LECTURE 17, 18

Planning for Information

Systems
 Terminologies
 Objectives-:are desired future positions and destinations
the organizations intends to reach in order to fulfill its
mission.
 Strategies-it’s a general direction in which an objective is
to be sought .
 Policies-is a general guideline that directs and constraints
decision –making within an organization.
 Planning: According to koontz and O’donnell,” Planning
is deciding in advance “What to do” , “how to do it”,
“when to do it”, and “who is to do it.”
Terminologies
Business Plan: A business plan is a formal
statement of a set of business goals, the reasons
they are believed attainable, and the plan for
reaching those goals. It may also contain
background information about the organization or
team attempting to reach those goals.
Strategic business plan: Current situation,
current organization, changing environments, major
goals or plan.
A business plan covers the “who” and
“what” of the business. The strategic plan
gives us the “how” and “when.”
Characteristics of Planning
Planning focuses on achieving the objectives.
Planning is the primary function of Management.
Planning is continuous.
Planning is Futuristic
Planning is mental exercise: A planner has mainly to
think about the following questions:
◦ What to do? ,
◦ How to do it? ,
◦ When to do it? ,
◦ Who is to do it?
Importance of planning

Planning facilitates Decision making

Planning reduce risk of Uncertainty
Planning reduces overlapping and wasteful
activities
Planning provides Direction
Planning establishes Standards for controlling
Limitations of planning

Planning does not work in Dynamic

Environment : based in the future happenings and
future is uncertain and dynamic
Planning reduces creativity : no thinking about
appropriate ways of discovering new alternatives as
the employees are clear in the plans which are pre
determined.
Planning involve huge costs: Planning is small work
but its process is really big
Planning is time consuming process
Planning does not guarantee success
Planning Process
How do we plan?
◦What are the steps/tasks to be undertaken by the
planner?
◦Different ISP processes for different stages?
Who plans?
◦Who identifies the stages for the business and for
each business unit?
When do we plan?
◦… before the stages happen?
◦… during each stage?
 Planning Purpose
 What is planning for? Note the transition in what
ISP is about:
◦ managing budgets
◦ managing innovation
◦ business planning
◦ managing organizational processes
 Note the implied position about the predictability
of the future
 Note the importance of vision, positioning, etc
 Note the varying relative positions of business
strategy and IS strategy
Planning leads to…
 What is ISP?
Is a formal process that develops plans for
developing and managing information systems
that will support goals of an organisation.

Organisation that plan their information

systems tend to achieve better results that
organisations that do not.

The IS plan is a comprehensive one derived

from the organisations strategic plan.
 ISP Process
Establish a mission statement
◦ These are the services that you are responsible
for; it is your place in the organization
◦ It is not what you are supposed to achieve, it is
who you are and what you do in the company
Assess the environment
Set goals and objectives
◦ Set Goals - what do you want to achieve?
◦ Set objectives – what are your specific,
measurable targets?
ISP Process
Derive strategies and policies
◦ Strategies for
 Technology focus
 Personnel and career development
 Aligning with the company
◦ Policies for
 Funding criteria; how much to spend on IT?
 Allocation criteria; priority setting
 Organizational arrangements
 Use of outside IT services, outsourcing
 Selling IT services to outside organizations
 Others . . .
 ISP Process
Develop long-, medium-, and short-range
plans
◦ Short-range – the next year, the next budget period;
developing and operating current systems
◦ Medium-range – committing to development efforts
for applications that will take more than one year to
complete; meeting management’s current information
needs..
◦ Long-range planning – preparing for management’s
future information needs.
 Implement plans and monitor results
Various Models of Planning
NolanStage Model of Information Systems
Growth
◦ Nolan Six Stage
◦ Nolan Alternative Model
Three Stage Model of Planning Process
Four Stage Model
Nolan Stage Model
 Nolan Stage Model
Initiation -In this, the technology is placed in the
organization's, few applications in the
organization are computerized

Contagion-in which the organization moves

towards online systems after having tasted
success in the initiation stage. More users are
added.

Control- in which the management exercises

control and makes a cost-benefit type of
assessment.
 Nolan Stage Model
Integration- in which the organization moves
away from an ad hoc isolated solutions based on
information system to a service based
information system
Data administration-in which the organization
begins to appreciate the value of information and
makes efforts to centralize the data management
to take advantage of the benefits of information
based decision-making.
Maturity-in which the organization creates
synergies in its corporate objectives and
information systems planning so that the two can
work in a synchronized manner.
BASIS OF NOLAN’S MODEL
IT within an organisation goes through
several stages of growth.
Each stage has its own distinctive
applications, rewards, and problems.
Each stage has to be managed in a way which
is sensitive to the issues in that stage and with
an eye for the issues which will arise in the
next.
Only by going through these stages will an
organisation be able to get maximum benefit
from IS/IT.
 Limitations
EDP is a very complex and technical activity
which executives outside the IT area find hard
to understand.
Organisations get worried about the apparently
never-ending increases in EDP budgets.
Organisations find it hard to know what
strategies to adopt for managing their EDP
expenditure.
IT managers find it hard to explain to executive
groups how their budgetary needs should be
handled.
Limitations
Limitations
Limitations
Limitations