CIS 320 Final Chapter 13
What are the three major elements of management policies that need to be considered when implementing a new system?
1. One element is the organization's standard operating procedures. These procedures define proper behavior, and communicate behavioral norms to the employees. 2. The second element is defining measurements and rewards, which explains what is important to the organization (worth measuring) and how desired behavior will be reinforced with rewards. 3. The third element is resource allocation. By allocating resources in certain ways, management can send both actual and symbolic messages to the organization.
What are the three basic steps in managing organizational change?
According to Kurt Lewin change is a three-step process: 1. Unfreeze - preparing people and the organization to break out of their current way of doing things 2. Move - transition from the old to the new way of doing things 3. Refreeze - establish the new system as the way things are done.
Compare and contrast direct conversion and parallel conversion.
Both conversion strategies focus on the way in which users are switched over to the new system. Direct conversion is an abrupt change: the old system is 'unplugged' and the new system is turned on. The users have no choice but to work with the new system. In the parallel conversion strategy, the new system is turned on, but the old system is used simultaneously for a time. Clearly, the direct strategy is more risky because there is no fallback if significant system bugs are discovered. With parallel conversion, the old system will still be available if there is a major bug discovered in the new system. However, the cost and extra work of using both systems simultaneously must be considered
Compare and contrast two major ways of providing system support.
System support is focused on helping users understand how to perform tasks and answering user questions. This can be accomplished with online support such as reference documentation and help screens, and also with special web sites that answer frequently asked questions. The goal here is to enable the user to find the answer to his/her question without talking to a human. When human help is needed, it is usually provided through a help desk. Help desks can provide human response to questions for the entire organization.
How is a problem report different from a change request?
A problem report documents a problem that has been encountered with the system that cannot be immediately resolved. The problem report will usually be passed to an application specialist, who will attempt to clear up the problem. If he/she cannot resolve the problem, then it is likely that a system bug has been encountered. At this point, the problem report becomes a change request, which is used to inform the system maintenance group that an un-resolvable problem has been discovered that probably requires a system fix.
Compare and contrast an information change management strategy with a political change management strategy. Is one "better" than the other?
Both of these change management strategies are focused on convincing the target adopters of the change that the benefits of the change outweigh the costs of the change. An informational approach may work when those change benefits really do exceed the change costs, but the target adopters may not have enough information to realize it. The informational strategy seeks to give them that information and encourage adoption because they now perceive the advantages of the new system. With the political change management strategy, organizational power is used to motivate change, not information. The change may not actually provide a direct benefit to the target adopters, but it may benefit the organization as a whole. In this case, political power may be employed to lead the target adopters to the conclusion that they should comply with the change (or pay a penalty).
In our experience, change management planning often receives less attention than conversion planning. Why do you think this happens?
Conversion planning is an obvious and concrete activity needed to move a system from testing to production. Change management is often subtle, requires some recognition of the importance of interpersonal issues, and, particularly with managers that are quite authoritarian, may be viewed as a waste of time since employees should just do as instructed (in their view).
What are the cultural issues of which developers should be aware?
The cultural issues that developers should be aware of are the speed of messages, context, time, power distance, uncertainty avoidance, individualism vs collectivisim, masculinity vs femininity, and long vs short term orientation.
What is the role of the operations group in the SDLC?
The operations group takes the system that the development team has created and makes it work for the organization on a daily basis.
Compare and contrast modular conversion and whole system conversion.
Whole system conversion means that the entire system is installed at one time. This is the most common circumstance. Modular conversion, in which the various modules or components of the system are installed gradually over time, is less common, but can be used if the system is large and complex and has been designed as a set of independent system modules.
Explain the trade-offs among selecting between the types of conversion in questions 3, 4, and 5 above.
• Direct conversion will be the quickest and lowest cost conversion style. Parallel conversion reduces risk, but costs much more and takes more time to complete. • Pilot conversion is the least risky way to convert organizational location. By debugging the system at the pilot location, the installation at the other locations should go smoothly. Phased conversion adds a little more risk in that time is not devoted to debugging the system totally before moving on to other sites. Phased conversion takes longer, however, than pilot conversions. The simultaneous approach will be the highest risk and most expensive approach of the three, but takes the least amount of time. -Whole system conversion is most risky, especially if the system is large and complex, but completes the conversion in the shortest amount of time. Modular conversion reduces risk somewhat because the system is implemented gradually. It adds cost and time to the process, however.
How should you design what items to include in your training plan?
• Focus on helping the users to accomplish their jobs, not just on how to use the system. • Focus on the system as it exists in its organizational context of getting day to day business done. • Keep the emphasis on what the user needs to do; don't get caught up in what the system can do. Referring to the use cases can be helpful here, since if we design our training to cover the use cases, we should be able to make the users very comfortable with the system for their routine tasks.
What are the major sources of change requests?
• The most common source of change requests is the problem reports from the operations group that identify bugs encountered in the system. • The second source is the system users, who submit ideas for minor changes and enhancements to the system. • Third, other systems development project may have an effect on a system, and change requests may result in order to integrate the systems. • The fourth source is senior management, who may trigger change requests in order to tailor the system to the organization's business strategy.
Compare and contrast three basic approaches to training.
1. Classroom training: This is the traditional approach to training in which a number of people are trained simultaneously with one instructor. Classroom training is moderately effective. Its costs are moderate, and it is fairly effective, especially since it is the method that many people are most familiar with. 2. One-on-one training: This puts one trainer with one student at a time. One-on-one training is very effective, but is expensive to deliver and reaches only a few people 3. Computer-based training: This uses a CD or Web-based training program delivered to students as needed. Computer-based training is very costly to develop, but is inexpensive to disseminate after development. It can reach a large number of people, but its effectiveness can be limited.
What are the major components of a migration plan?
One part of the migration plan is the technical plan, which discusses how the new technology will be implemented in the organization. The other major part of the migration plan is the organizational plan, which helps users adjust to and adopt the new system.
Why is project assessment important?
Project assessment is important because it enables the team and the IS organization to learn from its experience, and hopefully improve future systems development projects with the benefit of that experience.
Why do people resist change? Explain the basic model for understanding why people accept and resist change.
Resistance to change is a typical response to an externally imposed need to change. In determining their own response to a need to change, people will evaluate (implicitly or explicitly) the potential value of the new system (expected costs versus expected benefits), and will also assess their perceptions of the expected costs and benefits of transitioning from the status quo to the new situation. Only if the perceived benefits of the change and the perceived benefits of the transition outweigh the perceived costs will people's resistance to change be low.
What are the three key roles in any change management initiative?
The project sponsor is the person or organizational unit that wants the change. The change agent is the person or group who leads the change effort. The potential adopter is the person or group who must actually do the changing.
How is project team review different from system review?
The project team review summarizes performance by the team members. Its purpose is to help the team members better understand what was done well and what needs improvement. The system review looks back at the projected costs and benefits for the system, and assesses whether these costs and benefits have been achieved following implementation. Estimates of future project costs and benefits can be improved if the accuracy of each project's estimates is evaluated.
What do you think are three common mistakes that novice analysts make in migrating from the AS-Is to the To-Be system?
There are many possible answers to this question. Three of the more probably would include: 1. Underestimating the complexity and difficulty of gaining cooperation from project team, users, and other stakeholders. 2. Underestimating the time it takes to deal with the minute detail of each method, message, attribute, data type, and keep all the details aligned. 3. Underestimating the number of errors and difficulties that will appear when moving from the test to the user environment.
Explain the three categories of adopters you are likely to encounter in any change management initiative.
There will usually be a small group (20-30 percent) who are ready adopters. These individuals quickly adopt the change. Another group of about the same size (20-30 percent) will be resistant adopters. They will refuse to accept the change and may actively fight against it. The remaining larger group is the reluctant adopters. These people will go whichever way the organizational wind is blowing.
Compare and contrast pilot conversion, phased conversion, and simultaneous conversion.
These terms refer to how the organizational locations are transitioned from the old system to the new system. In a pilot conversion, one location or part of the organization is converted first. The system is installed at that location and is used for a time until it appears to be stable (initial bugs discovered and fixed). Then the system is installed at the other locations. The pilot location serves as a shakedown site for the system. In the phased conversion approach, the system is installed sequentially at different locations. Gradually, the conversion process spreads across all locations until all have been converted. Simultaneous conversion means that all locations are converted at the same time. With this strategy, there is no period in which some locations are using the old system and other locations are using the new system.
Some experts argue that change management is more important than any other part of the SDLC. Do you agree or not? Explain.
Those who agree will point out that without appropriate change management, there is significant risk of employees not using or inappropriately using an expensive new tool (and thus not gaining the benefit from the development). Those who disagree will point out that great change management will not overcome horrible technical difficulties, such as a weak architecture or incompatible platforms. Though change management is important, it cannot be judged more important than the other constraining factors.