Purpose and Challenges of ISP

Discuss the purpose of IS planning and identify its major challenges?
Throughout the previous questions given, one can pick out S/IS plan or Strategic Information System plan as a common factor. One might think that having it discussed either briefly or deeply, ranging from one to two thousand words that contain ideas about strategic information system planning, that some might be already fed up or burned up and having no other fresh idea to start the topic again. Honestly, I thought of the same idea too when I read the question for this thread. I actually thought of recycling some of my essays but I kinda recoiled at the idea because it would not be very nice to be not original and fresh especially when I put all of my essays on my blog. It just would not feel right to me and to my readers especially to my professor. Hahaha..

But then again, the information society and the web surprised me - again. As I was searching for related topics to help me answer the enigma given above, I found and read quite many yet unique hits about strategic information systems planning. It proved that in the world of Information Technology, and in cyber space, one could not over exploit a topic. New discoveries, different explanations and many sites are there to guide a lost lamb like myself to have a fresh idea and new perspective on a certain issue. I found out that I was not that familiar with information systems planning; as I originally thought (I am kinda embarrassed right now for thinking that I knew a lot when I actually do not. haha). A lot of related or extra stuff worth learning are still there waiting to be read.

From what I have accumulated on my readings, my current definition of strategic information systems planning is that is it the continuous review of computer technology, applications and management structure to ensure that the current and anticipated information and process needs of the organization are met in a way that provides an acceptable return on investment, is sensitive to the dynamic politics and culture of the organization and is aware of the sociological environment within which the organization exists.

Strategic information system plan requires: An understanding of the nature of the organisation, its goals and objectives, where it is going, its culture, and how it ‘thinks’; an understanding of information technology, what is available, how IT is changing, what the potential uses are; an understanding of information needs, what information flows through the organisation; what decisions are made as a result; how information supports business processes; an understanding of people, what their roles are in the organisation, what their objectives and motives are, how they implement business processes; and an understanding of the environment, what influences the organisation - legislation, markets, technology, media.
Planning involves thinking ahead and designing future action. But there are many approaches to this. IS planning tends to think in rational analytical ways: thinking ahead, rational analysis, draughtsmanship, design and logic. Information systems planners may take a classical approach to planning: uses structured planning techniques, formal and rational, hierarchical command and control.

According also to Gorman, there are certain characteristics of an information systems plan that are desirable to produce the optimal performance. These are: 1. Timely, 2. Usable, 3. Maintainable, 4. Quality, and 5. Reproducible. The ISP must be timely. An ISP that is created long after it is needed is useless. In almost all cases, it makes no sense to take longer to plan work than to perform the work planned. The ISP must be useable. It must be so for all the projects as well as for each project. The ISP should exist in sections that once adopted can be parceled out to project managers and immediately started. The ISP must be maintainable. New business opportunities, new computers, business mergers, etc. all affect the ISP. The ISP must support quick changes to the estimates, technologies employed, and possibly even to the fundamental project sequences. While the ISP must be a quality product, no ISP is ever perfect on the first try. As the ISP is executed, the metrics employed to derive the individual project estimates become refined as a consequence of new hardware technologies, code generators, techniques, or faster working staff. The ISP must be reproducible. That is, when its development activities are performed by any other staff, the ISP produced should essentially be the same. The ISP should not significantly vary by staff assigned. Once these changes are accomplished, the new ISP should be just a few computer program executions away.

But what good does it do? What is the behind its creation? Why do companies exert effort and give out funds to do this study? Even though an information system costs a thousand or even millions of pesos and even through most chief information officers can specify exactly how much money is being spent for hardware, software, and staff, CIOs cannot however state with any degree of certainty why one system is being done this year versus next, why it is being done ahead of another, or finally, why it is being done at all. Why oh why indeed?
Well, let us just discuss the purpose for executing information systems planning to enlighten the enigmas just raised.

The main purpose and goal of implementing a strategic information system plan (for me) is to deliver business benefits to an organization. It translates strategic and organizational goals into systems development initiatives. Strategic Information Systems Planning involves understanding what the business goals are and identifying how information systems can support those goals by delivering benefits. Business/IS alignment is a key concept, but perhaps we should talk about integration. The information systems plan project determines the sequence for implementing specific information systems. The goal of the strategy is to deliver the most valuable business information at the earliest time possible in the most cost-effective manner.

The end product of the information systems project is an information systems plan (ISP). Once deployed, the information systems department can implement the plan with confidence that they are doing the correct information systems project at the right time and in the right sequence. The focus of the ISP is not one information system but the entire suite of information systems for the enterprise.

Information System should be an integrated resource within the organization which contributes to the organization’s core competencies which may result in sustainable competitive advantage. Many enterprises do not have model-based information systems development environments that allow system designers to see the benefits of rearranging an information systems development schedule.

The planning of information systems cannot be considered as a one-off or occasional event. It is a continuous sustained process, as we plan and re-plan and respond to changes in the business environment. The prime objective of doing a strategic information system plan is alignment: to ensure that the information system provision matches the business needs in what it does (context), how it does it (process) and when it does it (timing).

Another objective of information systems planning is to discover new technology, strategies and ideas that would help the company, if ever they are qualified to be implemented. Information Systems seeks to provide for operational efficiency, better services and co-ordination between partners. It also plays the role as a business driver whom wields the sense of innovation and change in the enterprise. It is also considered as a business support for it aims and does reduce uncertainty and increase efficiency in business operations and company relations.
Another role of information systems planning is a commodity service provider which calls information technology for its efficiency and seen as an expense to control. Sometimes, SISP takes the role of strategic partner that fuels business growth. Information Technology enables organizational architecture, supports business processes, influences organizational structure and substitute’s organizational structure.

Other purposes or importance of information systems planning is future analysis to predict changes over expected life of portfolio, forecasting horizon and planning horizon. Through strategic information system plan it may determine the company’s position in the marketplace; produce greater productivity through greater efficiency; and provide new products and opportunities.

It involves identifying information needs and process needs, reflecting on the context and culture, examining current IT architecture for match and mismatch, identifying approaches for shifting IT architecture to meet information needs, modifying information needs in the light of IT shift.

Strategic information system plan requires technical and managerial understanding; planning the details and thinking holistically; rational, analytical know-how and political sensitivity to reach its purpose to be beneficial to the company.
It has a good amount of advantages to its account. Strategic Information System Plan has several advantages like identifying most desirable applications in which to invest, help an organisation use its information system to carry out existing business strategy, help it define new business strategy. Failure to do some planning may result in: missed opportunities, duplicated systems, incompatible systems, and wasted resources.

There are several obstacles for strategic management. And they are: security, qualitative analysis, employees, owners, implementation, manager’s selection, investors, “Analysis” versus “Intuition”, “I am the manager” and data.
Let us now talk about each obstacle and let us start with security. Most managers feel that everything is a secret and obviously they think that no one else should know the strategy and thus no one else should make a study for our strategic plan and there is no strategy. Two other obstacles seem closely related to the fist one and they are: manager’s selection and “I am the manager”. In manager’s selection, most company’s managers in developing countries are experts in the technical process of the organization but they are not well educated in management and thus they want to focus on what they know and neglect what they do not know. Accordingly, strategic management does not fall in their area of interest. While on “I am manager”: the strategy shows a guide for decisions, so, an employee may, sometimes, tell the senior manager that his decision is against the company strategy. Thus the manager avoids having a strategy to keep his freedom to decide whatever he likes. From these three closely related challenges; one can notice that the challenges come from the managers who are not technically knowledgeable leading to indecision fueled by ignorance.

Other human related challenges present in executing strategic information systems planning are the employees, owners and investors. Most employees and managers are not aware about the value of strategic planning and they may consider it waste of time and something that is applicable. Many owners of successful companies believe they don’t need to do strategic planning and they do not know that their success will go one day when there are more competitors or there are changes in the market. Investors however looks at the company having a clear strategic plan and clear goals for the future (other than increasing sales of the current products) does not affect the stock price because most of the investors do not care about those issues.
The remaining challenges are not directly human based issues but also contain the same level of risks in ISP and these are; data, qualitative analysis, implementation and, “Analysis” versus “Intuition”. Finding data is a real challenge because there is available statistics is far below those available in developing countries. Most companies try to keep any financial information and consider them secrets. It is not possible to know the demand in last year of a certain product or service. People are not used to market research and they don’t want to talk to the marketing people. In qualitative analysis, strategic planning needs a lot of forecasting and qualitative analysis besides the quantitative analysis. Many technical managers are not used to neither the qualitative analysis nor the forecasting. Analysis versus intuition however as a blend of human related reasons as well as environment based risks. In this idea, most people do not think that a manager should do analysis or have done for him they think that some people are talented to take the right decision without doing many calculations or having subordinates make a study for them.
Once these obstacles are passed on can almost guarantee for a successful strategic information system plan. In light of course that the study is done with enough time, money and with the cooperation of the company and its employees.