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.
Preparing an Information Systems Plan for the university is a very challenging task because a lot of things are to be considered when we talk of Information System Planning. Planning for information systems, as for any other system, begins with the identification of needs. In order to be effective, development of any type of computer-based system should be a response to need--whether at the transaction processing level or at the more complex information and support systems levels. Such planning for information systems is much like strategic planning in management. Objectives, priorities, and authorization for information systems projects need to be formalized. The systems development plan should identify specific projects slated for the future, priorities for each project and for resources, general procedures, and constraints for each application area. The plan must be specific enough to enable understanding of each application and to know where it stands in the order of development. Also the plan should be flexible so that priorities can be adjusted if necessary. There was an article which contains an argument that a strategic capability architecture - a flexible and continuously improving infrastructure of organizational capabilities - is the primary basis for a company's sustainable competitive advantage. It has emphasized the need for continuously updating and improving the strategic capabilities architecture.
Some characteristics of strategic IS planning are:
• Main task: strategic/competitive advantage, linkage to business strategy.
• Key objective: pursuing opportunities, integrating IS and business strategies
• Direction from: executives/senior management and users, coalition of users/management and information systems.
• Main approach: entrepreneurial (user innovation), multiple (bottom-up development, top down analysis, etc.) at the same time.
Implementing the proposed Information Systems Plan is ,in my own perspective, the second toughest thing to do in Information Systems Planning. All the hard works starting from the identification of needs, then formalizing the objectives, priorities, and authorization for the information systems project, and all the necessary things needed to be done in planning information systems will not be appreciated if the said information systems plan will not be properly implemented or worst, will never be implemented because of some user resistance. Thus, in an information systems planning, steps for implementing the proposed information systems plan should be included -- which is in fact already the situation but I just wanted to emphasize why it should be included.hehe
One of the important factors in implementing the Information Systems Plan is that it should be useful so that there will be no user resistance and the organization itself will be satisfied and be convinced to implement the proposed information systems plan. Let me present to you a table of the characteristics of a Quality ISP, a quality ISP must exhibit five distinct characteristics before it is useful. These five are presented in the table that follows.
Characteristic | Description |
| Timely | The ISP must be timely. An ISP that is created long after it is needed is useless. In almost all cases, it makes no sense to take longer to plan work than to perform the work planned. |
| Useable | The ISP must be useable. It must be so for all the projects as well as for each project. The ISP should exist in sections that once adopted can be parceled out to project managers and immediately started. |
| Maintainable | The ISP must be maintainable. New business opportunities, new computers, business mergers, etc. all affect the ISP. The ISP must support quick changes to the estimates, technologies employed, and possibly even to the fundamental project sequences. Once these changes are accomplished, the new ISP should be just a few computer program executions away. |
| Quality | While the ISP must be a quality product, no ISP is ever perfect on the first try. As the ISP 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 ISP computation. In short, the ISP is a living document. It should be updated with every technology event, and certainly no less often than quarterly. |
| Reproducible | The ISP must be reproducible. That is, when its development activities are performed by any other staff, the ISP produced should essentially be the same. The ISP should not significantly vary by staff assigned. |
Whenever a proposal for the development of an ISP is created it must be assessed against these five characteristics. If any fail or not addressed in an optimum way, the entire set of funds for the development of an ISP is risked.
In my own reflection, to expedite the implementation of the proposed Information Systems Plan, it should be totally supported by all -- 'all' means including the students, the board of directors, the faculty and everyone who will be affected by this plan. But how can it be supported by the students if the students are not informed about it? Or the information disseminated to the students are not enough? Which might make the students misunderstood the ISP, in result they will resist from implementing it. Hence, informing the students or having a proper conference regarding this matter would be very helpful for the students to be enlightened and even have their questions answered. This also should be done for other concerns not only for the students, I have just specified the students as an instance since I am a student, hehe. In addition, the budget should also be properly allocated. We all know that money can speed up things, in one way or another. Lastly, the proposed Information Systems Plan should be very convincing and properly planned so that it will deserve a nod to everyone.
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