Lecture 4 (Information Systems Complexity and Enterprise Architecture) Flashcards
Define “Business Process”
A collection of related events, decisions and activities involving a number of actors and resources and that collectively lead to an outcome that is of value to the organisation or its customers.
What are some business processes that an organisation is a collection of?
- Procure to Pay
- Order to Cash
- Incident to Resolution
- Contact to Contract
How to departments function in a large organisation? And what is the issue with it?
Departments in a large organisation focus on a sub-task of a process. Optimising the sub-task helps in optimising the process overall.
However, this could lead to poor hand-offs from one department to another and thus departments require a holistic perspective on the process.
How are Business Processes and Information Systems related? (Repeat)
Business Processes require access to a large amount of data/information which is stored in and retrieved from Information Systems.
Any changes to the information system govern what the business process is capable of doing.
What is “Business & IT alignment” ?
Concerned with the degree of fit and integration among
- Business & IT strategy
- Business & IT infrastructure
It is a coevolutionary process between business and IT. At any given time there are a lot of changes taking place in different parts of the company. The focus is on the operations of the company and how IT can assist in those.
What is referred by “Strategic Alignment” and “Operational Alignment” ?
Strategic Alignment: How well does IT support the firm in achieving its strategic goals.
Operational Alignment: How well does IT support the firm in achieving its process execution.
Explain the following:
- Alignment is a state
- Alignment is a process
Alignment is state:
At a certain point in time we are able to access what level of alignment has been achieved.
Alignment is a process:
A continuous sequence of adjustment plans based on top down planning and improvisation.
Explain Martec’s Law in detail
Martec’s Law states that “ Technology changes exponentially (fast) and organisations change logarithmically (slow)”
- If an organisation needs to make technological changes it is best advised to do them when they are small in size, since with large organisations it is hard to make fast changes and legacy systems also come into play as an important factor.
- There is a continuous friction between Business & IT, and changes constantly except for crisis situations like covid.
How does growth of an organisation increase complexity between business and IT?
Business:
- More business processes are introduced
- Old business process may change or become more complex
- Employees start using work arounds or working in a different manner than they did.
IT:
- More business process means more IT systems
- Existing systems now become old i.e Legacy Systems
- Ensuing decentralisation increases risk of tech redundancy.
Business & IT intersection:
- Large organisations have their ERP consultants to make changes to and or code processes into the system.
What is a “Complex System” ?
A system that has a lot of components that interacts and adapts and in undergoing constant change while interacting with its environment.
- Hard to model or predict behaviour because it is changing rapidly.
What are some characteristics of complex systems?
- Non linearity
- Emergence
- Spontaneous order
- Adaptation
- Feedback loops
What are the “Different perspectives” on IS complexity?
- Structural (Complexity in Design)
- Perceptual (Complexity in Understanding)
- Behavioural (Complexity in Use)
Explain “Structural Perspective”
Complexity is defined by the composition of the information systems landscape depends on no of components and the interactions between them.
Objective: Inherent characteristics of the IS landscape
Static: Focus on how the landscape looks at a certain point.
Bounded: clearly defined collection of components and interactions.
Explain “Perpetual Perspective” ?
The perceptions and frames of the different stakeholders determine the extent to which the IS is seen as complex and difficult to understand.
Subjective: Social construction - perceiving, adopting and using information systems.
Static: how landscape looks at a certain point in time?
Bounded: clearly defined and dependent on the systems users interact with.
Explain “Behavioural Landscape” perspective?
Complexity depends in what happens when it is used: “emergent properties” .
- Unpredictable things occur when IS are used in different scenarios.
Objective and subjective: Emerging from configuration of the IS landscape and the user interaction.
Dynamic: Evolving over time as different information systems are put to use.
Semi-bounded: Interaction with users and other IS, but focus mainly on behaviour of a single IS.
