MIS 300 Management Information Systems

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MIS 300 Management Information Systems

• Systems, Processes, and Decision Making

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Overview

• Technology Tidbit Viruses
• HW1 Questions?
• Systems, Processes, Decision Making Text
• Fun With Uncertainty - yep
• Models

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Tech Tidbit VirusesOverview

• A piece of software designed to make additional
  copies of itself and spread from location to
  location, typically without user knowledge or
  permission.
• Boot, file, macro viruses
• Worms

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What can viruses do?

• Sometimes they do nothing harmful
• Delete or corrupt files
• Compromise your computers security
• Edit your system registry
• Only limited by imagination of creators

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Getting Info About Viruses

• Symantec Anti-Virus Research Center
• McAfee Anti-Virus Center
• Comptuer Associates Virus Information Center
• Resources section of MIS 300 website
• Beware of hoaxes (e.g. Good Times and Badtimes)

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Safe Computing

• Acquire and use anti-virus software McAfee
  (30) or Norton Anti-Virus (39.95)
• Example Vshield and VirusScan (McAfee)
• All SBA lab computers have Norton installed
• Create emergency boot disk for your computer
• Dont open unknown email attachments
• Never click on an exe file (Ex happy99.exe)
• Save to disk and scan first
• Become educated about viruses, worms, hoaxes
• Backup your computer Zip, tape drive, network

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File CompressionZipping Files

• Makes files smaller
• Can bundle multiple files into single zip file
• WinZip, Pkzip, Power Archiver, many more
• Demo

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Submitting HW and TutorialsLets Try This

• The Upload page works from lab and from off
  campus for me
• What kinds of problems are people having?
• OU has had web problems all week
• Try using Upload
• For multiple files, zip to 1 file, then upload
• If Upload does not work
• Zip your file(s)
• Send to me via email
• Access databases (mdb) will not come through
  unless zipped

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Key Concepts

• Systems
• Business processes
• Models
• Data, information, knowledge
• Decision making
• Systems analysis

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• A SYSTEM is a collection of objects such as
  people, resources, concepts, and procedures
  intended to perform an identifiable function or
  to serve a goal
• Can decompose systems into related subsystems
  connected by interfaces

Environment
Output(s)
Input(s)
Processes
Feedback
IPO Model
Boundary
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System Example 1A Grade Point Calculator
2. Processing
1. Inputs
Total Points Total Credits 0 For Each Course
In Grade List Points Grade Credits
Total Points Total Points Points Total
Credits Total Credits Credits Next Course GPA
Total Points / Total Credits
3. Outputs
GPA3.375
Credits12
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Example 2Viewing a firm as a system of subsystems
From Alter, S., Information Systems A
Management Perspective, 3rd Ed., Addison-Wesley,
1999.
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Work Systems and Information Systems
A work system produces products for internal and
external customers through a business process
performed by human participants with the help of
information and technology.
A management information system is a work system
that uses information technology to capture,
transmit, store, retrieve, manipulate or display
information, thereby supporting other work
systems.
From Alter, S., Information Systems A
Management Perspective, 3rd Ed., Addison-Wesley,
1999.
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Which System?
OU
Education
Library Research
Voyager
PC, LAN, Databases, Web Interface, Printer, etc.
Information technology, information systems, and
work systems
From Alter, S., Information Systems A
Management Perspective, 3rd Ed., Addison-Wesley,
1999.
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Business Processes Formal Defns

• A related group of steps or activities that uses
  people, information, and other resources to
  create value for internal or external customers.
  Alter, S.
• A structured, measured set of activities
  designed to produced a specified output for a
  particular customer or market Davenport, T.
• A collection of activities that takes one or
  more kinds of input and creates an output that is
  of value to the customer Hammer and Champy

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Processes

• What companies do
• A specific ordering of work across time and space
• A beginning and an end
• Inputs and outputs
• a structure for action

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The Process View

• People familiar with organizational view, not
  with process view
• Processes usually have customers
• Often process has no owner
• Processes may cross organizational boundaries
• More than a collection of tasks
• Large-scale and detailed processes
• Main processes and sub-processes
• High level and low level processes

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High Level Processes

• Developing a new product
• Ordering goods from a supplier
• Creating a marketing plan
• Processing paying insurance claim
• Writing a proposal for a government contract
• Delivering patient care

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Low Level Processes

• Completing departmental expense report
• Installing a windshield on an assembly line
• Meal delivery in a hospital
• Obtaining an e-mail account at OU
• Calculating payroll taxes and associated values

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Processes within Information Systems

• Calculations
• Evaluating business rules
• Making comparisons and taking alternative actions
• Finding data
• Storing data
• Transforming data into information

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From Alter, S., Information Systems A
Management Perspective, 3rd Ed., Addison-Wesley,
1999.
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• Fig 6.5

Information is the product of MIS
Functional areas
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Figure 10.4
Fig 6.4
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The Work Centered Analysis (WCA) framework for
thinking about any system in business
Internal and external
Information, physical goods, service
What companies do
Who does the work
What MIS 300 is all about
From Alter, S., Information Systems A
Management Perspective, 3rd Ed., Addison-Wesley,
1999.
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WCA Example Amazon.com

• Customer
• Book buyer
• Wholesale book suppliers
• Amazons shipping department

• Product
• Books delivered
• Info about books that might be purchases
• Book buyer order information

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Amazon.com Business Process
Purcasher logs on www.amazon.com
Purchaser searches or finds book
Purchaser decides what to order
Purchaser enters order
Book in stock?
No
Yes
Shipping dept. packages and sends order to buyer
Order book from wholesaler
Wholesaler sends book to Amazon
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WCA Example Amazon.com

• Participants
• Potential book buyers
• Order fulfillment at wholesaler
• Amazons shipping department

• Technology
• Computer, browser used by purchaser
• Computers/networks used by Amazon to process order

• Information
• Orders for books
• Price and other info about books
• Information about customers

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WCA How you can use it

• When building your own information system
• Preliminary analysis before IS dept called in
• Collaboration between IT and business
  professionals
• Balance business and IT concerns
• Keep vendors honest
• IT professional for systems analysis

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SYSTEMS ANALYSIS and Systems Analysis

• SYSTEMS ANALYSIS
• Define the problem
• Describe the situation in enough depth
• Design potential improvements
• Decide what to do
• Systems Analysis is SYSTEMS ANALYSIS for work
  systems (partially) and information systems (more
  so)

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Systems analysis for business professionals
Iterative process

• User
• Analyst

From Alter, S., Information Systems A
Management Perspective, 3rd Ed., Addison-Wesley,
1999.
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Relationship between data, information, and
knowledge
From Alter, S., Information Systems A
Management Perspective, 3rd Ed., Addison-Wesley,
1999.
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Characteristics of Valuable Information

• Table 1.2

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Data, Information, KnowledgeA Surgical Recovery
Room Example

• Data - Raw patient data such as?
• Information - Summary reports such as?
• Knowledge Manager decides to increase staffing
  from 10a-11a to decrease likelihood of blocking a
  patient in operating room due to lack of recovery
  room staff.

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Decision Making

• Rationality
• Satisficing
• Bounded rationality

From Alter, S., Information Systems A
Management Perspective, 3rd Ed., Addison-Wesley,
1999.
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Programmed versus Nonprogrammed Decisions

• Programmed decisions
• Structured situations with well defined
  relationships
• Quantifiable
• Management information system

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Programmed versus Nonprogrammed Decisions

• Nonprogrammed decisions
• Ill-structured situations with vague or changing
  relationships between variables
• Not easily quantifiable in advance
• Decision support systems

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Problem Solving Approaches

• Optimization find the best solution
• Satisficing find a good solution
• Heuristics use rules of thumb

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Common Decision Making Flaws

• Poor framing glass ½ full or glass ½ empty
• Recency effects the last word
• Poor probability estimation uncertain about
  uncertainty
• Overconfidence too certain about uncertainty
• Escalation phenomena ignoring sunk cost
• Association bias a hammer in search of nails
• Group think power in numbers

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Why is Decision Making Hard?

• Complexity
• Uncertainty
• Multiple, often conflicting, objectives
• Different perspectives may lead to different
  conclusions
• Small changes in certain inputs may lead to
  different conclusions sensitivity analysis

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Fun With UncertaintyIn Class Exercises

• Happy Birthday
• Lets Make a Deal
• A Quiz (dont worry, its not graded)
• Maybe

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Why talk about decision making and uncertainty?

• Management is primarily about making decisions.
• Uncertainty is a major complicating factor for
  decision making.
• MIS plays crucial role in supporting decision
  making by reducing managerial uncertainty.

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Models

• Simplified representation or abstraction of
  reality.
• Capture essence of system without unnecessary
  details
• Models tailored for specific purposes, types of
  problems
• Frameworks and models help us understand the
  world
• Well use model in many different ways in MIS
  300

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Types of Models

• Physical or scale model
• crash test dummy
• architectural model
• Computer simulation model
• flight trainer
• discrete event model (e.g. SimCity)
• Mathematical model
• Regression
• FMA
• Optimization model

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Types of Models (cont.)

• Data model
• MIS term for representation of data entities and
  their relationships (Session 3)
• Process model
• MIS term for representation of how information
  flows between participants in a business process
  (Session 5)
• People and material flow may also be included

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Example of a Data Model
Customers
1N
Places
1N
Orders
Services
Contain
1N
Contain
Order Lines
1N
Items
Contain
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One Type of Process ModelData Flow Diagram
Supplier
Receiving System
Order
Blank T-Shirts Purchasing
Payment
Conf. Of receipt
Invoice
Point of Sale System
Sales data
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Descriptive vs. Prescriptive Models

• Descriptive Model
• Describes a system in terms of parameters and
  variables
• If we change some input parameter, what will
  happen to our output performance measure?

• Prescriptive
• Suggests good or optimal solutions
• Also made up of parameters and variables
• Searches over many possible solutions to find
  best solution (in some sense)

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Descriptive and Prescriptive Model Examples

• Outpatient Clinic Simulation Model
• Traveling Salesperson Problem
• The Scheduling Problem

Fig 6.2
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Why Models?

• Help structure our thinking
• Model building can be insightful exercise
• Models often easier, cheaper to experiment with
  than real system
• Useful for training purposes

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Two Important Roles of Information Systems

• Support, enable, and/or automate business
  transaction related processes
• Transform business data into information and make
  it accessible for solving problems and supporting
  managerial decision making