CHAP 8

 BI Systems : systems that process operational and other data to identifie

patterns, relationships, and trends for use among other workers and business
professionals
 Business Intelligence: patterns, relationships, trends, and predictions
 BI Application: The software component of a BI system
 BI Systems are used for all four Collaborative tasks, name these 4 tasks: Project
mgmt, problem solving, deciding, informing
 What are the three primary activities in the BI process? Data Aquisition, BI
Analysis, Publishing results
 Data Acquisition process of obtaining, cleaning, organizing, relating, and
cataloging source data
 BI Analysis process of creating business intelligence through reporting, data
mining, and knowledge mgmt
 Push Publishing delivers BI without reguest from user
 Pull Publishing requires user to request BI
 Data Warehouse facility for managing an organizations BI data (larger than data
mart)
 four functions of a Data warehouse obtain, clense, organize, catalog
 Problems with operational data (6) dirty data, missing values, inconsistent data,
data not integrated, wrong granularity, too much data
 Granularity refers to the level of detail represented by the data
 Data Mart smaller than a data warehouse, and addressed the needs of a
particular department or functional area of a business
 reporting application a BI tool that inputs data from one or more sources and
applies reporting operations to that data to produce Business Intelligence
 5 basic reporting operations sorting, filtering, grouping, calculating, formatting
 RFM Analysis reporting technique that considers how RECENTLY a customer
has ordered, how FREQUENTLY they order, and how much MONEY the spent.
 Online Analytical Processing (OLAP) reporting technique that provides the ability
to sum, count, average, and perform other simple arithmatic operations on a
group of data, OLAP reports are dynamic, meaning viewers can change the
format.
 Measure data item of interest
 Dimension characteristic of a measure
 Drill Down the Data to further divide the data into more detail
 Data Mining The application of statistical techniques to find patterns and
relationships amaong data for classifications and prediction.
 6 Data Mining Origins Statistics/mathmatics, artificial intelligence machine
learning, huge database, cheap computer processing and storage, sophisticated
marketing, finance and other professionals, data mgmt technology.
 unsupervised data mining analysts do not create a model or a hypothesis before
running the analysis
 Cluster analysis type of unsupervised data mining, identifies groups of entities
that have similar characteristics
 Supervised data mining data miners develop a model prior to the analysis and
estimate parameters for the model
 regressional analysis type of supervised data mining, measures the impact of
one set of variables on another
 Neutral networks type of supervised data mining, predicts values and makes
classifications such as "good prospect" and "poor prospect"
 Market Basket Analysis unsupervised data mining technique for determing sales
patterns, shows the products that customers tend to buy together
 Cross selling "If somone buys X, sell them Y. If someone buys Y, sell them X."
 Support The porbability that two items will be purchased together
 Confidence probability estimate of buying and item
 Lift probability of buying X without Y
 Descision Tree hierarcheal arrangement of criteria that predict a classification or
a value, creates groups that are as "pure" as possible using "if/then" statements
to create rules
 Knowledge Management (KM) Systems The process of creating value from
intellectual capital and sharing that knowledge with others who need it
 Primary bennefits of KM
fosters innovation by encouraging free flow of ideas
2. provides customer service by streamlining response time
3.boosts revenue by getting products to market faster
4. enhances employee retention by recognizing and rewarding them
5.streamlines operations & reduces costs by eliminating uneccesary processes
 Indexing: Most important content function in Knowledge Management, keyword
search that provides quick response at high document relevancy
 Real Simple Syndication (RSS): Standard for subscribing to content sources
 Expert Systems: attempt to capture human expertise and put it in to a system
that can be used by non experts, uses rule based "if/then" statements but unlike
desision trees, expert systems can have hundreds of thousands of rules
(expensive and hard to maintain)
 3 major disadvantages of Expert Systems
Expensive
2. Unpredictable to Maintain
3. Overhyped
 Static Reports: BI Documents that are fixed at the time of creation and do not
change
 Dynamic Reports: BI Documents that are updated at the time they are requested
 Subscriptions: user requests for a particular BI result on a particular schedule or
in response to an event
 BI Server
Web aplication that is purpose built for the publishing of business intelligence
(Example: Microsoft SQL Server report Manager)
 2 Main Functions of a BI Server Management & Delievery
 CHAP 9
 
 Agile development
An adaptive project management process. Can be used for the management of
many types of projects, including processes, information systems, and
applications.
 Application
A combination of hardware, software, and data that is to be developed for
information system. (Also a synonym for application software)
 As-is model
A model that represents the current situation and processes.
 Baseline WBS
The initial work breakdown structure that shows the planned tasks,
dependencies, durations, and resource assignments.
 Brooks' Law
The adage that states: Adding more people to a late project makes the project
later. This law is true not only because a larger staff requires increased
coordination, but also because new people need to be trained. The only people
who can train the new employees are the existing team members, who are thus
taken off productive tasks. The costs of training new people can overwhelm the
benefits of their contributions.
 Business analyst
Someone who is well versed in Porter's models, organizational strategy, and
systems alignment theory, like COBIT, and who also understands technology
sufficiently well to communicate with systems analysts and developers.
 Business process
A network of activities, repositories, roles, resources, and flows that interact to
achieve some business function; sometimes called a business system.
 Business Process Management (BPM)
A cyclical process for systematically creating, assessing, and altering business
processes.
 Business Process Management Notation (BPMN)
Standard set of terms and graphical notations for documenting business
processes.
 COBIT (Control Objective for Information and related Technology)
A set of standard practices, created by the Information Systems Audit and
Control Association, that used in the assessment stage of the BPM cycle to
determine how well an information system samples with an organization's
strategy.
 Configuration control
A set of management policies, practices, and tools that systems developers use
to maintain control over a project's resources.
 Control Flow
A BPMN symbol that documents the flow of activity in a business process.
 Cost Feasibility
 An assessment of the cost of an information system development project that
compares estimated costs to the available budget. Can also refer to a
comparison of development plus operational costs versus value delivered.
 Critical Path
The sequence of activities that determine the earliest date by which the project
can be completed.
 Critical path analysis
The process by which project managers compress a schedule by moving
resources, typically people, from noncritical path tasks to critical path tasks.
 Data flow
A BPMN symbol that documents the movement of data among activities and
repositories in a business process.
 Deliverables
Work products that are the result of the completion of tasks in a development
project.
 Diseconomies of scale
A principle that states as development teams become larger, the average
contribution per worker decreases.
 Gantt chart
A timeline graphical chart that shows tasks, dates, dependencies, and possibly
resources.
 Implementation
In the context of the systems development life cycle, the phase following the
design phase consisting of tasks to build, test, and convert users to the new
system.
 Just-in-time design
Rather than design the complete, overall system at the beginning, only those
portions of the design needed to complete the current work are done. Common
for agile development techniques such as scrum.
 Maintenance
In the context of information systems, to fix the system to do what it was
supposed to do in the first place or to adapt the system to a change in
requirements.
 Object Management Group (OMG)
A software industry standards organization that created a standard set of terms
and graphical notations for documenting business processes.
 Organizational feasibility
Whether an information system fits within an organization's customer, culture,
and legal requirements
 Paired programming
The situation in which two computer programmers share the same computer and
develop a computer program together.
 Parallel installation
A type of system conversion in which the new system runs in parallel with the old
one and the results of the two are reconciled for consistency. This is expensive
 because the organization incurs the costs of running both systems, but it is the
safest form of installation.
 Phased installation
A type of system conversion in which the new system is installed in pieces
across the organization(s). Once a given piece works, then the organization
installs and tests another piece of the system, until the entire system has been
installed.
 Pilot installation
A type of system conversion in which the organization implements the entire
system on a limited portion of the business. The advantage of this is that if the
system fails, the failure is contained within a limited boundary. This reduces
exposure of the business and also protects the new system from developing a
negative reputation throughout the organizations.
 Plunge installation
A type of system conversion in which the organization shuts off the old system
and starts the new system. If the new system fails, the organization is in trouble:
Nothing can be done until either the new system is fixed or the old system is
reinstalled. Because of the risk, organizations should avoid this conversion style
if possible. Sometimes called direct installation.
 Requirements analysis
The second phase in the SDLC, in which developers conduct user interviews;
evaluate existing systems; determine new forms/reports/queries; identify new
features and functions, including security; and create the data model.
 Resources
People or information system applications that are assigned to roles in business
processes.
 Roles
In a business process, collections of activities
 Schedule feasibility
Whether an information system can be developed within the time available.
 Stand-up
In scrum, a 15-minute meeting in which each team member states what he or
she has done in the past day, what he or she will do in the coming day, and any
factors that are blocking his or her progress.
 Swim-lane layout
A process diagram layout similar to swim lanes in a swimming pool; each role in
the process is shown in its own horizontal rectangle, or Lange.
 System conversion
The process of converting business activity from the old system to the new.
 Systems analysts
IS professionals who understand both business and technology. They are active
throughout the systems development process and play a key role in moving the
project from conception to conversion and ultimately, maintenance. Systems
analysts integrate the work of the programmers, testers, and users. Compare
with business analyst.
 Systems Development Life Cycle (SDLC)
 The classical process used to develop information systems. The basic tasks of
systems development are combined into the following phases: system definition,
requirements analysis, component design, implementation, and system
maintenance (fix or enhance).
 Technical feasibility
Whether existing information technology will be able to meet the requirements of
a new information system.
 Test plan
Groups of action and usage sequences for validating the capability of new
software.
 Trade-off
In project management, a balancing of three critical factors: requirements, cost,
and time.
 Velocity
In scrum, the total number of points of work that a team can accomplish in each
scrum period.
 Waterfall method
The assumption that one phase of the SDLC can be completed in its entirety and
the project can progress, without any backtracking, to the next phase of the
SDLC. Project seldom are that simple; backtracking is normally required.
 Work Breakdown Structure (WBS)
A hierarchy of the tasks required to complete a project; for a large project, it
might involve hundreds or thousands of tasks.

 
 ________ is the process of creating and maintaining information systems.
System development
 What are the major challenges to systems development?
The difficulty of determining the requirements, Changing technology, Scheduling
and budgeting problems, Dealing with changes in requirements
 Brooke's Law states that adding more people to a late project makes the project
________.
Later
 Phases of the SDLC?
Component design, Implementation, System definition, Maintenance
 Which SDLC phase processes feedback into a new system definition?
The maintenance phase
 Which SDLC process phase provides the list of approved user requirements?
The requirements analysis phase
 The activity of estimating total system project cost and comparing it to system
value is called________.
cost feasibility
 ________ refers to whether existing information technology is likely to be able to
meet the needs of the new system.
technical feasibility
 ________ concerns whether the new system fits within the organization's
customs, culture, charter, or legal requirements.
Organizational feasibility
 ________ concerns whether or not the amount of time it will take to build a
system is realistic given the organization's need for the new system.
Schedule feasibility
 ________ specialize in understanding business needs, strategies, and goals and
helping businesses implement systems to accomplish their competitive
strategies.
Business analysts
 ________ are IT professionals who understand both business and technology.
Systems analysts
 As a system development team manager, you know that your team needs to be
heavy in________ during the requirements definition phase.
business analysts and systems analysts
 ________ include not only the normal actions that users will take, but also
incorrect actions.
Test plans
 As a system development team manager, you know that your team needs to be
heavy in________ during the integrated testing and conversion phase.
software testers and business users
 What are the features or benefits of prototypes?
With a prototype, the users will be able to accurately assess usability, The
prototype can create data that can be used to estimate development and
operational costs, Working with a working prototype provides direct experience,
The prototype will provide evidence of the system's organizational and technical
feasibility.
 Hardware specifications, software specifications, database design, procedures
design and job definitions are all addressed in the ________ phase of system
development.
component design
 During the design of an MIS system, all of the following are steps of the
components design phase.
Design the database, Design procedures, Determine software specifications,
Determine hardware specifications
 ________ testing is the process of allowing future system users to try out the
new system on their own.
Beta
 In ________ installation, the new system is installed in pieces across the
organization. Once a given piece works, the organization then installs and tests
another piece of the system, until the entire system has been installed.
Phased
 In ________ installation, the new system runs in tandem with the old system until
the new system is tested and fully operational.
Parallel
 In ________ installation, the organization shuts off the old system and starts the
new system.
Plunge
 With regard to system conversion, or installation, which of the following system
implementations involves the organization implementing the entire system on a
limited portion of the business?
Pilot conversion
 Typically, IS personnel prioritize system problems according to their severity.
They fix________ items as soon as possible, and they fix ________ items as
time and resources become available.
high-priority; low-priority
 Software vendors usually bundle fixes of low-priority problems into large updates
called________.
service packs