Mis 180 exam 2 study guide
Knwo the six causes of bad business processes
- bad data - bad business decisions - too many invaluable steps in the design process - human problems - old technology - business functions are siloed
Know the steps of the rational decision making process as well
1 - identify and define/describe the problem 2 - defined the requirements and goals of the decision 3 - identify alternative solutions 4 - define decision criteria 5 - select appropriate decision making process and tools 6 - evaluate alternative solutions using criteria 7 - choose the best solution 8 - check that the solution solves the problem
Why are these advantages of having a database management system: Data are located centrally, data quality is controlled, data is accessible, data are easier to maintain
1 - prevents data redundancy 2 - allows data sharing 3 - maintains data consistency 4 - maintains data integrity 5 - provides data security 6 - automatic back up and restore 7 - Data independence 8 - data abstraction 9 - multiple views of data 10 - ease of application development
What are the six basic questions professionals ask when they analyze a business process?
1 - what outcomes do we want? 2 - what inputs can we get? 3 - what processes shall we design and manage? 4 - what feedback loops shall we design and manage? 5 - what decisions/rules should we manage all this with? 6 - how do we measure process improvement?
What are the three steps up businesses go through when they want to use technology to do business improvement?
1) Understand the capabilities of IT 2) conduct process improvement projects Part of that is gap analysis - Where are we now? - where do we want to be? Then the project bridges the gap 3) investment in enterprise applications and IT infrastructure
What is a DDS ? How do business professionals use them, in general?
A decision support system is a computer program application that analyzes business data and present it so the users can make business decisions more easily Examples of models - 1) What if analysis (what happens to sales if we said the price at 10% higher?) 2) Sensitivity analysis (at what point in price increases will sales drop by 10%?) 3) goal seeking analysis (if we want to increase sales volume by 10% what should our price be?) 4) optimization analysis (what price should we offer if we want to maximize profit?)
Know what a derived attribute is and how we get the value when we run a query
A derived (computed) attribute can be calculated using the value of another attribute. They are not stored in the file but can be derived when needed from the store attributes. Example - a person's age - if the database has a stored attribute such as the person's date of birth, you can create a derived attribute called age from taking the current date and subtracting the date of birth to get the age
What is a primary key in a relational database? How do you use it? What is a foreign key? How do you use it?
A primary key - is a unique identifier such as a course ID or user ID. Makes it possible to uniquely identify each record in a table. It is important because it lets you retrieve every single piece of data put into a database no matter which files it's in. A foreign key - is a field that references a primary key in a related table. It is a primary key of one table that appears as a field in another file enters as a logical link between the two files.
What is the definition of artificial intelligence? What are an "expert system" and "intelligent agent" and why are they considered examples of AI?
Artificial intelligence - Apps that support decision making. It is a computer program them it makes human cognition Expert system - uses the same rules as human experts Intelligent agent - an app that does specific task on behalf of its users Typically, an expert system incorporate a knowledge base containing accumulated experience in an inference of rules engine Intelligent agent is basically a piece of software taking decisions and executing some actions. With the recent growth of AI, deep/reinforcement/machine learning, agents are becoming more and more intelligent with time
What do people mean when they refer to big data? What are the 4 V's that describe it?
Big data - is the name given to the increasingly huge collection of data capture from the world Velocity - The speed at which new data are gathered and stored Variety - The variety of the kinds of new data Volume - this sheer quantity of data being gathered and stored Veracity - The increasing difficulty of accessing quality information
What does BPR stand for?
Business processing re-engineering It aims for radical process improvement
What are data visualization tools and when are the most useful?
Data visualization tools help people understand the importance of data by placing it in a visual context, they are useful in tracking weather, decision-making dashboard, and the most famous example we talked about in class was "tableau"
What is the difference between a database and a database management system? What are the part of a database management system?
Database - organized collection of data (maintains information about various types of objects (inventory), events (transactions), people (employees), and places (warehouses) REFERS TO THE STORED DATA AND ALL THE FILES THAT CONTAI THAT DATA - good for analyzing information visually Database management system - Will provide to the means for creating, maintaining and using the means for creating, maintaining and using the databases (CRUD - creates, reads, updates, deletes, data in a database while controlling access and security. Includes the database and also the system software, applications, and other system parts that let us use the database Let's you enforce standards of quality too
Be able to identify, from examples, all the main types of decisions we talked about in class: decision, problem, opportunity, paradox, dilemma
Decision - A conclusion or resolution reached after consideration (example: what college should I enroll in?) Problem - A matter or situation regarded as unwelcome or harmful and needed to be dealt with and overcome (example: we're losing sales and we need to change that) Opportunity - A set of circumstances that makes it possible to do some thing (example: they're making lots of money selling X, can I?) Paradox - A seemingly absurd or self-contradictory statement or proposition that when investigated or explained may prove to be well-founded or true (example: The less you study the better your grades (how you study affects this)) Dilemma - A situation in which a difficult choice Hass to be made between two or more alternatives, especially equally undesirable ones (example: to reduce my stress, I can cut down on the number of courses I take, but then I'll graduate later which will increase my stress)
What's the difference between a decision matrix and a weighted decision matrix?
Decision matrix - That's your options as a rose on a table, and factors as columns, then your score of the combination, Wheatus score is important, then add scores up for overall score Weighted decision matrix - tool that can be used when making complicated decisions, average of points (each factor is ranked by importance) unweighted decision matrix adds up the points/ each factor is equally important
What is the difference in business process improvement between incremental in radical improvement?
Incremental - some measure of "10%-50%" better. often times easy, gives some benefit, but rarely improves competitive advantage Radical - some measure is "500% - 10,000%" better. Are hard, give big benefit, and often can improve competitive advantage
What do we mean when we say that a business processes are siloed?
It occurs when departments or management groups do not share information, goals, tools, priorities, and processes with other departments The silo mentality is believed to impact operations, reduce employee morale and may contribute to the overall failure of company, its products, and its culture The isolation of departments information, goals, tools, priorities, and processes from other departments. Bad communication and data isolation can lead to business failure
Know the names of the commercially available databases from these vendors: oracle, IBM, Microsoft, and open source
Oracle - 18c IBM - DB2, informix, rational software Microsoft - sequel (businesses), access (individuals) Open source - postgreSQL, MySQL
What do we mean by populate in a database?
Populating a database means to fill the database in with values. When you do this you create an instance which is one particular row or record
In a relational database, what do these terms mean: data value, instance, field, record, file/table, database
Rational database model - A type of database that stores it information in the form of logically related to dimensional tables Data value - an actual piece of information, at the smallest level (example- first and last name) Field (attribute) - The smallest meaningful type of data (customer's information- zip code, price, product name) Record (row) - set a field containing all information known about one entity (example - each record contains the same field in the same sequence/ all name and address info about 1 customer) Relational file/ table (entity) - A collection of related records (example - customer info, financial info, inventory info// complete set of names and addresses of all customers) Database - A collection of files/tables Instance - when you populate a database file with data values
What do these qualities of poor data management mean: data redundancy, data inconsistency, data isolation, data insecurity
Redundancy - same data in several places when data should not be duplicated but it is accidentally (unnecessary duplication) Inconsistency - some data is not synced up, same data stored in different formats (inconsistent data) Isolation - data in silos (unable to operate with other systems), hard to access or operate (difficult to do efficient data retrieval and search) Insecurity - lots of access points and users, making security tricky (easy to get access to it) It all leads to poor data integrity
Why should we, in a business, avoid using spreadsheet to store important information data and instead use a database management system?
Spreadsheets are only able to access simple data, can be redundant, and inconsistent, different in relating other data, only good for displaying and analyzing data visually Database management systems are good at storing and analyzing data and keeps it up-to-date and consistent
Know what these icons mean- Square and square with rounded corners
Square - an external agent which means outside the system/like a customer that is outside the system Square with rounded corners - A process - The thing that actually transformed the data input into output then passes it onto the next process
Know the difference between a structured, unstructured, and semi structured decision
Structured - has a routine to find procedure for making the decision (example: solving a math problem for which there is only one right answer) Unstructured - no agreed-upon, well understood procedure for making the decision (example: which product should our company design that will make at least $1 billion?) Semi structured - some parts are structured and some parts are unstructured. A known process will answer some of it, but not all of it (example: what price should we give our product? //Keep in mind Econ equilibrium price)
What is the difference between structured and unstructured data?
Structured data - organized, retrievable, easy to access, better for business (searchable by algorithms) DATA that we CAN predict Examples - facts (name, order number, quantity) online behavior (clicks, views, links) Unstructured - novel, un agreeable, "we don't know what we don't know" (unsearchable by algorithms) DATA that we CANNOT predict Examples - emails, texts, social media, audio, video
What is the difference between a customer facing process in a supplier facing process?
The difference between customer facing processes and business facing processes are: Customer facing processes - are the processes that customer see you when doing business with a company Supplier/business facing processes - involve everything behind the scenes that goes into providing a good or service to a customer
Know what the sense making approaches and when you would use it
Useful when you don't know what's going on. Useful for making unstructured problems more structured. It is a process of creating meaning when there is no single meaning available. It is about interpretation and who she is and with others to form an agreed upon reality. It leads one to decide of a situation is a problem, a predicament, an opportunity, a dilemma, etc.
What is a business decision making model? Be able to know the difference among the three models we talked about in class for examples: what if, sensitivity, goal seeking
What if - answers questions such as what if interest rate is 6% or 6.5% Sensitivity - how much profit will each design produce? Goal seeking - if I want my monthly payment to be $400, what down payment do I need to make?
