote access

EPOS system:
• Single terminal to multiples
• Single site to multiple
• Remote access to all terminals and reporting
• Management reporting system

When I asked him about its over-all project plan, he sends me through email the ERD of their project. He told me that it’s a sample that will be helpful for my assignment. He can’t send me the documentation of their EPOS project since it is still ongoing and I respect it.

SDLC (System Development Life Cycle)
- The Systems Development Life Cycle (SDLC) is a conceptual model used in project management that describes the stages involved in an information system development project from an initial feasibility study through maintenance of the completed application. Various SDLC methodologies have been developed to guide the processes involved including the waterfall model (the original SDLC method), rapid application development (RAD), joint application development (JAD), the fountain model and the spiral model. Mostly, several models are combined into some sort of hybrid methodology. Documentation is crucial regardless of the type of model chosen or devised for any application, and is usually done in parallel with the development process. Some methods work better for specific types of projects, but in the final analysis, the most important factor for the success of a project may be how closely particular plan was followed. It has five important phases which includes feasibility, requirements analysis and design, implementation, testing, and maintenance.

I may not be able to have the overall project plan of the company but based on the definition given, SDLC put ERP as a point of view. And the implementation of ERP can be the actual and informative framework for SDLC. In other words, they used SDLC as a framework in evaluating the result of the implementation of ERP, either success or failure.

Reference
http://www.matthewlefevre.com/wiki/article.php/Companies_that_use_SAP_ERP_Software
http://www.topbits.com/erp.html - Definition ERP
http://www.infodrive.co.uk/index.html - Company website
http://www.startvbdotnet.com/sdlc/sdlc.aspx - SDLC definition

ERD given:

http://www.4shared.com/file/238418082/2e1697f/0A_ERD.html

Picture Evidence for the online conversation:

SAD 1 : Assignment 11

2010-03-10T11:09:00.000-08:00

Let me begin by defining deployment environment. As I have my research, I found out that deployment environment or application deployment environment comprises the computer hardware (specifically computer platforms), operating systems, system software, and networks that will hold up the application program. Those new application systems may have to meet the required special designs to fit and agree with the restrictions of the chosen operating system and other equipments that is why an application deployment environment must determine the constraints that are necessary on the system development alternatives. It is important in the development approach. Why? It is because development environment includes the programming languages, computer-assisted software engineering tools, and other software that are usually used to develop application software. And typically, the application deployment environment limits the choices that are offered for the development environment.

In evaluating the enrolment system of our university, here are some characteristics that I must examine as an analyst when choosing or defining deployment environment:
- Analysts consider the configuration of computer equipments, operating systems, and networks that that will be used when deployment on the new application system is done.
- There are certain languages used in the development of the enrolment system, and as an analyst I should be familiar with the features of these languages.
- The analyst is responsible in determining what environment or it can have multiple choices of environment that will match the application requirements and the firm’s strategic application and technology architecture plans.
- An analyst must consider both application deployment and development environments in defining and estimating how will they perform with a particular application.
- Once an analyst define systems, it is necessary that the analyst specifies information about the deployment environment such as databases, match engines, and standardization engine vendors.
- The systems analyst documents the results of the analysis phase for a knowledgeable decision can be made with regards to the direction, cost, feasibility, and approaches, then present it in a logical way that is focused toward the top management who makes the decision.
- Since the application is the enrolment system, it is preferable that the analyst must be knowledgeable with the enrolment process of the university and maintain the confidentiality of the data.
- As an analyst, I should oversee the development, deployment, and direction of complex programs and processes as part of the tactical execution.
- Good communication skill is also required. Analyst must communicate clearly and concisely both on verbal and written.
References:
http://books.google.com.ph/books?id=-ot62DeCKO4C&pg=PA309&lpg=PA309&dq=characteristics+that+an+anlayst+examines+when+choosing+or+defining+deployment+environment&source=bl&ots=V0x_RrJEXy&sig=ps0TRNmjo8XOHg7SB59vcqAN7Ng&hl=tl&ei=VTSOS9S2O4SQtgPk4qnZCA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2&ved=0CA0Q6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=&f=false
http://www.google.com.ph/url?sa=t&source=web&ct=res&cd=2&ved=0CA0QFjAB&url=http%3A%2F%2Fhercules.gcsu.edu%2F~adahanay%2Fcbis3210%2FChapter%25208-reviewQ.doc&rct=j&q=characteristics+that+an+anlayst+examines+when+choosing+or+defining+deployment+environment.&ei=7FaOS7mdBorsswOTm7HbCA&usg=AFQjCNEjAujz6gbFma0-N7KpwUDhwRvsbw

SAD 1 : Assignment 10

2010-03-10T11:08:00.000-08:00

With reference to assignments 8 and 9, what characteristics does an analyst (you) examine when evaluating DFD quality? (1500 words)

Both assignment eight and nine are based on making UML or Unified Modeling Language. In assignment 8, it is about constructing an activity diagram of the pre-enrolment system in continuation of the previous assignment. As what I have defined activity diagram in my previous post, Activity Diagrams are typically used for business process modeling, for modeling the logic captured by a single use case or usage scenario, or for modeling the detailed logic of a business rule. Creating activity diagrams are very useful in describing the flow control of the target system. It is also helpful in determining the use cases and the business processes of a firm. According to IBM, Activity diagrams are useful in modeling a system in a simple and intuitive illustrations or figures of what happens on the workflow and the activities can be done in parallel or multiple way and it illustrates to verify whether there are alternative paths through the workflow. The next assignment is an exercise o developing a Data Flow Diagram (DFD) of the pre-enrolment system. The data flow diagram, from the word itself, shows the flow of data from external entities into the system, how the data moved from one process to another and as well as its logical storage (Scott W. Ambler). It is a graphical illustration of the movement of data between the external entities and the different processes and data stores within a system. As an analyst, data flow diagram is a great help because it enable us to understand deeply the system. Base on the slide presentation of Jeffrey A. Hoffer, Joey F. George and Joseph S. Valacich entitled Structure System Requirements: process modeling, there are two defined data flow diagrams, includes context diagram and level-O diagrams. To differentiate, context diagram is a data flow diagram (DFD) of the scope of an organizational system that shows the system boundaries external entities that interact with the system and the major information flows between the entities and the system. On the other hand, level-O diagram is a data flow diagram (DFD) that simply represents a system’s major processes, data flows and data stores at a high level detail.

If we will try to compare the two, they are almost similar. Both diagrams are designed to illustrate a process modeling. The only difference that I have observed is that activity diagram is used for process modeling through describing the flow of the target system while data flow diagrams shows the flow of data from external entities into the system. UML activity diagrams are somewhat considered as the object-oriented equivalent of flow charts and data flow diagrams (DFDs) from structured developments. Both diagrams are useful in determining the flow of the data, entities and even the system itself.

Now, back to the main question, what characteristics does an analyst (you) examine when evaluating DFD quality? To be honest, I really had a hard time thinking of how to create good and perfect data flow diagrams. And in fact, there are different types of DFDs that can be used in modeling the process of a system. Here are some of the characteristics:

SAD 1 : Assignment 9

2010-03-10T11:06:00.000-08:00

Data Flow Diagram

- According to Scott W. Ambler, Data Flow Diagrams (DFDs) show the flow of data from external entities into the system, showed how the data moved from one process to another, as well as its logical storage.

Data Flow Diagramming definitions:

Context Diagram - A data flow diagram (DFD) of the scope of an organizational system that shows the system boundaries, external entities that interact with the system and the major information flows between the entities and the system

Level-O Diagram- A data flow diagram (DFD) that represents a system’s major processes, data flows and data stores at a high level of detail.

Four Different Types of DFDS

Current Logical
- Physical aspects of system are removed as much as possible
- Current system is reduced to data and processes that transform them
New Logical
- Includes additional functions
- Obsolete functions are removed
- Inefficient data flows are reorganized
New Physical
- Represents the physical implementation of the new system
Current Physical
- Process label includes an identification of the technology (people or systems) used to process the data
- Data flows and data stores are labeled with the actual name of the physical media on which data flow or in which data are stored

Here are some of a Data Flow Diagram of the Pre-enrolment system:

a. CONTEXT DIAGRAM

SAD 1: Assignment 8

2010-03-10T11:05:00.000-08:00

UML 2 activity diagrams are typically used for business process modeling, for modeling the logic captured by a single use case or usage scenario, or for modeling the detailed logic of a business rule. Although UML activity diagrams could potentially model the internal logic of a complex operation it would be far better to simply rewrite the operation so that it is simple enough that you don’t require an activity diagram. In many ways UML activity diagrams are the object-oriented equivalent of flow charts and data flow diagrams (DFDs) from structured development (Scott W. Ambler, UML 2 Activity Diagrams, Agile Modeling).
Wikipedia defines activity diagrams as graphical representations of workflows of stepwise activities and actions with support for choice, iteration and concurrency.[1] In the Unified Modeling Language, activity diagrams can be used to describe the business and operational step-by-step workflows of components in a system. An activity diagram shows the overall flow of control.

SAD 1: Assignment 7

2010-02-09T02:03:00.001-08:00

Use case diagram is considered as part of the Unified Modeling Language that is used to analyze and define the system. It is utilized to model the functionality of a system using actors and use cases. A use case diagram simply portrays actions or activities by the people and the system outside the system.

Basic Symbols in use case diagram:
System – You can illustrate the scope and boundaries of the system through a rectangular shape which contains use cases and outside of the system’s boundaries are the actors that will be part of the system.
Use case – use cases are represented by an oval shape. Inside the oval are labels that begin with a verb that will stand for the system’s functions. It is a collection of sequence of actions a system performs that produces a reliable and easy to understand result of value to a particular actor. A use case is a normal interaction between a user or the actors and the computer system and a simple documentation of the behavior of the system. It is useful to capture system requirements and for validation.
Actors – the actors are the users of the system. It signifies a role that someone may play and it could be any person, organization, or a system that interacts with application but is external to it.
Relationships – from the word itself, relationship determines the connection between an actor and a use case with a simple line. A line with an arrow head that points from one actor to another actor simple define an actor is an inheritance of the pointed actor. With the connection among use cases, which is a line with an arrow head that points from one use case to another is labeled with “<> or <>” and “<>”. A “<>” relationship indicates that a certain use case is needed by the other use case to be able to perform a certain task. Another relationship is “<>” which specifies an alternative options which is under a certain use case.

USEP’s pre-enrolment system

The pre-enrolment system caters the admission of the applicant to the University. This includes the USEPAT, interview, English Proficiency Exam and the English Bridging Program. Below are the two use case diagrams that illustrate the flow of the pre-enrolment system through its actors and the use cases. The first diagram shows the procedure from taking the application form to acquiring the USEPAT result. The following diagram is simply the continuation of the first use case diagram that illustrates the interview and bridging processes.

Diagram 1

Diagram 2

MIS 2: Assignment 8

2010-02-09T02:01:00.003-08:00

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.

MIS 2: Assignment 8

2010-02-09T02:01:00.001-08:00

Whats on the 14th day of February 2010?

2010-02-09T01:45:00.000-08:00

February is considered as the month of love. During the 14th day of February, people all over the globe celebrate Valentine's day, named after Saint Valentinus of Terni. Every february, accross the country, cadies, chocolates, flowers and gifts are exchanged between loved ones. We celebrate this momentous event all in the name of Saint Valentine the patron saint of romantic causes.

Nowadays, people celebrate this event in various ways. For childrens, they usually make their own cards and sometimes they cut a heart-shaped figure from a red paper then they gave it to their parents, teachers and friends. For older students, the most common celebration for this month is through dancing and parties. High school students have their Junior and Seniors Ball or promenade and Valentine's Ball for college students.

For the year 2010, February 14 is not only for valentine's day but it will also be a celebration of the Chinese new year. 2010 is the year of the tiger and it falls on the same date of the valentines day and ends on the 2nd day of february 2011. It is the 4707 year in the Chinese calendar. Year of the Tiger is also know as Geng Yin, its formal name. The tiger is the third sign in the Chinese zodiac cycle and a sign of bravery. the Chinese believes that it is a sign that keeps away the three main tragedies of a household, which includes fire, thieves and ghosts. Persons who are born on the year of the tiger are ferocious and domineering on the outside, but they are just as noble and distinguished on the inside. Those born on the year of the tiger are compatible with persons who are born on the year of the horse, dog and dragons.

February 14,2010 is a double celebration. right? So, how do we celebrate this rare event? Well, though we are not Chinese we are also welcome to celebrate with them this yearly event. It wouldn't matter which you prefer to rejoice but it would be a great idea if you celebrate this day with your love ones and share the love unselfishly.

MIS 2: Assignment 7

2010-01-31T07:17:00.000-08:00

Google is a highly successful Internet business. Recently they have broadened their scope with a multitude of new tools. Research Google’s business model and answer the following questions below. You may add additional information not included in these questions.

Last August 1998, Google had its first funding as a company in the form of a $100,000 US dollars which is a contribution from Andy Bechtolsheim, a co-founder of SUN Microsystems. But now, Google is a corporation that is becoming more and more profitable by the day. It is now one of the six of the biggest high tech companies. Google had grown in a great progress that it now levels with Microsoft, IBM, Sun-Oracle, SAP and HP-EDS. Google is declared as the biggest search engine destination, content provider, and advertising destination in the world. It is an internet giant with contiguous growth that with no doubt it is one of the richest technology based companies in the world. We are all wondering how did Google company go that far ad how they achieve all of it.

According to my reference, Google’s business model focuses primarily on the advertising and innovation. As what I have read, the Google’s co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin have said themselves that the current main business model for commercial search engines is the advertising. Almost every one of us is familiar with it since most of the people visit its website. In the Google Ads the key focus of the Google’s business plan is to generate the essential revenue to keep the promising search engine on its feet to a profit machine. And with this type of advertising, it would be a great benefit to Google corporation since it is low-cost for businesses to buy and it is easy for the Google to distribute and highly profitable. Not only that, the originality of this type of advertising is that it allows individuals earn their own money when someone had visited their site and click on the advertisement. Innovation is the other side of the Google’s massive successful business plan. Within few years in operation, the brand of Google became one of the internet’s most popular names. However, their success couldn’t just stop in the advertising system and the good quality of the Google’s search engine. Google evolved to innovation. The cooperative company rapidly increases its development by providing new services to the end-users such as Google News, Google Maps, Google Earth, Froogle, Google Scholar, and Google Products and so on. With this, innovation takes part in the key of the Google’s business plan. Through innovation they will expand more. The two foundation of Google business model that I have mentioned earlier are somewhat unsophisticated but it have been extra-ordinary successful.

Who are their competitors?
As I mentioned earlier, Google is now one six biggest high tech companies. It has an equal footing with IBM, Sun-Oracle, Microsoft, SAP and HP-EDS. These giants are all financially stable and would not be afraid to challenge any of the others. And according to one of my reference, Google is now aiming for the Google’s Nexus One phone which is one of the methodologies that they believe that would strengthen its advertising revenue model. If ever the Google’s Nexus One launch would be successful, The Microsoft will absolutely react with intelligence competition. On the other hand, the Oracle must also be attentive because the Google has the financial resources to take over the Oracle if it desires to do so.
Other competitors:
Yahoo – they are battling over the same Web visitors and advertising dollars.
MSN
Facebook

How have they used information technology to their advantage?

As mentioned earlier, Google is the biggest search engine and because of it they use the internet to improve their company. They develop a serving infrastructure and breakthrough PageRank technology that will changed the way searches are usually conducted. PageRank Technology reflects the view of how important a web page is and they also consider more than 500 millio variables and 2 billion terms. Their technology utilizes a collective intelligence of the web to determine a page’s significance. Google’s search engine also analyzes page content. Another advantage of Google in usiong information technology is being able to analyze the full content of a web pages. This is to ensure that the output returned are the most relevant to a user’s query. Their innovations grows as they aim to give people the opportunity to access all the information they need. They also develop new mobile applications and services that are easy to customize and are more accessible. Its an advantage that Google had a partner with Open handset Alliance to develop android. It is a first complete, open, and free mobile platform and because of this it will offer a lesser expense and a better mobile experience to the people.

What new services do they offer?

Some Google services are free of charge and monetized through advertising:
Blogger – a blog creating tool
Google Health – a service offered for managing and storing personal medical information
Google News – online personalized news articles and summary
Picasa – Google’s photo sharing services
Google SketchUp – software for creating a 3D Model
Google-411 – phone information service
Gmail and Google Calenddar – essential messaging application
Google Maps
Google Groups
Google Chrome
Google Alert
Google Adwords

The global strategy of Google allows a strong meandering monetization of its product. Aside of its advertising model the Google is also starting to innovate.

What makes them so unique?

Google is unique because of the services it offers. Mainly what makes it unique and original is that in their advertising model people can earn money on their own in which the others can’t offer. Google gives all what the people might need. They give all the information we need for free and gives us the chance to make money.

How competitive are they in the international market?

Google is already a business. Google generate the most revenue through advertising, search technologyto others through AdSense, Google Search Appliance. Since Google remains as the number one search engine. Truly Google succeed in the international business environment. They had a great and increasing profit and it has numerous market shares from different industry leaders. If we try to look back the history of google, it started as small but it comes out now as one of the huge corporations around the world this simply means that it has the ability and chance to compit the international market.

References:

http://www.google.com/corporate/tech.html
http://www.helium.com/items/710040-a-look-at-googles-business-model
http://government.zdnet.com/?p=6746

SAD 1 : Assignment 6

2010-01-31T07:14:00.000-08:00

Consider the following dialogue between a system’s professional, John Juan, and a manager of a department targeted for a new information system, Peter Pedro:
Juan: The way to go about the analysis is to first examine the old system, such as reviewing key documents and observing the workers perform their tasks. Then we can determine which aspects are working well and which should be preserved.
Pedro: We have been through these types of projects before and what always ends up happening is that we do not get the new system we are promised; we get a modified version of the old system.
Juan: Well, I can assure you that will not happen this time. We just want a thorough understanding of what is working well and what isn’t.
Pedro: I would feel much more comfortable if we first started with a list of our requirements. We should spend some time up-front determining exactly what we want the system to do for my department. Then you systems people can come in and determine what portions to salvage if you wish. Just don’t constrain us to the old system.
Required:
a. Obviously these two workers have different views on how the systems analysis phase should be conducted. Comment on whose position you sympathize with the most.
b. What method would you propose they take? Why?
(3000 words)

Based on the dialogue given between a system’s professional named John Juan and a manager of a department namely Peter Pedro, obviously, Peter Pedro aims for a new information system that would not be considered as a modified version type of their old system. Definitely, after working on different position, they will have diverse views on how a systems analysis phase should be conducted.

As what I have understood, an organization is a set of people or a formal collection of people and various resources established to accomplish a certain set of goals. The organization itself is already considered as a system. In the world of business today, the real challenge is how a firm can cope up with change. Change occurs in most areas. This includes political, economic, social and technological. Globalization, the increased of customers expectations, low-cost computing and telecommunication tools, and rapid organizational change are just some that can be considered as the anxiety for change. Because of this unstoppable change, a department of a firm has its own information system that was chosen to match their specific activities. Information system is typically used for operational and decision support. A competitive advantage is a significant and a long-term benefit for the firm thus the strategic plan for viable benefit is by using information systems for strategic purpose.

Since the two actors have different point of view in conducting a systems analysis phase, it would be perfect to have an introduction by discussing what systems analysis phase is and what the things that should be considered are before I comment on which side should I sympathized. As what I have read on my resources, systems analysis is the second of the five phases in the Systems Development Life Cycle (SDLC). The purpose of systems analysis phase is to build a logical model of the new system. The overall objective of system analysis phase is to comprehend the proposed project, guarantee that it will support business requirements, and build a solid foundation for system development. Naturally, in this phase, the systems analyst uses models, questionnaires or other documentation materials for them to visualize and identify the new system proposed. The systems analysis phase includes four essential activities. These are requirements modeling, data and process modeling, and object modeling. Let’s discuss each activity one-by-one to have a broader knowledge about it.

Requirements Modeling

The first step in systems analysis phase is the requirements modeling. In this step, the analyst generally investigate every business processes and to document what are the functionalities or what the new system must do. Base on what I have read, the preliminary investigation already starts in the system planning phase to know more about the system request and was continued in the requirements modeling in the systems analysis phase. Normally, system requirements fall into five general categories: Outputs, Inputs, Processes, Performance and Security. These general categories are used to identify the requirements for the new system. Outputs, from the word itself, refer to any electronic or even printed information generated by the system. Inputs are basically about the necessary data that enters the system. It doesn’t matter if it is manually done or in an automated manner. Processes, on the other hand, are concern with the logical rules that are followed and applied to transform all the gathered data into meaningful and reliable information. Performance refers to the characteristics of the new system. Such system characteristic includes speed, volume, capacity, availability, and also reliability. Lastly we have the security. Security focuses on the hardware, software and especially the procedural controls that will be used to safeguard and protect the system as well as the data installed unto it from any internal and external threats.

To be able to understand more about the system, a systems analyst perform a so called fact-finding technique. This technique involves interviews, surveys, document review, observation, and sampling. The results of the fact-finding technique are mostly used to build business models, data and process models, and object models. Using fact-finding, you must answer the five familiar questions. These are who, what, when, where and how. Basic questions that gives a concrete and dependable respond like asking “Who performs each of the procedures within the system?”, “What is being done?”, “Where are operations being performed?”, “When is a procedure performed?”, and “How is a procedure performed?”.

Fact Finding Techniques

1. Interviews
In the interviewing process consist of the following procedure: Determine the people to interview, Establish objectives for the interview, Develop interview questions, Prepare for the interview, Conduct the interview, Document the interview, and Evaluate the interview.
2. Document Review
In the document review, you will acquire the copies of the actual forms and the current operating documents in use. You will then review all the gathered copies of the forms as well as the samples of the actual completed forms.
3. Observation
Observation is also necessary in requirements modeling. Observation refers to your personal observation wherein you are allowed to verify statements made in the conducted interview and also determine whether the flow of the procedures really works as what they have identified.
4. Questionnaires and Surveys
A questionnaire is also referred to as survey. Questionnaires are just a simple template or document that contains a number of typical questions that are answerable by many individuals. These questionnaires are sent to numerous individuals and will serve as a tool for you to evaluate base on their answers.
5. Sampling
Records, reports, operational logs, data entry documents, complaint summaries, work requests, and various types of forms are included on samples. The sampling technique in fact-finding involves a systematic and random sampling.

Data and Process Modeling

In the data and processing modeling, there will be a contiguous modeling process through gaining more knowledge on how to represent a graphically system data and process using traditional structured analysis techniques. The structure analysis determines the data flowing into a process. Also includes the business rules that transform the data, and the resulting output data flow. During the requirements modeling process, we gather the requirements by following the fact-finding techniques and to examine and analyze the currents system and also we use the technique to determine what the possible user requirements are. After gathering all those necessary information, you will do the next step which is the data and process modeling in the systems analysis phase. Using that information, you will develop a logical model of the proposed system and also, you need to document all the system requirements. Logical models are practiced to show the different features and functionality of your system. Data flow diagrams, data dictionary and process descriptions are the three tools that comprises the data process and modeling.

Data Flow Diagram
Though system analysts use numerous graphical techniques in describing an information system, creating a set of data flow diagram is one of the popular methods of graphical technique. Usually, a data flow diagram utilizes various symbols to illustrate how a certain system converts the imputed data into useful and reliable information. It is one way of visualizing the information system. Processes, data flows, data stores and entities are the four basic symbols in data flow diagram. A process symbol represents where the input data is received to produce an output can either be in different content or form or maybe both. It contains the logic of a business, also called the business rules. The symbol for a process can be represented in a rectangular with rounded corners. Data store symbol is used to illustrate the data that the system had store in the data flow diagram. Hence, Data flow diagram does not show the detailed content of a data store since the specific structure and data elements are already defined in the data dictionary. The physical characteristics and the length of time that the data is stored are unimportant. The only thing that is important is that process needs access to the data. The latter symbol is illustrated by a flat rectangle that has an open right side and a closed left side. A data dictionary is also important because all the details within the data flow diagrams re documented on it.

Data Dictionary
Data dictionary is the second component of structured analysis. A data dictionary, or referred to as data repository, is the main storage area of all the information about the system’s data. It is used by the system analyst to collect, document, and organized specific facts about the system, as well as the content of data flows, data stores, entities and processes. This describes and identifies all the data elements. A data element is only a sheet of data that has a meaning within the information system. It is needed that all the data elements on a data dictionary are documented.

Process Description
A process description records all the details of a functional primitive, and also represents a specific set of processing procedures and business logic. There are also a set of tools used in process description to create a model that is accurate, complete and concise. These tools include structured English, decision tables, and decision trees. Since process description goes with a functional primitive, when you try to analyze it you will need to break the processing steps into smaller processes which is also called modular design. Modular design is also called control structures that is based on the combination of the three logical structures and serves as the foundation for the process.

Object Modeling
A systems analyst use to form a logical model using an object modeling technique. In addition, you will be using an object-oriented analysis in designing an information system. Object modeling techniques is another strategy to view and model the system requirements. It is utilizes to document, analyze and even model the information system. Object-oriented analysis describes an information system by identifying things called objects. And these objects can be a real person, place, event, or transactions. The end product of an object-oriented analysis is an object model that would effectively represent the information system.

Unified Modeling language (UML) is used in the object-oriented analysis since it is considered as an object-oriented approach. It is widely and commonly used method nowadays to visualize and document an information system. It is used to develop object models. A Unified Modeling Language includes the following diagrams: Use case diagram, activity diagram, sequence diagram, class diagram, state chart diagram and etc. I’ll discuss some of its diagrams based on the resources given in our software engineering subjects.
Use Case Diagram – models the functionality of a system using actors and use cases. Use cases are services or functions provided by the system to its users.
Class Diagrams – are the backbone of almost every object-oriented method including UML. It describes the static structure of a system.
Object Diagrams – are also closely linked to class diagrams and could be viewed as an instance of a class diagram. Object diagrams describe the static structure of a system at a particular time and they are used to test the accuracy of class diagrams.
Sequence Diagram – diagrams that describe the interaction among classes in terms of an exchange of messages over time.
Collaboration Diagram – describes interactions among objects in terms of sequenced messages. Collaboration diagrams represent a combination of information taken from class, sequence, and use case diagrams describing both the static structure and dynamic behavior of a system.
Statechart Diagram – it shows the behavior of classes in response to external stimuli. In this diagram model the dynamic flow of control from state to state within a system.

There are numerous diagrams under the Unified Modeling Language that can be used in modeling and explaining the flow of your system. It is easy to understand and it is commonly used now by the developers.

Now, going back to the dialogue of the two professional individuals and after having an overview about the different system analysis phases, if we try to analyze it well both of them have separate opinion but they are still under the requirements modeling in the systems analysis phase. Choosing between who has a greater idea is really a though one since both of them are right. But as we all know, a system’s professional or he can be a systems analyst since the person who is responsible for doing the analysis job is a systems analyst. A systems analyst investigates, analyzes designs, develops, installs, evaluates, and maintains company’s information system. But before he can perform those mentioned tasks, he/she must constantly interact with users and managers inside and outside the organization. It is his/her job to help translate business requirements into projects. With Mr. John Juan, I agree that before you develop a new system, it is also necessary to study the current system. Well, I just remember what our instructor in my software engineering subject told us when we have our consultation about our proposed system, she told us that it is essential to know and analyze first the current system before we develop a new one and according to her we must know the scope of our system and who are those persons that will be involved. It is also needed that we would approach those people so that we can gather more data for the development of our system. On the other, Mr. Peter Pedro wants to start with their list of requirements. I can’t blame Mr. Peter Pedro if he wants it that way. After reading his words, he really wants a system that maybe somewhat different from their current system. He doesn’t want another modified version of their current system. Since the job of Mr. Peter Pedro is not merely more on technical, he won’t be able to understand it well why the systems professional wants to study first the current system and observe the working performance of the employees. I would suggest that Mr. John Juan will explain it well to Mr. Peter Pedro through requirements modeling and object modeling.

Base on what I have tackled earlier, in gathering the requirements needed for the development of the new system, requirements are not only based on what the manager wants or needed. Maybe he don’t like the current system but as system analyst he/she must know what lacks the system and know how the workers interact with that system because even if the system is pretty good but the workers resist unto the change of system it would be worthless. As I remember what the Management Information System supervisor of the Sta. Ana Multipurpose Cooperative told us during our MIS 1 subject, he told us that whenever they are developing a system they made a questionnaire to survey if the end-user would like to change the system or what are the comments on the current system, they sometimes ask what the end-user wants into the system. They sometimes do a manual survey on it. Because according to him, that’s one way they could gather a useful and reliable data.

For Mr. Peter Pedro understand Mr. John Juan, it would be easier if Mr. John Juan will provide a documentation of the requirements modeling and produce an object modeling. Mr. John Juan must clarify everything especially on how he gathers the data and how thus those data is useful in the development of the new system. Looking back with our discussions in Software Engineering and Systems Analysis and Design subjects, we both tackled about Unified Modeling Language (UML). Through the use of the different diagrams of the Unified Modeling Language like use case diagram, activity diagram, class diagram, activity diagram and sequential diagram, Mr. John Juan can explain well the flow of the new and current information system based on the requirements that he have gathered. He will be able to illustrate it into an easier and understandable manner because diagrams such as use case diagram, activity diagram ad sequential diagram are easy to comprehend and evaluated. And also it would be lessening to Mr. John Juan because as a professional it would not be hard for him to create such diagrams. I had chosen object-oriented modeling than data and process modeling because for a person who is not that knowledgeable with the systems and not that expert in developing an information system, it would be hard for him to understand it well.

As I remember when we had an interview for the System Analysis and Design 1 for our reporting and again with the MIS supervisor of SAMULCO, he told us that in terms of diagrams when they had a project to be proposed to the top-level management, they usually used those Unified Modeling Language diagrams. They also used data flow diagram but it is just for him and his programmer because they are those who can understand it more. In developing a system every phases is important, every data and requirements are essential and every end-user is needed that is why before you create an information system or software it is necessary that you have gathered all the important things that should be considered.

Reference:

http://books.google.com.ph/books?id=i_7EnA2cS5sC&pg=PA697&lpg=PA697&dq=object+modeling+%2B+system+analysis+phase&source=bl&ots=W-BFBWZXb&sig=sVIcYa0cjpQr7edoOXvgpKI5fmY&hl=en&ei=muBiS_eHEY6OkQXem7HwBg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=10&ved=0CC0Q6AEwCQ#v=onepage&q=object%20modeling%20%2B%20system%20analysis%20phase&f=false

http://www.ansa.co.uk/ANSATech/95/Training/147401.pdf

http://www.lib.ru.ac.th/knowledge/pcweb/mis/MISLESSION_3PDF.pdf

MIS 2: Assignment 6

2009-12-29T18:28:00.000-08:00

Identify and discuss the steps for “critical success factors” approach? (At least 1500 words)

Before identifying the steps for critical success factors approach, let me define first what critical success factors are. After surfing the internet, I have found various definitions about critical success factors. Reading different explanations and uses of Critical Success factors from different resources from the internet confuse me a bit. But I found some that would be reliable enough.

Critical Success Factors (CSFs) are the critical factors or activities required for ensuring the success your business. The term was initially used in the world of data analysis and business analysis. Critical Success Factors have been used significantly to present or identify a few key factors that organization should focus on to be successful. Critical Success Factors, as a definition, refer to “the limited number of areas in which satisfactory results will ensure successful competitive performance for the individual, department, or organization”. Critical Success Factor is an element of organizational activity which is central to its future success. It may change over time, and may include items such as product quality, employee attitudes, manufacturing flexibility, and brand awareness. It is considered as any of the aspects of a business that are identified as vital for successful targets to be reached and maintained. These are normally identified in such areas as product processes, employee and organizational skills, functions, techniques, and technologies. It is a business term for an ingredient which is essential for a firm or project to achieve its mission. Critical Success Factors, according to Laudon &Laudon MIS (7th edition, page 10.1), are small number and easily identifiable operational goals, shaped by industry, manager, and environment, believed to assure firm’s success, and used to determine organizations requirements.

It is important in an organization to identify its Critical Success Factors because it allows firms to focus their efforts on building their capabilities to meet the recognized CSFs. It even permits organizations to make a decision if they have the capability to create the requirements needed to meet its Critical Success Factors. Whatever definition you would rely, it is important that you will always make sure that all the managers of the organization understand the definition.

Types of Critical Success Factor
There are four basic types of CSFs. They are: Industry, Strategy, Environmental and Temporal.

Industry CSF’s – resulting from specific industry characteristics
Strategy CSF’s – resulting from the chosen competitive strategy of the business
Environmental CSF’s – resulting from economic or technological changes
Temporal CSF’s – results from internal organizational needs and changes.

The following that was mentioned above are also considered as the main aspects of Critical Success Factors that was based on Rockart and Bullen’s idea. In the industry, some CSF’s are common to all companies within the same industry. Every industry defines its own CSF. The truth is that each organization has its own unique goals though there may be some standards but not all organizations will have duplicate CSF’s. Organizations have its own adopted strategy to gain market share. The quality of position in the marketplace will be bases to CSF. The organization’s strategy, resources and capabilities will classify its CSF’s. The value of organization in the market is a great impact on CSF at a given point in time.

In writing a Critical Success Factors, there are some premises that would be a great help. These principles are based on what my resources had given. This will simply serve as your guidelines in writing down the critical success factors that you have observed.
• Ensure a good understanding of the environment, the industry and the company – It has been shown that CSF's have five primary sources, and it is important to have a good understanding of the environment, the industry and the company in order to be able to write them well. These factors are customized for companies and individuals and the customization results from the uniqueness of the organization.
• Build knowledge of competitors in the industry – While this principle can be encompassed in the previous one, it is worth highlighting separately as it is critical to have a good understanding of competitors as well in identifying an organization's CSF's Knowing where competitors are positioned, what their resources and capabilities are, and what strategies they will pursue can have an impact on an organization's strategy and also resulting CSF's
• Develop CSF's which result in observable differences – A key impetus for the development of CSF's was the notion that factors which get measured are more likely to be achieved versus factors which are not measured. Thus, it is important to write CSF's which are observable or possibly measurable in certain respects such that it would be easier to focus on these factors. These don't have to be factors that are measured quantitatively as this would mimic key performance indicators; however, writing CSF's in observable terms would be helpful.
• Develop CSF's that have a large impact on an organization's performance – By definition, CSF's are the "most critical" factors for organizations or individuals. However, due care should be exercised in identifying them due to the largely qualitative approach to identification, leaving many possible options for the factors and potentially results in discussions and debate. In order to truly have the impact as envisioned when CSF's were developed, it is important to thus identify the actual CSF's, i.e. the ones which would have the largest impact on an organization's (or individual's) performance.

What are the Steps for critical success factor approach?
Based on what I have understood and read, I come up with some steps for critical success factors. These are the following steps.
1. Start with a vision and a mission statement.
2. Develop a high level and hierarchy of goals and their success factors
3. List of requirements, problems, and assumptions.
4. Analysis Matrices
5. Solid usage scenarios.
6. Result of the analysis

Start with a vision and a mission statement. Every organization has its own unique vision and mission that they want to follow. It is important to know what are the firm’s vision and mission before you can start pointing out the firm’s critical success factor.

Develop high level and hierarchy of goals and their success factors. It is always good to know the goals of the organization since critical success factor is a step in ensuring the organizations success. With critical success factor, you are focusing on what the company aims in the future and if the firm is able to achieve those goals and dreams that was already a success.

List of requirements, problems, and assumptions. It is necessary to gather all the data and information with regards to the organization, site all the problems that the organization are facing or might be facing in the future, and identify the following assumptions on how to the company will get over with those problems.

Analysis matrices. Part of these analysis matrices is the problem versus requirements matrix and the usage scenarios versus requirements matrix. You have to know if all the requirements you have gathered are consistent enough. Analyze if the requirements are completed and appropriate. Analyze the problems and set some solutions on how to solve those problems. Examine if the needs of the company has been cope up. And evaluate how the company gain success would in the future.

Solid Usage Scenarios. Usage scenarios or in other words “use cases” which is very much familiar when using unified modeling language. This provides an idea on determining if the requirements are aligned and self-consistent, if the needs of the user being met as well as those of the enterprise, and if the requirements are complete.
Result of the Analysis. After having a couple of analysis, you can now list what are the things that can be considered as critical for the success of the organization. You will know the factors that would benefit and affect for the success of the firm.

Every firm has its own critical success factors. It depends on their strategy on how they can obtain success. Example of a critical success on an organization are the training and education, quality data and reporting, management commitment, customer satisfaction, staff orientation, role of the quality department, communication to improve quality, and continuous improvement. There may be several of critical success factors but it is necessary that you have to make sure that it is in line with the organizations vision, mission and goals. If the organization has achieved its goals, you can already declare that the organization has succeeded. In some cases, companies want to complete a project successfully that could be a big benefit for the company’s success. As what I have read, there has been a research that shows that there are critical success factors that should be applied to complete a project successfully. This includes the following: Match changes to vision, Define crisp deliverables, Business need linked to vision, have a formal process to define vision, and organizational culture supports project management. Critical Success factor is necessary for an organization in order to fulfill its mission. Without critical success factor, it will definitely cause organizational and/or mission failure. No one wants an organization to fail, everyone aims to succeed.

References:
http://rapidbi.com/created/criticalsuccessfactors.html
Laudon & Laudon MIS, 7th Edition. Pg. 10.4

SAD 1: Assignment 4

2009-12-29T18:26:00.001-08:00

Identify and discuss at least 3 systems development models .. discuss each phases ... (at least 3000 words)

One thing that never changes in the information systems field is that things are always changing. New tools and techniques are continually emerging and system developers are always looking for new and better ways to work. There are numerous system development methodologies that the system developers might adapt from each techniques and life cycles when appropriate. There are various methods and techniques exercised to direct the life cycle of a software development project and most real world models are customized adaption of the basic and standard models. Building an information system for an organization would be very effective in supporting business process objectives. System development process models are employed by the developers to direct the project’s life cycle and would ensure that they would be able to develop a cost-effective and quality systems. System Development life cycle is a conceptual model used in project management that describes the stages involved in an information system development project, from an initial feasibility study through maintenance of the completed application.

Whenever I search about system development models, I always encounter software life cycle models. As what I have read, software life cycle models describe phases of the software cycle and the order in which those phase are executed. There are different models and the company chose and adopts their own model. But in general, usually, the basic of every model is that it requires some important phases. It includes the requirements, design, implementation and testing. Each phase produces deliverables required by the next phase in the life cycle. As what I have understood, all the requirements gathered are then translated into design. On the other hand, the coding part is already produced during the implementation phase that was actually obsessed by the design. Testing verifies the deliverable of the implementation phase against requirements.

There are also some activities that were performed in system development. Typically, include are the following: System conceptualization, Systems requirements and benefits analysis, Project adoption and project scoping, System design, Specification of software requirements, Architectural design, Detailed design, Unit development, Software integration and testing, System integration and testing, Installation at site, Site testing and acceptance, Training and documentation, Implementation, and Maintenance.

As what I have read in one of my resources which is an article entitled, A Survey of System Development Process Models (CTG.MFA - 003) and this paper was based upon the work supported in part by the National Historical Publications and Records Commission under Grant No. 96023. It was mentioned there that most system development Process models in use in the present have evolved from three primary approaches. These are Ad-hoc Development, Waterfall Model, and the Iterative Process.

Ad-hoc Development
The Software Engineering Institute at Carnegie Mellon University states that with the use of Ad-hoc Process Model all the process capability is unpredictable because the software process is constantly changed or modified as the work progresses. As of the present time, there are still organizations that are practicing Ad-hoc Development Process Model either for the whole development or just a part of it. With Ad-hoc Development, it focuses on the performance which depends on the capabilities of the person and differs with their individual skills, knowledge, and motivations. In Ad-hoc Development, the performance of the software processes can be predicted only by an individual rather than the capability of an organization. The success of the projects is through the stout effort of a dedicated team. Some individual software projects produce excellent results.

Waterfall Model
The Waterfall Model is the earliest method of structured system development. This is the most common and classic of life cycle models. In recent years, it has been under criticize because it is too rigid and unrealistic when it comes to instantly meeting customer’s needs but still the Waterfall Model has been widely used. It is very simple to understand and use.

The Waterfall Model consists of the following steps:

•System Conceptualization.
System Conceptualization refers to the consideration of all aspects of the targeted business function or process, with the goals of determining how each of those aspects relates with one another, and which aspects will be incorporated into the system.
•Systems Analysis.
This step refers to the gathering of system requirements, with the goal of determining how these requirements will be accommodated in the system. Extensive communication between the customer and the developer is essential.
•System Design.
Once the requirements have been collected and analyzed, it is necessary to identify in detail how the system will be constructed to perform necessary tasks. More specifically, the System Design phase is focused on the data requirements (what information will be processed in the system?), the software construction (how will the application be constructed?), and the interface construction (what will the system look like? What standards will be followed?).
•Coding.
Also known as programming, this step involves the creation of the system software. Requirements and systems specifications from the System Design step are translated into machine readable computer code.
•Testing.
As the software is created and added to the developing system, testing is performed to ensure that it is working correctly and efficiently. Testing is generally focused on two areas: internal efficiency and external effectiveness. The goal of external effectiveness testing is to verify that the software is functioning according to system design, and that it is performing all necessary functions or sub-functions. The goal of internal testing is to make sure that the computer code is efficient, standardized, and well documented. Testing can be a labor-intensive process, due to its iterative nature.
Here is an Illustration of a waterfall model:

In a waterfall model, each phase must be completed in its whole before it can proceed and begin with the next phase. And every end of each phase, a recap must be done to identify if a certain project is on the right path and to analyze whether to continue or discard the project. Each phase are processed and completed one at a time. This type of model works well for smaller projects wherein all the requirements are very well understood.

There are also disadvantages in using a waterfall model: Adjusting scope during the life cycle can kill a project, No working software is produced until late during the life cycle, High amounts of risk and uncertainty, Poor model for complex and object-oriented projects, Poor model for long and ongoing projects, and Poor model where requirements are at a moderate to high risk of changing.

Iterative Development
Because of the seen problems with the Waterfall Model, system developers are looking for a new method of developing systems in which it could produce a quick output, requires lesser up-front information, and could give a greater flexibility. In Iterative Development, the project is divided into small parts. With this model, the developers are allowed to establish and demonstrate the results ahead of time while the process is ongoing and they obtain comments from its end-users. Often times, iteration is actually similar with a mini-waterfall process wherein the comments and feedbacks from the end-users from each phase will provide vital information for the accomplishment of the next phase.

Here is an illustration of an Iterative Development:

There are actually various system development models. Some are variations and evolved from the iterative and incremental approach or even in the waterfall model. I’ll be discussing some that are also used by the organizations.

Prototyping Model
Sometimes, in developing a system, it is difficult to know all the requirements needed at the beginning of a project that is why prototyping model was developed. There are some customers knows all the objectives that they want their system to be but they do not know what are detailed features and capabilities needed for their system. When the developer used a prototyping model, they build a simplified version of their proposed system and present it unto their clients as part of the development process. The clients will give then their comments and reaction which will be additional information for the system requirements.

There are a few different approaches that may be followed when using the Prototyping Model: Creation of the major user interfaces without any substantive coding in the background in order to give the users a “feel” for what the system will look like,Development of an abbreviated version of the system that performs a limited subset of functions; development of a paper system (depicting proposed screens, reports, relationships etc.), or Use of an existing system or system components to demonstrate some functions that will be included in the developed system.

On my source of information, it elaborate some steps that comprises prototyping. They are:
•Requirements Definition/Collection.
Similar to the Conceptualization phase of the Waterfall Model, but not as comprehensive. The information collected is usually limited to a subset of the complete system requirements.
•Design.
Once the initial layer of requirements information is collected, or new information is gathered, it is rapidly integrated into a new or existing design so that it may be folded into the prototype.
•Prototype Creation/Modification.
The information from the design is rapidly rolled into a prototype. This may mean the creation/modification of paper information, new coding, or modifications to existing coding.
•Assessment.
The prototype is presented to the customer for review. Comments and suggestions are collected from the customer.
•Prototype Refinement.
Information collected from the customer is digested and the prototype is refined. The developer revises the prototype to make it more effective and efficient.
•System Implementation.
In most cases, the system is rewritten once requirements are understood. Sometimes, the Iterative process eventually produces a working system that can be the cornserstone for the fully functional system.

Every model has its criticism. For prototyping model, there are two possible advantages when using it. First, Prototyping can lead to false expectations. And the other one is that Prototyping can lead to poorly designed systems.

Spiral Model
The Spiral Model was designed to include the best features from the Waterfall and Prototyping Models, and also to introduce a new module which is the risk assessment. The Spiral Model is similar to the incremental model, with more emphasis on the risk analysis. The word “spiral” is used to describe the process that is pursued as the development of the system takes place. Now, how does the best features of Waterfall and Prototyping models include in the Spiral model? In Spiral Model, similar with the Prototyping, they also develop an initial version of the system, and afterwards it was modified repetitively based on the suggestions, comments and criticism given by the costumer as they evaluate the system. However, progress of each version of the proposed system is carefully designed through the use of the steps that were involved in Waterfall Model.

Here is an illustration of a Spiral Life Cycle Model for System Development Process Models:

The Spiral Model has four phases: Planning, Risk Analysis, Engineering and Evaluation. In a software project, it passes repeatedly through the different phases in iterations. The iteration starts in the center. From the baseline spiral, which is part of the planning phase, the requirements needed for the development of the system are gathered and also the possible risks are assessed. The requirements are always gathered during the planning phase. Another phase is the risk analysis. In this phase a process is assumed to identify all the risk and the alternate solutions. And in every end of the risk analysis phase, a prototype is then produced. In the engineering phase software is then produced. At every end of the engineering phase there is always a testing that should be implemented. The evaluation phase focuses on the costumer. On the last phase, it allows the costumers to evaluate the output of the project and give there feedback on it before the developer will continue the next spiral.

I have found another figure of a spiral model. This is partly different from the other illustration that I gave earlier.

If we would try to observe well the Spiral Model is made to follow some steps:
•Project Objectives.
It is similar to the system conception phase of the Waterfall Model. Objectives are determined, possible obstacles are identified and alternative approaches are weighed.
•Risk Assessment.
Possible alternatives are examined by the developer, and associated risks/problems are identified. Resolutions of the risks are evaluated and weighed in the consideration of project continuation. Sometimes prototyping is used to clarify needs.
•Engineering & Production.
Detailed requirements are determined and the software piece is developed.
•Planning and Management.
The customer is given an opportunity to analyze the results of the version created in the Engineering step and to offer feedback to the developer.

Risk assessment is always included as a step in the development process as a means of evaluating each type of the system to determine whether development should continue or discard. The decisions will be on the costumer’s hand. If ever the client decides that there are great risk that would be identified, there is a possibility that the project would be stopped.

The advantages of using spiral model are: High amount of risk analysis, Good for large and mission-critical projects, and Software is produced early in the software life cycle. But on the other hand, there are also drawbacks that we should consider in using this type of model. Include on its shortcomings are: Can be a costly model to use, Risk analysis requires highly specific expertise, Project’s success is highly dependent on the risk analysis phase, and it does not work well for smaller projects.

V-Shaped Model
The V-Shaped model is just like the waterfall model. It is a sequential path of execution of processes. The same with the waterfall model, each phase of the V-Shaped model must be done and completed before the next phase could begin. In this model, testing is more emphasized and implemented always in this type of model.

Here is an illustration of a V-Shaped Life cycle model.

If we would be very observant, the testing procedures are developed earlier in the life cycle before the coding or programming is done. And during each phases there is a preceding implementation. The requirements are gathered similar with the Waterfall Model. A system test plan is created before the development started. The test plan focuses on meeting the functionality specified in the requirements gathering. The high-level design phase focuses on system architecture and design. An integration test plan is created in this phase as well in order to test the pieces of the software systems ability to work together. The low-level design phase is where the actual software components are designed, and unit tests are created in this phase as well. The implementation phase is, again, where all coding takes place. Once coding is complete, the path of execution continues up the right side of the V where the test plans developed earlier are now put to use.
There are also countable advantages in using V-Shaped Life Cycle Model. It is simple and easy to use similar with the waterfall model. Each phase has specific deliverables. There is a higher chance of success over the waterfall model due to the development of test plans early on during the life cycle. And another advantage of using this model is that it works well for small projects where requirements are easily understood. There are also shortcomings that you could encounter in using this model. One disadvantage is the same with the disadvantage of the Waterfall; V-shaped is very rigid. It has little flexibility and adjusting scope is difficult and expensive. Software is developed during the implementation phase, therefore there are no early prototypes of the software are produced. Model doesn’t provide a clear path for problems found during testing phases.
Reuse Model
The basic principle in using the reuse model is that systems should be built using existing components. The reuse model is definitely suited and appropriate to object-oriented computing environments. As of today’s system development industry, Object-oriented environments have become one of the premier technologies.
Within the Reuse Model, libraries of software modules are maintained that can be copied for use
in any system. These components are of two types: procedural modules and database modules.
When building a new system, the developer will “borrow” a copy of a module from the system
library and then plug it into a function or procedure. If the needed module is not available, the
developer will build it, and store a copy in the system library for future usage. If the modules are
well engineered, the developer with minimal changes can implement them. A general criticism of the Reuse Model is that it is limited for use in object-oriented development environments. Although this environment is rapidly growing in popularity, it is currently used in only a minority of system development applications.

The Reuse Model consists of the following steps:
• Definition of Requirements.
Initial system requirements are collected. These requirements are usually a subset of complete system requirements.
• Definition of Objects.
The objects, which can support the necessary system components, are identified.
• Collection of Objects.
The system libraries are scanned to determine whether or not the needed objects are available. Copies of the needed objects are downloaded from the system.
• Creation of Customized Objects.
Objects that have been identified as needed, but that are not available in the library are created.
• Prototype Assembly.
A prototype version of the system is created and/or modified using the necessary objects.
• Prototype Evaluation.
The prototype is evaluated to determine if it adequately addresses customer needs and requirements.
• Requirements Refinement.
Requirements are further refined as a more detailed version of the prototype is created.
• Objects Refinement.
Objects are refined to reflect the changes in the requirements.

There may be various models and as our fast changing environment grows, more and more models and techniques would be developed and implemented and even used by the developers to make their work well. It’s really on the developer and the organizations hand on what model would they use. The capability and assurance of success in every model depend on how big or how small the project is. Every model has its criteria on what type of project it is much useful. Mostly, developers would take parts and procedures from those various process models and then integrate it to support system development. The evolution of the system development process models has replicated the changing needs of the costumers.

References:
http://codebetter.com/blogs/raymond.lewallen/archive/2005/07/13/129114.aspx
Posted 07-13-2005 8:13 AM by Raymond Lewallen
http://www.ctg.albany.edu/publications/reports/survey_of_sysdev/survey_of_sysdev.pdf

SAD 1 : Assignment 3

2009-12-27T05:17:00.001-08:00

Discuss the role of a systems analyst as a project manager. (at least one thousand words) .... you need to interview an analyst/project manager ..

Before I discuss the role of systems analyst as a project manager, let me define first what are systems analyst and a project manager. Enumerate the task and responsibilities on the said fields and identify the skills and characteristics needed on both sides. In addition, identify their individual roles in the organization.

Systems Analyst
As what Wikipedia said, “Systems Analyst is responsible for researching, planning, coordinating and recommending software and system choices to meet an organization's business requirements. The systems analyst plays a vital role in the systems development process”. The primary purpose of a systems analyst is to analyze administrative, reporting and statistical systems and develop methods for adapting these systems to electronic data processing. Traditionally, they define and maintain databases and files, logical sequence of information flow, requirements for programming and systems control parameters. They serve as the team leader for the development and implementation of system. They do this through proper planning, directing project activities, and providing work assignments to its technical personnel that was also assigned for the same project. Another important job of a systems analyst is that they are responsible in designing the software and hardware for the organization. Installations and configurations of new systems and hardware are also part of it. A systems analyst makes sure that all the company and the costumers’ needs will be catered. One of their main responsibilities is to come up with the most efficient computer solutions for the organization. They are the one in charge with the decisions on the different hardware, software and settings for the organization. That is why a systems analyst should be up-to-date with the new trends of information technology.

If we try to look back my older post on the second assignment of the said subject, I elaborated the skills and characteristics that a systems analyst must have based on what I have surf in the internet and based on our interview with the MIS supervisor of Sta. Ana Multipurpose Cooperative. From what I have surf, there are four skills and characteristics that are mentioned. They are technical skills, analytical skills, management skills and interpersonal skills. Based on what I have understood from our discussion with the SAMULCO’s MIS supervisor, he mentioned six skills and characteristics in which for him is necessary to be present in a systems analyst: Enough knowledge on systems integration or systems development, Must have a wholestic and detailed approach, Partially have a skill in calculating risk, People person with good communication skills, Must have an AQ or Adversity Quotient, and Flexible.

Project Manager
The project manager’s role is the overall responsibility for the successful planning, execution, monitoring, control and closure of a project. The project manager is the one who looks into the application of the knowledge, skills, tools, and techniques to describe, organize and control the various project processes. He has the overall responsibility for the successful planning and execution of a project. He must be able to acquire combination skills including the ability to detect unstated statements, ask sensitive questions and determine interpersonal conflicts as well as more organized management talents. For some reasons, the roles of a project manager should be easy to describe but the challenging part is that the roles and responsibilities of a project manager depends on the company. Its different roles vary from company to company. In general, he is responsible for the overall success of the project.

I have surf the internet for some responsibilities of a project manager. Once the project starts, the project manager must successfully manage and control the work, including:

• Identifying, tracking managing and resolving project issues
• Proactively disseminating project information to all stakeholders
• Identifying, managing and mitigating project risk
• Ensuring that the solution is of acceptable quality
• Proactively managing scope to ensure that only what was agreed to is delivered, unless changes are approved through scope management
• Defining and collecting metrics to give a sense for how the project is progressing and whether the deliverables produced are acceptable
• Managing the overall schedule to ensure work is assigned and completed on time and within budget

The following responsibilities that are mentioned above doesn’t necessarily mean that the project manager must perform all, but he must make it sure that everything will happen. In addition to process skills, a project manager must have good people management skills. This includes:

• Having the discipline and general management skills to make sure that people follow the standard processes and procedures
• Establishing leadership skills to get the team to willingly follow your direction. Leadership is about communicating a vision and getting the team to accept it and strive to get there with you.
• Setting reasonable, challenging and clear expectations for people, and holding them accountable for meeting the expectations. This includes providing good performance feedback to team members
• Team building skills so that the people work together well, and feel motivated to work hard for the sake of the project and their other team members. The larger your team and the longer the project, the more important it is to have good team-building skills.
• Proactive verbal and written communicator skills, including good, active listening skills.

The role of system analyst as a project manager
Based on what I have searched and what I have understood in our interview with the MIS supervisor, a systems analyst also plays the role of a project manager. I can still remember that our interviewed personnel asked if we have a subject, project management. In our curriculum, we do not have a separate subject that focuses on project management because it was discussed in our software engineering discussions. He told us that it is important that we have a project management subject in preparation for our systems analysis and design subject. Going back on the role of systems analyst as a project manager, as what I have mentioned earlier and in my previous post, a systems analyst is responsible for researching, planning, coordinating and recommending software and system choices to meet an organization's business requirements while on the project manager’s role is the overall responsibility for the successful planning, execution, monitoring, control and closure of a project. Both fields focus on the development and success of a project that would also be developing new information systems. A systems analyst, if compared with project manager, is also part of the project management. These means, a systems analyst can also play the role of a project manager. A project manager may assist with the gathering of business requirements, which is also a responsibility of a systems analyst. Therefore, in developing a project or a system, both systems analyst and a project manager are needed on the team and can lead the team. Both should be a part of every part in the success of the project.

References:
http://www.lifecyclestep.com/open/407.1TheRoleoftheProjectManager.htm
http://www.projectsmart.co.uk/role-of-the-project-manager.html
www.wikipedia.com

SAD 1 : Assignment 2

2009-12-27T05:14:00.001-08:00

Interview a System Analyst and ask what skills and characteristics must a System Analyst develop in order to be more effective in any design modeling process.

Before we proceed with the skills and characteristics of a Systems Analyst, let us have a refresh of what a Systems Analysts are. Base from my previous post and according to Wikipedia, “A systems analyst is responsible for researching, planning, coordinating and recommending software and system choices to meet an organization's business requirements. The systems analyst plays a vital role in the systems development process.” Therefore, a systems analyst plays a vital role in an organization. A systems analyst make sure that all the company and the costumers’ needs will be catered. One of their main resposibility is to come up with the most efficient computer solutions for the organization. They are the one in charge with the decisions on the different hardwares, softwares and settings for the organization. That is why a systems analyst should be up-to-date with the new trends of information technology.

As I surf the internet, the Wikipedia gave me an idea of what would be the skills that a systems analyst must acquire to be successful. These are analytical skills, technical skills, management skills and interpersonal skills. As what I have understood, these four elaborated skills should be present in a systems analyst. Skills that would help a systems analyst be good and expert with his field. An analytical skill is helpful because it enable a systems analyst understand the organization and its functions and lead him/her to identify the opportunities for the organization and to analyze and solve the firm’s problems. Developing a technical skill for a systems analyst would be a great advantage. Information Technology blooms in every part of the world. Almost everything are automated. Rapid changes in our environment can not be stop. So, if a systems analyst have this type of skill, he would be able to figure out the potential and limitations of information technology. Every systems analyst must know how to supervise different projects, risk, resources, and change. For this reason, we can conclude that a systems analyst must have a management skills. Interpersonal skills help out a systems analyst’s work with its end users and its staff, which includes the programmers, analysts, and other systems professionals.

Last December 16, 2009, me and some of my fellow classmates went to look for a company that will allow us to interview their Systems Analyst. Luckily, one of them allows to cater our needs for the said subject. The Managment Information System Supervisor of the Sta. Ana Multi-purpose Cooperative, which is located at Monteverde St., Davao City., shared some of his time to answer some of our questions that would solve our second assignment is Systems Analysis and Design.

Before we begin with the interview, he asked us one by one our first names. Then, with no hesitation, we asked him what are the skills and characteristics must a Systems Analyst develop in order to be more effective in any design modeling process. Considering that he is not prepared with our question, he asked for five minutes to meditate. We patiently waited for him to be ready to answer our question. Then, suddenly, he asked us what is a Systems Analyst. One of us responded and said “Systems Analyst analyzes and solve business problems using information technology”. And as the MIS supervisor elaborated that a systems analyst not only solve but they also plan and think for a future scalablity purposes. He explained scalability purposes by citing an exmple. According to him, its like when you build a system, soon or later you would probably think to add something to. A systems analyst is the one who analyzes the problem for a certain system and then solving the problem or certain issue.

Now going on with the skills and characteristics that a systems analyst must develop in order to be more effective in any design modeling purposes. The MIS supervisor of SAMULCO shared his idea as he elaborate some skills and characteristics. And they are as follows:
- Enough knowledge on systems integration or systems development
- Must have a wholestic and detailed approach
- Partially have a skill in calculating risk
- People person with good communication skills
- Must have an AQ or Adversity Quotient
- Flexible

One by one, he explained every skills and characteristics that he have mentioned. For us to understand well why those skills and characteristics are needed.

Enough knowledge on system integrationa or systems development
As what the MIS supervisor had explained, usually a good systems analyst are also programmers. There are a lot of systems analyst but mostly are usually programmers. An experience on how to develop a system is an advantage because once you have that, you will have an idea of how to do it, what to do, what’s there, what’s not there, what’s there to think. A systems analyst should start would something small. Small scales like programming because when you do systems analysis you interact with group of people. Usually, you have a programmer, developer, documentation team and any other who are needed in the team. I would like to quote a line that the MIS supervisor shared, “A systems analyts is a part of every part.” As what I have learned, a systems analyst must have quite experience of everything. He/she should have some idea about programming, documentations, how to develop a systems and everything because if he lack idea, how would he/she understand a process, how would he/she identify what are the things that needs to be done and what lacks on the databases and etc.

Must have a wholestic and detailed approach
In systems analysis, especially if we are looking to the system, you have to identify the whole nd specific information needed for the analysis. Its like when you put yoursel in the center of the platform you will never see the whole system, what you would acutally see is the detailed or specific part of the system but if you put yourself on the top of the platform, that time you would see the whole. Consequesntly, a systems analyst must have both the wholestic and detailed approach. Though it is required to have both, it is a mistake if you go detailed first before the whole. You should think the wholestic first before you dig deeper on its detailed part. Remembering the two ways of learning which is the wholestic approach and the systematic approach. A systems analyst is a wholestic learner and a systematic learner also because if you don’t do both ways you will miss some important things that is needed in designing modeling process. You failed to align with the organizations vision, mission and goals.

Partially have a skill in calculating risk
This skill is also very important. A systems analyst is a risk taker in a very smart way. A risk is a possibility of a loss. Every systems analysis must have a skill in calculating the risk. In every move your taking there are so many risk involved. You can never stop the risk from coming but you can prepare on how it will affect you. You have the control on it. There will always be risk that something will go wrong. According to the MIS supervisor, a good systems analyst are familiar with the Murphy’s Law,which states that, “if something will go wrong, it will and it will weaken you most in an appropriate time” and believe that it would last forever. Everytime a system analyst had a project he/ she must eager and skilled o identify the risk involved in his/her project. He/she must analyze, detect and face the risk involvedin view of the fact that you can’t attain change if the analyst will not take the risk (the calculated risk). There are actually four ways on how to treat the risk: tolerate, terminate, treat, and transfer risk. Tolerate the risk, let it come. There are kinds of risk that will slightly affect you so let it come. There are also risk that you have to stop it from coming. You can do that by terminating the risk. In treating the risk you have to prepare yourself of the possible effects of the risk that you have calculated. The fourth one is transfer. So how would you tranfer the risk? Some companys transfer the risk by getting an insurance company. It is for the systems analyst to decide on what he/she would with the risk, either he/she would tolerate, terminate, treat or transfer the risk. But there are also instances that you can’t control. The usual problems that the developers or the systems analyst encounter is that the company wont allow. Resistance to change. Even though you know how to solve the problem and your sure that this solution would benefit the company but the company won’t allow for changes. Budget constraints is also a risk. No matter how good your proposal is but if the company can’t give you enough budget or don’t want to invest for that would be a big risk. Another risk is that the company’s direction is not set out for changes. If its already not on their IT plan to automate their system you can’t force the organization.A systems analyst plan, implement the plan and then identify your risk.

People person with good communication skills
Another skill or characteristic of a system analyst is a people person. It is important that a system analyst know how to interact with everybody and be familiar with good communication skills both orally and written. A people person is the one who can work together with the people around, just anybody. If you dont have a good communication skills you will ba having a hard time explaining your work and you cannot present your ideas and you will miss up with everything else. The market has changed. People would lok into number right now. They are not satisfied with a slide to present your ideas or proposals. A systems analyst must show figures, numbers on the top management to explain the company’s problems and needs. You need to explain well the reasons why the company will be needing a certain hardwares and softwares.

Must have an AQ or Adversity Quotient
Everyone of us are familiar with IQ (Intelligence Quotient) and EQ (Emotional Quotient). But these two can never be use in business. What’s important now is AQ or the Adversity Quotient. A systems analyst must have an high adversity quotient skills so that when problems came in you are able to break the problem. Not only the systems analyst but every one.A high in EQ and low in IQ can go along with everybody and a high in IQ with low EQ is a man in an island. When we talk about adversity, it is another word for problem. A high in AQ signifies on how he/she could cope up when problem arises. Typically, in developing a system, more problems frequently occur on the implementation phase. So when a problem comes up, a system analyst should be able to have a strategy on how to deal with it.

Flexible
A good systems analyst should be flexible to be able to adapt with the rapid changes in the environment. He/she should know how to handle things in a certain circumstances. Not only the analysis should be flexible but also the Systems analyst.

After that interview, I really learned a lot. New ideas and learnings was shared in a short period of time. One thing that I always remember in the words that the MIS supervisor shared is that, “Systems Analyst are made not born”. Yes, his right. Its on the experience that mold an individual to be a master on his field. No one become who he/she is now and no one have the knowledge and the position he have now at birth. He/She was not born to be a systems analyst. Its the experience that he/she had encountered to reach that far. Everyone can be a systems analyst though you are not an IT degree or a graduate on accounting because according to him(MIS supervisor), “You just have to obsess”. If you aim to be that kind of person in the future, do evrything in a smart way. Try to reach that goal. Another thing that I have learned from this experience is that if I can graduate with an IT degree (hopefully) and I would be able to have a degree also in accounting shall be considered as a greater advanage if I want to be a Systems analyst someday. We can make it up. We can be what we want to be.

References:
www.wikipedia.com

Evidences:
-still waiting for the copy of our picture-
-sorry for the inconvenience-

SAD 1 : Assignment 1

2009-12-27T05:09:00.000-08:00

Based on your learning of Chapter 1, identify and discuss some characteristics you have as a good Systems Analyst. (at least 2500 words)

Last December 9, 2009, we had our last meeting in our Systems Analysis and Design for this year. Also, the first two group reporters are able to present there reports. The first group of presenters discuss the Chapter 1 – “The world of Systems Analyst” and followed by the group who shared about the 2nd chapter which is all about the “”. In chapter 1, the discussions was all about a Systems Analyst. They mentioned different information about a system analyst like: skills, characters, role, and etc. They did a good job in sharing their ideas on what they have understood about their reports. Listening to their presentation and being present on that day was already a plus. So, by now, I have some ideas and key points about what a Systems Analyst and how this kind of job look like. But to have a further knowledge about this kind of job, I surf the internet to gather more data or information. Combining those facts from my resources would be a great idea so that I could come up with a good answer for this assignment and I could compare myself if I have those qualities, characteristics and skills of a good Systems Analyst.

Let me define first a Systems Analyst. According to Wikipedia, “A systems analyst is responsible for researching, planning, coordinating and recommending software and system choices to meet an organization's business requirements. The systems analyst plays a vital role in the systems development process.”

Because of the rapid growth of technologies nowadays, in reality most of the companies rely on computers. That is why every computer in every company has to be set up properly and needs to be maintained in order to accommodate it’s users. A systems analysts are responsible in choosing the most efficient computer solutions for a business or organization. They make sure that the systems meet all the company’s needs. Mostly, they are in charge for deciding what software, hardware and settings that would be needed for each computer and even the different methods necessary in maintaining them. This kind of job plays a vital rle in a system development in an organization because they plan, implement and even manage multi-computer systems that’s within an organization. Thus, if you want to be a System Analyst you must have a solid understanding on computer software and hardware. You have to make sure that you are update with all the latest technologies. And lastly, you must be willing to listen to the needs and even complaints of the end-users.

The Wikipedia also elaborate four skills that a Systems Analyst must acquire to be successful. They are as follows:

• Analytical Skills
- enable systems analysts to understand the organization and its functions, which helps him/her to identify opportunities and to analyze and solve problems.

• Technical Skills
- help systems analysts understand the potential and the limitations of information technology.

• Management Skills
- help systems analysts manage projects, resources, risk, and change.

• Interpersonal Skills
- help systems analysts work with end users as well as with analysts, programmers, and other systems professionals.

These four skills must be present in a Systems Analyst. A Systems analyst needs to have an analytical skills because it is his/her duty to analyze and be aware of the organization and its functionality so that he would be able to come up with a solution that the company and the user will benefit. He/She must have this type of skill since the job of a System Analyst starts in determining the general and specific needs of the company. In terms of technical skills, a Systems Analyst should be updated with the different innovations and the purpose, uses and functionality of the different hardware components given that they are the one responsible in the maintenance and system development.They must also have an enough knowledge with different programming languages, operating systems and computer hardware. A Systems Analyst do the feasibility study in an organization. They study the following possible risk that the company may encounter when a new system is implemented or a new hardware or software was installed. They plan for projects that the organization will benefit and also planning for the organization be competitive and be able to adapt the enormous changes in its environment. That is why a systems analyst must learn to manage himself/herself and also the organization. And lastly, an interpersonal skill. Though systems analyst have a lot of responsibilities, it is essential that he/she has a good communication and personality. He/She must know how to interact with the different persons that would be involve or connected with his job like the end users, programmers and etc.

If I would be a Systems Analyst someday, is it necessary that I should be a graduate of a computer related courses like having a bachelor degree in Information Technology, Computer Science, Information Science, or Management Information System? It is also been a question in our first reporting session in this said subject since the one interviewed by the sharers was a graduate of Bachelor of Science in Accountancy. Weighing which is better a graduate of business related courses or a computer related one. Doubts comes up in my mind. I couldn’t think of what to choose. Again, I browse the internet to gain some ideas. And luckily, I found some. According to what I have read and comprehend, there are different ways in preparing yourself and get ready to become a Systems Analyst. There are several types of analyst : Systems Analyst, Business Analyst, Computer Systems Analyst and etc. Usually, many computer systems analyst earned a bachelor’s degree in computer related courses like Computer Science or Information Technology. There are also some analyst who finished with it’s bachelor degree in other field and then, they pursue computers classes just to gain computer experiences. A number of analyst increase their knowledge by having a Master’s degree in business for them to understand better the types of computers and businesses needs. What is essential for an Analyst to have is that he/she must know computers, math and planning, and also a logical thiking skills are very important. They need to be good on speaking and writing skills so that it would be much easier for them to explain their systems and be able to give a good and reliable instructions.These are just the minimum requirement for you to be get ready if you aim to be a Systems Analyst someday. But, it would be preferable if you have both business and technical education because combining both work or educational experiences would be a great advantage for you.

After discussing what a Systems Analysts are and what are some of the skills that this person must have, the next thing to know is what would be or what should be the characteristics of a good Systems Analyst. I tried to surf for possible ideas but unfortunately, I have a hard time doing so but I still found some that would help me. But I guess having those informations that I have mentioned above is enough to construct the characteristics of a good Systems Analyst. These characteristics give important clues about the nature of the work and its work environment. Hence, here are some of my ideas of what a Systems Analyst must be.

Responsible.

A Systems analyst play a vital role in system devlopment processes. Engage with different, critical and essential responsibilities. Responsibilities like planning, documentation, research, and analyzing and choosing the most efficient computer solutions.For these some reasons, I conclude that as a Systems Analyst you should be responsible with your work. As a Systems Analyst you are also considered one of the professionals that is why you should be able to do not just your work but more than your work. Its essential to be responsible in this field beacuse one single mistake would be considered a big risk for the organization.

Knowledgeable of technology.

As I mentioned above, it is one of the minimum requirement needed for your to become a Systems Analyst that you are a graduate in technical field. Recalling that some of the responsibilities of a Systems Analyst are related with computers. Computer hardwares, softwares, operating systems and even networking computers are part of their duties. And looking back with the four specified skills of a Systems Analyst, it also mentioned about technical skills. Therefore, it is considered as one quality to a Systems Analyst to be knowledgeable on technologies. Tha fact that there is a rapid growth of breakthroughs and it is not easy to adapt with the fast-evolving changes in our environment. People are more becoming technical in other words we mostly rely on the technologies that we have. A systems Analyst is responsible to keep up-to-date with the new trends of technologies and system developments.

Knowledgeable of business.

As a Systems Analyst, it is an advantage that you are knowledgeable not only in the technical field but also in the business area. Organizations nowadays are on business. If you have this intelligence, you can be either a business analyst or a system analyst. Though business analyst and systems analyst are different roles and perform different task throughout the software development lifecycle, both roles are needed and both are very important in an organization. The business analyst do primarily the documentation and gathering of the business requirements while on the other hand, systems analyst are challenge to provide a link between those business requirements with IT solutions. That is how important for an analyst to be intelligent in the field of business because there are opportunities to choose what type of analyst you want to be.

Easily get along with people.

The end-users are one of the things that a Systems Analyst must consider and gave importance. A Systems Analyst also interacts with the programmers, designers for the software interface, and also their client or the end-users. Hence, it is necessary that a Systems Analyst knows how to negotiate with the people around him. It is a good practice that you know how to get along with others so that for some circumstances or if you need some assessment for the completion of your project you will not be hesitate to approach someone. And the end-users will be comfortable in telling their complaints and other needs.

Able to communicate in writing and orally.

Systems Analyst should be able to communicate both in writing and oral. For the reason that their are informations and ideas presented in writing that you have to read and understand or for some instances you have to write your ideas so that others will understand. Often times, you have to speak and discuss your system, the process and even explain the functionalities of your system. Talking with others is also a tool to convey information effectively.

Good listener and sensitive with what people say.

In terms of software programs, every user has its own requirements. They usually differ in their needs and complaints. That is why it is important that the systems analyst must be a good listener for him/her to know the specific needs of each end user.He/She must be sensitive with their complaints. Accept all the criticism and complements from your users to be able to make your project work well and fit the needs of everyone.

Trusthworthiness

Another quality of a systems analyst is that it is trusted. Systems Analyst plays a vital role in the development of the systems so, if you are tasked as a Systems Analyst, the company trust you and looking forward for your recommendations and observations. If the company trust you, you should also show the organization and to your fellow workers that you deserve to be trusted. Worthy to be trusted is not only a quality of a Systems Analyst but also as a professional. If people saw that you are responsible and trusted, people will appreciate your work.

If those characteristics are present on you, then you will be proud and worthy to be called a good and professional systems analyst. Honestly speaking, some of those characteristics that I mentioned are not present in me so I still cannot consider myself as a good System Analyst. But I am still on the preparation and still aiming to fit on the minimum requirement of a systems analyst. I am not that responsible as of now. Often times I’m careless and do things later. But I guess, if I motivate myself and practice do things as early as I could would help me be a responsible one. Its just a matter of determination. Thinking that I am a BS in Information Technology student, I’m proud to say that I fit a bit on the second mentiond quality of a Systems Analyst. Being knowledgeable of technology doesn’t mean you should master programming. What is essential is that you have a proper general knowledge of its concepts and terms. I am not an expert in business but a systems analyst is not expected to be an expert with that field. You just have to understand decently so that you can accomodate your client who is in the field of business. In school, we have two accounting subjects so I already have some information about business. If I aim to be a System Analyst someday, I should study hard my accounting subjects. I cas assure myself that in the fourth and fifth characteristics I fit.  It would be not that hard to get along with other people. If you do good, I guess it would not be that difficult to interact with others. And I can communicate both in writing and oral way. So, I can conclude that I pass the fourth and fifth declared trait. On the sixth feature, everyone can be a good listener if they would be interested. On the last characteristics stated, Everyone can be trusted if you show to them that you can be.

Aiming to be a Systems Analyst would not be that easy. The skills that was cited above are just few of the the numerous skills that a System Analyst usually have. Analyzing is not an effortless task. It needs enough knowledge and time. A Systems Analyst is required to come up with a successful IT project. It is very important in a company to have it’s own systems analyst to help the organization in their decisions especially on the technical part and even the business field. Changes in the environment are fast-evolving that is why a company needs this person to help the organization cope up and be able to adapt this rapid changes. Be competitive in the world of global market is what all business organizations goal or objective. Hiring a Systems Analyst in an organizations is a good way and a great help to be competitive in this type of world. As of now, I can’t picture out myself be a systems analyst but maybe soon I can fill those requirements, skills and qualities and I can be a good System Analyst.

References:

http://orion.kent.edu/steinberg/sys3.htm
www.wikipedia.com
http://www.techterms.com/definition/systemanalyst
http://it.toolbox.com/blogs/preedman/business-analyst-and-systems-analyst-they-are-different-677

MIS 2: Assignment 5

2009-12-27T05:06:00.000-08:00

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

Organization, as defined by Wikipedia, is a social arrangement which pursues collective goals, controls its own performance, and has a boundary separating it from its environment. One thing that never change is that things are always changing.Change is a thing that we must all face. Other chnges are caused by advances in technology, particularly information technology. Orgnizations nowaday wants to create an organizzational environment that is accessible to change. The fast change in our environment affects every organization. In the range of organizational change, there are different manner of change in an organization. As elaborated from the given question, they are automation, rationalization of procedures, business reengineering and paradigm shifts.

The world is rapidly changing into something that no one can easily predict and rather difficult to calculate. Hundreds of opportunities and drawbacks passed every now and then. Many business companies today are thinking of what would be the best thing to do in order to survive and grow and be competitive with the others. There are numerous techniques, solutions and methods that was declared helpful enough in improving the productivity, quality and customer satisfaction in a business. To really understand organizational change, it would be much recommended that you willl begin by understanding the basic systems and structures in organizations. This also includes the typical terms and roles in an organization.

Discussing the effect of automation, rationalization of procedures, business reengineering and paradigm shifts would be a great help for us to know its role in organizational change. Elaborate their effects on the organization. In automation, there are two factors that are basically responsible for this change. This is based on the Air University Review of Lieutenant Colonel J.R Brown ( July-August 1967 ). First is the totalsystem concept, which is on input and data-base oriented, and the other is the improvement in computer communication links. There are numerous tactics to the subject of automation and its effect on organization. These approaches are concern with: assignment of programmers and systems analyst, management of the data processing functions, the possible change in organizational structure resulting from advancementsin the design and development of informationsystems and the speed. Automation uses the computer to speed up the performance of existing tasks. It is a common form of Information Technology enabled change. With automation, it enable to assist the employees perform their tasks more effieciently and effectively. Rationalization of procedures is the streamlining of existing operating procedures, eliminating obvious bottlenecks so that automation makes operating procedures more efficient. It follos quickly from the early automation. Example of rationalization of procedures is the Toshiba who had rationalize its procedures down to the level of installation manuals and software instruction and had to create standard names and formats for the data items in its global data warehouse. If we would try to think deeper, without a large amoutn of business process rationalization, computer technology would have been useless. Business reengineering or business process reengineering, as defined from my resources, is the main way which organizations become more effecient and modernize. Business process reengineering (BPR) transforms an organization in ways that directly affect performance. It is the key to transforming how people work. To be successful, BPR projects needs to be top down.Business Process Reengineering is the radical redesign of business processes, combining steps to cut waste and eliminating repetitive, paper-intensive tasks to improve cost, quality, and service and to maximize the benefits of information technology. Involves radical rethinking, can change the way organization conducts its business and it strikes fear, its expensive, very risky and its extremely difficult to carry out and manage. BPR builds a prototype of the new process, identify the opportunities in applying Information Technology, and understan and measure the performnce of existing processes. Paradigm Shift is a radical reconceptualization of the nature of busniess and the nature of the organization. Example of a paradigm shift is the e-business. Paradigm shift is new for me. So I surf the internet to know more about paradigm shift. Paradigm shift is defined as a means of revolutionary change in methodologies, systems and structures. It focuses more on the people’s movement. I have read a journal article excerpt that talks about organizational change as paradigm shift:analysis of the change process in a large, public university by Hasan Simsek and Karen Seashore Louis. According to what I have read, the term “paradigm” and “paradigm shift” are part of the popular language of change at the present time. The concept of paradigm is typically used to refer to any set of beliefs that swifts action. The article shares that organizations are defined by their paradigms and the radical change in organizations may be constued or a discontinous shift in this socially constructed reality.

I have read two articles from Yogesh Malhorta, the founder and chief knowledge architect of @Brint.com (a leading online sponsor of high-profile worldwide knowledge management and E-business events), which is entitled “Knowledge Management and New Organizational Forms: A Framework for Business Model Innovation” and “Knowledge Management for E-business Performance: Advancing Information Strategy to ‘Internet Time’”. Both articles discussed about the four type of change in the field of organizational change: automation, rationalization of procedures, business reengineering and paradigm shifts and both piece focuses on knowledge management.

As what I have understood, the impression about knowledge management is common and familiar in an information systems practice and research. Many companies use models of knowledge management that will match the industrial era. In the earlier period of information system, changes are relatively slow and predictable that most formal information system can translate and control. The traditional organizational business model aims to guarantee optimization and efficiencies that was based on developing agreements, junctions and observations. Throughout this age, information systems that was based on programs that will convey effectiveness based on the given business contexts.

Mentioned on the two articles of Malhorta, automation, rationalization of procedures and business reengineering is under the information-processing paradigm of knowledge management. Over the last few decades, information-processing view of knowledge management has been established and common in information systems practice and research. The evolution of the information-processing paradigm during the past four decades to build intelligence and manage change in business functions and processed over three phases: Automation, Rationalization of Procedures, and Reengineering.

The three phases are defined as follows:

Automation
- Increased efficiency of operations.
Rationalization of procedures
- Streamlining of procedures and eliminating obvious bottlenecks that are revealed by automation for enhanced efficiency of operations.
Reengineering
- Radical redesign of business processes that depends upon information technology intensive radical redesign of work flows and work processes.

The following three phases of information-processing paradigm are characterized by technology-intensive, optimization-driven, and efficiency-seeking organizational change. The operation of information technologies in each phases are build on a relatively predictable view of products and services as well as contributory organizational and industrial procedures.

If there is change, there is also risk. So, in an organizational change risks are always associated. Here is a figure that will show the three phases and its risk and relevant return.

If we will observe the figure given, in every phase there is an increase on the risk. In spite of the increase risk and the corresponding returns applicable to the three kinds of information technology allowed organizational change, there was a bit emphasis on business model innovation. The figure illustrates the old world of business. Most Net-based start-ups have realized that although technology is important, business model innovation is the key lever for global market share. Business model innovations represent paradigm shift that characterized not only the transformation at the level of business process and process workflows.

In the new world of business, achievements or disappointment for most project depends on the organization’s ability to continually question and adapt their programmed logic of the way things are done. The new world of business was described as a ‘world of re-everything’. The old world’s guidelines to achieve success would still exist side by side with the new world or world of re-everything. In this new world of business is more on understanding and adapting the unstoppable changing of environment.

I have to illustrations from the two article of Malhorta. And if we will try to observe them both you will see its similarities.

From the article entitled “Knowledge Management for E-Business Performance: Advancing Information Strategy to Internet Time”

From an article entitled “Knowledge Management and New Organization Forms: A Framework for Business”

As what I have observed on the two figures, new business models serve Paradigm shifts. The nature of business and the nature of the organization itself characterize paradigm shifts that are the trademark of business model innovation. An example of a new business models include Amazon.com and eToys, which are relatively new applicant that can threaten the traditional business models personified in organizations. Such business model innovations represent paradigm shifts that are characterized not on the transformation of the level of business process and process workflows but on the fundamental rethinking of the business as well as the dividing lines between an organization and the industry. The paradigm shift gives a bigger risk and larger returns than the combination of the automation, rationalization of procedures and business reengineering, which is part on the old world of business. The estimated risk and returns would be 70 percent.

Essentially, the corporate world is now encountering not only unprecedented pace of change but also radical discontinuities in such change that make yesterday’s best practices tomorrow’s core rigidities. In the new world of E-business, literally everything is up for grabs, including traditional concepts of industries, organizations, products, services, and channels of marketing, sales and distribution. The new world imposes a greater need for ongoing questioning of the programmed logic and for a very high level of adaptability to incorporate dynamic changes into the business and information architecture and grow systems that can be readily adapted for the dynamically changing business environment.

If we check the exhibit 4: From the “old world” to E-World Business: Knowledge Management for “Paradigm Shifts”, from automation wherein we replace humans with machine which means the work of the human is programmed into machine, then points into rationalization, a streamlining bottlenecks, and then point into reengineering, defined as information-technology-intensive radical redesign. These three are categorized as part of the old world, which then point towards the new world, or E-World of Business, a knowledge management for paradigm shifts.

If I were to choose which of the four, automation, rationalization of procedures, business reengineering and paradigm shift, is considered as the most radical type of change I guess all of them are radical but if I were to choose only one that would be the automation. As what I have understood the three first mentioned are all part on the old world of business and paradigm shifts belongs to the world of re-everything. The old world of business is still present on the today’s modern world of business. As the years increase, changes also escalate. However, what I considered as the fundamental or the original type of change is the automation. Why I choose automation? It is because the rapid changes in an organization are caused when human is changed with machines and information technology is always appearing now and then. In addition, without automating everything, there is still change but not that rapid. As what we have observed, everything is automated, computerized and work are becoming easy because of these innovations. Technology nowadays is fast evolving and throughout the years many new inventions and technologies are appearing. Therefore, I assume that the radical type of change in an organization is the automation.

Reference:
http://www.airpower.maxwell.af.mil/airchronicles/aureview/1967/jul-aug/brown.html
http://www.teamtechnology.co.uk/business-process-reengineering.html
http://www.jstor.org/pss/4105562
Articles:
Malhorta, Y. (2000). Knowledge Management for E-Business Performance: Advancing Information Strategy to Internet Time. @Brint.com LLC, USA.
Malhorta Y. (2000). Knowledge Management and New Organization Forms: A Framework for Business Model Innovation. @Brint.com LLC, USA.

MIS 2: Assignment 4

2009-12-27T05:01:00.000-08:00

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

Being invited by the university’s president to prepare for an Information System plan for our university is a priviledge but it would not be that easy to conduct and create an IS plan. But having this chance is an advantage and opportunity for me ,as an Information Technology student of the said university, to be able to know and examine the processes of the university’s infomation system.

But before hand, let us have some review of some key points that was already discussed and defined in the previous assignments. Let’s define Information System, Planning, Strategice planning and Strategic Information System plan.

Information System.
As I explore the internet for definitions, I have gathered different ideas about information system. As what I have understand, Information Systems were thought to be similar with corporate data processing and was considered as some back-room oepration in support of day-to-day ordinary task.

Planning.
As described by the wikipedia, “Planning in organizations and public policy is both the organizational process of creating and maintaining a plan; and the psychological process of thinking about the activities required to create a desired goal on some scale. As such, it is a fundamental property of intelligent behavior. This thought process is essential to the creation and refinement of a plan, or integration of it with other plans, that is, it combines forecasting of developments with the preparation of scenarios of how to react to them”.

Strategic Planning.
According to a very reliable source, which is the Wikipedia, 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.It is the formal consideration of an organization’s future course. Various techniques can be utilized in strategic planning. This include SWOT analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opprtunities, and Threats), PEST analysis (Political, Economic, Social, and Technological), STEER analysis (Socio-cultural, Technological, Economic, Ecological, and Regulatory factors) and EPISTEL (Environment, Political, Informatic, Social, Technological, Economic and Legal).

Information System Planning.
Refering to what I have understand on my researches and looking back to what I have post in the previous assignment, Information System Plan can also be compared as a strategic planning in a management or organization. In developing an IS plan you need to formalized your objectives, priorities and authorization and must identify what specific project you wnat in the future and especially, it should be flexible so that for some circumstances it can be adjusted if necessary. An IS plan should be useable, timely, maintainable, quality and reproducible.

Strategic Information System Planning.
According to an article of Somendra Pant and Cheng Hsu entitled “Strategic Information System Planning: A review” that I have read after surfing the internet, Strategic Information System (SISP) is the analysis of a corporation’s information and processes using business informationmodels together with the evaluation of risk, currentneeds and requirements. They noted that SISP is a management function and not a technical one. SISP is used to identify the best targets for purchasing and installing new management information systems and help an organization maximize the return on its information Technology investment. It is a major change for organizations, from planning for information systems based on users’ demands to those based on business strategy. Another definition that I have read about SISP is from the article of Albert L. Lederer and Vijay Sethi entitled “The Implementation of Strategic Information System Planning Methodologies”. On the abstract of there documentation, they are able to define SISP. It says that Strategic Information Systems Planning (SISP) is the process of deciding the objectives for organizational computing and identifying potential computer applications which the organization should implement. This article gives a thorough definition of SISP and then illustrates it with three methodologies.

Planning for an Information System always start by identifying with what the customers and the organization needs. So, in planning for an Information System in the university it is necessary to equate with what the university, the faculty and staff and especially the students’ needs. And as what I have observed after staying in the university for almost four years, there are numerous of complaints from the student. Even I, I have some moan that the university will soon listen and be implemented if possible. I do agree that the university gave quality education and are able to produced competitive gradutes but there are some things that the university are not able to give to the student, faculty and staff. Not enough facilities and classrooms are just few of the things the university must look after for the benefit of everyone.

If I will be invited to prepare an IS plan, I would recommend that I’m going to make a Strategic Information System Planning. Planning is very vital for an organization. Doing a strategic way of planning is more reliable because of the fast-evolving changes in our environment. An information system plan is mostly similar with strategic planning. It is important to formulized your goals, vision, mission and objectives first. And since the university has its own vision, mission and goals, we can now procede with our strategic information system planning.

As the years had passed, numerous information technologies, methodologies for system development and new ideas of information system are appearing. The only thing that never change is that things are always changing. In fact, more and more new hardwares and softwares are emerging. Everyone are aiming to be updated with what is the new trend in technologies, softwares, programming languages and others because we want to. That is why when we plan, we have to make sure that it is flexible enough to be able to adapt and be competitive with the rapid changes in our environment. That is why I want to organize a Strategic Information System Planning to our university.

On the article of Pant and Hsu, they have mentioned there that the evolution of information system deals with the three-era model of John Ward,et al.(1990). They said that these eras are related and significant. The three eras are as follows and is defined with its characteristics:
60s : Data Processing (DP) – standalone computers, remote from users, cost reduction function.
70s & 80s : Management Information systems (MIS) – distributed process, interconnected, regulated by management services, supporting the business, user driven.
80s & 90s : Strategic Information Systems (SIS) – networked, integrated systems, available and supportive to users, relate to business strategy, enable the business – business driven.

The overall applications of the three mentioned era model of Information System are need to be planned and managed for its future contribution to the business. This applications are categorized as strategic (applications which are critical for the future success), Turnaround (applications which may be of future strategic importance), Factory (applications which are critical to sustaining existing business) and support (applications which improve management and performance but are not critical to the business).

It is not an easy task to make a Strategic Information System Planning, which is in the present SIS era, because different processes are inserted in the organization’s business processes. Bear in mind that these systems are required to accommodate all the demands of the organization, serving the goals, complaints of the costumers, and as well as gathering the organization’s data processing and MIS needs. The point is that planning an Information System is not merely about aiming to cut the cost but it is essential to weigh all the benefits that the organization may have.

Strategic Information System Planning Methodologies.
Often times, an organization dont know how to act the tasks in Strategic Information System Planning because it is difficult and complex. According to Pant and Hsu, Vitale, et al.(1986) classify SISP methodologies in to two categories: impact and alignment. Those SISP methodologies that helps construct and align new uses of Information Technology belongs to impact category. While on the alignment category are those methodologies that support Information System objectives and organizational goals.

Impact metthodologies consist of Value Chain Analysis and Critical Success Factor Analysis. While reading on the article of Hsu and Pant, it was stated there that “According to Michael Porter (1984), every firm is a collection of activities that are performed to design, produce, market, deliver, and support its product. All these activities can be represented using a value chain.” Current rapid technological change in information system and information technology is a competitive advantage in an organization who have a better technology than its competitors. Value chain analysis is a form of business activity analysis that helps in formulating information system that would probably increase the organization’s profit. As what I have understood, the core potency of this type of methodology is that it concentrates on direct value adding activities of an organization and in this way throws the right of information system into domain of adding value than cutting the cost. Though it sound useful enough in an organization,there are few drawbacks in a value chain analysis method. Its good to hear that value chain analysis provides higher information for the organization but it fails deliver the development and implementation issues that may occur and fails to identify the firm’s data structure. Critical success factor analysis is considered as an impact methodology but it can also be an alignment tactic. It focuses on the core information requirements in an organization and business unit. And the best thihg with a critical success factor analysis is that it is easy to implement and can be done with a lesser number of resources. Still, there are some weaknesses in this method. It fails to classify the data architecture of an organization and do not draw attention with value added features of an information system.

Business System Planning (BSP), Strategic System Planning (SSP), and Information Engineering are categorized as part of alignment methodology. Business System Planning was developed by IBM and it combines top down planning and bottom up implementation. We already recognize that in an organzation or every orgainzation has its own vision, mission, goals and objectives. In this methodology, it mainly focuses on the business processes of an organization. Every business processes are analyzed for their data needs and after that data classes are then identified. And if there are similar data classes, they are combined to develop a database. There are several steps in Business System Planning that needs to be followed orderly: Gaining Executive Commitment, Preparing for the Study, Starting the Study, Defining Business Processes, Defining Data Classes, Analyzing Current Systems Support, Determining the Executive Perspective, Defining Findings and Conclusions, Defining the Information Architecture, Determining Architectural Priorities, Reviewing Information Resources Management, Developing Recommendations and Action Plan,and Reporting Results. The study produces vast amount of information. Usually, BSP places more importance on the top management and the executive involvement on their analysis. When we look at the top down strategy of a Business System Planning, it looks similar with the Critica Success Factor Analysis method. It is for the reason that it build up an overall knowledge on business plans and supports the Information System needs through discussions. The disadvantages of having this methodology is that it solemnly expect a degree experience in Information Technology within its planning team, there would be risk in connecting the gap of the top down planning and bottom up implementation, and it is timely and needs more effort for its successful implementation. Strategic Systems Planning was developed by Robert Holland which is almost similar with Business Systems Planning. It is also called PROplanner. With this method, it characterized a business functional model through investigating the major functional areas in business. After definign the business function model, you will be able to derived your data architecture and new systems with its implementation schedule will be derived having the data architecture as its basis. One thing that SSP is different from BSP is its automated way of storage, manipulation, and presentation and handling of the datas being collected during the SISP process. SSP has its own steps that should be followed accordingly: Analyze major functional areas, Develop a business functional model, Determine information requirments, Combine information requirements into generic data entities and subject databases, Derive IS architecture, and Define new systems and their implementation schedule. Information Engineering (IE) was a method developed by James Martin (1982). This method offer several techniques that would help in building enterprises, data and process models. As what I have observed, Information Engineering is more on technical approach than any other SISP methodologies that I have mentioned earlier. All its task are relying on the structured techniques which relates on the planning, analysis, design and construction of enterprise information system. IE differs from other methodologies because of its automated tools that would link to the output of the methodology to the succeeding systems development efforts. This reason is considered as the major strength of Information Engineering methodology. Its weakness would be long time planning exercise and the difficulty of finding a team leader that would perfectly fit to its criteria.

An organization generally apply one out of a number of methodologies in order to perform a Strategic Information System Planning studies. But whatever we choose, we cannot dehy the fact that risks are always there. You may encounter problems in the analysis or implementation phase. Certain problems may occur on the structure and implementation part. But the commonly identified problem of the IS managers in the implementation of one of these three alignment methodolgies is the failure to secure the top management commitment for executing the outputs, the requirement of substantial further analysis and the difficulty in looking for a good team leader.

If I were to decide what motehodology I would use is that I prefer to have a method that have both as impact and alignment categorization. Probelm are always there. Risk can never be changed because risk are always coming. One thing that I would focus with is to be able to find a way that will help me face the risk and pursue my IS plan. Technologies today are evrywhere that is why I need to have a method that is willing to adapt with the rapid growth of breakthroughs. Comparing the different methodologies, I guess I would be using a Strategic System Planning. I choose this because out of the three, it focuses with the ddata, define a data architecture and it has an automated support ,which the BSP lacks. SSP is almost the same with IE but I prefer to choose this because I am aiming to expedite the implementation of my Information System plan. If I would go with IE, it is defined that it needs longer time to be finished. So it takes time on the implementation. With regards to steps in Strategic System Planning, it is quite the same with a Business System Planning. What differs is the word automated. Business System Planning dont have an automated support while on the other hand, Strategic System Planning uses automated design tools. With this method, users are guided with the on-line data collection and maintenance. In this model, there is already a software that would produce the reports and provides a data dictionary interface for sharing SSP data. And comparing to its individual steps, the Strategic System Plannig has the lesser steps that needs to be followed.

Improving a Strategic Information System Plan is onee of the major challenge that an Information System executives are facig until the present days. That is why, there is always a need of effective planning ahead of time so that as early as it would take, you will be able to realize the potential collision of computer-based information systems. Problems and risk may come in the middle of your ongoing Strategic Information System Plan or on its implementation but you can never avoid it. Actually, there are four ways on how to treat the risk. It includes: tolerate the risk, terminate the risk, treat the risk , and transfer the risk. If risk would come you must know how to face it. Its up to you if what would you do with the risk. Either you tolerate it, terminate, treat or transfer. There are some risk that is not applicable to be tolerated so you have to look for another way on how you could face it. But, every plan would be pursued and be fastly implemented if evryone would cooperate. I think that would be the best and number one step. What part would you be in the implementation or even in the analysis phase of Strategic Information System Plan, you must be cooperative to avoid more conflicts. There are some instances that the organization had a problem with resistance to change. Even if you already know how to solve the organization’s problem, you know what would be the best solution for the company to be more competitive with the rapid change in information but if the company resist to accept that possible or recommended solution everything would end up nothing. That is why there is a need for a cooperation between the top management, the users, the IS executives, the systems analyst and everyone who will be involved.The influence of new information technology has been one reason why organizations want to have their own Information System.

Adapting to changes is not an easy task especially in an organization. In changes there are risk. With new information technologies, the risk in an organization is the budget or cost. If the university will be more cooperative and aggressive to adapt with the rapid changes and wants to have an Information System of its own, it would be a lesser effort if they will be willing to give the required resources, enough cost and will be eager to give time for this would be a good thing to be able to ake your Strategic Information System Plan applicable, successful and reliable. If the university want to be globally competitive and aims to be the premier university in the South-east Asia, then they should be supportive and updated with what is new in the world of Information Technology.

References:
Pant, S. & Hsu, C.,1995. Strategic Information System Planning: A review. In: 1995 Information Resources Management Association International Conference, May 21-24, 1995, Atlanta, Georgia.

Article from Albert L. Lederer & Vijay Sethi : “The Implementation of Strategic Information Systems Planning Methodologies”

www.wikipedia.com

MIS 2 : Assignment 2

2009-12-17T18:45:00.000-08:00

Assignment 2:

What should be the nature of relationship between a business plan and an IS plan?

Planning is very important for an organization. As described by the wikipedia, “Planning in organizations and public policy is both the organizational process of creating and maintaining a plan; and the psychological process of thinking about the activities required to create a desired goal on some scale. As such, it is a fundamental property of intelligent behavior. This thought process is essential to the creation and refinement of a plan, or integration of it with other plans, that is, it combines forecasting of developments with the preparation of scenarios of how to react to them”.There are different kinds of plan. Some is mentioned already in the question for our second assignment in Management Information System. These are Business plan and Information System plan. But before I talk about the nature of relationship between the business plan and the Information Sytem plan, let me define first the two mentioned plans. What is a business plan? What is Information System plan?

First is business plan. According to wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, a business plan is a formal statement of a set of business goals, the reasons why they are believed attainable, and the plan for reaching those goals. It may also contain background information about the organization or team attempting to reach those goals. Business plans may be internally or externally focused. Externally focused plans target goals that are important to external stakeholders, particularly financial stakeholders. They typically have detailed information about the organization or team attempting to reach the goals. With for-profit entities, external stakeholders include investors and customers. External stake-holders of non-profits include donors and the clients of the non-profit's services. For government agencies, external stakeholders include tax-payers, higher-level government agencies, and international lending bodies such as the IMF, the World Bank, various economic agencies of the UN, and development banks. Internally focused business plans target intermediate goals required to reach the external goals. They may cover the development of a new product, a new service, a new IT system, a restructuring of finance, the refurbishing of a factory or a restructuring of the organization. An internal business plan is often developed in conjunction with a balanced scorecard or a list of critical success factors. This allows success of the plan to be measured using non-financial measures. Business plans that identify and target internal goals, but provide only general guidance on how they will be met are called strategic plans.
It was mentioned above about setting up business goals. What are these business goals? According to Wikipedia again, the business goals may be defined for for-profit or for non-profit organizations. For-profit business plans typically focus on financial goals, such as profit or creation of wealth. Non-profit and government agency business plans tend to focus on organizational mission which is the basis for their governmental status or their non-profit, tax-exempt status, respectively—although non-profits may also focus on optimizing revenue. In non-profit organizations, creative tensions may develop in the effort to balance mission with "margin" (or revenue).

Business plans are considered as a decision-making tool that will be very helpful in an organization. As I have surf the internet, I have learned that the content of a certain business plan is not fixed for the reason that the contents and its formats are identified by the goals and the audience or the stakeholders. Every business plan should contain the necessary information needed in deciding whether they would pursue their goal or not. Usually, a business plan is very confidential and essential. Considered as confidential since the structure of a business plan includes some important issues about the company like marketing plan, market analysis, financial plan, operations plan, competitive analysis and more. It is measured as a top secret of a certain organization. If you are a business analyst and you come up with a good business plan, it’s already a plus and very helpful for the company to grow and be competitive. Having a business plan doesn’t mean you can already assure your success but it’s a guarantee that if you have a good and flexible business plan you can lessen the failures that you may encounter.

Next is Information System Plan. What is an Information System plan? As I have surf the internet for a definition of information system plan, I have read a paper by Michael M. Gorman that is published on September 1, 1999 and published in TDAN.com on the same month and year which tackles about information system plan. As what I have read, he mentioned five distinct characteristics of a quality Information Sytem Plan before it would be useful. These are timely, useable, maintainable, quality and reproducible. He also describe the following characteristics on his paper. The Information System plan must be timely. An IS plan that is created long after it is needed is useless. In most all cases, it makes no sense to take longer to plan work than to perform the work planned. The IS plan must be useable. It must be so for all the projects as well as for each project. The IS plan should exist in sections that once adopted can be parceled out to project managers and immediately started. The IS plan must be maintainable. New business opportunities, new computers, business mergers, etc. all affect the IS plan. The IS plan must support quick changes to the estimates, technologies employed, and possibly even to the fundamental project sequences. Once these changes are accomplished, the new IS plan should be just a few computer program executions away. While the IS plan must be a quality product, no IS plan is ever perfect on the first try. As the IS plan is executed, the metrics employed to derive the individual project estimates become refined as a consequence of new hardware technologies, code generators, techniques, or faster working staff. As these changes occur, their effects should be installable into the data that supports IS plan computation. In short, the IS plan is a living document. It should be updated with every technology event, and certainly no less often than quarterly. The IS plan must be reproducible. That is, when its development activities are performed by any other staff, the IS plan produced should essentially be the same. The IS plan should not significantly vary by staff assigned.

Every organizations nowadays has its own systems and own strategic plans. And because of the fast-evolving changes in our environment nowadays, oragnizations must have a flexible strategic plans to able to adapt the possible transformations. As what I have understood after reading the said paper, information system plan is the plan by which databases and all the information systems of a particular enterprise is accomplished in a timely manner. This kind of project decides the flow for the implementation of a specific information system. Mr. Gorman said that the goal of the strategy is to deliver the most valuable business informtion at the earliest time possible in the most cost-effective manner. The focus or the scope of an IS plan is not only on one information system but the entire information systems for the organization.An information system involve many essential functionalities and procedures therefore a company must have a good and adaptable information system plan to be able to have a good and reliable business information as an output.

Planning for an information system begins with an identification of what the company and the customers needs. An information system plan can also be compared as a strategic planning in a management or organization. In developing an IS plan you need to formalized your objectives, priorities and authorization and must identify what specific project you wnat in the future and especially, it should be flexible so that for some circumstances it can be adjusted if necessary. I agree with the five distinct chracteristics that Gorman have identified. The value of having an information system in an enterprise is very essential and useful. And a company’s IS plan should evolved, maintained and flexible with the fats chanigng environment.

Now, what is the nature of relationship between the two mentioned plans above? Definitely, information system plan is related with business plan. One thing that never chnage is that things are always changing. New hardwares and softwares are appearing every now and then. That is why company’s are trying to be competitive and be updated of the new trends in the world of Information Technology. In connecting the two said plans is just the same when we compare business with IT. Business involves IT while IT has to do with business. As a result, both of them can benefit with each other. Typically, business plans in an organization are associated with information system plans. When planning for the company’s benefit, there are a lot of things that needs to be consider like: the vision,mission, goals and objectives of the organization, the confidential and essential informations which includes the marketing plan, market analysis, financial plan, operations plan, competitive analysis, the information system of the organization and the etc.

Information System department, Management Information System or IT depatrment are just part of an organization that is mostly responsible for the information system and the systems development and maintenance. It plays a vital role of the company. When there are some changes in your business the IS should adapt that change. So, when an organizations business plans change there would also be some changes with your IS plan that is why you need to have a good and flexible plan for possible circumstances that the company will surely benefit. Both plans should be able to achieve the vision, mission and goals of the organization and also both should be concern with the current structure and operations of the organizations environment. Information System helps the organizations business processes through automation. By automating some parts of the business processes it makes the work more easier and a lesser errors and redundancies may encounter. That is why the organization’s IS plan should align with the organization’s Business Plan. I have mentioned earlier taht is actualy according to my source that business plan must contain the background information of the team attempting to reach the business goals. An information system department is considered as one team in an organization whose task is concerned with the hardwares and softwares of the organization. That is why business plan connects with the IS plan.

Business plan involves the financial and operations plan. When we do an Information System Plan for an organization it is always acquired with cost. Cost for the study and analysis in building up an IS plan and the money that would merely engage when your Information System plan wuould be implemented. The cost for new hardwares, new softwares,payment for the systems analyst, programmers will also be reflected in the business plan. The fact that cost is always there but it is also for the benefit of the organization.

Unquestionably, the use of the information technology in businesses helps the organization in achieving its goals and its already a plus for an organization to be aggressive and competitive enough in the field of global market. Whether it is a business plan or an Information Sytem plan, we sould always remember that in planning we always have to make sure that our plans are useable, maintainable, quality, flexible and understandable. No one perfects a plan on the first try. There is a what we could Strategic Information Systems Planning where in it is the process of ensuring the alignment between an Information System plan and its objectives and a business plan with its objectives also. It is the method of identifying an Information System that will provide the organization with a competitive edge with the other organizations.That is why the two diffreent plans are actually connected. Don’t limit yourself with the resources that is present and would be helpful in developing your plan. And make sure that your plan would be a great help in leading your organization in to success.

References:
www.wikipedia.com
http://www.tdan.com/view-articles/5262

MIS 2: Assignment 1

2009-11-29T05:15:00.000-08:00

Think about yourself worthy to be called as IT professional, how you see yourself 10 years from now, what are your strategies to get there? At least 3000 words

After reading the question for our first assignment in this said subject, I really had a hard time on thinking of what would be the best answer for this. Thinking about myself if I would be worthy to be called as an IT professional in the near future and seeing myself 10 years from now is not an easy task because thinking those things will affect my plan for myself and for my future career.

As an Information Technology (IT) student, am also aiming to be a professional someday. When you do your job, you cannot easily say that you’re already professional. As what I have understood about professionalism it is about doing more than just your job. Professionals are responsive. If you are a pure professional you should know your work well and you must satisfy the needs of your costumer, your boss or even your fellow employee. You should master the art of handling more than one customer at a time while giving them the right services that they want. Professionals should be knowledgeable. It’s true! As an IT professional you must know what your field is and in what field you are master with. You should be updated with the latest innovations and the latest news in the world of Information Technology. You should have enough knowledge that would help your company grow and be competitive with the other bigger companies. Another behavior of a Professional is that they care about what they do. Being knowledgeable with your job is not enough you should also be concern with your job. As an IT professional you should be able to give not only the services that your clients want but the right and perfect services that you could ever give. It is a quality that says we maybe individuals that are competing but when certain circumstances exist we must also show that we are united. The behaviors of being a professional maybe simple to think but what’s not simple are the consistent application of it. It takes effort and proper discipline.

If I want to be recognized as an IT professional in the future I must have some qualities that is present to a true professionals. First quality is trustworthiness. Well, it is very significant to gain the trust of your costumer, your company and your fellow worker. Knowing how to talk to one another is more than a mannerism but it is also the ability to motivate one another to create a good result and you and your fellow employee will be in good terms. When trust is present, you can do your work with no conflict and can gain more costumers that will lead your company and yourself to success. Another quality of a professional is that one should be helpful. Being an IT professional you should be knowledgeable with your work and you should know how to help. One great tool to show that you are willing to help is through negotiating. However, be sure that you negotiate fairly because knowing how to make deals is an essential skill to the success of a professional. If those qualities and behaviors that are mentioned are present, with no doubt you are not just a professional but a person that gets paid well and has a balanced life and you stand out from the crowd and grow rewarding and you can have a satisfying careers. Once you’re truly a professional you can just go anywhere and people will appreciate your work.

Information Technology is not only for creating an environment for the benefit of an organization to advance but also helping them to adjust with the enormous changes outside their own boundaries. IT professionals are responsible for keeping databases, computer and security programs for the entire companies. Now, back in the question, am I worthy to be called an IT professional? As of now, am not sure but having those ideas of what would be the best behavior and good qualities of a professional would be a big help in molding myself so that in the future I would be proud to call myself worthy to be called an IT professional. The duties and responsibilities of an IT professional is very vital and difficult (I guess) so therefore, I should know the field of my expertise since organizations nowadays are relying mostly on the technologies.

Ten years from now. What would I be? A simple question but needs an answer that would be part of my plan for my life. There are enormous job available for an Information Technology student like me. Like, lead application developer whose work is to manage software development teams in design, development, coding, testing and debugging of applications, data modeler the one who analyze the organizational data requirements and create models of data flow, Network manager who is responsible for directing the day-to-day operations and maintenance of the firm’s networking technology, IT consultant who works in partnership with clients, advising them how to use information technology in order to meet their business objectives or overcome problems and also work to improve the structure and efficiency and of an organization’s IT systems and they may be involved in a variety of activities, including marketing, project management, client relationship management and systems development, a web designer that are responsible for creating the look and feel of the World Wide Pages for a client’s web site and may take part in the initial planning of a Web site, meeting with the client to discuss ideas for the layout and organization of the site, the types of colors or images to use (photos, illustrations, videos, etc.), and other matters concerning overall graphic design, programmer the usual and primary job for an IT student who work with the user on development of the software specification. Ability to create and document a conceptual and detailed design and write a code based on a conceptual description of the business logic, or a business analyst who plays a key role in Technology Solutions project from an analytical perspective and analyzes plan documentation, defining and documenting project requirements, and business processes. There are numerous profession offered for a graduate in information technology but the questions are, am I capable of doing those kinds of jobs? Do I have the skill? If I dream one of those jobs that I mentioned, what would be the best plan in achieving that goal or how can I make that dream come true?

One of our instructors told us the essence of planning. Sometimes we consider that we fall short into the ground with our dreams or goals in life because we fail to plan but what we actually did was we plan to fail. He told us that we plan but what bothers there is that we plan to fail and that’s the core why we never achieve our goals. We should plan well to hit the goal, to stay focus and to be able to manage ourselves. There are a lot of ways on how to plan your own career what matters most is on how you deal with the fast changing environment and on how you discipline yourself. Everyone can be what they aim to be if and only if he plans properly and effectively. How you see yourself ten years from now is like plotting your upcoming career that you can accomplish in a maximum span of time of ten years or one decade. Ten years from now I would be a Senior Web Designer or if am not lucky enough with that field I’ll try to fit myself as a Business Analyst. As an Information Technology student I aim to be one of the IT professionals here in the Philippines.

If I plan I should also set some strategies or activities that would help me attain my target. Implementing particular strategies would not be simple because we cannot foretell exactly what would happen next. It should be flexible so that if certain circumstances exist we have some alternative tactics that can assist us to surpass and can still led us nearer to our goal. An effective strategy needs proper discipline. Setting up strategies would never be effective if we don’t discipline ourselves. Not only our strategies are flexible but we ourselves should also be flexible enough so that we can face the dilemmas and maybe barriers along the way.

When I think of steps that would be of great help in achieving what I want for my future, it reminds me of the movie “My Big Love”( I hope everyone of us have seen this movie ^_^ ). In the movie the leading actress (Ms. Toni Gonzaga) has 5 steps to make you fit. As I can still remember, the five steps are GOAL SETTING, START TODAY, NO SHORTCUTS, MOTIVATE YOURSELF and lastly BE HAPPY :-D . These steps are intended for those who aim to be slim and physically fit but it can also be applied in molding your future career. Well, these steps could be part of my strategies to attain my target profession. The steps are simple and easy to understand.

First we have goal setting. I have said earlier that ten years from now I would be an IT professional. I aim to be a Senior Web Designer or a Business Analyst for my future career. It may be easy to set up your goals but you have to make sure that when you set your goals you know what are the possible risk and obstacles along the way. You should be patient, focus and disciplined. When we plan we always have to set our vision, mission, goals and objectives. We have to set our priorities.

Second, start today. Absolutely! We should not start tomorrow, next day, next month or next year but TODAY. After you have set your goals you should start right away. In view of the fact that I am still a student, I must study hard and finish schooling. Currently, I am a fourth year college student but third year in standing. Why? Because I fail my subject (Computer programming I) and with that made me realize that I receive a failure grade for the reason that I lack self discipline and though I aim to pass but unfortunately what I did was I plan to fail. When I say finish schooling, it’s not merely about having a diploma. Since I have to extend hopefully a year here in the university, I should make sure that I will pass my grades (get higher grades if ever^_^) and start to motivate and discipline myself. Encouraging myself to work harder with my studies and restraint myself to stay focus and avoid those temptations that would block my way in accomplishing my plan.

The third on the step is no shortcuts. No one takes place on the top without experiencing the bottom. You can never skip one step in acquiring your goal. Every IT professionals always start from the scratch. What I mean here is that in order to progress and become a professional you should perceive all the necessary steps needed. These may serve as a preparation for you to be commendable on what you will attain in the future. Doing shortcuts just to get hold of their ambition are persons who are lazy and dependent person. Nowadays, most of the people depends their luck to those people who are already on the higher position in a certain company for them to have a job. Though you earn your job on that way you still have to show everyone that you deserve and capable with your job. I’m aiming to be a professional so I have to finish my schooling first. Study well and staying focus on it for me to understand all my subjects. When I graduate, I have to gain experiences. I should start looking for a job that would fit my interest and my field of expertise. It would also be recommendable if I took some studies that would enhance my expertise and since I’m aiming to be a senior web designer someday I have to make sure that I fit that position. If I want to be a senior web designer I have to master my field. I ought to have the required skills like outstanding design collections and ability to manage multiple projects. Since Web Design (from the word itself) creates and designs webs therefore there is a great need of having enough fluency in using photoshop and illustrators. I must have a hardcore experience in using flash, Adobe Photoshop, and any related software in graphic design. It is a requisite that I must be proficient and specialized and mostly advance on the different web application or programming software like PHP, MySql, javascript, HTML, XML, XHTML, CSS, ASP, AJAX, Action Scrip and etc. Moreover, I must also experience and learn how to use and create 3D modeling with the use of some tools like Maya, 3DS Max, Blender, etc. And as a web designer I must be informed and familiarize the web designs standards. On the other hand, I also aim to be a business analyst someday. The business analyst plays a key role in Technology Solutions projects from an analytical point of view. In this position, the candidate or applicant will practice the fundamentals of systems analysis, design, and testing of Technology Solutions projects as assigned, acting as a relationship between the clients and the system developers. Business analyst will work with Divisional and National Consultants and Project Managers to investigate, plan, analyze and develop cost effective solutions for e-commerce and Human Resource business issues. A professional Business Analyst will work closely with Technical Leads and System Developers on system development projects to ensure the systems are meeting the clients’ needs and expectations. And he/she should have strong analytical skills and have experience in one or more of the following areas: Health and Welfare Administration, Pension Administration, HR Self-Service, HR Shared Services, or HRIS/Payroll. All of our work is team-based with the focus on delivering the highest levels of client satisfaction, and therefore strong interpersonal skills are required within the team, as well as with the client. One reason why I aim this work because in this field you are also required to have some travel (weeh, that’s interesting) and may include long-term projects of 12 months or more. Those things that I have mentioned will serve as my guide in acquiring my desired goal in the future. I may have to options but if I would be eager I know I can make may dreams happen.

Next step which is the Fourth step is motivation. I already mentioned the different requirements, skills and behaviors of an IT professional and my vision career. Next, I have to motivate myself. Inspire myself to work hard and study well. I have to mold myself to be capable of slowly achieving my dreams by making sure that I have filled all the required applications to be a best and professional web designer or a business analyst. You can have persons to help you motivate yourself. For me, my family is my inspiration. They are my main impulse why I aim high so that I can help them and I know they are the first persons who will appreciate my achievements. I have to stimulate myself so that my plans won’t fail because I don’t want to plan for failure.

And lastly, be happy. A simple step but it means a lot. If you aim something make sure you are happy with it and would be happy for it. Pointing toward your target goal doesn’t mean you would always be serious and focus on it. I should also make some time to enjoy myself and do what I want to do that would make myself happy and in high spirit so that I will be more eager to motivate myself in achieving my goals. A work of an Information Technology professional is a serious task and needs a lot of brainstorming (I guess. Heheh^_^) therefore I have to manage some time to take off all the stress, anxiety and pressure.

There are several steps you can do in achieving your goal. We have different idea on what would be the best thing to do first and next. We often times change our mind. Just make sure that you know and love what you are doing. Because of the fast evolving technology, people and our environment change. No one knows what will happen in the future therefore we should be flexible with the coming changes in our self and in our surroundings. These changes may affect our plan that’s why you must adapt those changes and motivate yourself so that you will not be tired in aiming your goal. In the future, if you already have your jobs learn to love it and appreciate what you have achieved. But for now, learn to love your course and don’t hesitate to explore new things that would be helpful for you in the coming future and don’t be limited on what you know. Think Big and Dream Big. Who knows? You will be more than what you think you will be. Just don’t forget to pray. Pray not because you want something but pray for thanking the Lord for giving you time to do what to you want to do and pray for enlightenment and patience. That is the number one tool that will help us all the way. And if ever you have achieved what you desired learn to say thanks to the people who help you and to the almighty one. Hopefully, soon I would be worthy in what I wanted to be.

References:
http://www.careerbuilder.com/Article/CB-774-Who-is-Hiring-Top-10-Jobs-in-Information-Technology/?ArticleID=774&cbRecursionCnt=1&cbsid=b9da424f3cbe4fd3ae85d1c9fd8576ef-312003463-RS-4&ns_siteid=ns_us_g_jobs_for_information__
http://www.jobsdb.com/PH/EN/Job.asp?R=JDBP130524799
http://www.prospects.ac.uk/p/types_of_job/it_consultant_job_description.jsp
http://careers.stateuniversity.com/pages/142/Web-Designer.html
http://www.iqrc.com/ProgrammerJobDescription02nobenefits.htm

Eighteenth Post: MIS : Information Environment

2009-10-03T20:04:00.000-07:00

Assignment 9:
Identify an information environment of your choice and write an essay to address the following questions: (3000 words)
• What should be your role within this environment?
• How can the principles of information organization and representation help you in performing this role?
• What are the challenges facing you in performing the role? How will you address these challenges?

Our task is to identify an information environment and write an easy to address the following question: What should be our role in our chosen environment? How can the principles of information organization and representation help you in performing this role? What are the challenges facing you in performing the role? How will I address these challenges?

To begin with, let me define first the information environment. According to what I have searched on the web, the Information Environment (IE) is to develop and provide services which enable people to find and manage information efficiently and effectively in their learning, teaching or research. The information resources which people need are very varied - books, journals, research papers, teaching resources, videos, maps and more - and while they might be in any format they are increasingly digitalized.The aim of the Information Environment is to help provide convenient access to resources for research and learning through the use of resource discovery and resource
management tools and the development of better services and practice. The Information Environment aims to allow discovery, access and use of resources for research and learning irrespective of their location.

Information technology is a powerful tool for meeting environmental objectives and promoting sustainable development. Nowadays, technology plays a vital role in our daily life. Due to fast development of technology these days, information can be acquired everywhere, anytime and
anywhere we want.

An information technology helps or supports the mission of an organization. To do this, Almost all organization hire an IT Professionals in order to help their organizations’ management understand and manage their uncertainties.

Information environment might be defined as an organization having there own information system. Moreover, every organization today have there own information system since we can’t deny the fact that we are now living in a world wherein computers and different innovations are all around
and are most commonly used in any establishment.

In the present world, information environment are countless and are too big that they are able to span the whole world. Identifying an organization that has its leading and finest information environment in which that said organization applies management information systems and information technology expertly and effectively will be a difficult and complicated thing if we would think of a simple and small corporation. But as an Information Technology student, I can only think of a simple and ideal Information environment that would nourish me with all the new information.

Journeying back on the time that I’m still thinking of what course to take, it’s already one of my goals to get a job that would fit my interest. At first, I thought of taking up accountancy, but because of my fathers encouragement I enroll into BS in Information Technology. Am not quite
sure before of what IT is and what kind of environments I would be dealing with after I graduated with this course. But staying in this institution for years and still aiming to graduate, I can now predict or analyze what would be the environments that probably I’ll be dealing with. I took up IT therefore I have to work in an IT environment and be involved with the IT people and IT world.
I’m hoping that one day; I’ll be one of those people who are working on big and well-known companies. We get a job to work and to earn but another thing to remember that we also work to learn. Yes, definitely! In fact, learning is unstoppable. I’m not yearning to work abroad even if there are more and greater opportunities especially on our field. But if an opportunity takes place, I would definitely grab that one. It’s a privilege for us Filipino’s to show how intellectually-giant we are. Having a simple life and be happy is what I aim in life.

As I remember the discussions and reporting that we have in our Management Information System, in an organization Information System plays a vital role for them. The Management Information System department and IT department is considered as the heart and soul of a company. If I would be ask what profession I would like to take, well, that would be a tough decision to make because nobody knows what will happen in the future. But I do dream that I would be working with those jobs related to my interest. Well, I guess dreaming is not that bad? Whenever I tried to visualize that I would be an IT professional looking for an avenue where I can utilize every information that I
acquired in all the yeas that I have studied in the university and looking forward for further opportunity that I can explore more about information technology.

As a whole, am looking for a job suitable for the degree that I have earned and also suits my interest. But the conflict is that, I will choose what information system environment would fit me and not the unemployment. If we observe well, there are a vast number of information system environments that exist in the corporate world nowadays. And honestly speaking, I have many
interests but choosing an environment also depends on my skills. I could be involved in a web developing environment since one of my interest designing a web page. We already discussed some about developing a web page through the use of either jsp or the php. I like surfing the internet and exploring what’s new and what’s best. But I can learn more about this environment if I have enough resources and be able to learn more of what I need.

One of my interests is watching movies. Whenever I watch foreign movies I was so amazed with the that sometimes I cheer myself saying ” one day, you can make your own 3D animations too”, well, I hope so but there is nothing wrong on trying and practice makes perfect, right? In an animation environment is also a good idea to work with since I also love to watch cartoons. If there is a privilege with this environment, no doubt, I would definitely grab it.

As of now, the role of the information environment that I have chosen would be to big responsibility for a student like me. I will need more time in practicing all the needed expertise for the environment I want to suit with.

Establishing an effective, efficient and reliable information environment is not an easy job. We can’t assure that we can assure that we could establish a fully-functional and risk-free environment. The possible challenges that I think we will face in developing an ideal information environment are the limited of resources, security of the environment and financial problem. It would be a big risk if we only have limited resources and we are aiming to have a whole information environment. An ideal and reliable information environment should provide beneficial information to the users. With regards to security, we all know that an information environment is an essential and sensitive ingredient in an organization. Maintaining the security of an information environment is a big challenge that we will face. Absolutely, financial problem is a challenge for us and in an information environment. It
is an ideal way if we could get the resources right away and access the information we need.

After mentioning the challenges that would be a risk my performance in doing my duty in the information environment, I also have some alternatives or strategies to lessen these challenges since it are not that easy to totally overcome those challenges. First is to be open-minded with the
happenings and issues and even ideas of other people. I should not depend on what I know and on the resources that I already have. I can explore information in a simple and easier way. I should be focus on the environment am in.

Seventeenth Post: MIS: MAJOR PAPER UPDATE

2009-09-27T07:57:00.000-07:00

July 6,2009 - Our Letter and Company

Me and my group decided to proposed three companies. On our list are the Damosa Land Incorporation, Sta. Ana Multipurpose Cooperative (SAMULCO) and the Six Eleven Global Services. Luckily, one of our proposed company was approved and it is the Sta. Ana Multipurpose Cooperative. And so we directly submit our letter to our instructor to be approved and be signed.

July 8, 2009 - First Company Visit

We, decided to visit our approved company to give our letter to allow us to conduct an interview with their MIS department. We gave our letter to the HR department.

July 11, 2009 - Follow-up Call

One of our group members try to contact our adopted company which is the SAMULCO to ask if we are allowed to conduct an interview.

July 14, 2009 - Second Visit

On our first day of visit we have gathered some data like the background of the company, organizational chart and some information about the company. We are able to interview the IT supervisor of our adopted company. We ask about their hardware components and software used.

Sixteenth Post: MIS: Assignment 8_OUTSOURCING and INSOURCING

2009-09-27T07:28:00.000-07:00

As a student of the university and as part of the Institute of Computing, it’s a great opportunity for me to be invited to be part of a seminar-workshop on Information Systems planning together with some of our respected faculty and staff.

In one of the session, outsourcing has been discussed. In our Management Information System subject we always encounter and even discussed about outsourcing and the in-source or in-house. But before we conclude of which is better for the university, let us analyze first and discuss the factors and benefits that we can get on both side and what are their disadvantage.

What is outsourcing?

According to my reliable source which is the Wikipedia, outsourcing is subcontracting a process, such as product design or manufacturing, to a third-party company. The decision to outsource is often made in the interest of lowering cost or making better use of time and energy costs, redirecting or conserving energy directed at the competencies of a particular business, or to make more efficient use of land, labor, capital, (information) technology and resources. Outsourcing involves the transfer of the management and/or day-to-day execution of an entire business function to an external service provider. The client organization and the supplier enter into a contractual agreement that defines the transferred services. Under the agreement the supplier acquires the means of production in the form of a transfer of people, assets and other resources from the client. The client agrees to procure the services from the supplier for the term of the contract.

In outsourcing, the external organization would take over on the management of the outsourced function. Outsourcing can be a good help in an organizations in making a better use of their resources, time and even their infrastructure. It would also help maximize your revenue and minimize your expenses, and you can now concentrate on your core business if you choose to outsource your non-core functions.

What is in-source?

From the Wikipedia, In-sourcing is the opposite of outsourcing; that is in-sourcing (or contracting in) is often defined as the delegation of operations or jobs from production within a business to an internal (but 'stand-alone') entity that specializes in that operation. In-sourcing is a business decision that is often made to maintain control of critical production or competencies. An alternate use of the term implies transferring jobs to within the country where the term is used, either by hiring local subcontractors or building a facility. In-sourcing is widely used in an area such as production to reduce costs of taxes, labor, transportation, etc.

When an organization delegates its work to another entity, which is internal yet not a part of the organization, it is termed as in-sourcing. In-sourcing has also come to be described as transferring work from one organization to another organization which is located within the same country or entrust the work to your staff. In-sourcing can also mean an organization building a new business centre or facility which would specialize in a particular service or product.

Outsourcing versus In-sourcing

Now, let us compare outsourcing and in-sourcing. Let us see what are the advantages and disadvantages that we can get if we choose either of the two and which is better to use in an organization. If a certain organization has a number of what we called non-core processes which will take too much time and effort and also resources if we choose to perform in-house, so therefore, it would be better and wiser if we take the other option, which is the outsourcing. Well, in this case, outsourcing would help you and your organization save on manpower, effort and also time. It would be a benefit to your organization or companies in making a quicker delivery and you can have full attention to your customers.

Outsourcing is again a good option if we want to reduce cost and make faster deliverables. There are times that we want to require some expertise services in some areas of our system but then, do not fall under our core competency, so outsourcing will be a better option if you want to get access to expertise services.

If you want to save on transportation costs and you want to exercise a better control over your project, it would be reliable to choose in-sourcing. Usually, in a work that involves production it is always ideal to opt in-sourcing.

Most of the companies nowadays are opting to outsource because of some reasons. They choose to outsource because it enable an organization to access intellectual capital, they can now focus their job on their core competencies, shorten the delivery cycle time, lower the costs significantly and they think that this is an effective business strategy to improve their business and it is more reliable for them.

Some companies rather choose in-sourcing than outsourcing. Other companies shift from outsource to in-house or in-source because they are not satisfied on outsourcing. They opt to in-source to cut down the cost of labor and taxes and they feel that they can have better customer support and better control over the work.

Advantages and disadvantages

After knowing what in-source and outsource is and after comparing the two, lets define what are their advantages and disadvantages. Here are just few benefits that I found on the web that we can have if we opt to outsource and/or in-source.

Advantage of outsourcing…

Less capital expenditure

Outsourcing is an effective way to extend your budget because you can already outsource at a lower cost. Example if you choose to outsource to countries like India, you can have a high-quality services in a lower cost. So it will reduce your organization’s expense.

Concentrate more on your core business

Another benefit in outsourcing is that if you outsource your non-core functions you will be free to concentrate in your core competencies. And your employees can be put into better use.

Make faster deliveries to customers

As I mentioned earlier, if you choose outsourcing you can make quicker deliveries to your customer and because of this you can save your time and effort.

Get access to specialized services

Through outsourcing you can get expert and skilled services. Because of this benefit, several outsourcers choose for outsourcing. Your outsourcing partner can give you a more proficient service and can help you improve your company.

Increased efficiency

Another benefit in outsourcing is the increased in efficiency. If you would be wise enough and choose to outsource your non-core functions which will be performed by your outsourcing partner, you can efficiently carry out your core functions in-house. Through this, you can have an overall efficiency and you can see your company’s profit.

Advantage of In-sourcing…

Greater insight into the internal workings of the company

One advantage of in-sourcing is that you can have a greater insight into the internal workings of the company. You can have a greater output in the development of your information system because you will see what has worked or failed in the past, how the corporate entity operates and most probably you will discover the culture of the entire organization which I guess is essential for you to know.

Speed of the overall development schedule can be increased

In choosing in-sourcing you can speed up the overall development scheduled because the internal key players are known. You can have a better control on the company’s project and a faster development because you will hire person/s with a greater expertise so if problem occurs you can directly consult those people to see what the conflict is.

Great tool that never gets used

Absolutely, if you are to develop a system through in-sourcing you can have a system that can be declared as yours and you don’t have a similar system with other companies. Any project developed in-house will be subject to the level of expertise and competence available within the organization. Therefore, the development of your system depends on the skill and expertise of the persons you put into task.

Development team is very close to the end user

Another benefit of in-sourcing is that the development team are very close with the end user because of this you can have a high quality product for the end user as a result. The relationship between the development team and the user is essential which aids in both communication and expectations on the delivery. The advantage of this is that, not only the user can benefit both even the developers. It increases the business knowledge of the developers which will reduce the time it requires for the specification and design of the project.

Security and confidentiality

In terms of privacy and the security of the company or an organization, in-source has a greater advantage. So, we have lesser worries about the security of the company’s assets, resources and information.

Disadvantages of outsourcing…

Loose the managerial control

When we outsourced, one disadvantage that we should not overlook is the loose of the managerial control. This comes to pass because the fact that it is more difficult to manage the outsourcing service provider as compare to managing one’s own employees.

Hidden Cost

And sometimes we miss to calculate the hidden potential cost of outsourcing which includes the legal cost of having a contract between two companies and the length of time it takes to coordinate the contract which simply means that the overall cost for outsourcing can never be predict and underestimated.

Threat to the security and confidentiality of issues of a company

Another disadvantage of outsourcing is the threat to the security and confidentiality of a company. It is important to be very careful in choosing what function or non-core competencies to outsource and which is not. Systems such us payroll is a private issue in a company which should be kept inside the organization.

Quality Problems

When you outsourced you sign a contract. Sometimes, outsourcing company will be motivated by profit. To be able to increase their profit they lessen the expense considering that they are able to meet the conditions of the contract. Every contract is made very specific so you will pay for the extra changes.

Tied to the Financial Well-Being of another Company

Once you outsource, you will be turning over part of your business operations to your outsourcing company therefore you are tied to the financial well-being of your outsourcing company. So there is a tendency can be the reason of the bankruptcy of your business.

Disadvantage of In-sourcing…

Required strategic flexibility

Required high investment

When we choose to in-source, we hire IT staff to do the maintenance and the development of the system as well. Therefore, it is necessary for a company to have an additional budget for the salary of those experts.

Loss of access to superior products and services offered by potential suppliers

Every IT Personnel has its own expertise. So, if you choose to have in-sourcing you will be limited on what your hired IT Personnel could do and you can’t access the other services offered by potential suppliers.

The university’s situation…

Before we decide what to choose between in-sourcing and outsourcing, it is still better to weigh things according to the university’s situation and the things involved on it. As being part of the university for years, we, students have already encountered a series of different enrollment system. The entire enrollment system includes the registrar, cashier, and the different local offices. Recalling the previous information system used by the university before they adapt the new system (presently used by the university); they choose to develop an information system through outsourcing. They hire an outsourcing company for the school’s information system and the students have to adjust with the outsourced enrollment system. Then later on, the university decided to change from outsourcing to in-house. Now the university hires two IT Personnel who also have an expertise in developing a certain system and are already part of the faculty of the university. I guess the primary reason why the school administration changed is the cost. So, they hire IT faculties to lessen the cost and expense of the school.

When one of our instructors told us that we already have good and highly-skilled professors and staff who have expertise with the said field, why not use them? Well, I agree with him. It is an advantage for the staff to have an extra income and to share their knowledge and skill on the said field and for the university as well to minimize expense of the school. The security and privacy of the school’s information system is kept on the workforce. And of course, this would make us proud that the person who developed our information system are members of the university and it’s a good evidence that our instructors are not only good on sharing their knowledge through class discussions but we can actually see how good they are as they apply their expertise on their field.

My stand…

As what I have understood, there are different reasons why a certain organization prefers to outsourcing and the others would choose in-source. Usually, organizations or companies depends their choice on the benefits that they could get if they select either of the two.

After discussing what in-sourcing and outsourcing, there advantage and disadvantage and after knowing the situation of our university, now, it’s time for me to choose on where should I stand. Well, I base my decision on what I have observed and understand about the two types of sourcing, the in-sourcing and outsourcing. And I go for in-sourcing or in-house.

Basically, first and important thing to be considered is the cost. I don’t really know how big or small the budget of our university for the labor and in developing and maintaining our information system. I have mentioned above that one of the disadvantages of in-sourcing is that it requires high investment which means there is a possibility that it can not totally lessen the cost. But, you can still minimize the expense if you hire one to three IT personnel to do the job. In terms of maintenance, you can still lessen the expense because you don’t have to spend for fair and for the extra changes since the one who will maintain your information system is already part of your workforce (employee). If we outsource, one benefit we could get is the less of capital expenditure. After surfing the internet, many say that through outsourcing you can lessen the cost. Maybe it’s true but we should not overlook its disadvantage. Mentioned earlier is about the hidden cost so you can never predict how low or high the cost of outsourcing is.

When you outsource, you can have a greater insight on the internal working of the company. This is a great advantage because if you need some information that is necessary for the development of an information system you can automatically ask for assistance to the co-employees who know it well. Unlike outsourcing, you just have a contract with the outsourced company will do what are conditions written on the contract for the development of your system but if you want some changes or add some part of the system, there are additional payments which may increase the company’s expense.

I choose in-sourcing because you can have a tool or an information system that has never been used. It’s nice to hear that you will be using your own system that only your company knows how to use it and how the system flows. Most of the outsourced system services are shared. This means that it’s not only your company is using that kind of information system. If many knows or familiar with the use and the flow of your information system, then this may threaten the security of the important information of the company.

We have our own choices. We have our own beliefs of what is best for our company. Both have its advantage and disadvantage. If we think well as an expert, it is better to weigh and analyze first which would be the best for the organization and where you can benefit more for the success of your company. But it is not totally necessary to choose between outsourcing and in-sourcing. You can in-source and at the same time outsource. But be careful on choosing what function should be outsourced or in-sourced. It would be a benefit for your company if your have both so that you can have the best of what both offers to be able to achieve the goal of your company.

References:

http://goliath.ecnext.com/coms2/gi_0199-2329742/Advantages-and-challenges-of-developing.html

www.wikipedia.com

http://operationstech.about.com/od/outsourcing/tp/OutSrcDisadv.htm

http://mis.aug.edu/DrJMatls/Mgmt4950/Sourcing.pdf

http://www.outsource2india.com/why_india/articles/outsourcing-versus-insourcing.asp

Fifteenth Post : MIS: Assignment 7_SONA

2009-09-27T07:19:00.000-07:00

To answer this question, I surf the internet to look for the full text of the State of the Nation Address (SONA) of our President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo for this year that was happened on the month of July because I didn’t actually saw or heard the president on her speech.

After reading the full text, here are some of the areas that the president mentioned that I think related with the ICT (Information and Communications Technology) sector:

Creation of ICT Department
“Kung noong nakaraan, lumakas ang electronics, today we are creating wealth by developing the BPO and tourism sectors as additional engines of growth. Electronics and other manufactured exports rise and fall in accordance with the state of the world economy. But BPO remains resilient. With earnings of $6 billion and employment of 600,000, the BPO phenomenon speaks eloquently of our competitiveness and productivity. Let us have a Department of ICT”

As part of the third-world countries, it’s good to know that finally our president decided to have a department that focuses on the issues related to information and communications technology. Compared to other countries, we should not limit ourselves with the modern breakthroughs and the latest trends of technologies that most countries are using nowadays especially those who belong in the first-world countries. We should not be contented of what we have now we must push through advancement to be competent enough with those modernized countries. It was also mentioned there about the BPO or Business Process Outsourcing. I am happy that our nation’s economy is moving towards this so called BPO. BPO helps our fellow Filipino to acquire jobs not only here but also abroad and because of this many of the unemployed people and fresh graduates can grab this opportunity to earn money to provide for their basic needs.

Telecommunication
“Sa telecommunications naman, inatasan ko ang Telecommunications Commission na kumilos na tungkol sa mga sumbong na dropped calls at mga nawawalang load sa cellphone.”

This line really caught my attention. The issue here is the loss of load unexpectedly and the expiration of loads. As a mobile phone user, I also encounter this problem. Since cellphones plays a very important role in the lifestyle of most Filipinos (rich or poor) and a means of communication nowadays cellphone load has already been part of the budget of the Filipinos as part of their expenses. We can’t deny the fact that when this problem occur the telecommunication networks are usually being blamed because they are the one distributing the cellphone loads. It’s a great thing that the government already found a way to prevent this issue. Now, the expiration of the loads has been extended. And I guess everyone of us can benefit from this. Though there are still instances of load loss but am glad that the government made an action.

Automated Election
“As the seeds of fundamental political reform are planted, let us address the highest exercise of democracy, voting! In 2001, I said we would finance fully automated elections. We got it, thanks to Congress.”

For the first time in the Philippine history, automated election will implemented this coming election in 2010. I would proudly say that this is just one step into a digital advancement. This development can greatly ease the work of the people in voting and counting the votes. And it is much easier to conduct that using a manual system. We are aware that in politics there are cheats and anomalies in election and I guess having this automated election can lessen those issues and can make the process of election faster and easier. I hope that this coming election in 2010 would be a successful one.

Fourteenth Post: MIS : Assignment 6_ Improve Internet Connection

2009-09-09T05:36:00.000-07:00

It is really a great privilege if ever I would be hired as an IT consultant by the university president. But before I go on answering the question, let me define first what an IT consultant is and what typical work activities of an IT consultant are.

IT Consultant: Job description

• IT consultant works in partnership with clients, advising them how to use information technology in order to meet their business objectives or overcome problems. Consultants work to improve the structure and efficiency and of an organization’s IT systems.
• IT consultants may be involved in a variety of activities, including marketing, project management, client relationship management and systems development.
• They may also be responsible for user training and feedback. In many companies, these tasks will be carried out by an IT project team. IT consultants are increasingly involved in sales and business development, as well as technical duties.

As what I’ve read, the usual activities that an IT consultant does are the following: meeting with clients to determine requirements, working with clients to define the scope of project, planning timescales and the resources needed, clarifying a client's system specifications, understanding their work practices and the nature of their business, travelling to customer sites, liaising with staff at all levels of a client organization, defining software, hardware and network requirements, analyzing IT requirements within companies and giving independent and objective advice on the use of IT, developing agreed solutions and implementing new systems, presenting solutions in written or oral reports, helping clients with change-management activities, project managing the design and implementation of preferred solutions, purchasing systems where appropriate, designing, testing, installing and monitoring new systems, preparing documentation and presenting progress reports to customers, organizing training for users and other consultants, being involved in sales and support and, where appropriate, maintaining contact with client organizations, identifying potential clients and building and maintaining contacts. Knowing the typical task of an IT consultant is like knowing how tough their duties and responsibilities in an organization or company. Information Technology consulting is a field that focuses on giving advices on businesses on how to use information technology for them to meet their expected objectives for their businesses.

I know everyone of us were familiar with the internet. With the fast evolving technology, almost all of us know the use of the internet not only for business but also in school and for entertainment. A concrete definition of internet that was given by the Wikipedia is that, “internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standardized Internet Protocol Suite (TCP/IP). It is a network of networks that consists of millions of private and public, academic, business, and government networks of local to global scope that are linked by copper wires, fiber optic cables, wireless connections, and other technologies. The internet carries a vast array of information resources and services, most notably the inter-linked hypertext documents of the World Wide Web (WWW) and the infrastructure to support electronic mail, in addition to popular services such as online chat, file transfer and file sharing, online gaming, and Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) person-to-person communication via voice and video.”

In the modern human life, internet played a big role for an easier way of communication. Companies, schools and universities and almost all the establishment has an internet connection so , therefore, we need to consider some things in order to make our internet connectivity be improved. Some of those things are the infrastructure, the technologies (be updated with the latest trends of technology) and the innovations. And the different steps and processes in improving your internet connection should also be considered.

Suggestions…

In a university, an internet connection is very important for the student and the faculty as well. But sometimes, we encounter some errors in the connection. Some of the problems that we often encounter are the frustrating low speed of connection and download, the computer is running slow and error in connection .Having a slow internet connection is a frustration for any user while having a fast high-speed internet connection puts the user at an obvious huge advantage. With all the high technology available today, dialup access remains the slowest of all the internet services available. And on the other hand, cable internet tends to be one of the fastest options in internet services. As a student of the said university and as an IT consultant, there are some tips that I could suggest to improve the internet connectivity of our university.

• Improving the Internet connection

The first tip that I guess would help the university is to get rid of the modem that they used and move to ADSL. Broadband is now available at low cost in most areas. “Always-on” cable and ADSL connections are becoming more widely available nowadays. According to what I have read, these will give you a permanent connection and much faster data speed. When using an ADSL you will need a standardBT telephone line, and pay for a connection through an ISP which provides an ADSL “modem” as part of the installation cost. In a university, there are a lot of computers that share a single modem. This can potentially slow down your computer a bit but usually doesn’t make that much of an impact on the speed of your system.

The next tip focuses on the system security. System security is very important for any computer. All the computers should have anti-virus software and firewalls to help with system security. Examples are: Symantec-Norton AntiVirus, McAfee-Antivirus, and Spyware Doctor AntiVirus 6. Some choose to disable their system security programs in order to speed up the computers but this is never a good idea because the computer won’t run fast for long once you get virus or some spyware on the system. So it is really advisable to install antivirus or antispyware on the computers. It would be better if you would back up your critical data regularly. No matter what type of high speed internet connection the university will use, it’s a good thing to remember to install system security to protect the computers and all its personal and confidential information.

My third suggestion is to test the internet speed. One of the most common issues with the slow internet service is that your provider is not giving you what they have said or advertised. The university is paying for it, so you might as well make sure it’s being used as effectively as possible. In checking the connection speed, there are many sites online where you are able to check your connection for free. You can also use the Network Diagnostic Tool to test the network connection speed.

Another suggestion would be, if a computer is not in use turn it off. Since many computers are sharing the same modem and internet connection, when you turn off those unused computers the competition for limited bandwidth resources decreases and it will usually boost those used computers performance.
Fifth thing to be aware with is that you have to make sure you are not connected to a weak access point signal. There are many ways that an access point can slow down the connection a bit. For instance, the signal between you and the access point is weak, the access point will automatically downgrade its services to a slower speed and sometimes you may encounter n error in the connection. Always check and know what signal you are connected with.

For downloading, I would advice to use FTP download wherever possible. As what I have read, in downloading files you can often choose between FTP (File Transfer Protocol) and HTML download. But for me, File Transfer Protocol, which uses the well known port called “port 21”, is much faster for file transfer.

References:
http://www.high-speed-internet-access-guide.com/articles/increase-modem-speed.html
http://www.telecomsadvice.org.uk/infosheets/internet_connectivity2.htm
http://www.practicalpc.co.uk/computing/comms/speedup.htm
http://www.prospects.ac.uk/p/types_of_job/it_consultant_job_description.jsp)
http://netequalizernews.com/2009/03/07/7-tips-and-tricks-to-speed-up-your-internet-connection/
http://en.wikipedia.org/

Thirteenth Post : MIS : Assignment 5 - Barriers in IS/IT

2009-08-18T09:55:00.000-07:00

Fifth Assignment:
Based on your adopted organization(s), identify and discuss barriers in their IS/IT implementation. (2000words)

Before I go on with my adopted organization(s), I would like to discuss and identify first what are the things that can be considered as barriers in a company’s Information System or Information Technology implementation. I am quite confused with this topic so I search the internet first to have some ideas about the different obstacles in IS/IT implementation. And I admit that I had a hard time looking for a reliable resources or references. And I guess I found some sites that can be appropriate enough to answer this assignment.

Let me define first the meaning of barriers. In my own definition, barriers for me simply mean something that separates one thing from another or something that’s in between. It could be considered as hindrance that an individual may face while he/she is trying to gain entrance into something that may sometimes complicates the situation. So when we say barriers in a company’s information system or information technology implementation, those are obstacles that stand in the way of implementing an IS/IT in a certain organization which may complicates the situation. These barriers are hindrance that the company may face when they try to implement an Information System or Information Technology.

I have read an article about implementing a new Information System, published on June 9, 2008 by Lasan in Management; it talks about the different ideas and questions that would be asked if we will implement a new complex Information System within a company. Doing such big project usually entails a lot of problems that must be solved and a lot of barriers to be crossed, so it gives interest and a challenging road toward completion. As what I have understand, if a certain company wants to have a new IS they must consider a lot of things because getting a new “IS” is a strategic decision, where functionality, applicability, and adaptability play the main role. Some of the things that can be a problem or hindrance in having a new IS are the difficulty in choosing a system, the feedback of the end-users and the cost. Choosing a new system is not a simple one because it will depend on what the company wants and how big the organization is. If you are the owner of a company, it would be incorrect if you say “We want a new system that would work in exactly the same way as the previous one”. Why? Well, in this case you don’t need a new system. When changing the IS, you have the opportunity to review your current businesses, make some improvements, modify them, and make them better than the old one. Next is the end-users feedback. If you are the programmer, you should be patient and aware of the users’ response. It would either be positive or negative. The type of user who would probably have a positive response is those innovators, good and hard workers. On the other hand, the regular workers and complainers usually have a negative feedback. They may have a bad response maybe because the users don’t want to spend extra time thinking about their job or reading the manual, they are quick with complains but are not willing to read the manuals or search the web, or they are satisfied with the old one and they are uncomfortable with the new system. Last is the cost. Of course, it could be an obstacle because we have to consider how much money the company is willing to spend to implement a new IS solution.
As I go on searching the net, I have gathered some information that would help me identify the barriers in an organizations IS/IT implementation. Barriers in information technology in a company are inevitable and actually, there are a lot of it. It could be a technical, physical, human resource, communication, financial, operation or psychological problems. But I would like to point out and discuss about the technical problems, financial problems and the operation problems.

From the word information system, itself, it deals with information and how to manage it. So, it is essential to know how information is transmitted and shared by the company. For the first obstacle, which is the technical problems, some of the problems mentioned that would be classified as a problem in technical are the following: data processing difficulties, time factor in the collection and updating of information, a need for new and modern information system resources, and the need for fund for the processing and printing of information. Based on what I have read and as what I have observed, one thing that conflicts the implementation is the difficulty on data collection and management. Why? It is simply because data collection is a tedious yet a very important part of the whole system. It is referred to us as the hardest and complex part of the whole process so we have to look after it.

For financial problems, an information system needs a sufficient fund for the compensation of the information. The company’s financial state could be a big factor in case the company is in need to improve the information system. It could be an obstacle because if we want to acquire certain resources that soothe the company’s needs it gives as passage to have sufficient resources.

The third obstacle mentioned above is the operation problem. Some of the problems in operations of IS are the need for coordination between the professionals and the educational institutions and the need for full support on the new breakthroughs or technology presented by the programmers or any person concern. If the higher rank lacks the support, this is the hindrance that we are talking about in implementing an Information System/Information Technology in an organization. Why? Well, for me, because you are blocking the company to be updated with the new trends of gadgets that would be useful to improve the performance and speed of your systems.

Now, let’s proceed with my adopted companies. Based from the previous assignments, I have two companies the GH Office Depot, located at 88A Monteverde Avenue, Davao City, and the Lapanday Foods Corporation at Maryknoll Drive, Lanang Davao City. Based from the ideas that I have gathered from the net, I tried to recall all the things that we have discuss on our interview that would fit to answer this assignment.

First, we have the GH Office Depot and we are fortunate to interview their IT Personnel.Recalling our discussion with the company’s IT Personnel and in my own observation, one of the problems that I discover is the lock of more personnel on their IT department. As I remember, Mr. HP (the IT Personnel) is the only person on the IT Department. So he is the only person responsible on the maintenance and repair of the hardware components and the installations of software. That’s really a tough job for him but if he had some people that can help him, well, definitely it will lessen the burden and if problems may occur, he have some bodies who can help him. Another burden would be in their technical resources. As what I have observed, their IT department has fewer computers than I thought. They only use a laptop and one old personal computer (I guess). Though, there computers are still working, there is still a need for upgrade for a better performance. And whenever they purchase a new hardware or change into a new system, the budget and cost is always think of before they decide.

Next we have the Lapanday Foods Corporation. After interviewing there MIS manager and toured in some part of there company, I would probably say that there is no problem in there implementation on there IS/IT. In terms of technical, they always make sure that they properly upgraded there computers to have a faster data processing and a better hardware performance. If ever they want to acquire a new IT/IS for the company, they always make sure that they have a proper budget and effectively choose a computer that would fit the needs of the user and the programs that would be installed. So the first two obstacles that I have stated above are maybe not yet encountered by the company or maybe they already resolved that certain hindrance to the success of their information system. And considering there end-users, I guess there are no problem because as the MIS manager told us that before they implement a new system they study it first and properly introduced and demonstrated to the users. They have trainings beforehand to avoid problems. Compared to my other company, the Lapanday’s Management Information System department have several employees so therefore the job was divided and the process of data would be easy. There would be lesser technical problems that may occur.

Twelve Post: MIS : Evidenece- Company visit 2

2009-07-14T13:14:00.000-07:00

Lapanday Foods Corporati on

The company's server with the MIS manager and groupmates.

Generator set

Roy with the company's switches and UPS

Roy and the companyMy Visitors ID as I enter the company.

These pictures were taken last July 8, 2009. We are scheduled to have an interview at 2:30 pm.

Eleventh Post : MIS : Evidences from Company visits.

2009-07-14T13:07:00.000-07:00

GH OFFICE DEPOT

These pictures were taken last July 3, 2009, during our company visit for our module.

Tenth Post : MIS : Assignment 4(Green Campus Computing)

2009-07-14T13:05:00.000-07:00

4. Find three(3) URL's that talk's about "green campus computing" and suggest ways how the university can adopt this concept.

The three URL’s that I found that talks about “Green Campus Computing” are the following:
http://ecenter.colorado.edu/energy/projects/green_computing.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_computing
http://searchdatacenter.techtarget.com/sDefinition/0,,sid80_gci1246959,00.html#

Green Computing is the environmentally responsible use of computers and related resources. It is the study and practice of using computing resources efficiently. One of its goals is to lessen the use of hazardous materials and maximize the energy efficiency during the product’s lifetime.
Some of its practices include the following:
- Implementation of energy-efficient central processing units, servers and peripherals
- reduced resource consumption
- Proper disposal of electronic waste (e-waste).
-Reusing and Recycling
So, when we talk about green campus computing, we are absolutely talking about the responsible ways of using computers inside a particular universities or schools.

Every year more and more computers are purchased and are used by many establishments including schools. As an IT student, we should be alarmed with the danger these large number of computers give. Every university are using this machine (computers) for record keeping, during the discussions, laboratory exercises of the student (especially those computer related course), well in every corner of the university almost everyone is using this breakthroughs. And because of this, it is considered as the cause of the dramatic increase in energy consumption causing it to be the main reason why a certain university has a high budget on paying the electricity bills. Another thing is that, we should also consider paper use, toner cartridges, disposal of old computer equipment and purchasing decisions when considering new computer equipment. So it is essential that every one of us would be encouraged to adopt this green campus computing.

You can take a giant step toward environmentally responsible or “green” computing by conserving energy with your computer. There are some ways that a university may follow to be able to adopt this concept. These may include:
1. Never leave your computers or lights ON to avoid wasting electricity.
2. Power-down the CPU and all peripherals during extended periods of inactivity.
3. Try to do computer-related tasks during contiguous, intensive blocks of time, leaving hardware off at other times.
4. Power-up and power-down energy-intensive peripherals such as laser printers according to need.
5. Use liquid-crystal-display (LCD) monitors rather than cathode-ray-tube (CRT) monitors.
6. Use notebook computers rather than desktop computers whenever possible.
7. Use the power-management features to turn off hard drives and displays after several minutes of inactivity.
8. Minimize the use of paper and properly recycle waste paper.
9. Dispose of e-waste according to federal, state and local regulations.
10. Employ alternative energy sources for computing workstations, servers, networks and data centers.
11. Avoid using screen savers in computer monitors.
These are just few tips that we can apply in our university. But I suggest that everyone must be responsible enough and lets practice GREEN CAMPUS COMPUTING.

Ninth Post: MIS : Assignment 3

2009-07-14T09:05:00.000-07:00

Question: Your thoughts on automated elections with reference to the current situation ... (1000 words)

Third Assignment:

My thoughts about the automated election:

Before I give my thoughts about the automated election here in the Philippines, let us know first what automated election is. Automated election system is a system using appropriate technology for voting and electronic devices to count votes and canvass/consolidate results.

Having an automated election system this coming 2010 election? Well, am pretty much aware that the coming election would be done in a newer way- from a manual voting system to an automated one. But, is there really enough time to do this? Maybe yes, if there are good programmers to work for the success of this automated election. It would be a great help for the Philippines if the automated election system is done right and securely because it may curb cheating. This would be the first automated election here in the Philippines in response for the Filipino voters who aim to have a fair election. It a great relief to all of us because we will be rest assured that our votes is safe and create a government with leaders that are truly chosen by the majority of the Filipinos..

When the Philippines decided to have an automated election, there are two companies that will be involved for this. They are the Smartmatic International (foreign company) and the Total Information Management Corporation (Filipino-owned Company). These companies have been set back on track for the 2010 automated election.

“Smartmatic is a multinational company that specializes in the design and end-to-end deployment of complex purpose-specific technology solutions. With an unsurpassed technology base, continuous innovation, and quality in processes and results, Smartmatic is organized around three business areas: Electronic voting systems, intelligent and integrated security systems for large enterprises and governments, and advanced solutions for people registration and authentication for a wide range of government applications.

Smartmatic is a privately held company with offices in the US, Mexico, Venezuela, Barbados, Spain, Philippines and Taiwan. It has more than 200 employees worldwide. Its capacity for innovation and wide range of products and services have earned Smartmatic extensive recognition in the technology community worldwide.”
Reference: http://www.smartmatic.com/pressroom/article/article/smartmatic-demonstrates-election-technology-to-filipino-journalists/

“Total Information Management (TIM) Corporation is a wholly Filipino owned Information Technology (IT) company with nationwide operations offering varied products and services. It considers itself as "The Filipino IT Company" competing in a field dominated by multinationals.”
Reference: http://www.timcorp.net/main/index.php?pg=about.tim

One day, the Filipinos were alarmed with the news that we may have to go back to the old-manual election because the local partner of Smartmatic , which is the Total Information Management Corporation, backed out of the deal with the COMELEC. Various reactions and reasons flooded by several news articles and on the television. Some says that the TIM Corporation had a problem with the revenue-sharing model with Smartmatic or the conflict is about the necessary money to fund the activity. From the reference that I have read from the net, the TIM president was pulling out their partnership with the Smartmatic with an unspecified reason. He just simply says, “Irreconcilable difference”. Wow! Even I, I was barely puzzled with his reason and I really wonder what this means.

But after that controversial issue, I have read a relieving one. One of my resources/reference that I have read in which they post it on the 3rd day of July, 2009, discuss that the Philippines says plan for automation again. According to the head of the Commission on Elections or Comelec, “We’re back to automation”. It is after the Filipino Company, TIM Corporation, signed for a joint venture agreement with the Smartmatic to supply 82,000 counting machines that would be use this coming May 2010 for the election that is estimated to finish for only two days using the automated one.

or this 2010 election, many of us want to have a fair voting even if it’s a manual system or the more modernized one which is the automated election system. Using this automated election would be a great help for an easier and faster way of voting but after reading those issues/news, am a bit of doubt if this would gave us a peaceful voting system this coming May 2010. There are still possible conflicts or problems maybe technically that may occur this coming election. With those two companies, the two companies must have an equal control on the operations to avoid misunderstanding or conflicts. The decision-making should not fall solely to one company but they should have a joint force towards a successful automated election system. Money should not be the issue for this. If the government would pursue to have this automated election, they should give an exact budget for a more satisfying output. And I hope that no corruption would be involved.

Well, these are just some of the things that I observed. But as a Filipino citizen of this democratic country and a sooner voter to, I always wish that our voice through our votes will be heard fairly and honestly for a bigger future.

References:
• http://www.chanrobles.com/republicactno8436.htm
• http://www.smartmatic.com/pressroom/article/article/smartmatic-commends-automation-of-elections-in-the-philippines/
• http://www.jpsimbulan.com/2008/08/06/is-the-philippines-ready-for-an-automated-election-system/

Eigth Post : MIS : Assignment 2

2009-07-14T08:57:00.000-07:00

Question: Based on the organization(s) that you visited, what do you think are the risks associated with business and IS/IT change?

In assignment two, I adopted to companies to be my bases with the question, “what do you think are the risks associated with business and IS/IT change?” I consider all the opinions coming from the two companies, the GH Office Depot (located at 88A Monteverde Avenue, Davao City) and the Lapanday Foods Corporation (located at Maryknoll drive, Lanang, Davao City). For the first company, I was blessed to interview there IT personnel and on the other hand, for the second company I was given a chance to talk with their MIS manager.

In a certain company, having a new or changing the information system is a tasking job. However, if it is used properly and accordingly, it will be considered as a good benefit for the organization. We are all aware that technologies nowadays are fast evolving. Big or even small and medium enterprises aim to adopt the latest breakthroughs that will be helpful for their company. But using technologies might give the company the risk as well. Change is important, but it should also be controlled so that the risk does not escalate to unacceptable levels. For a company to cope up with the rapid advancement of information technology, changes and facing the risk must be obtain. Risks in changing of the IS of an organization reflects the events that may affect the flow of business in an organization.

As what I have understand from the manager of Lapanday, when changing an information technology or information system they make sure that they all back up the files. They have this off site (usually every end of the week) and on site back up (everyday back up). It is also a big risk for them because every data is essential so they are very sensitive in terms of changes in their systems. In changing with their hardware components, he said that they have these guidelines in which they follow or analyzes before they bought a new one. He told us that some companies may change their computers every (maybe) 3 years but for them it depends. If that computer can still work well, then they will still continue to use it. And I ask him some of those guidelines and he unselfishly elaborate some like a minimum of dual-core, 160GB memory for hard disk, and a 1GB RAM. He added up that they only use higher specs for those computers that are used for engineering department or those with autocad software installed. Since they are the main office, they always secure all their data, because they are afraid to loss all of it. And whenever they used a new system, all the employees (who will be involved with it) are obliged to have their training first before they could use it to avoid some errors. Risk is caused by the reluctance of the employees to use the new system probably because they are not familiar with it. So further training should be done to the employees on how to handle the new system enable to maximize its functions. These are just some of the ideas that I have gathered as we have a talk with the Lapanday’s Management Information System manager.

Another company that I have interviewed is the GH Office Depot. The one who entertained us is there IT personnel. When we ask what are the risk associated with business and IS/IT change, he then said,”there is a BIG risk”. For him it’s not that easy to instantly change their information system because they have to consider everything since they have 35,000 different items. They always make sure to have their backups. Before, according to the IT personnel of the GH Office Depot, they are using those dos base systems and now they are using the visual basic 2005. So, he told us that it is also good to change a system for a faster and more reliable work but they always consider the risk that it may gave to the company. They made some strategies to be able to avoid such risks. They always consider if that system would work or not and if it would satisfy their needs or if it would come up with their desired output to minimize or avoid problems. As what I have said from the first assignment, the GH Office Depot has no proper hierarchy in terms of orders or request. The IT personnel told us that if the boss asked him to do this and do that, they directly follow orders. They consider the cost, functionality and the capacity if they want to change some of their hardware components.

As a whole, I conclude that some of the possible risks that an organization may encounter in changing their information technology or information system are the following: loss of data, incomplete system, unreliable system, security, organizational risk and technical risk. A company may loss data if they change into a new system so it is very essential for them to always have their backups. An incomplete system is also a big risk because it will not satisfy the needs of the company and the organization may spend a system that would not be that useful. So, the company must observe and analyze first before changing their actual system. Security would be a risk because every data that the company have are confidential. When we say organizational risk, the problem occurs if the employees don’t know how to use the new system so it is very essential to conduct a training first. In terms of technical risk, the company must consider if the system will function properly and accordingly.

There are lots of risks that a business may encounter. The success of implementing new or changing the system depends on the people’s acceptance of the change. And the success comes to those organizations that identify and manage the risk more effectively and of course proper management. It is also essential to have some strategies and proper planning on handling the possible risk that may occur. These are just few of the risk that a company may encounter so we must not take it for granted because it is so dangerous so we should always be aware and alert.

Seventh Post : MIS : Evidences - COMDDAP

2009-07-14T08:43:00.000-07:00

This pictures are just few of the pictures that we took last July 2, 2009 at the Apo View Hotel for the annual event called COMDDAP (Computer Manufacturers, Distributors, and Dealers Association of the Philippines).

Sixth Post: MIS: Reflection - COMDDAP Davao Expo 2009

2009-07-09T09:41:00.000-07:00

The members of the COMDDAP (Computer Manufacturers, Distributors, and Dealers Association of the Philippines), which represents the world's leading makers and providers of computer products, solutions and peripherals, held an expo here in Davao city at the Apo View Hotel last july 2-4, 2009.
People from different organizations, schools,ordinary or professionals came to witness this annual event.

Before the said event, we are informed by our professor to register(free registration online) first on the site that was given to us because the seminars are for limited seats only. The event is open for everyone who are interested with information technology. On the first they of there expo, I and some of my classmates went to visit there exhibit and to check out the new trends of technologies nowadays and the different amazing gadgets. Since it was announced that the speaker for the seminar will be late, we grab the chance to collect some souvenirs for this expo. I enjoy roaming around in the exhibit area and compile different flyers and glossy papers from the different exhibit and also trying to explore the different gadgets that was diplayed in the expo.

Well, as what I have observed, the sessions were managed by the big names in term of IT developers. They are the Nexus Group, Jupiter Systems, Inc., Edupro Inc., and Spinweb Inc. And since I was registered on the afternoon session on the first day of expo, I noticed that most of the audience or listeners are from our institution(both Information Technology and Computer Science students from the University of Southeastern Philippines) so, I feel more comfortable and interested to listen.

Our first speaker is from the Jupiter System Inc. He introduce himself and then he start discussing about the ERIC [Enterprise Resource Information and Control] Dealer Management System (DMS). As what I have understand, its an end-to-end software solution for automotive dealer operation. He mention that the Jupiter System Inc is a 100% Filipino-owned industry. They support dealer activities from marketing to sales and services. At first I am a bit confused because he mention about Ford, Mercedes Benz, Honda, Mitsubishi, and other model of vehicles so I thought they are just selling cars but as he go deeper with his discussion, I discover that the ERIC DMS is a software that is usually used for automotive sales, parts and and services in a business. Well, honestly speaking, I can't relate with what he is discussing because I am not that interested with cars. And on the later discussion, I hear him talking about Microsoft SQL. Wow! This is what I've been waiting for. As an IT or CS student, we should be aware with the use of the different software used in business industry. The first presenter is not quite interesting to hear(am sorry for that) but still I've learn some about the program that he have discussed. As a whole, the presentation is good. As an IT student, it is good to know how a certain program works and how it was used by the industry.

Now, lets go on with the second session. The nest presenter is one from the Nexus Technologies Inc. There topic is about the HP thin client. He present to us their product. At first, I am curious of what that thing works or what are its functions. Its my first time to hear about thin clients so I am interested to listen especially when he told us that they will be asking some questions at the end of there discussion and he will give us some freebies: HP t-shirt and 2gb, 8gb USB flash drive. Honestly, those freebies added my interest to listen with there presentation. I noticed that all the audience are very active with the presentation.(hahaha)

About the presentation, he introduced to us their product, which is the HP thin client. I learned that thin client is a computing device without a hard drive and CPU fan. It has a low energy consumption and data are stored in remote and centralized server. Another thing that I have learned from their discussion is that hp thin client is designed for businesses because it will make your business more efficient. According to the speaker, the speed, flexibility and security of your network are guaranteed. The best thing with the said product is that it is safer in terms of viruses. And if am not mistaken, ones the hardware is reboot, it will automatically delete the viruses. He explains well the functions, features, and how reliable it will be to use.

Now, the most awaited part, the Q&A part. Everyone was excited because of there freebies. Honestly, I would love to have the t-shirt from hp and everyone became so active and alert in answering the questions. Unfortunately, I didn’t won any but the learning that I have is enough to consider this day as one of the days I would always remember.

This is just one of the events held for us to be aware of the latest breakthroughs. As an IT/CS student, its really a great experience and privilege.

Fifth Post: MIS: Mintzberg's Managerial Roles

2009-07-06T13:11:00.000-07:00

After surfing the internet, I found these 10 managerial roles by Mintzberg. The ten separated roles in managerial work as identified by Mintzberg has its own role as defined as an organized collection of behaviors belonging to an identifiable function or position. He then group these roles into three subcategories. The first three are the interpersonal contact, the next three roles are considered as the information processing and the last four are past of the decision making.

10 Managerial Roles of Mintzberg:

1. FIGUREHEAD: the manager performs ceremonial and symbolic duties as head of the organisation;
2. LEADER: fosters a proper work atmosphere and motivates and develops subordinates;
3. LIASION: develops and maintains a network of external contacts to gather information;
4. MONITOR: gathers internal and external information relevant to the organisation;
5. DISSEMINATOR: transmits factual and value based information to subordinates;
6. SPOKESPERSON: communicates to the outside world on performance and policies.
7. ENTREPRENEUR: designs and initiates change in the organisation;
8. DISTURBANCE HANDLER: deals with unexpected events and operational breakdowns;
9. RESOURCE ALLOCATOR: controls and authorises the use of organisational resources;
10. NEGOTIATOR: participates in negotiation activities with other organisations and individuals.

reference: http://www.provenmodels.com/88/ten-managerial-roles/mintzberg

Fourth Post:MIS: First Assignment

2009-06-26T09:33:00.001-07:00

Question: Identify a local organization(s) and discuss some of their best practices in IT/IS ... this should be well-supported with any evidences ....(1000 words)

Our first assignment requires us to look for a certain organization/s that has its own Management Information System or an Information technology Department. Me and my classmates have our list of companies. Included in our list are the following: Phoenix Petroleum Philippines,Inc, eTeleCare Global Solution, AMS Group of Companies and the GH Office Depot. And After waiting for several days for approval, our instructor approved the GH Office Depot. We then visit the company to ask for approval, but they told us to have a phone call first with the HR Staff then we should present a letter for them. The next day, through a phone call we are able to communicate with the HR staff then to the IT personnel and with no doubt they allow us to conduct an interview in our vacant time.

GH Office Depot

Location: 88A Monteverde Ave. , Davao City

GH Office Depot started in 1967 as a small stationary dealer. According to our interviewee, which is the company's IT Personnel in there IT department, that the GH Office Depot is a family owned company before and it grew into a cooperative one. It is operated by the Davao GH Enterprises, Inc.The company deals with paper, school and office supplies.He told us that they have 35,000 different items in the present.

The Company, GH Office Depot, as described by their own website, "The company started as small office stationery dealer in 1967. By the grace of God and through its continuous quest for quality and better products to serve its clientele. It has gained the confidence and patronage of its clients. The clientele expanded to what it is today, a big solid majority share in the market.
The company opened its door to the general public in 1995 by opening up a modest yet modern retail outfit. A supermarket-type of stationery store. The concept was overwhelming accepted by the general public.
The retail outlet and network continue to grow and expand. Today, it is a big business outfit housed in a modern complex with all the convenient facilities and amenities.

The GH OFFICE DEPOT carries in its inventory more than 12,000 items of office items to serve its clients. The company keeps on updating and upgrading its list of items to cope up with the current trend in office management. And to serve its clients with the latest and most up-to-date office supplies and equipments."
You can visit there site: http://www.ghofficedepot.com/about.htm for more information.

The organization also offers different services. Such as, Lamination Services, Photocopying Services, Book Binding Services and Desktop Publishing which include lay-outing and printing of Calling Cards and invitations or any other desktop services.

The person we interviewed is the company's IT Personnel in there IT department. He elaborated unto us about the company's different best practices in Information Technology/Information System.

The following are there best practices in IT/IS:

1. Bundy Clock
- As the Wikipedia define, "A time clock, sometimes known as a clock card machine or punch clock or time recorder, is a mechanical (or electronic) timepiece used to assist in tracking the hours an employee of a company worked. In regards to mechanical time clocks this was accomplished by inserting a heavy paper card, called a time card, into a slot on the time clock." The company use this for the casual employee's time-in and time-out.

2. Fingerprint Biometric System
- Refers to the use of a person's fingerprint characteristics for identifying that person. Through the use of your thumb or fingers and with the help of a fingerprint scanner, the regular employee's of the GH Office Depot can have their login and logout. This biometric system is connected to there payroll which is handled by the accounting department.

3. IP cam and TeleEye camera
- Well, when our interviewee mentioned that they are using 2 kinds of security or Surveillance camera. First is the IP cam. As I search the internet for more information about this, it described IP cameras or network IP cameras stream live video via digital packets across an internet protocol network such as a LAN (Local Area Network) or the Internet. The benefit of network cameras, is that they reside on IP networks; the video streams can then be accessed and stored remotely. This enables users to view and/or manage the IP cam using a standard web browser or video management software from different locations, giving businesses increased flexibility. http://www.ipcamerasupply.com/ On the other hand, the TeleEye camera, as defined by www.teleeye.com, "is a full function P/T/Z CCTV camera control unit designed for remote control through telephone network.It receives commands through telephone network and controls on/off power for zooming, focusing, iris for zoom lens, pan/tilt mechanism, washer and wiper for outdoor housing." According to the IT personnel, they have 3 IP cams and 16 TeleEye cameras in there main building. And he told us that the only person who can monitor the cameras is the boss or the owner of the company.

4. Point-to-point Antenna
- I am a bit puzzled when our interviewee said that they are using a point-to-point antenna. Its my first time to hear about this kind of connection. According to him, they used this to communicate and have a connection with there other branch(I am not sure but I guess it is along with Torres St.). Using this they can easily communicate with the other branch in a lesser expense.

Other Hardware Components that is present in their company:
UPS (Uninterruptible Power Supply) - is also known as battery back up which is also used in the company in their biometric system and bundy clock.
Barcode reader - as a supermarket-type stationary store, it is essential for them in knowing the price of there items.

***
The IT personnel explain to us that they are also using a POS or Point of Sale which is very useful in checkouts and for their inventory. In terms of management, he told us that there company is not that strict. Unlike the usual hierarchy, every orders and requests are direct to the boss(we are referring to the owner of the GH Office Depot). Ideally, they always have there back up files. Using a wireless connection, UTP, router, switch, hub, they are able to communicate or connect with the other staff or other department. They also have wifi's for there employees only.

For evidences you can visit my blog www.dgmancera.blogspot.com and drop some comments. Thanks in advance.

Third Post:MIS: Company hopping...

2009-06-25T07:44:00.000-07:00

Last June 24, 2009, me with my group or shall I say some of my classmates went to look for a company that would allow us to conduct a short interview. We surf the net to look for a local organizations. We passed our letter to Sir Gamboa but unfortunately we have some mistakes with our letters so we have to edit it again.

June 25,2009, we are already prepared with our letters but unfortunately Sir Gamboa is not around. We're running out of time. The deadline for our assignment is by 1:00pm. We have two options, either we would just surf the internet (just like some of our classmates did) or we will conduct our interview even if we will be able to pass our first assignment late. haiz!:-(

We still try our luck. We call up the Phoenix Petroleum Philippines, Inc. and asked if we could have our interview with Mr. Ephrael Montegrande(am not that sure with the name). He told us to come to their office. And with no hesitation, we grab this opportunity so we went onto their office and we are all amazed how big it is..grabe! (nkakita pa kami ng tao na nglalakad sa bobong ng building.aheheheh).

Two of my classmates had a conversation with the guards. But after the discussion, they told us that we need to give them a letter. And since we can't present anything, we decided to look for another company but unfortunately we're running out of ideas..haiz!

Sad experience but we will keep on trying.. hope I can post my assignment as soon as possible..

Second Post : MIS : Reflection/Learnings

2009-06-22T11:27:00.001-07:00

First day Reflection/Learning:

Last Thursday, June 18, 2009, was our first meeting with Sir Gamboa for our MIS class. Well, first day is not that scary but am so amazed knowing that we are only few in the class.

I can still recall that Sir Gamboa first discussed is about the definition of our subject Management Information System word by word. Management is facilitating and supervising people. I can still remember the four common activities in management. These are PLANNING, DIRECTING, ORGANIZING, and CONTROLLING. When Sir Gamboa asked us if we need to be managed, majority of us answered yes. And I agree with it because when we say management, it simply tells us that someone has to be managed so therefore you can’t work without being managed. The next two words in MIS which is “Information System”. It is about hardware plus software plus peopleware.

From that discussion, I have learned a lot. MIS is the heart and soul of the organization. And it holds the information of the organization. So, I’m so excited with this subject because I know this would be a big help for us in the future especially if we will be dealing with the real-world of industry.

Please visit my blog and drop some comments. http://dgmancera.blogspot.com/

First Post: MIS: Introduction

2009-06-22T10:44:00.000-07:00

Hi! I’m Dolorosa G. Mancera, 19 years of age and unfortunately an irregular 4th yr IT student , currently enrolled in IT 313 – Management Information System subject. Wow! It feels good to be back with Sir Gamboa’s hands(hehe).For this subject, I expect this to be more exciting cause we will be dealing with real world again through visiting our company soon. I hope this will give us new learnings and unforgettable experiences. Since it’s not my first time with Sir Gamboa, I'm still expecting that he would be gentle and a little bit strict but considerate instructor. Good Luck guyz!! Kudos

pfosten 20 ║◘◘ºº anoTher Visit ___NEDA XI ºº◘◘

2008-10-09T06:48:00.000-07:00

October 2, 2008 Thursday, me and my HRM groupmates went to our adopted company for another visit. After the first consultation with Sir. G, we decided to conduct another visit on NEDA because we need some papers or forms that can help us in making our proposal. We are a little bit "shy" in entering Sir Tep's office but he welcome us with his warm smile and ask what we need. <:-)>
We already had a list of the forms that we needed for the completion of our proposal. With no hesitation, Sir Tep accomodate us and gave us what we needed. He even ask some of his staff for the record or forms. We have gathered more datas for our proposed prototype. We are able to have the personal data form, the attendance, payroll, and etc. And after a few conversation with Sir Tep, me and my groupmates decided to go home and do our individual responsibilities for the success of our paper.

Pfosten 19║...♥...

2008-10-06T09:23:00.000-07:00

Love comes at a cost
It usually depends on the victim
Would you risk it for love
Or for an illusion?

I face those everyday
And in the end I choose love
Love may be an illusion
A hoax at times

But in the end
Love conquers all
It conquers the stronger of all mankind
And the feeble ones

It affects all
No one is immune to it
Illusions may be merging with love
And create mulitple lovera
But only will love and illusion tell

Love and illusions

--------------------------------------------------------------------
I fell in love with you
and then you broke my heart,
I knew never to love a player,
I was wrong from the start...
Loving you was like ripping out my heart.
I refused to look around me and see
all the terrible things you were doing to me,
I was in my own world and I didn't see all the trouble you were,
I was deeply in love.
Now that's all ruined, you see,
All because you played me,
You had looks, you had charm,
You were slick with your words,
You knew just what to say.
I was foolish to think
we were made for each other,
I always prayed you
would never love another,
I wanted us to always be with each other.
Loving a player is one of the
hardest things ever,
I have learned a lot
from my experiences with you,
My heart was broken into two.
I know now, as I look back on

Pfosten 18 ║ ◘◘ Our First Consultation ◘◘

2008-10-02T18:43:00.000-07:00

Last September 30, 2008, me and my group were given the chance to have our first consultation for the first draft of our major paper. From the introduction down to our proposal except our objectives are incorrect. Sir told us to use another way of writing a proposal paper because we are no longer in high school. As a whole, Sir gave us 10% for our paper. Well, I guess our group needs to work harder and pay another visit to our adopted company (NEDA XI).

Go group mates! we can make it!

<Hahai..INC?? maybe, because we are not able to follow our gantt chart, but sir must consider us cause his not around for a week that's why we are not able to submit our first draft and have our consultations at the right time. May God bless us all...:-(>

Pfosten 17 ║ ◘◘ assignment 9 ◘◘

2008-10-02T18:40:00.000-07:00

DEFINITIONS OF HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT AND PERSONNEL MANAGEMENT:

Human Resource Management (HRM) is the function within an organization that focuses on recruitment of, management of, and providing direction for the people who work in the organization. Human Resource Management can also be performed by line managers.Human Resource Management is the organizational function that deals with issues related to people such as compensation, hiring, performance management, organization development, safety, wellness, benefits, employee motivation, communication, administration, and training.

-Author: Susan M. Healthfield,About.com-
Source:[http://humanresources.about.com/od/glossaryh/f/hr_management.htm]

The definition lacks other components of Human Resource Management like health of the personnel. It does not even include employment condition which is also one of the component of HRM but still, it was properly stated some of the functions of a Human Resouce Management.

Personnel Management is the part of management that is concerned with people and their relationships at work. Personnel management is the responsibility of all those who manage people, as well as a description of the work of specialists. Personnel managers advise on, formulate, and implement personnel policies such as recruitment, conditions of employment, performance appraisal, training, industrial relations, and health and safety. There are various models of personnel management, of which human resource management is the most recent.

-Author: BNET Business Dictionary-
Source: [http://dictionary.bnet.com/definition/Personnel+Management.html]

This definition only concern with organization that focuses on the conditions of employment, performance appraisal, training, industrial relations, and health and safety.I agree that personnel management is part of management that is concerned with people and the relationship at work because I believe that this definition is one of the major function of a personnel manager.

"Human resource management is responsible for how people are treated in organizations. It is responsible for bringing people into the organization, helping them perform their work, compensating them for their labors, and solving problems that arise"

-Author: (Cherrington, 1995, p. 5)-
Source: [http://www.answers.com/topic/human-resource-management]

The definition focuses on how an employee is treated in an organization. This definition fails to include the different components of Human Resource Management like health, safety and some common usage like firing and trainings.

Define personnel management as being: “a series of activities which: first enable working people and their employing organizations to agree about the objectives and nature of their working relationship and, secondly, ensures that the agreement is fulfilled"

-Author: Torrington and Hall (1987)(p. 49)-
Source:[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_resource_management]

In this definition personnel management are usually used in a more restricted sense in describing activities that are considered as necessary in the recruitment of a workforce, providing each member with proper payroll and benefits, and also in administrating the employees work-life needs.

HRM relates to: ".......those decisions and actions which concern the management of employees at all levels in the business and which are related to the implementation of strategies directed towards creating and sustaining competitive advantage"

-Author: While Miller (1987)(p. 352)-
Source:[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_resource_management]

The definition is concern with the decisions, actions and implementation of strategies but it fails to define the functions and components of HRM like hiring, firing, training, safety, compensation and more.

As a whole, all the definitions about Human Resource Management and Personnel Management are true and I agree with it though some of them fails to define the other functions, components, usage and law of an HRM and personnel management. Human resource is then considered as the heart of an organization, without it, the company cannot really stand. I agree that Human resource deals with the people,manage and took good care of the people who are working for a certain company. And the workforce that do all these things are sometimes referred to as personnel management.

Pfosten 16-=►HRM Major Paper ( first draft )

2008-09-26T09:06:00.000-07:00

hey guys! We already have our first draft in our HRM major paper..

Kindly click the link below if you want to see our first draft.

HRM_First_Draft

Groupmates! AJA!

Pfosten 15 -=►Another Visit to our adopted Company◄

2008-09-26T08:55:00.000-07:00

Actually, me and my groupmates in human resource management are working with our major paper.

First, we passed our Gantt Chart to our professor, this will serve us our guide in our schedules and target dates regarding with our major paper. Last September 9 was our schedule for another company visit. Luckily, we are able to gather more datas that can help us with the completion of our major paper because in our previous visit we are not able to collect a sufficient data.

Last September 9, 2008(Tuesday), me and my groupmates try to contact NEDA to ask if we can have another visit on there office. And fortunately, Sir Tep allowed us and we immediately went into there office.

During our interview, we focused all our questions on their HRIS since we never ask about that in our previous interview. Gladly, we found out tht they have ther own HRIS which they call as NEDA Personnel Information System(NPIS). But there NPIS was no longer updated and it was an old program because they are still using a DOS-based program or the older version of Visual FoxPro.

Sir Tep has been so nice to us in sharin his opinion on their NPIS and the reason why it was not updated. He told us that it was there main computer os the server affects there database when it bugged down.And he share to us that they did not use that program for years.

Pfosten 14║--►Assignment 8◄

2008-09-26T08:08:00.000-07:00

Wow! This subject was so tough that I wasn’t able to pass on time. But luckily, after this day ends, God has been so nice that I was able to interview 3 personnel and one of them works in HRMO. They are Mr. Rafael G. Moreno(HRMO- information system), Mr. Ramon S. Melliza (Ticket Checker – City Treasurer’s Office) and Jeoffry M. Adumduman (computer hardware specialist). They all work on the City Government Office. They simply share ideas about the nature, scope and role of HR.

According to them, the Human Resource Management’s roles are to receive and transmit payrolls, compute budget for the whole year, entertain applicants, interview applicants, designate applicants to other offices, deals with the compensation, managing the employees, gives disciplinary actionsto their employees and conduct seminars and trainings. They told me that the nature of their organization is more developed and their functions have expanded and their facilities now are more convenient than before.

For them, the scope of the HRM is from the lowest rank employees up to the top rank employees. According to Mr. Melliza, the scope of the HRM is from the utility to the department head. They told me that all the things that mentioned are similar with the concept of their organization.

I agree with their ideas about the nature, scope and role of the human resource because all the things that they have shared are the same things that I have learned from our past discussions in our subject and also based from the things that I have understood from our adopted company.

[I am so thankful to my interviewees for helping me even though the discussions only lasted for about 15 minutes.]

pfosten 13=-a great experience..

2008-08-26T00:42:00.000-07:00

Well, its more than a month(I guess) before I post our experience with my HRM group with our adopted company, the National Economic and Development Authority Region XI(NEDA XI) . (Am sorry for that.) But before I share to you our unforgettable experience with NEDA XI, let me share first our feeling after being rejected by our first chosen company. I will never forget the time that our 'first company' have done to us. Its so cruel that they rejected our permission to study there HR department."We are not bananas that can be easily rejected!". Well, enough for that bad experience. Let me now share to you our visits in NEDA XI.

---FIRST VISIT---

I could actually say that this is one of the most memorable day of my life not only because its our first time to visit our adopted company but because of the adventure we had before we got into the office. Seriously, none of us in our group knows how to get to NEDA XI. We ride on the jeepney and stop to a place were in very unusual to all of us. We tried to trace the streets but after a long walk, an unexpected problem happened. Gosh! I never expect that my shoes will be damaged after my groupmate had accidentaly stepped the back part of my shoe. I almost cried because I really dont know what to do at the center of this unknown place for us. But thanks to my dearest groupmates, they bought a rugby to help me fix my shoe. And thanks God! they made it! And then, we continue on our journey.(-_-) After a very long walk, we finaly reach our destination. We just simply submit our letter and for the first we meet Mrs. Estrada.

---SECOND VISIT---

After being approved by the NEDA XI, we are scheduled to visit our adopted company. Unfortunately, the supposed interview is canceled because the person that we will interview (according to Mrs. Estrada) is not around. And they don't know when will he/she come back. Though we are prepared with our supposed interview, we have no choice but to accept the fact that it was postponed. hahai. (-_-) So, we went back to the school cause we still have our class.

---THE ACTUAL INTERVIEW---

Only for of us went to NEDA XI because one of my groupmates had a class so she could not cone. But we are so glad that one of our classmates (who ia not currently enrolled on this subject) help us with our documentation. Through the help of her laptop and cam we were able have a good documentation. She is incharged for the capturing hte moments on our interview.

The one who made the appointment for us is the NEDA XI Administrative Officer IV (who happened to be the HR Manager but they refer it as administrative officer IV)of the said company or institution. She politely greeted us and then, asked for some sample questions about our interview(for them to prepare..). After awhile, she then referred us to their boss which is the Chief Administrative Officer, who happened to be our interviewee. (--,) We really thought that we will be having an interview with the HR manager or shall I say Administrative officer VI but she said that the Chief Administrative Officer knows everything.(:->)

Unexpectedly, The chief admin. said that he will just give us a hard copy as a answer to all the questions that we had in our paper. Actually, that paper(prepared by one of our groupmates) is supposed to be our guide. But since they want to give us a printed answers so we have no choice. :-) After that, we still have some short discussions about there HR just for the sake of our documentation. And that is the third visit in NEDA XI.

Pfosten 12►►~=aWakEn frOm the past=~

2008-08-14T14:18:00.000-07:00

The loss of a relationship can be incredibly hard - you can feel so much pain. There's not only the grief from losing someone important in your life, but the pain and sadness of seeing your hopes and dreams of a future life together disappear as well.You may feel like you're starting over - that you've lost everything that was important to you and you're not sure what to do anymore. It may be difficult for you to imagine your life without your partner or boyfriend - your lives have been so intertwined.

You may find yourself asking who you can trust, including your own judgment since you may not have envisioned the break-up. You may wonder if you were wrong to have trusted and believed your partner. You may begin to question how real your commitment was because if it was true how could it be over?

Your ability to trust may feel doubtful and insecure. You probably believed your partner, and expected your relationship to last. You may feel alone and comfortless, even if you're the one who decided to leave.

Well, it really takes time before you can re-build trust in yourself and others again. Even though this affinity is over that doesn't mean that you were wrong to trust her/him, and even if you were that doesn't mean that you'll make that mistake again. You can learn from this.

At times of loss, it is very common for feelings, beliefs and memories from the past honestly hurts, traumas, and losses to come up. Not only are you dealing with the present loss, but your past losses as well. No wonder, it hurts so much!

It is indeed important that you try to separate out which of your feelings, beliefs and responses belong to the present situation and which ones belong to the past. This is hard for you to do when you're feeling overwhelmed but it can also help you to feel less overwhelmed. Separating past and present feelings will help you to attach less of your pain to the break-up and can help you to feel more hopeful about getting over this break-up, because maybe you are not as upset about the break-up as you thought. You're still just as upset but it can be helpful for you to be aware that it's not all about the break up, that some is also coming from the past.

When you know that you are triggered (past feelings and issues are coming to the surface) you can find ways to comfort or reassure yourself, or to deal with those issues in other ways. The first step though is to separate the past from the present.

Pfosten 11-=►►►assignment 7◄◄◄

2008-08-11T04:45:00.000-07:00

On the assumption that you heard/read the SONA of the President yesterday, July 28, 2008, identify at least 3 areas related to Human Resource Mangement and explain how these areas can improve our quality of life.

Last July 28, 2008, President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo delivered her 8th State of the Nation Address during the 2nd regular session of the 14th congress of the Republic of the Philippines. As what I have read, it obviously focuses on the Human Resource and the President clearly mind for her people. After reading the President's 8th SONA, I came up with this 3 areas that is closely related to Human Resource.

"Our P 350 million training partnership with the private sector should qualify 60,000 for call centers, medical transcription, animation and software development, which have a projected demand of one million workers generating $13 billion by 2010."
- This statement of our honorable president could be a great news to everyone especially the college graduates and to the unemployed Filipinos. And because of these the rate of the unemployed would be minimized and thousands of Filipinos will have there own Job. And it's a great privilege for us IT students.

"Mula sa buwang ito, wala nang income tax ang sumusweldo ng P200,000 o mas mababa sa isang taon – P12 billion na bawas-buwis para sa maralita at middle class."
- We all know, that being an employee, we are obliged to pay our income tax which would be a big burden for the Filipino employees. Filipino employees are payed with the work and services they give. And it would be a brilliant idea that there will be no income tax to those who had a compensation of P200,000 and below. It's a grand privilege to those employees with a minimum salary and below minimum.

"1 billion pesos allotment for college scholarships or financial help to 70,000 students."
- On the president's SONA, this is one of the greatest news she gave. This is an excellent way of molding Filipinos to be globally competitive and outstanding graduates. It is a good technique in creating our future batch of impressive and educated employees and employers, which will help in the company's progress. And, another thing it will decrease the rate of the uneducated employees and employers in our nation.

Pfosten 10►►CLariFicaTion to ThE cOncEpt of mY bLog...◘◘◘

2008-08-05T03:13:00.000-07:00

Maybe you are wondering with the word "pfosten" and the words next of it. Well, I just used these simple German words. Through the help of babelfish.com I was able to translate English languages into German dialects.

German to English TRANSLATION:
pfosten(German) - post(English)
eine zwei drei vier fünf sechs sieben acht neun 10(German) - one two three four five six seven eight nine ten(English)

If you want to learn more on how to translate a certain dialect to the other foreign languages.. Try to visit http://babelfish.yahoo.com/ .

Dank für das Besuchen meines Blogs!
Thanks for visiting my blog!

Pfosten neun║--►►►♥Assignment 6♥◄◄◄

2008-07-17T00:26:00.000-07:00

"Human beings are the most important, potent and critical, resource of any organization, and yet the least understood and the worst managed of its resources"

Man are just biological being, he needs direct contact with different forces such as;physical,environmental,and social.The fact that we existed and adopt our own cultures and heritage from our ancestors,man has mutual relationships with one another.Much more through his environment,and society.Nowadays since we are on the modern society,human being has to organized,associates a particular groups that enable to managed of its particular roles in their organization.beyond this focal point of interests,if we are only true to our endeavour,we can contribute some good intention to preserved goodwill in our society,because we are the first terrestrial species capable of having the conscious concept to developed our future.Recognized one's idea and respect one's belief.

We human beings are the most important, potent and critical resource of any organization. Why? Simply because we humans are the most important aspect in the success of an organization. Without man, there will be no company and no one can render service to help an organization be competent with the others.The company's most important resource are the people that work for the company.It is very difficult to operate any business without qualified people. It is even more difficult to hire and keep qualified people.
Human beings are the least understood and worst managed of its resource...Human has there own emotions, personality and styles of work that's why humans are worst managed of its resource.

A particular company,organization or even a small association must have mutual respect of its regulations.Hence, management is much important to obtain their visions and goals on their respective institution.A subordinates should always be guided by its superior ..and the superior must adopt the doctrines of superiority.

Pfosten acht║--VAMPIRE KNIGHT (manga)

2008-07-16T18:00:00.000-07:00

Vampire Knight Manga
Author: Hino Matsuri
Artist: Hino Matsuri
Publication Status: Ongoing

intro:
Cross Academy is attended by two groups of students: the Day Class and the Night Class. At twilight, when the students of the Day Class return to their dorm, they cross paths with the Night Class on their way to school. Yuki Cross and Zero Kiryu are the Guardians of the school, there to protect the Day Class from the Academy's dark secret: the Night Class is full of vampires.

main characters:
Yuki Cross(黒主優姫, Kurosu Yūki?)
- is the adoptive daughter of the headmaster of Cross Academy, and is a member of the school's disciplinary committee, which is a Guardian for Cross Academy.
Zero Kiryu (錐生零, Kiryū Zero?)
- Yuki's childhood best friend. Zero is also a Cross Academy Guardian and likewise on the disciplinary committee. Yuki has cared about him as a close friend ever since he was brought into their home (the Headmaster's).
Sayori Wakaba (若葉沙頼, Wakaba Sayori?)
- Yuki's dorm-mate and best friend since junior high, Yuki often refers to her as Yori-chan.
Ichiru Kiryu (錐生壱縷, Kiryū Ichiru?)
- Zero's younger twin brother.
Kaname Kuran (玖蘭枢, Kuran Kaname?)
- A pureblood vampire who saved Yuki from an attack by another vampire when she was five years old. Kaname is the class president of the Night Class, both feared and respected by the other Night Class students.
Takuma Ichijo (一条拓麻, Ichijō Takuma?)
-The vice-president of the Night Class, he is a noble-class vampire nearly as powerful as Kaname, whom he is close to and respects.

Pfosten sieben║--►►►♥Assignment 5♥◄◄◄

2008-07-16T16:38:00.000-07:00

Human resource management is concerned with the development of both individuals and the organization in which they operate. HRM, then, is engaged not only in securing and developing the talents of individual workers, but also in implementing programs that enhance communication and cooperation between those individual workers in order to nurture organizational development.

Many of us are wondering why human resource management is included in our curriculum and why we should study this subject even though we are a computer based students.

Well, actually even I, as an IT student, was also wondering why. But after the few weeks of discussion about what a human resource is, I can definitely say that every student not only for BSIT and BSCS but all the courses must have this kind of subject. Why? Simply because we student would be dealing with our industry in the near future. We would be working with different companies so we need to be aware of what human resource is in a company and our role being part of an organization. The HRM subject helps us know how to deal with other people, distinguish our rights, responsibilities and duties being an employee someday and help as realize that we should not be intellectually giant and emotionally elf but become an effective IT professionals and stand-out employees. That is why we need to be taught for us to apply if we will be dealing with the real world of industry.

Pfosten sechs║--assignment 4

2008-07-05T19:28:00.000-07:00

Corporation, as defined by our online dictionary, is a group of people combined into or acting as one body. It is a body that is granted a charter recognizing it as a separate legal entity having its own rights, privileges, and liabilities distinct from those of its members.

As a result of progress coming from economic freedom and globalizations, the company in recent years has seen an increase in its strength compared to governments and other institutions, while at the same time proving it to be the main generator of wealth, progress and development. Corporations therefore start the 21st century with more power than ever previously enjoyed. This increase in power brings with it greater responsibility. 21st century Corporation is required to have greater social participation in terms of its “civic” involvement and must also provide value for the entire society in which it functions with initiatives that are not just limited to its strict area of activity. This is what is known as corporate social responsibility.

At the very core of the 21st century corporation is technology, or what most people today call digitization.Digitization means removing human minds and hands from an organization's most routine tasks and replacing them with computers and networks.Sparked by new technologies, particularly the Internet, the corporation is undergoing a radical transformation that is nothing less than a new Industrial Revolution. This time around, the revolution is reaching every corner of the globe. The 21st century corporation that emerges will in many ways be the polar opposite of the organizations they helped shape. The Net gives everyone in the organization, from the lowliest clerk to the chairman of the board, the ability to access a mind-boggling array of information--instantaneously, from anywhere. Instead of seeping out over months or years, ideas can be zapped around the globe in the blink of an eye. That means that the 21st century corporation must adapt itself to management via the Web.There is no one company today that embodies all the possibilities and promise of the superefficient 21st century corporation.