MIS Review Questions
What is the value in analyzing and documenting a business process?
Helps an organization determine bottlenecks, identify smooth-running processes, eliminate duplicate activities and combine related activities.
What roles do people play in formation systems?
People allow for the effective use and management of information systems.
Which component of an Information System is most important and why?
People are the most important. Although Information Technology is an important enabler of business success and innovation, IT in and of itself is not useful unless the right people know how to use and manage it effectively.
What is scope creep? How does it affect project management?
scope creep is uncontrolled changes or continuos growth in a project's scope. often results in cost overrun (unsuccessful project). it has a negative effect on project management because it hinders the ability of the project manager to ensure that the project fulfill the requirements.
What is the relationship between tables in a database and forms?
Tables are used to store data while forms provide an interface for entering and displaying data that can be found in the the tables.
Why would an organization consider building its own software application if it it cheaper to buy one?
* More customizable * Offer greater control over data used in the software (Data Security) * Has more control over implementation process
What are the challenges of implementing ERP systems
- Limited ERP vendor selection - Gap analysis - must identify the differences between the business requirement and the capabilities of the chosen ERP system - Customization - Companies may need to change existing business processes to fit the predefined business processes of the software (best practices) - Data definition and ownership issues. - Change management, underestimating the complexity of the transition or cutover and the training required to implement a new ERP system
What are the seven phases of SDLC
1. Planning and Feasibility - establish a high level plan and determine project goals, - and conduct a feasibility study 2. System Analysis - end users and IT specialists work together to understand and document the business requirements for the system - The major deliverable of this phase is the System Requirement Document 3. System Design - translate the business requirements into detailed functions of the system (System Specification) - Determine hardware, software and telecommunications equipment required to run the system (technical Architecture) - Decide to use off-the-shelf software or develop a new system (Make or Buy Decision) 4. Development - develop the system in-house and translate the designs into computer code - acquire the system (not just the software) and prepare the RFP, evaluate vendors and customize the system) 5. Testing - Verify that the system works and meets all of the business requirements defined in the analysis and design phases 6. Implementation - Convert from the old system to the new system (4 ways) - direct cutover, pilot conversion, phased conversion, and parallel conversion 7. Maintenance - fix system errors - update the system to accommodate changes in business requirements
What are transaction processing systems (TPS)?
A TPS supports the monitoring, collection, storage and processing of data generated by each of the organization's basic business transactions. The data is input to the organization's database.
What does the term business process mean?
A business process (or business method) is a collection of related, structured activities or tasks that produce a specific service or product (serve a particular goal) for a particular customer or customers.
What is the difference between a data mart and a data warehouse?
A data mart is a low-cost, scaled-down version of a data warehouse. Can be implemented more quickly than data warehouses.
What is the relationship between database and information system?
A database is a collection of records about various business categories. Information systems maintain access the transactional data in databases.
What is the relationship between database and DBMS?
A database management system is a software through which users and application programs interact with a database. Used to create, manage, maintain, and manipulate a database. Also helps to reduce data redundancy, share data in a controlled way and reduce data integrity problems.
What is a cross-functional business process?
A process in which no single functional area is responsible for its completion; multiple functional areas collaborate to perform the function e.g product developments involves research, design, engineering, manufacturing, marketing, and distribution
What is the relationship between value chain and business process?
A value chain describes a major line of business and is usually decomposed into a few business processes. Values chains are made up of business processes.
What is the relationship ERP and information silos?
An ERP solves the problem of information silos by allowing integrating among different modules through data sharing and joint execution among different modules. It also data from across the enterprise, consolidates and correlates the data, and generates enterprise-wide organizational reports. It also also for data sharing and joint execution among different modules.
What is business process management?
BPM focuses on aligning all aspects of an organization with the wants and needs of clients. It promotes business effectiveness and efficiency while striving for innovation, flexibility and integration with technology. It attempts to improve processes continuously and to stay competitive, organizations must optimize and automate their business processes.
What are the costs and benefits of ERP systems
Benefits - Data sharing occurs in real time - Implements integrated processes that are industry best practices - More managers see more data, leading to better insight - The information silo problem is solved. - Better integration with supply chain partners. Costs - Depends on the size and complexity of the software package, which is a function of the size of the firm - Includes the new hardware required to run the system - Includes consultant and business analyst fees - Includes the time require for implementation (disruption of business) - Includes training costs (cost to develop and deploy training plus employees time away from their jobs)
What role does business intelligence play within an organization?
Business intelligence supports decision making by analyzing business information. - Provides information about the past - Monitors current operations - Predicts and forecasts future trends
What are the characteristics of a relational database?
Consists of data organized as two-dimensional tables. A collection of tables that is logically linked by matching fields. Primary Key and Foreign Key are used to create logical relationships between tables.
What are the problems of non-database systems?
Data Redundancy - duplicate data in multiple data files - wastage of storage space and inefficient processing Data Inconsistency - various copies of the data do not agree - different representations of the same piece of data in different places Data Isolation - applications cannot access data associated with other applications.
What are the benefits of DBMS?
Data Security - Databases have high security measures in place to deter mistakes and attacks. Data Integrity - Data meet certain constraints, such as no alphabetic characters in a Social Insurance Number field. Data Independence - Applications and data are not linked to each other, so that all applications are able to access the same data.
What are the differences between data and information?
Data are raw facts representing events such as business transactions and information is a meaningful aggregation of facts that is useful to human beings in management and decision making
What is the difference between data mining and data warehouse?
Data warehouse involves the gathering of data from a variety of sources and data mining involves searching through large quantities of data such as a data warehouse to extract valuable information.
What are the differences between data latency, analysis latency, and decision latency?
Data latency is the time needed to make transactional data ready for analysis, analysis latency is the time from which data is made available and analysis of it is completed and decision latency is the time it takes a human to comprehend the analysis and take appropriate action.
What are the four different implementation or system conversion strategies?
Direct Cutover - The old system is cut off and the new system is turned. Pilot Conversion - Introduce the system in one functional area or location before introducing it to other parts of an organization Phased Conversion - introduce components of the new system (functional modules) in stages Parallel Conversion - the old and new systems operate simultaneously for a period of time
Briefly explain the various types if feasibility study. Why is feasibility study important in system development?
Feasibility study determines if a project is technically, economically, operationally and legally feasible. Technical feasibility - is it possible to create this? Economic feasibility - can we afford to do this? Legal feasibility - are we allowed to do this? Operational feasibility - how well does the system satisfy the requirements/ solve the problem? Important step to see if the system development should even get started
What is the relationship between database queries and forms?
Forms are used for entering, modifying, and viewing records and queries are a way of searching for and compiling data from one or more tables.
What are the basic components that make up an information system? Which component is most important and why?
Hardware - a device such as a processor, monitor, hard drive, keyboard, printer, etc. Software - A program or collection of programs that enable hardware to process data. Network - A connecting system (wireline or wireless) that permits different computers to share resources. Data - A collection of facts such as name, address, phone number, date of birth, etc. Process - A series of steps undertaken to carry out a specific business activity in order to achieve a desired outcome or goal. People - Those individuals who are directly involved with the information system including managers, end users, system analysts, programmers, etc.
What is the relationship between operational databases and data warehouse?
Information is extracted from operational databases and loaded into a data warehouse.
What are the differences between IT and IS?
Information technologies are tools and an information system is the collection of tools, the people who use it, and the processes it supports
What is an ERP system?
Integrates all departments and functions throughout an organization into a single information system so that employees can make enterprise-wide decision by viewing enterprise wide information on all business operations
What are the major features of TPS?
Performance - system response time is critical in TPS. System performance is usually measured by the number of transactions they can process in a given period of time. Availability - The system must be available whenever it is needed. System availability is the percentage of time that a given system is active and working. Data Integrity - refers to the overall completeness, accuracy and consistency of data. It aims to prevent unintentional changes to information. Ease of Use - The system should be simple for users to understand, protect them from data-entry errors as much as possible, and allow them to easily correct their errors. Modular Growth - The system should be capable of growth at incremental costs, rather than requiring a complete replacement. It should be possible to add, replace or update hardware and software components without shutting down the system.
Describe two main business processes supported by ERP systems
Procurement - the process of purchasing materials or inventory to meet customer demand Fulfillment - the process or business of handling and executing customer orders, such as packing, shipping, or processing checks
What is business intelligence?
Provides decision makers with valuable information and knowledge by leveraging a variety of sources of data as well as structured and unstructured information. The information and data could reside within or outside the organization, could be obtained from multiple sources, could be structured in different ways, and could be either quantitative or qualitative
What is the relationship between software and information system
Software is the component of information system that enables the processing of data.
What are the major differences between systems analysis and systems design?
System analysis involves understanding and documenting the business requirements for the system to produce a System Requirement Document while System Design involves translating the business requirements laid out in system analysis into detailed functions of the systems, determining what components are needed to run the system, and deciding to make or buy.
What are the four critical dimensions of BTM?
Technology, Organization, Information, Process
How does an ERP enforce best practices in an organization?
The ERP software comes with predefined business processes (best practices) and there the organization must change their existing business processes to the best practices in order to properly use the ERP.
What is SDLC?
The overall process for developing information systems from planning and analysis through implementation and maintenance
What is data mining?
The process of searching and analyzing data to extract valuable information not offered by the raw data alone. Drilling Down - increasing levels of detail Drilling Up - increasing summarization Perform two basic operations: - Predicting trends and behaviours. - Identifying previously unknown patterns
What is the main purpose of normalization in databases?
To reduce duplication of data
What type of information systems are designed to support the operational processes?
Transaction Processing System
What are the major problems of traditional Waterfall methodology in system development?
Waterfall methodology is inflexible and time intensive. Rigid in the sense that one step must be complete before another can begin. For example, changes to the requirements are not allowed once the process has begun and no software is available until after the programming phase.
What is an audit trail in transaction processing systems?
a chronological record of system activities to enable the reconstruction and examination of the sequence of events and/or changes in an event
What is a data warehouse?
a logical collection of information gathered from many different operational databases that supports business analysis activities and decision-making tasks. The primary purpose of a data warehouse is to aggregate information throughout an organization into a single repository for decision making purposes
What is ETL?
a process that extracts information from internal and external databases, transforms the information using a common set of enterprise definitions, and loads the information into a data warehouse.
What is a data mart?
contains a subset of data warehouse information extracted to be analyzed for specific business units.